ĐỀ CƯƠNG NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC

Câu 1: What are lexical meaning and grammatical meaning?

a, Lexical meaning
- Lexical meaning refers to the sense (or meaning) of a word (or lexeme)
as it appears in a dictionary.
- Is also know as semantic meaning
- Part of lexical meaning
+ Synonymy (learn and study, carry and bring, see and look) and
antonymy (tall x short, male x female, love x hate)
+ Hyponymy (fruit: + Lemon, + Grape, + Apple)
+ Part/ whole relationship (Ex : Nail is part of finger. Finger is part of
arm => nail is part of arm)
b, Grammatical meaning
- Grammatical meaning is the meaning conveyed in a sentence by word
order and other grammatical signals. Also called structural meaning.
- In the word “cats” the grammatical meaning of plurality is shown in the
form of the noun; cat’s – here the grammatical meaning of
possessiveness is shown by the form ‘s; is asked – shows the explicit
grammatical meaning of passiveness.

Câu 2: What are the components of meaning?

There are 4 major components of meaning:
a. Denotation
o Part of the meaning of a word or a phrase that relates to
phenomena in the real world or in a fictional or possible world
o May be regarded as the “central” meaning or “core” meaning of a
lexical item in the meaning system => often associated with
referential meaning and with cognitive meaning and conceptual
meaning
o Can also be defined as to be organized largely in terms of
semantic features
 E.g. Dolphin => intelligent, smooth skin, mixture of black, white, and
gray in color, two fins, a triangular fin on the back
b. Connotation
- The additional meaning(s) that a word or phrase has beyond its central
meaning (denotation).
- Can be defined as a set of associations.
- Show people’s emotions and attitudes.
- Can be considered as the communicative value an expression => what
it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content (or denotation)
- Arise as words become associated with certain characteristics of the
items to which they refer.
WORD CONNOTATION
Lonely Melancholy, Sad
Notorious (famous, typically for some ba For bad features of characters or
d quality) criminal act, Disreputable
The categories of connotation:
Emotion: lonely – alone
Evaluation: notorious – celebrated
Degree/intensive: love – worship
Duration: glare – glance
Cause: blush – redden
Manner: stride – stagger
Style: bicycle – bike
- A word may have more than one connotation. Words that appear to be
synonymous
E.g. Beautiful and Attractive
c. Structual meaning
Reflected meaning:
 Occur in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a
word forms part of our response to another sense
 E.g. The 44th President of the US and The first African-American
president of the US; both refer to Obama
Collocative meaning:
 Consist of the associations a word acquires on account of the meaning
of words which tend to occur in its environment
E.g. Weather => temperature, cloudy, rainy, snowy,…
Associative meaning:
 Is the meaning arising because of its association with other meanings
E.g. Talkative – reticent
Beautiful – ugly
Thematic meaning:
 Is the kind of meaning communicated by the way in which speaker
(writer) organizes the message in terms of ordering, focus, and
emphasis
E.g. My grandparents made an interesting program vs. An interesting
program was made by my grandparents
d. Categorical meaning
 Is one part of grammatical meaning which words come from being a
member of one category rather than other
 Fall into such categories as nouns, verbs,….
E.g. Communicate (v)
Communication (n)
Communicative ( adj)
E.g. Economize (v)
Economy (n)
Economic OR Economical (adj)

