Practice/Assignment 3

Ex.1
(1) Which of the following most appropriately describes reference? Circle your preference.
(a) Reference is a relationship between sentences and the world.
(b) Reference is a relationship between certain uttered expressions and things in the world.
(c) Reference is a relationship between certain uttered expressions and certain things outside
the context of the utterance.

(2) Which of the following is a correct statement about sense?

(a) All words in a language may be used to refer, but only some words have sense.
(b) If two expressions have the same reference, they always have the same sense.
(c) The sense of an expression is its relationship to semantically equivalent or semantically
related expressions in the same language.

(3) How do hearers identify the referent of a referring expression(other than a proper name)
(a) by seeking in the context of the utterance some object to which the predicates in the
referring
expression apply?
(b) by sharing with the speaker a conventional system according to which each possible
referring
expression has a single agreed referent?
(c) by telepathy – reading the speaker’s mind

(4) Which of the following words are predicates? Circle your choices.
Henry, square, expensive, and, under, not, love
Ex.2. Indicate the arguments and predicator(s) in each sentence.
John is a linguist
John loves Mary
Chicago is between Los Angeles and New York
Ed is a fool
Ed is foolish
Follow-up :
Which of the following are two-place predicates? Circle your answer.
below, smother, sleep, come, annihilate, vanish, afraid (of)

E.x.3
(1) In the case of expressions with constant reference, such as the Sun or the Moon, could a
speaker be said to know what they refer to simply by having memorized a permanent
connection in his mind between each expression and its referent?
(2) In the case of expressions with variable reference, such as the man or the middle of the
road, could a speaker be said to know what they refer to by having memorized a permanent
connection in his mind between each expression and its referent?
(3) How, in a given situation, would you know that in saying ‘the cat’ I was not referring to a
man sitting in an armchair, or to a book in his hand, or to the clock on the mantelpiece?
(Remember, from your answer to question (2), that it cannot be because you have memorized
a connection between the expression the cat and some particular object, a cat, in the world.)
(4) Might it seem reasonable to say,in the case of a referring expression with variable
reference, such as the cat, that a speaker has memorized a connection between the expression
and a set, or type, of the expression’s potential referents? Yes / No
(5) How many potential referents are there for the expression the cat?

E.x.4
(1) Can the proper name Mohammed Ali ever be used as the predicator of a sentence?
(2) Can the proper name Cairo ever be used as a predicator of a sentence?
(3) In general,can proper names ever be used as predicators?
(4) Can the verb hit ever be used as a referring expression?
(5) Can the preposition on ever be used as a referring expression?
(6) In general,can any verb or preposition be used to refer?

Ex.5.
(1) Is a man in John attacked a man a referring expression? Yes / No
(2) Is a man in John is a man a referring expression? Yes/No

E.x.6. Comment on the following examples, making reference to concepts introduced so

far.
the Evening Star / the Morning Star
the President of the United States / the Commander-in-Chief / the Leader of the Republican
Party
Visiting relatives can be boring
Smoking grass can be dangerous

E.x.7. For each of the drawings (1)–(7), say whether the object shown could be a
prototype of the predicate given below it for an average person living in Morocco.

E.x.8. Imagine the sentences below being spoken. Decide, for each of the nominal
expressions in bold, whether the speaker would be using the nominal to refer.
a. We waited for twelve hours at Nairobi airport.
b. They had no food.
c. Edward opened the cupboard and a pair of shoes fell out.
d. Henry is going to make a cake.
e. Doris passed through the office like a whirlwind.
f. He was run over by a bus in Donnybrook.
g. What we need is an army of volunteers.
E.x.9. Try to devise alternative descriptions for the referents of the nominals in bold
below:
a. The Senator paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital.
b. The British Prime Minister refused to comment.
c. They arrived on Christmas Day.
d. Craig took a bus to Washington, DC.
e. He had reached the summit of the tallest mountain in the world.

E.x. 10. We discussed the traditional proposal that a concept can be defined by a set of
necessary and sufficient conditions, where the right set of attributes might define a
concept exactly. If words are labels for concepts these attributes might also define word
meaning. Lehrer (1974) discusses the definitions of words associated with cooking. Some
of her examples are in the two groups below. For each word try to establish sets of
attributes that would distinguish it from its companions in the group.
a. cake biscuit/cookie
b. boil fry bake grill

E.x.11.We discussed the prototype theory of concepts. Assume that each of the following
is a label for a concept and suggest a list of characteristic attributes for the concept’s
prototype.
Discuss some actual examples of members of the category and assess them for typicality.
a. FRUIT
b. Sport

Ex. 12. Write the terms‘referent’,‘extension’,and‘prototype’in the appropriate boxes in

the chart below:

Ex.13. In the light of the above comment, fill in the chart with ‘-’ and ‘"+’ signs to indicate
the differences and similarities between these three concepts.
E.x. 14. The extension of bird includes robins, eagles, hawks, parrots, ducks, geese,
ostriches and penguins. What is the intension? What do all the referents of bird have in
common and which is not shared by non-birds? Which of these—robins, eagles, etc.—
seem to you to be closer to a prototype and which farther away?