Tugas 1

BING4317 – Semantics

Soal 1

a. What is the difference between lexical and compositional semantics?

Lexical Semantics study the word meaning while compositional semantics study the meaning of
phrase by combining the meaning of subphrases. Compositional semantics has wider coverage.
b. Determine whether the underlined words of the following text belong to lexical semantics or
compositional semantics.

Face masks have long been used in health care, often for the simple reason that they protect
Compositional Sem.

doctors and nurses from splashes of body fluids during procedures but also for the purpose of
Compositional Sem.

blocking the transmission of respiratory droplets. Thanks to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-
Lexical Sem.

19) pandemic, however, face masks have become a critical form of personal protection not just for
Lexical Sem.

doctors, nurses, and patients but for ordinary people out for a walk or off to pick up groceries.
Compositional Sem.

(https://www.britannica.com/story/how-do-face-masks-control-the-spread-of-disease)

Soal 2
a. What is the difference between reference and sense meanings?
Reference meanings study the relation between the linguistics expression and the entity in the real
world. While sense meanings study the relation to other expression in the language words. Reference
meanings has real world meaning based on our observation of things or person. The sense meaning
entitled to something which has mental representation.
b. Determine whether the underlined words of the following text have a reference meaning or sense
meaning.

The classic conception of comedy, which began with Aristotle in ancient Greece of the 4th
Reference Sense

century BCE and persists through the present, holds that it is primarily concerned with humans as
Reference

social beings, rather than as private persons, and that its function is frankly corrective. The comic

artist’s purpose is to hold a mirror up to society to reflect its follies and vices, in the hope that
Sense

they will, as a result, be mended. The 20th-century French philosopher Henri Bergson shared
 this view of the corrective purpose of laughter; specifically, he felt, laughter is intended to bring
Sense

the comic character back into conformity with his society, whose logic and conventions he

abandons when “he slackens in the attention that is due to life.”

(https://www.britannica.com/art/comedy)

Soal 3

a. What is presupposition?
Presupposition is an implicit assumption of a background made by the speaker with expectance that
the addressee has known the truth.
b. Mention what is presupposed by each of the following sentences.
i. Is Mike playing that loud music? Presupposes that Mike is playing the loud music
ii. What I want for my birthday is a new cell phone. Presupposes that I haven’t got a new
cellphone.
iii. Andy didn’t go to work today. Presupposes Andy is somewhere but his office.
iv. Agnes stopped playing the piano several years ago. Presupposes that Agnes used to play
piano.
v. When did Andrew go back to school? Presupposes that Andrew wasn’t home yet.

Soal 4.

a. What is the diffrence between denotation and conotation?

Denotation is the real meaning of the words based on dictionary while connotation is association
of words based on emotions.
b. Find the denotative meaning of the words politician and statesman, then explain how they differ
in connotation?
Words Denotative Meaning
• Politician : a person who is professionally involved in politics.
• Statesman : a skilled, experienced and respected political leader or figure.

In connotative meaning politician has negative meaning than statesman. Politician is a person
who seeks to gain power within political organization in somewhat disapprove ways. Different
from politician, statement has more respectable meaning; a person who has the capability to run
an office government and whose focus is on the people.