Câu 3: What is a semantic feature? Can the same semantic feature be

part of the meaning of different words? Can the same semantic feature
occur in words of different parts of speech? Give examples? Why is it
crucial to identify all the possible semantic features of a word?
a. Definition
- Semantic features are "the smallest units of meaning in a word." We
identify the meaning of a word by its semantic features
Eg: father may have the following semantic features: [+human], (+male),
(+mature), +(parental)
- It can be used to describe differences between antonyms, super - ordinates
and their hyponyms , and near synonyms.
Eg: Father and son share the common components of "human", "kinship",
"male" and are thus part of a semantic domain of male family relations.
They differ in terms of "generation" and "adulthood", which is what gives
each its individual meaning
b. Characteristics
Some semantic features need not be specifically mentioned. This
generalization can be expressed as a redundancy rule. For example, if a
word is [+human] it is "automatically" [+animate). That is why [+animate]
need not be specified as a semantic feature since the semantic feature can
be inferred from [+human]
 Can the same semantic feature be part of the meaning of different
words?
- Different words may share the same semantic feature. In other words,
the same semantic feature can be found in many different words. Ex:
Doctor engineer, teacher, physicist, chemist, tailor, hairdresser, etc. all
share the same semantic feature [+professional)
 Can the same semantic feature occur in words of different parts of
speech?
- The same semantic feature can occur in words of different parts of
speech. In other words, words of different parts of speech may share
the same semantic feature. Ex: [+female] is part of the meaning of the
noun mother, the verb breast-feed and the adjective pregnant
 Why is it crucial to identify all the possible semantic features of a
word?
- It illustrates how words are both similar and different and emphasize the
uniqueness of each word.
- Enables us to combine semantically compatible words together to form
larger well - formed linguistics units
 Eg: " Because we know the semantic properties of words, we know when
two words are antonyms, synonyms, or homonyms, or are unrelated in
meaning. " - Fromkin and Rodman ( 1993 )

Câu 4: What are reference, referent, and sense? Find examples of a

number of referring expressions for one referent. Distinguish variable
reference and constant reference.
1. Reference
Reference is the relationship between a word or an expression and the
object it is used to refer to (referent).
EX: “Look at this watch”. The word “watch” is the reference.
2. Referent
Is the person, thing, or idea that a word or expression denotes, stands for,
or refers to.
For example, the referent of the word door in the sentence "The black
door is open" is a concrete object, a door—in this case, a specific black
door.
3. Sense
Sense can be understood in two ways:
a, Sense is the additional meaning. Sense is distinguished from meaning.
b, The sense of a word or phrase is the place which a word or a phrase holds
in the system of semantic relationships with other words or phrases. In
onthers word, it is relationships inside the language.
EX: The planet Venus. It is often called the morning star when seen in the
morning, and the everning star when seen in the evening. Thus, it has two
senses, depending on the time of day the object is seen. The planet itself is
the referent, the morning star is one sense, the evening star the other sense
4. Referring expressions
Is any expression used in an utterance to refer to something or someone, i.e.
used with a particular referent in mind.
EX: Compare Harry
Harry hit
There is no Harry at this address
5. Distinguish variable reference and constant refereance
Constant Versus Variable Reference
(1) Any expressions which have the same referent across range of utterances
are constant reference. Eg. The Eiffle Tower, Pacific Ocean.
(2) Any expressions which have their reference totally dependent on context
are variable reference .Eg. I wrote to you.

Câu 5: What are extension, prototypes and stereotype? Give two

examples for each?
1. The extension
- The extension of one place predicate is the set of all individuals to which
that predicate can truthfully be applied.
- It is the set of things which can potentially be referred to by using an
expression whose main element is that predicate.
- Extensions are relative to all times, past, present, and future.
Example:
+ The extension of the world “Elephant” is the set of all (past, present,
future) elephants in the universe. The set includes Buon Don, Cambodia,
Sahara desert, and so on.
2. The prototypes
- A prototype of a predicate is an object which is held to be very typical of
the kind of object which can be referred to by an expression containing
the predicate.
- A prototype of a predicate is a typical member of its extension.
Example:
An elephant of big feat, big ears, weighs about 3,5 to 4,6 tons, with grey
feathers, with no particular distinctive could be a prototype of the
predicate elephant in certain areas of the world.
3. Stereotype
A stereotype of a predicate is a list of typical characteristic of things.
Example:
 - A list of characteristics which describes the cat such at: big eyes, soft
fur, can match mice,…
- Ghost: Includes the following features:
+ People can not see with normal eyes.
+ Long hair, no face, dressed in white.

Câu 6: What are the criteria between polysemy and homonymy?

