Assignments

For 9 December

For our last class meeting, please bring at least one question or topic that you would like to go over as we review for the final.

Please complete Writing Assignment #6 by 11:59pm on Friday, 9 December:

Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner. One guest, (A), brings up a controversial topic, making other guests uncomfortable. How might another guest, (B), make use of Grice’s maxims of conversation to indirectly get the message across to (A) that their contribution is not welcome?

Give an example of what (B) might say, and explain which of Grice’s maxims they are flouting.

For 18 November

Read chapter 8 in the textbook.

Do Writing Assignment #5, due 11:59pm on Monday, 21 November:

Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995: 102–105) propose a semantic explanation for why some change of state verbs participate in the causative/inchoative alternation (John broke the window vs. the window broke), while others do not. They suggest that verbs which name events that must involve an animate, intentional, and volitional agent never appear in the inchoative form. This hypothesis predicts that only (but not necessarily all) verbs which allow an inanimate force as subject should participate in the alternation, as illustrated in (a–b) below. Your task is to construct examples like those in (a–b) to test this prediction for the following verbs, and explain what your examples show us about the hypothesis: melt, write, shrink, destroy.

a. The terrorist assassinated the governor.
*The tornado assassinated the governor.
*The governor assassinated.

b. The storm broke all the windows in my office.
The criminal broke all the windows in my office.
All the windows in my office broke.

For 4 November

Read sections 7.1 through 7.4 in chapter 7 (pp.119–126) by the start of class.

Submit Writing Assignment #4 by 11:59pm:

Write down five pairs of words: 1. simple antonyms, 2. gradable antonyms, 3. reverses, 4. taxonomic sisters, and 5. a hyperonym and a hyponym. Do not use pairs that are included in the slides or in the textbook. For each pair, provide at least one type of linguistic evidence (e.g. example sentences) that supports your decision, and explain the relevance of the evidence.

An example for one of these word pairs is provided below.

Simple Antonyms
on and off

When simple antonyms are used in an otherwise identical pair of sentences, the sentences will be contradictory: one must be true, and the other false.

a. The light is on.
b. The light is off.

These sentences are contradictory: the light must be either on or off. It cannot be both, and it cannot be neither. Therefore, on and off are simple antonyms.

For October 14th

Read the remainder of chapter 5.

Complete Writing Assignment #3:

As mentioned in the textbook and discussed in class, one thing that distinguishes vagueness from indeterminacy is that a word that is vague in one language will usually be vague in another language it’s translated into, whereas indeterminacy is usually language-specific. For example, English tall is vague in the same ways that Italian alto ‘tall’ is vague, but English cousin is indeterminate in a different way than Italian cugina ‘female cousin’. (For a refresher, see pp.80–84 and review the slides from October 7th.)

This week’s assignment has two parts.

First, identify two words that are vague in English. Translate them both into a language of your choice, ideally one that you speak or have studied. Are they vague in both languages? Demonstrate that you understand what makes vagueness different from indeterminacy and ambiguity.

Then, identify two words that are indeterminate in English. Translate them both into a language of your choice, ideally one that you speak or have studied. (This doesn’t need to be the same language that you used for the above task.) In what way(s) are these words indeterminate in English? How about in the other language? How do they differ? Demonstrate that you understand what makes indeterminacy different from vagueness and ambiguity.

You should write 300 words for this assignment.