Homework Assignment 5 (Semantics, Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics)

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 5
(Semantics, Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics)

1. Why can we reshoot a movie but cannot reshoot a terrorist?
Shoot has multiple meanings, i.e. it is polysemous, and depending on each sense, the
action it denotes can be repeated or not. Shooting a movie, i.e. filming certain scenes
or the whole movie again is possible. Meanwhile, shooting someone or some animal,
e.g. a terrorist, means killing them with an arrow or bullet, and in this sense, it is telic
(completed with results). Surely it makes no sense to *rekill a person or animal, right?
Do they come back to life again for you to *rekill them???
(The asterisk * means what follows is unacceptable. Also, note in passing that
“Meanwhile” is used in a new sentence while/whereas “while/whereas” must be used
within one sentence, i.e. they introduce a subordinate clause, not a new sentence, as
you can see right here in this sentence of mine. Another mistake that I find common in
your writing is the confusion between so and so that. Remember: so introduces results
of a certain cause/reason previously mentioned; so can follow a comma, or a full stop.
Meanwhile/by contrast/on the contrary, so that introduces a clause of purpose, in
which a modal verb is normally used. For instance:
I spoke slowly. So or I spoke slowly, so it took me more time to finish.
I spoke slowly so that students could understand me easily.)
2. How does the meaning of the word good vary in each of the following
instances? Explain in detail! What can be influential factors to your
interpretation of those meanings?
A good baby
A good child
A good husband
A good wife
A good teacher
A good window
A good pen
A good book
A good life
A good death
Your interpretations of the various meanings of good in the above instances are fine.
Several acceptable explanations have also been given.
Also note that interpretation of word meanings must be contextualized. Context here
includes both the immediate linguistic context, i.e. the words that co-occur, or
collocations, for example; and the larger socio-cultural context. Other factors are
involved as well. Here we must see what good modifies, baby/child/wife/husband, etc.
Different societies have different norms; each culture has its own expectations of
certain people/objects/entities, and expectations of what to be ‘good’. Even each
individual has his/her own ways of conceptualizing what is ‘good’. All of these
influence, or determine what good means in each instance.
3. The bold, italicized and underlined words in the following sentences are
marked as emphatic information, and carry the sentence stress. These
sentences are definitely different in meaning. What do you think each of them
mean?
(i) I didn’t say he stole the money.
(ii) I didn’t say he stole the money.
(iii) I didn’t say he stole the money.
(iv) I didn’t say he stole the money.
(v) I didn’t say he stole the money.
(vi) I didn’t say he stole the money.
4. Justify the responses from Speaker 2 in the following conversation by referring to
inference strategies, presuppositions, contextual information, Gricean maxims, speech
acts, or other theoretical frameworks that you know. (Hint: What is the purpose of
Speaker 1’s utterance in each case? What helps you come to such a conclusion? This
is the key factor that leads to Speaker 2’s responses.)
Speaker 1: I am having a real bad sore throat.
Speaker 2 may say ONE of the following:
(i) Come on! Another cigarette won’t kill you!
(ii) Let me increase the air-con temperature!
(iii) This job requires your hands, not your voice.
(iv) We’re in terrible shortage of teachers at the moment, you know.
(v) I take honey with warm water every morning. It helps.
5. Look at an example from cognitive perspective:
(a) The bottle is on the table.
Figure/Trajector Ground
(b)? The table is under the bottle.
Figure/Trajector Ground
(b) sounds strange, while (a) is perfectly normal, since a larger object tends to serve as the
Ground, or Landmark to which a smaller object (the Figure, or Trajector) is located.
Apparently, the table supports the bottle, not the other way round.
Now apply the concepts introduced above to the analysis of the following dialog.
Neighbor 1: I heard strange noise from your apartment last night. What was the
matter?
Neighbor 2: Oh, my wife was beating a jacket.
Neighbor 1: Were you hurt? I heard your scream, too.
Neighbor 2: Oh yeah. I was being in the jacket, you know.
What is the strategy that Speaker 2 was using to save his face? What is the Figure and what is
the Ground in his utterances? How does the perspective he was using in construing the scene
contribute to his face-saving efforts? Why would it have been face-threatening if he had
chosen the normal construal as we all know?
Most of your answers to Questions (3), (4) and (5) are acceptable. No more explanations
from me is needed here.
6. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences with all possible prepositions and
explain your choice in detail:
a. The bank manager gave me a form and asked me to fill it …….
b. The youngest son decided to go ……… the woods.
c. …. your papers, you must insert the page number ……….. each page.
a. With a form, to fill it in is the usual way: a blank can be perceived as a

bounded container, with adjacent words and/or the full stop being the
boundaries, and in talks about an entity contained in such a bounded space, so
it can be used here.
With a form, American English also says to fill it out: the words from your
mind appears in ink or in whatever material/substance you may use, i.e. they
can now be visible when you write, so out can be used, too. Out indicates
some kind of appearance.
b. Various prepositions can be used, depending on your preference or the action
you want to describe, e.g.
- go to the woods: direction, or the woods being the goal, the destination,
and not going further;
- through the woods: the woods is not the final destination; the final
destination is unidentified, but it is surely beyond the woods. Also, since
the woods definitely contains lots of tall trees, plants and bushes, the
youngest son would be enclosed by it, so through is a possible candidate
here.
- across the woods: some woods may be a strip in form, which has clear
dimensions: the length and the width; here the youngest son may move
along the width of the woods, so across is fine. In this case, he is
enclosed by the woods, too.
- Similarly, if he moves along the length of the woods, we can say he
decided to go along the woods. In this case, he can be enclosed by the
woods (he moves inside the woods for a while), or not enclosed (he
moves along the length but outside the woods).
- go off the woods: move out of the woods.
- go into the woods: move to, and then be in, the woods.
- go up/down the woods if the woods on a hillside slope.
c. In your papers, since in this case, papers (i.e. essay, thesis, dissertation,
article, etc.) are normally construed as a kind of container. In/on each page: up
to you; if you consider a page a container, or a bounded space (a page having
boundaries, right), the page number is contained within such boundaries, in is
used. Otherwise, if the page is construed merely as a surface, on is preferred.
You see, the use of prepositions relies heavily on how you construe reality, or
how you decide to visualize a scene, sometimes it comes naturally, sometimes
totally depends on your subjective judgment. Read more in The Semantics of
English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition I sent
you. Do not try to understand everything there; you will not; it is complicated,
as Cognitive Linguistics is new to you; but read to get an idea of how to use
prepositions – perhaps the most difficult to use in English.

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HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 5

(Semantics, Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics)

a. With a form, to fill it in is the usual way: a blank can be perceived as a

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