1. Homonymy
Homonyms are various words which have the same form but which have
different meaning.
Ex:
 Hair /heə/ (n): one of the mass of thread-like objects that grow from the
skin
 Hare /heə/ (n): an animal with long ears, like rabbit but slightly larger
 Tear /tiə/ (n): a drop pf liquid coming from the eye
 Tear /teə/ (v): to make a split or hole in s.th
Absolute homonyms should satisfy the following three conditions:
a. They will be unrelated in meaning.
b. All their forms will be identical
c. The identical forms will be grammatically equivalent.
e.g. bank ( a financial institution or the bank of the river)
sole( a fish and bottom of foot or shoe)
bear (endure or a large heavy animal with thick fur)
2. Polysemy
- A polysemous word is a single word which has two or more slightly
different but closely related meanings.
For example, the verb break can have the following meanings:
 separate into two or more parts as a result of force or strain (but not
cutting): He broke that cup.
 become unusable by being damaged : make (something) unusable by
damaging: my watch is broken
 - The two meanings are closely related because both contain the semantic
feature [+ can no longer be used]
Ex : Face
- The front of the head - A surface of a thing
- A person’s countenance - A person

Câu 7. What are types of synonyms?

1. Definition
- are words which have different (written and sound) forms but which have
the same or nearly the same meaning.
2. Types
* Absolute synonyms: e.g: Fatherland- homeland
* Territorial synonyms
- are the synonyms which refer to the same thing but are used in different
countries, different regions e.g: autumn (BE) – Fall (AE)
* Semantic synonyms
- Are pairs of words differing in shades of meaning expressed. e.g. to look, to
glance, to glare; to begin, to start, to commence; fast; quick, rapid;
communicative, talk, speak, contact
* Stylistic (Social, Affective, Connotative) synonyms
- Are the synonyms which refer the same thing but are different in
connotative meanings. e.g: notorious- famous, father-dad
* Euphemism
- Euphemisms, which literally means “speak well”. In using euphemism, a
less unpleasant or offensive effect is achieved. e.g. “redundant”- “be out of
a job/ unemployed”; the underprivileged vs., the poor; to die- be gone- pass
away
* Synonymous set expression
- set expressions and the equivalent words have the same meaning or similar
meaning. e.g. after all- in the long run
Câu 8. What is lexical variant? Give example
(lexical meaning: biến đổi của từ vựng về phát âm, đánh vần và cách
viết)
- They are optional with speakers.
- Lexical variation refers to the different words and phrases we use to refer
to the same objects/concept
Eg: + Privacy: UK: /ˈprɪvəsi/, US : /ˈpraɪvəsi/
+ Primary: UK : /ˈpraɪməri/, US : /ˈpraɪmeri/
- Cases involving the identity of stems (cùng một gốc nhưng có nhiều biến
thể khác nhau), the similarity of forms and meaning combined with a
difference in distribution.
Eg: ‘Sensitive’ and ‘Sensible’.
They are synonymous when meaning ‘easy to spot something but they have
different meanings when placed in different contexts. “I think that’s a very
sensible idea.” And “The eyes of some fish are acutely sensitive to light.”
Câu 9. What are types of antonyms?
- Antonyms are the words that are opposite in meaning.
e.g. large_ small, male -female
- Types of antonyms
1. Gradable
- Two words are gradable antonyms if they are at opposite ends of a
continuous scale of values.
Example: Hot and cold; wise- foolish; fat– slim
2. Complementary / Binary
- Are words which come in pairs and between them exhaust all relevant
possibilities. If the one word is applicable, then the other cannot be, and
vice versa.
Examples:
boy – girl; off – on; night– day; entrance – exit; exterior- interior
3. Converse terms / Relational opposites
- If a word describes a relationship between two things (or people) and
some other word describes the same relationship when the two things (or
people) are mentioned in the opposite order, then the two words are
CONVERSES of each other
Example:
above – below; doctor – patient ; husband - wife ; servant – master; borrow –
lend
4. Multiple incompatibles/ Taxonomic sisters
