Meaning and Metaphor - Assignment 7 James Madison University

Instructions: Type or clearly write your answers to each of the following questions. [This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

1. Deictic expressions necessarily require a context for meaning. What they refer to is dependent on some aspect of the real world situation of use. Try to come up with six words in English that are deictic, two that refer to the spatial context, two that refer to the time context, and two that refer to a person or people in the context. (Just to get you started, one example of the first type is "here." ) Use each of your six words in a separate sentence and explain for each why the meaning of the deictic word always depends on the particular utterance of that sentence.
2. Write down a list of details you know about houses. Then try to characterize which of these details should be part of the definition of the word house and which are just part of your encyclopedic knowledge of houses. Then describe how you decided and how well you think that approach worked. (You can look at page 103 in the textbook for an example with another word. :) )
3. After reading Chapter 4, make your best attempt at question 1 at the end of that chapter.