PRAGMATICS

PREPARATION FOR THE FINAL EXAM

1. What is pragmatics?
2. Deixis
- Definition
- Classification of deixis
Practice
2.1 Circle the deictic expression in each of these sentences and identity which category
of deixis it belongs to.
(a) Hi, is Mary there?
(b) Press the button now.
(c) Does that shirt belong to you?
(d) I live here in New York and Lucy lives there in California.
(e) Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the 10:15 Thames Express service to London
Paddington, calling at Reading, Slough, and London Paddington.
(f) We may get a pay cut if sales go down this year.
(g) I came over several times to visit you last week, but you were never there.
3. Reference
- Definition
- Referential and attributive uses
- Names and referents
- Co-text
- Anaphoric reference
Practice
3.1. What or whom does each italicized noun phrase probably refer to in these
sentences?
(a) Wow, it looks delicious, may I ask your Bensu?
(b) Where does the Mocachino sit?

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(c) Titanic takes over the whole upper-shelf.
(d) ‘My eleven-thirty canceled, so I had an early lunch’, says a dentist.
3.3. What does Tiatanic refer to in each of the following sentences?
(a) Titanic was in its maiden voyage.
(b) Titanic was considered as the best in romantic category.
3.4. Identify the type of reference in (a) – (c).
(a) It is stated in the book that Zuhri and Didi got married at the end of 2019. Shortly after that,
they stayed in a small house in the peaceful village, far away from people who always disturb
them. Two years later, they had a beautiful and cute baby boy, named Taajudin. They named
him Taajudin as they wish that he will be a great-man in the future, contributing for the religion
and country life.
(b) Yesterday, I walked through the farm and unpredictably I saw it in the fish pool. A big
python snake!
(c) I was waiting for the bus, but he drove by without stopping.
4. Presupposition and entailment
- Definitions
- Types of presupposition
- Background and foreground entailments
Practice
4.1. For each of the following utterances, decide which ones contain the presupposition
that ‘Mike smashed the television’.
(a) Did Mike smash the television?
(b) When did Mike smash the television?
(c) I was eating popcorn when Mike smashed the television.
(d) Why did Mike smash the television?
(e) I don’t understand why Mike smashed the television.
(f) I wonder if Mike smashed the television.
(g) I wonder how Mike smashed the television.
4.2. In each case write out a presupposition contained in the utterance.
(a) Steve regrets buying a dog.

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(b) Meridyth pretends she’s a rock star.
(c) Ed should stop eating raw oysters.
4.3. Provide three entailments for the following sentence.
The painters broke the window.
4.4. Here are three different stress patterns for Annie ruined the sweater. Try matching
each utterance with the entailment which is being foregrounded.

Utterances Entailments

Utterance (a): Annie RUINED the sweater. Entailment 1: ‘Someone ruined the sweater.’
Utterance (b): Annie ruined the SWEATER. Entailment 2: ‘Annie did something to the sweater.’
Utterance (c): ANNIE ruined the sweater. Entailment 3: ‘Annie ruined something.’

5. Cooperation and Implicature

- The cooperative principle
- Types of implicature
- Hedges
Practice
5.1. In each case below decide which maxim has not been observed.
(a) Annie: Mike, did you pass the driving test?
Mike: No. [Mike knows he’s passed the driving test]
(b) Annie: Do you want seconds?
Mike: gmmm uh mmm [Mike’s just had his wisdom teeth extracted]
(c) Annie: I really liked that dinner.
Mike: I’m a vegetarian.
(d) Teacher: What time is it? [towards the end of a lecture]
Student: It’s 10:44 and 35.6 seconds.
5.2. In each of the following identify an implicature derived from the underlined utterance.
(a) A: Why is she eating those?
B: Her father didn’t give her any supper.
(b) A: Is Mike engaged?

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 B: He’s bought a ring.
(c) A: Where’s the salad dressing?
B: We’ve run out of olive oil.
(e) A: What do you think of this necklace and bracelet?
B: The necklace is beautiful.
(f) A: Has the kitchen painted?
B: Tom’s away.
(g) A: Did Carmen like the party?
B: She left after an hour.
(h) A: How did you do on those exams?
B: I failed physics.
(e) A: Who ate all the food on the plate?
B: I ate a little.
6. Speech acts
- Speech acts
- Fecility conditions
- The performative hypothesis
- Speech act classification
Practice
6.1. Analyse Steve’s utterance following the three levels of speech acts.
Jane: You’ve interrupted me again!
Steve: I was rude.
6.3. In each of the following dialogues, decide whether the second speaker’s utterance is
a representative, a commissive, a declarative, an expressive or a directive.
(a) Jane: Coco’s sick.
Steve: I’ll take her to the vet.
(b) Mike: What’s the weather like in Dallas?
Annie: It’s raining.
(c) Ed: The garage is a mess.

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 Faye: Clean it up!
(d) Carmen: You’ve thrown away the paper.
Dave: I’m sorry.
(e) I name this ship ‘Buster Brown’.
(f) Put your jacket on.
(g) Bill was an accountant.
(h) I’m reall sorry!
6.4. What might make each of these ‘promises’ infelicitous?
(a) Ti prometto di pulire la cucina. [I promise you that I’ll clean up the kitchen’ spoken to someone
who the speaker knows does not understand Italian.]
(b) I promise that I’ll jump over that skyscraper if I pass my exam.
(c) I promise that the sun will come up tomorrow.
(d) I promise that I started the dishwasher.
6.5. Decide whether each of the utterance below is performative, and if not, why not.
(a) You congratulate me.
(b) I envy you.
(c) I command you to put out that cigarette.
(d) I warned you not to go.
(e) Put your toys away!
(f) We convince everyone with our arguments.