There are many systems of words in which the meanings of the words are
opposite in the manner different from the notions presented above. What
these systems have in common is that all the terms in a given system are
mutually incompatible, and the members of a system cover all the relevant
area.
Ex: The systems of colour: white, yellow, blue, green, marine, purple, violet,
brown, rose, orange, red
The systems of season: spring, summer, autumn, winter;
east, west, south, north;
Câu 10. What is the meaning of function words? Give two examples
1. Meaning
- Is a word that expresses a grammatical or structural relationship with other
words in a sentence
- A function word has little or no meaningful content
- A junction words is the word that will be lower in pitche, often very quick,
sometimes lower in volume and sometimes even reduced.
2. Function words include:
- Article: a, an, the. Eg: Do you have the time ?
- Auxiliary verbs: be, is, am, are, have, has, do, does, did,
- Was, were,-ing form. Eg: The wall was painted yesterday.; John has
been working all night.
 - Modal verbs: may, can, could, will, would……eg: Where is she? She
went to school.
+ she must go to school.
- Prepositions: with, or, beside, in, at.... eg: You must get up early in the
morning. Or I go to the zoo on sunday.
- Pronouns: our, she, him, you, me, somebody, someone. Eg:
+Everybody was late to work because of the traffic jam.
+ He came with his friend.
- Question words: who, how, where, what, when.... eg: What time is it ?,
What are you doing?
- Conjuntions
- Intensifiers :very, too much/many, quite, rather, so
Câu 11. What are the causes of semantic change?
1. Extra linguistic causes
Are connected with the development of society, changes in social,
political, economic, cultural life, in science and technology.
I. Objects are changed or our concepts are changes
Eg: word “star” meant “a very large ball of burning gas in space that is
usually seen from the earth as a point of light in the sky at night” and now
it means “a very famous, successful,
and important person, especially a performer such as a musician, actor,
or sports player”.
II. When the words which were used only within a definite group of
people (professional words, slang, jargons) pass into general usage or
vice versa.
Eg: The word “log out”, people usually understand it has the activity of
ending a connection to a computer system, but now it is used among young
people to mean death.
2. Linguistic causes
They are factors acting within the language connected with the system of
language.
Ellipsis or contraction of a phrase
 If a phrase consists of two words one of them can be omitted and its
meaning is transferred to its partner:
Eg: The word starve originally meant “to die” and was often used with the
word hunger ( to die or hunger) and soon it substituted the whole phrase “
die of hunger” and also began to mean “ suffer from lack of food”
Discrimination of synonyms
Eg: “Deer” meaning “animal, beast”, but when word animal was
borrowed from Latin, English word deer restricted its meaning and came
to denote only a certain kind of animal.
Attractions of synonyms
If there are several synonyms and one of them gets new meaning, other
synonyms usually get this new meaning too.
Eg: The word catch acquired the meaning “to understand” and its
synonyms (grasp, get) acquired this meaning too.
Câu 12. What is the nature of semantic change?
1. The denotation meaning
- It may be extended (widened, generalized)
Example:
- Dog: Original meaning: specific powerful breed of dog; Widened
meaning: all breeds or races of dog
- Bird: Original meaning: young bird; Widened meaning: any bird
- It may be narrowed (specialized)
Example:
- Hound: Original meaning: dog in general; Narrowed
meaning: species of the dog (long eared hunting dog)
- Girl: Original meaning: child or young person of either sex;
Narrowed meaning: female child, the young woman
2. The connotation meaning
2.1 Degradation of meaning
 - Sense of a word takes on a less positive, more negative evaluation in the
minds of the users.
Example words:
- “spinster”: Original meaning: one who spins; Modern meaning: unmarried
woman
- “silly”: Original meaning: happy, innocent; Modern meaning: foolish,
stupid
2.2 Elevation of meaning
