Exercise A

1. Following the “search” technique of finding the synonyms of student (N), speak (V), and
happy (A) discussed under “Synonymy” (section 3.2.1), find the synonyms of the words
teacher (N), learn (V), and good (A). Referring to the synonyms of each word appearing on
the right side of the laptop/desktop screen, discuss briefly how those synonyms make up
lexical grouping!
Answer:
a. Teacher (N) – Educator, Tutor, Instructor

Educator : A person that educates, especially a teacher, principal or other person involved in
planning or directing education

Tutor : A person employed to instruct another in some branches of learning

Instructor : A person who instruct

b. Learn (V) – Study , hear,

Study : The head word study suggests the process to acquire the knowledge and be skilled at

(Study – Absorb, Acquire, Cram)

Hear : The words hear refers to the activity of gaining knowledge

(Hear – Discover, realize, ascertain, gather, understand, fin out)

c. Good (A) – Nice, Effective, Well-behaved

Nice : it suggests for describing a particular thing

(Nice – Fine, lovely, clear, pleasant)

Effective : it shows adequate to accomplish a purpose

(Effective – Useful, valuable, right, appropriate)

Well-behaved : it refers to the conducting oneself in a satisfactory manner

(Well-behaved – well-mannered, polite, obedient)

2. Read the following examples carefully.

a. You can take one of these apples if you wish.
b. I have to take this medicine three times a day.
c. We are going to take the exam on Thursday next week.
Q: Describe and explain the verbs take used in these three sentences as intricate examples of
homonymy.
 Answer:
The word “take” in those sentences has the same spelling and pronunciation, but it has different
meaning. To know the feature of parameter different meaning, it can be translated into Indonesia. The
word take in (a) it means mengambil, (b) minum obat and (c) mengikuti ujian . As we can see form
the translation, the word in each pair do not relate each other.

3. Study the brief dialogue below.

A: Do I have to turn left?
B: Right.
Q: What is confusing about the answer given by B? When you translate the dialogue into
Indonesian, does B’s answer remain confusing? Why or why not?

Answer:
The answer that given by B is confusing because the word “Right” in this context shows an
ambiguity. Here, it has two interpretations that is speaker A have to turn left or contrastly,
speaker A have to turn right. That is why B’s answer is unclear. When the word “right” in
this brief dialogue is translated into Indonesia, it means benar and kanan. This will make A
confuse because she/he does not know the certain answer whether she/he should turn left or
turn right.
4. In writing an essay, what are the advantages for a writer who knows many synonyms of an
English word? Give illustrative examples to your answer.
Answer:
Help avoid boring and repetitive text: Readers will feel bored when they read the same words
(except in poems) almost in the same time. For example: I have a nice uncle because he
usually gives me a candy. He is always nice to everyone. He likes to wear a nice shirt.
Everyday he drives a nice car……(and so on)
Help provide an image in the mind of the reader: instead of using the word “beautiful”
several times in the text, we might use synonyms such as “gorgeous,” “stunning,” or
“ravishing” to be imagined well and better in the mind of the readers.
5. You can say Bill is very busy, but not *Bill is very present. Explain why.
Answer:
I think the word “busy” is one of gradable adjectives that may qualify and specify nouns in
terms of degree, for example when somebody has five activities to do in the same time he/she
may be very busy, but when he/she has three activities he/she may be busy. In contrast, the
word “present” is not a gradable as it does not have terms of degree.
6. When the president speaks to the public, he speaks to the leaders and followers, to the strong
and the weak, to the rich and the poor—but of course, only to the living, not the dead.
Q: How do you explain sentence (4) in terms of its coverage with reference to antonymy?
Give a similar example of your own.
Answer:
There is a connection between each antonym such as the leaders and followers, the strong
and the weak, the rich and the poor, that the references meant are people who are still alive.
 In contrast with the antonym between the living and the dead, the living here means people
who are still alive and the dead means people who are not alive anymore. Therefore, all
people know that it is impossible to speak to the dead people.
Example of our own  when the teacher speaks to the students, she speaks to the captains
and the class members, to the boys and the girls, to the tall and the short—but of course, only
to the awake, not the asleep
7. Consider the following sentences:
Green is a color. (b) Red is a color. (c) Green and red are colors. (d) Colors are green and
red. Question: Give your judgment to each of these four sentences, whether it is semantically
acceptable or unacceptable. Give reasons to your answers.

Answer:

The sentence from A-C is semantically acceptable. The word “color” in these three sentences
refers to colors in general. In semantics, this is called generic reference. (d) sentence is
semantically unacceptable, because the colors is not just green and red, but many more.

8. Also, consider these two sentences:

(a) A country is Brazil where football has become religion.

(b) Brazil is a country where football has become religion.

Q: Which sentence is semantically well-formed? And which one is ill-formed? Why?

Answer:

(a) A country is Brazil where football has become religion. Is the ill-formed. From the
meaning is none sense, which the meaning is ‘sebuah negara adalah Brazil yang dimana
sepak bola telah menjadi agama.’ It must be the name of country become the subject,
then the adding information followed after the name of country that we called as object.
So, the meaning will make sense.
(b) Brazil is a country where football has become religion. This sentence is semantically
well-formed. The meaning is, make sense ‘Brazil adalah sebuah negara yang dimana
sepak bola telah menjadi agama, and the form of the sentence is well-formed because
Brazil as the subject then a country come after the verb that make the sentence have good
meaning and understand able in our mind.

