10 Semantics
Chapter 3: Semantics
Chapter Overview and Objectives
This chapter introduces students to concepts from three areas pertaining to linguistic meaning:
sense, reference, and truth. After completing this chapter, students should be able to
٪ Identify the semantic feature(s) that distinguish or unify a related set of words (e.g.,
man, boy) .
٪ Identify cases of lexical ambiguity and overlap.
٪ Identify a superordinate of a given hyponym (or vice versa).
Key Terms and Concepts
lexical decomposition
semantic features
sense
speaker-sense
binary antonym
gradable antonym
converse antonyms
speaker-reference
coreference
anaphora
deixis
analytic sentence
Commentary on Chapter 3
The relationships explored in Chapter 3 can be defined in three ways: the relation of words to
words (sense); the relation of words to world (reference); and the relation of sentences to
sentences and sentences to world (truth). It is useful to start out by comparing semantics to
pragmatics: where pragmatics is concerned with context-dependent meaning, semantics is
concerned with context-independent meaning.
Probably the most difficult material in this chapter is the section on entailment and
presupposition, so you may want to plan to spend extra time on that and go over some
Semantics 11
Suggested Answers to Exercises
Exercise A, p. 28
1. a. [± kin]
d. [± concrete]
Exercise B, p. 30–31
1. a. saunter, amble, stride
b. animal, vertebrate, mammal,
Exercise C, pp. 33–34
1. a. overlap (all are [+furniture])
2. lexical ambiguity (bar can be either a tavern or a test given to future lawyers).
c. †
d. †
g. C
h. B
k. B
l. C
Exercise D, p. 35
1. a. prototype: Ford Taurus
Exercise E, p. 36
1. a. Himself is an anaphor and can only be interpreted as referring to George.
12 Semantics
Exercise F, p. 37
1. d. deixis
Exercise G, p. 39
1. a. synthetic
Exercise H, p. 41–42
† A.2 entails A.1.
F.2 presupposes F.1.
Exercise I, p. 43
1. afford does not presuppose intentionality, but decide does.
Supplementary Exercises, pp. 44–46
1. a. F (reference and
e. F (entails)
j. F (deictic
Semantics 13
4. Lexical ambiguity: bear can mean either ‘give birth to’ or ‘tolerate.’
10. Entailment; technically, pitching three no-hitters entails pitching two no-hitters. (Of
course, in ordinary conversation, the addressee would be expected to state exactly how
14. Lexical ambiguity; work can have the sense of either ‘be employed’ or ‘expend energy.’
The first sentence relies on the listener assigning the meaning ‘be employed.’ The punch
Exploratory Exercises, p. 46
1. Answers will vary. Note, for example, that a recent L.L. Bean catalogue uses lemon,
3. The clerk was probably trying to tell the customer whether to turn left or right as the