- Shifts in the sense of a word in the direction towards a more positive value
in the minds of the users.
Example words:
- “pretty”: Original meaning: crafty, sly; Modern meaning: cute, lovely
- “dude”: Original meaning: In 1883, it was a derogatory term for "A
man who is too strict in his dress or speech.", "a dandy"; Modern
meaning: guy, person
Câu 13. Distinguish a simile from a metaphor. Distinguish live metaphor
from dead metaphor. Give two examples
1. Simile
- A simile is a figure of speech used to compare two objects or concepts
with one another using the words “like” or “as”.
- Example:
+ This shawl is made from very fine material, it’s as light as a feather! => It’s
mean this shawl is light weight but the quality is constant.
+ His face became as black as coal after being criticized. => it’s mean he is
angry and it shows on his face.
2. Metaphor
- Metaphor is direct comparison between two things that does not use
like or as
- Example:
+ His stomach is a blackhole. (A black hole is a big hole in the universe that
is capable of sucking up everything that falls into it. The author doesn’t say
that his belly is a real hole but wants to show that he eats a lot, the belly can
hold any amount of food like a black hole.)
+ Anna is a snake. ( one doesn’t mean a snake is named anna or anna is a
snake. What she means is a siniter and hidden person)
3. Live metaphor
- Live metaphor is implied or indirectly comparison which have a variety
of figurative meaning through their endless use
- Example
+ “Book is a soul meal”. It means that the knowledge in the book is very
useful to people mentally.
+ “Her home was a prison”. It means that her home gives others a feeling of
suffocation, confinement and discomfort like a prison.
4. Dead metaphor
- A dead metaphor is one that has lost the force and meanings through
overuse. In other words, it has lost the metaphoric character.
- Example:
+ "Go Belly Up": A business has gone belly up, it means a business has
failed and closed for good. The term derives from what happens when a fish
dies, turning belly up and floating to the top
Câu 14. What is metonymy? hyperbole? litotes? euphemism? irony?
1. Metonymy
- Is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own
name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that
thing or concept.
- Example:
Metonymy Meaning Example
Heart To refer to love or emotion My dear, you have all of my
heart.
Ears For giving attention, Tell me about your first
listening date. I’m all ears!
 2. Hyperbole
- Is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally, but
the effect is powerful
- Example:
+ She’s asked a million questions. (Cô ấy đặt ra cả tá câu hỏi)
+ You could have knocked me over with a feather. (Cậu làm tớ sảng hồn đến
bật ngửa.)
3. Litotes
- Is really understatement. It is traditionally defined as expressing
something in the affirmative by the negative of its contrary
- Example:
+ Parties just aren't my cup of tea. (I hate parties.)
+ Her cooking isn’t terrible, exactly. (It's actually great.)
4. Euphemism
- Is a polite word or expression that is used to refer to things which
people may find upsetting or embarrassing to talk about
- Example:
+ Letting you go => you’re fired
+ Lost his marble => mad
5. Irony
- The term “irony” is taken from rhetoric. It Express meaning by words of
the opposite sense. Intonation has a very essential role to play in getting
this message across
- In an ironic phrase, one thing is said, while another thing is meant.
Eg: If it were a cold, rainy gray day, you might say, “What a beautiful
day!” Or, alternatively, if you were suffering from a bad bout of food
poisoning, you might say, “Wow, I feel great today”
Câu 15. Hyponymy is defined as the relation of inclusion. What is the
difference between superordinates, which are also called either
hypernyms and hyponyms? Discuss with specific examples
- Hypernym: a word whose meaning includes a group of other words
ex: -The first hypernyms for dog that come to mind would be animal or pet.
-Plant (flower, leaf, tree, wood, grass)
- Hyponym: a word whose meaning is included in the meaning of another
word
Ex: -”Horse” is a hyponym of “animal”
-”Dress” is a hyponym of “clothes”

