SEMANTICS EXERCISES

UNIT 3
8.5
Group 1 members list (Monday class, period 8,9,10):

Number Full name Student number

1 Nguyễn Hoàng Tâm 3120380246
2 Nguyễn Hoàng Anh Thi 3120380263
3 Trần Ngọc Thanh 3120380253
4 Nguyễn Thị Phương Thanh 3120380252
5 Huỳnh Ngọc Thiên Thanh 3120380251

1. You should understand these terms and concepts from this unit:

 Sense : The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic

relationships with other expressions in the language .

 Reference : is a relationship between parts of a language and things

outside of the language ( in the world )

 Referent : That means the person , thing or idea that a word , phrase , or
object refers to . A referent is to stand for a particular discourse entity.

 Context : is the text or speech that comes immediately before and after a
particular phrase or piece of text and that influence how it is used and
what it means .

 Dialect : a form of a language that people speak in a particular part of a

country or some local regions , containing some different words and
grammar .

 Proposition : a statement or problem that must be solved or proved to be

true or not true . A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance
of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs.
2. Can different expressions have the same referent? Give an example
not found in this unit.

 Yes

Example :

(1) John sends me a gift , he made it himself . (John, he and himself in

this sentence refer to one person)

(2) Marcury and Mars (both of them refer to planet in Solar system)

3. Can the same expression have different referents? Give an example

not found in this unit

 Yes

Example: my apartment, used either by the same person at different

points in time or by different persons at the same point in time, can refer
to lodgings of vastly different size and attractiveness in completely
different locations.

4. Give an example of an expression not found in this unit that has an

invariable referent and of one that has no referent

 An expression has invariable referent : she has lived in Texas for

10 years .

 An expression has no referent : I dreamed of unicorn last night .

5. Explain this sentence from this unit in your own words: ‘Every
expression that has meaning has sense, but not every expression has
reference’.
 “ Everyone expression that has meaning has sense , but not everyone
expression has reference ” means we can have information , meaning of
expression by senses ( smell , taste , hearing , .. ) but not every expression
has object in the real world .
For example : intelligence has meaning but don’t have object that
corresponds to it .
6. Characterize a typical dictionary definition of a word.
 It is an expression with the same sense
Does the definition include everything a typical native speaker knows
about the word’s meaning?
 No
Is it possible to write such an entry which is complete?
 Yes. In an ordinary dictionary, there are several different entries for a
word. For example, there are several different entries for the word ‘bank’
in the dictionary , sometimes distinguished by a subscript, e.g. bank1 ,
bank2

7. the Evening Star / the Morning Star

 these are 2 expression with the same reference: refer to the planet Venus

8. the President of the United States / the Commander-in-Chief / the

Leader of the Republican Part
 These expressions have the same reference, because they refer to the
same position in politics

9. Visiting relatives can be boring

 This sentence has sense and reference because relatives is a real thing in
the world

10.the planet Mars

 It’s reference because the planet Mars is a real planet in world.

11. Smoking grass can be dangerous

 This sentence has both sense and reference. In this expression the
reference “grass” indicates a plant which exist in the world.