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Introduction to Linguistics - Assignment 7
James Madison University
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[This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]
- Examine the following lexical entries for the verbs "float" and "drop" and then answer the questions below
(note that, simply for formatting reasons, semi-colons are replacing the angle brackets used in our textbook):
FLOAT: {boat; raft; bubble; cloud; leaf}
DROP: { Charlie, pumpkin; Bernice, watermelon; Buddy, bone; Vic, package; Margo, pumpkin}
- Based on semantic rules 1 and 2, what is the meaning of each of the following:
- A cloud floats.
- An angel floats.
- Buddy drops the pumpkin.
- Francois drops the pumpkin.
- Vic drops the package.
- Based on just semantic rule 2, what is the meaning of each of the following:
- drops a watermelon
- drops a pumpkin
- drops a key
- Write down at least one structural entailment for each of the following sentences.
- Lucille wants a career in television.
- Ten trains pass through Harrisonburg each day.
- Our goldfish died.
- The painting that we saw in The Louvre was a little better than my painting.
- For both pairs of sentences below, explain why the first entails the second and state whether you think it is an example of a structural entailment, a lexical entailment, or a world knowledge (nonlinguistic) entailment.
- John voted for Barack Obama. --> John voted for a democrat.
- The cow jumped over the moon. --> The cow jumped.
- A pediatrician stole my homework. --> A doctor stole my homework.