- A hypernym itself can also be another hyponym for a hypernym with a

broader field of meaning. For example, the word “flower” is both the
hypernym of rose, daisy, margaret, etc. and the hyponym of plants in
general. And conversely, a hyponym can also be a hypernym for other
hyponyms of narrower meaning.
Câu 16. What is a semantic field? Give examples. In what way are
semantically similar items organized into various semantic fields? What
is a lexical gap? Give two examples
- Lexical/Semantic Field is a set of words with identifiable semantic
affinities. (quan hệ ngữ nghĩa)
Eg: The semantic field of “sea”: Ocean, waves, sea, tide, blue, storm, wind,
sails.
+ “Drinking vessels”: Cup, mug, tumbler, wine glass, beer glass, etc.
+ “Fruits”: Apple, pear, peach, mango, pineapple, lemon, apricot, etc.
+ “flowers”: Rose, daisy, tulip, sunflower, lavender, lily, violet, etc.
- The semantically similar items organized into various semantic fields by
several ways:
 Items related by topics
  Items similar in meaning
 Items which form pairs of antonyms
 Items which form pairs or trios of synonyms
- Lexical gap is used to refer to the absence of a lexeme/word at a particular
place in the structure of a lexical field.
Eg: - Vietnamese: Cơm, tấm, thính, gạo.
English: Rice
- Mångata: This beautiful Swedish word refers to the shimmering trail of
light left by the moon on a body of water. None in English
- The lack of a general word for a parent’s siblings is a lexical gap in
English.
- Du miên: This beautiful Vietnamese word means walk in the dream or
somewhere undefinable.
- There is no term for parents who lost their child.
Câu 17. What is a proposition, a sentence, an utterance? Give two
examples
- A proposition is that part of meaning of the utterance of a declarative
sentence which describes some state of affairs.
Ex: They are learning English.
One plus two makes four.
- A sentence is a grammatically complete string of word expressing a
complete thought.
Ex: I would like a cup of tea.
Please give me this book.
- An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which
there is silence on the part of that person.
Ex: “I’m coming home now”, “Coffee, please”, “Oh dear”, “Help”
Câu 18. Distinguish sentence meaning from utterance meaning.
 - Sentence meaning (or word meaning) is what a sentence (or word
means), i.e. what it counts as the equivalent of in the language
concerned.
Eg: The pen on the book. And The book on the pen.
=> The two sentences have the same number of words, but because of the
different arrangement, they have different meanings.
- Utterance meaning (speaker meaning) is what a speaker means (i.e.
intends to convey) when he uses a piece of language.
Eg: - I now pronounce you husband and wife.
This sentence may be uttered in at least two different sets of
circumstances:
(1) by a pastor presiding at a ceremony to a young couple getting married
in the presence of their assembled families;
(2) by an actor dressed as a pastor to two actors before a congregation of
Hollywood extras assembled in the same church by a director giving
instructions for the filming of soap opera.
Câu 19. What is the semantic structure of the simple declarative
sentence?
- A declarative sentence is a sentence that makes a statement, provides a fact,
offers an explanation, or conveys information.
-A simple declarative sentence consisting of a subject and predicate .
E.g. My dog is sick
It is a nice day
- In terms of structure, a proposition can be defined as a semantic unit
consisting of a predicator and its arguments.
Proposition == (A) – P – (A)
- The semantic analysis of simple declarative sentences reveals two major
semantic roles the role of predicator the role(s) of arguments
Eg: Mrs Wright is writing the Magor’s speech.
(A) (P) (A)
Dennis is menace.
 (A) (P)
Hamish showed Morag his sporran.
(A) (P) (A) (A)
Donald is proud of his family.
(A) (P) (A)
20. What is semantic/ thematic role? Why is semantic role related to
sentence meaning? Why is noun phrase related to semantic roles?
- A semantic/thematic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has
with the main verb in a clause.
Ex1: John hit Bill.
Bill was hit by John.
Explain: (John is the agent and Bill is the patient of the hitting event in both
of the following sentences.)
Ex2: John steered the boat.
The boat was steered by John.
Explain: (John is the agent and the boat is the patient of the hitting event in
both of the following sentences.)
- Types of semantic role
 Agent: The person carrying out the actions described
Ex: Mary cooked the meal
 Patient: the entity that undergoes a certain change of state
