9 Semantics

Study Questions

9.1 (a) The verb drink requires a subject with the feature [+animate] and the noun television has the
feature [-animate]. (b) The verb write requires a subject with the feature [+human] and the noun dog has
the feature [-human].
9.2 The prototype is the characteristic instance of a category, as in the case of “robin” being the clearest
example, or prototype, of the category “bird” for many American English speakers.
9.3 Instrument (her new golf club), Agent (Anne Marshall), Theme (the ball), Source (the woods), Goal
(the grassy area), Location (the hole), Experiencer (she)
9.4 (a) antonymy (reversives), (b) synonymy, (c) antonymy (gradable), (d) hyponymy (e) hyponymy, (f)
antonymy (non-gradable), (g) hyponymy, (h) homophony (or homophones) (i) homonymy (or
homonyms)
9.5 (a) non-gradable, (b) reversive, (c) non-gradable, (d) gradable, (e) reversive, (f) gradable
9.6 (a) metonymy, (b) polysemy, (c) metonymy, (d) metonymy, (e) polysemy (f) metonymy (g) polysemy

Tasks

9A Roget
Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) was an English doctor until his retirement at the age of sixty-one. He then
worked on a catalogue in which he grouped words together according to their meanings. Unlike a
dictionary, his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the
Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition, first published in 1852, used the lexical relations
of synonymy and antonymy to create sets of semantically similar words. The book was an immediate
success, particularly among those who liked crossword puzzles, a very popular pastime of the era. More
generally known as Roget’s Thesaurus, the book has remained popular ever since.

For more, read:

Kendall, J. (2008) The Man Who Made Lists Putnam’s
Miller, G. (1991) The Science of Words (162-3) Scientific American Library

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