Ex: Mary cooked the meal
 Theme: The entity undergoing a change of state or transfer
Ex: I put some candies into to fox
 Experiencer: The living entity that experiences the action or event
Ex: Fia heard the door shut.
 Benefactive: The entity that benefits from the action or event
Ex: He baked me a cake
 Goal: The end point for a transfer
Ex: John walked to school.
 Instrument: The entity used to carry out an action
Ex: She killed the fly with her book
  Locative: the place where the action or event denoted
Ex: The witch was hiding in the woods.
 Temporal: time
Ex: The next day found us the road to Alice Spring
 Cause: the reason why the action or event occurred.
Ex: Bad weather ruined the corn crop.
Why is semantic role related to sentence meaning?
A semantic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has with the
main verb in a clause and if we change the semantic role then sentence
meaning will change.
Ex: I buy some flowers.
Some flowers is bought.
Why is noun phrase related to semantic roles?
- Semantic/thematic role refers to the way in which the referent of the noun
phrase contributes to the state, action, or situation described by the
sentence.
- Since a given noun phrase can have different semantic roles in different
sentences, as in the following contrast.
Ex:- Harold was injured by a friend. => cause
Harold was injured with a friend. => patient
Câu 21. Name important sense properties of sentence. Give example?
- Sense properties can be defined as sense or kind of meaning in the
language with contain some agreement in meaning of language in use.
- Three important sense properties of sentence
1. Analytic sentence
- is one that is necessarily TRUE
- Eg: Elephant is animal
2. A synthetic sentence
- is one which is NOT analytic, but may be either true or false,
depending on the way the world is.
- Eg: My brother is tall. Or The house is big.
3. A contradictory sentence
 - is a sentence that is necessary FALSE
- Eg: Ants are mammals or Jellyfish are aplant.
Câu 22. What is paraphrase? What is entailment? Distinguish one-way
entailment from two way entailment.
1. Paraphrase
- Paraphrases are sentences or phrases that convey the same meaning using
different wording.
- The relation of synonymy can lead to the relation of paraphrase.
- Eg: synonyms
=> Water is important to all living things on Earth
=> Water is essential for life on the Earth.
2. Entailment
- Is something that logically follows from what is asserted in the
utterance.
- Hyponymy can lead to the relation of entailment.
- Eg: I saw a boy
=> I saw a person (2)
Mary fried an egg
=> Mary cooked an egg (b)
3. Distinguish
a. One-way entailment
- It happened when the second sentence is a consequence of the first
sentence.
- It is the entailment that works only one direction.
- Eg: My T-shirt is lime green (1)
My T-shirt is yellow. (2)
In this case, (1) entails (2). In contrast, (2) is not entail (1) because yellow
may be have many different color levels. It includes lime green.
b. Two-way entailment
- The sentences that contain two-way entailment paraphrase each other.
When one is true or false, the other one always follows.
- Eg: The mosquito bites the baby
The baby is bitten by the mosquito.
2 sentences are in relation of two-way entailment or paraphrase.
Câu 23. Give an account of the roles of context with examples for
illustration.
- Context is the environment in which a discourse occurs. It includes
speaker, the place, time, ...
- Eg: “They passed the port at midnight.” This sentence is lexically
ambiguous. However, it would normally be clear in a given context which
can indicate the meaning of the word “port”, meaning either harbor or a
kind of fortified wine.
- Context can det utterance meanings in three ways.
 It usually can make clear what sentence is uttered.
 It can tell us what proposition has been actually expressed.
 We can know what kind of illocutionary force has been assigned by the
speaker to the proposition.
Câu 24. Distinguish performatives from constatives.
1. Performative
- Are utterances in which you are doing something that can be done with
language. Neither true nor false
- Eg: “You’re fired.”. Explain: An employer can fire someone by saying
"You're fired“, and an employee can quit by saying "I quit”
“I sentence you to heaven.”
2. Constative
- Are a class of “fact-stating” utterances, which “constate” something
true or false.
- Eg: “That books are white and blue.”
“He is the most famous singer in the world”
Câu 25. Distinguish locution from illocution; a locutionary act from
either an illocutionary act or a perlocutionary act.
* Distinguish locution from illocution

Locution Illocution
 - Is the actual form of the utterance - The communicative force of the
- Is the phrase or sentence that has utterance
semantic meaning (vocabulary - The aim of the speaker in making
and grammar) an utterance

Example: A woman may say to the husband, “the kitchen smells.” That’s the
locution. She really intends that the situation should be addressed by the
husband—so that the kitchen wouldn’t smell anymore. That’s the illocution.
She hopes the result of her statement would be that the husband would take
out the trash that is causing the kitchen to smell. That’s the perlocution.
* A locutionary act from either an illocutionary act or a perlocutionary
act
- Locutionary act is to produce an utterance with a particular from and a
determinate meaning.
Eg: - “The dog is on the floor.”
- “Do you want some coffee?”
- An illocutionary act is is carries a directive for the audience such as
asserting, demanding, promising, suggesting, exclaiming, ordering,
apologizing or thanking.
Eg: - “I will see you later.”
- “Go!” (I order you to go)
- “There is too much homework in this subject”
- A perlocutionary act which is the actual effect of the utterance on the
addressee: persuading, convincing, scaring, insulting, amusing,…
Eg: - “ I want to convince myself of getting married.”
- “I will not be your friend.” Impending loss of friendship is an
illocutionary act while the effect of frightening the friend into
compliance is a perlocutionary act.
Câu 26. What do you know about speech act classification?
Searle’s system includes:
a. Directives: Get people to go sth (người khác thực hiện)
 - Eg: “Could you close the window?''
b. Commisives: Function as promises or refusals for action. (người nói tự
thực hiện)
- Eg: “I'm going to Paris tomorrow''
c. A representative (assertive): for truth value
- Eg: “No one makes a better cake than me''.
d. Declaratives: bring about a new state of being
- Eg: “You are fired, I swear, I beg you''.
e. Expressives: expressions of joys, disappointment, likes, dislikes
- Eg: “I am sorry that I lied to you''.
Câu 27. Distinguish direct speech acts from indirect speech acts.
- Direct speech act: when there is a direct relationship between the
structure and the communicative function of the utterance.
Ex. Come in, please.
Explain: It’s a direct request.
- Indirect speech act: if there is no direct relationship between a sentence
type and an illocutionary.
Ex. Won’t you come in?
Explain: It is an indirect request made in a very concerned manner.
Câu 28. What is presupposition? Give examples. What are types of
presupposition? Give examples.
- Presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to
making an utterance.
Ex: A asks B: “Do your parents know that you're a gay?” So when asking
this question, A assumed:
B has all parents and B is gay
=> Whether you answer "yes" or "no", it is considered that B has
acknowledged the above 2 things as true
- Types of presupposition
* Existence Presuppositions
- The existence presupposition is usually indicated by any definite noun
phrase.
Ex: “Mary’s dog.” =>The person called Mary exists.
* Factive Presuppositions
- Usually follows the verb like ‘know’, ‘realize”, ‘regret’, ‘be’ with aware,
ood, and glad.
Example:
- “It isn’t odd that he left early.” =>He left early.
- “I’m glad that it’s over.” => It’s over.
* Non factive Presuppositions
- Is one that is assumed not to be true. Verbs like ‘dream’, ‘imagine’, and
‘pretend’ are used.
Examples:
“He dreamed that he was intelligent.” => he was not intelligent
“They imagined they were in Korea” =>They were not in Korea.
* Counterfactual Presuppositions.
- Is one that what is presupposed is not only non true, ‘contrary to fact’.
Example:
“If you were my daughter, I would not allow you to do this”=> you are not
my daughter.
“If I were rich I would buy a Ferrari” => I’m not rich.
* Lexical Presuppositions.
- the use of one form with asserted meaning is conventionally with another
meaning is understood.
Example:
“Someone managed to do something.” =>The person succeeded in some way.
“They started complaining” =>They weren’t complaining before
* Structural presuppositions.
- Which is associated with the use off certain words and phrases.
Examples:
“When did she travel to the USA?” => She traveled.
“Where did you buy the book?” => You bought the book
Câu 29. Explain the notion of conversational implicatures with examples.
- Conversational implicature is when we mean more than we say. That in
conversation we often convey information beyond that which we say and
that this added meaning is inferred and predictable.
Ex 1 : “Are you watching this”
 In this question you can infer “I am bored with this programme. I want
to change different programme”
Ex 2:” Are you going to be much longer?”
 It implies “ It’s time to go”/ “We’re going to be late”
Ex 3: ‘Better put some sunscreen on before you go.’
 You can infer “It is hot and sunny outside, so you might get sunburned”.
Câu 30. What is the co-operative principle?
- The cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective
conversational communication in common social situations—that is, how
listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutually accept one another to
be understood in a particular way.
- The components of conversational co-operativeness are:
 Relevance - keep the topic of the conversation.
 Informativeness - tell the hearer just what he needs to know, no more,
or less.
 Clarity - speak in a way that the hearer will understand.
- The four maxims:
a. Quantity states:
- Make yourself as informative as is required
- Do not make your contribution more informative than it is required.
Ex: Speaker A: 'Do you know if Katie got on okay with her exams?' Speaker
B: 'Yes, I do. She did really well and got an A!
 b. Quality says:
- Do not say what you believe to be false, and
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Ex: The capital of India is New Delhi.
c. Relation says:
- Be relevant
Ex: Speaker A: “Do you think Leo is dating someone new?”
Speaker B: “Well, he goes to Brighton most weekends."
d. Manner says:
- Be perspicacious
- Avoid obscurity of expression
- Avoid ambiguity
- Be brief
- Be orderly
Ex: “I'm writing an essay on metonymy. It's a type of figure of speech!”