9. Still, study the following examples:

(a) A bus is a means of transportation. (b) A train is also a means of transportation.

(c) Therefore, a bus is a train.

 Give logical judgment to each of these three sentences. Give reasons to your answers

Answer:
(a) And (b) Sentence is semantically is well-formed and make sense. Which the meaning
a bus is a means of transportations and a train is also a means of transportation, these
sentences are right and the word transportation in this sentence is generic reference.
And (c) sentence is the meaning not make sense, because a bus and a train is not same
in our referring expression, Reference and Referent. They have different spelling,
pronunciation, appearance, design, shape and direction. Even though they are same
for transportation, but we cannot call them same like a bus is a train. They are totally
different.

Exercise B

1. Show a piano falling down a mineshaft, and I will show you A-flat minor.”
From this sentence the word ‘A-flat minor’ has similar pronunciation with ‘a flat miner’
but they have different meaning and spelling. Therefore the words are included in the
homophony category. ‘A-flat minor’ means cords of music, while “a flat miner” means ‘a
miner which become flat’ So the real meaning of this sentence is “Show a piano falling
down a mineshaft, and I will show you a flat miner.”

2. “Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.”

From this sentence the word ‘in Seine’ has similar pronunciation with ‘insane’ but they
have different meaning and spelling. Therefore the words are included in the homophony
category. ‘In seine’ means a river in northern France, while “insane” means ‘seriously
mentally ill.’ So the real meaning of this sentence is “those who jump off a Paris bridge
are insane.”

3. “Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat”

From this sentence the word 'defeat' has similarity in the pronunciation of 'the feet’ but
they have differences in spelling and meaning. Therefore the words are included in the
homophony category. ‘Defeat’ means overcome or beat while ‘the feet’ means part of our
body. So the real meaning of this sentence is “Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer
the agony of the feet.”

4. “When she saw the first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye”.
From this sentence the word 'dye' has similarity in the pronunciation of 'die’ but they
have differences in spelling and meaning. Therefore the words are included in the
homophony category. ‘Dye’ means change her hair color while ‘die’ means stop living.
So the real meaning of this sentence is “When she saw the first strands of gray hair, she
thought she’d dye." not "she would die".
 5. “Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.”
From this sentence the word 'a rest' has the same pronunciation of the word ‘arrest’. 'A
rest' itself has the meaning of resting while 'arrest' has the meaning of imprisoned
someone, so from that word, it can be categorized as homophony. Resisting arrest
becomes a crime when a person refuses to follow police orders when they are guilty but
this does not apply to a child aged 3 years especially just because that child does not want
to rest.

6. “When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.”

From the sentence there is word “U.C.L.A” which some people might understand as an
abbreviation of "University of California at Los Angeles". Meanwhile, from the sentence
"When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A." has a different context. “U.C.L.A” here is
to read each letter so that “U” will be read as “You”, “C” will be read “see”, while “LA”
is read as usual which stands for “Los Angeles”. So when the smog lifts in Los Angeles,
you can see Los Angeles clearly. That's the meaning of this joke. “U.C.L.A” has the
same pronunciation with “You See LA” but differ in spelling and meaning so those words
can be categorized as homophony.

7. “When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate.”

From the sentence there is the word 'debate' which is similar to the pronunciation of 'the
bait'. So the humorous context of the sentence appears. From the sentence "When fish are
in schools, they sometimes take debate" then the word 'debate' is changed into 'the bait',
the sentence becomes more synchronous because basically fish are animals that eat bait.
'Debate' and 'the bait' have similarities in pronunciation but differ in the spelling and
meaning of the word so those words are included in the homophony category.

Exercise D

1. Example 1 :

Mr. Brown : Ali Nadim

Ali Nadim : Gift
Mr. Brown : Gift?
Ali Nadim : I'm surprising you, no. Each day l am learning new English word. And I am
finding that gift is another word for present.
Mr. Brown : Very ingenious

Ambiguous Word “Present”

In the dialogue, Mr. Brown calls the student one by one. When the student is called,
they must answer by saying present. Whenever, Ali is called he answers by saying gift.
The word that contain lexical ambiguity on the dialog is the word present. According to
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 8th Edition, the word present has some meanings
and also can be in the form of adjective, noun and verb. As an adjective, present is used
 to show something existing or happening now. As a noun, present is a thing that you
give to somebody as a gift. As a verb, the word present means to give something, to
show or offer something etc. (p. 1155). The word present can be classified as
homonymy which the pronunciation and the spelling are identically but the meaning is
different.
On the dialog, Mr. Brown asked them to say present to show their existence in the class. In
the other hand Ali thought the word present as a noun which is a thing that we give to
somebody. This meaning has similar meaning or synonym with the word gift, like what Ali
said. It can be concluded that the word present that is meant by Mr. Brown is to show the
existence of the student in class not a gift like what Ali thought.

Example 2 :
Mr. Brown : What is your name?
Ranjeet : Ranjeet Singh
Mr. Brown : And from which country?
Ranjeet : Punjab
Mr. Brown : Good, what is your job?
Ranjeet : l'm a very important member of the British underground.
Mr. Brown : The underground what?
Ranjeet : Just the underground. Mind the doors!
Mr. Brown : Oh, that underground.

Ambiguous Word “Underground”

The word which contains lexical ambiguity on this conversation is
underground. On Oxford Dictionary 8th Edition, the word underground has some
meanings. As a noun, an underground means a group or movement organized secretly
to work against an existing regime or a group or movement seeking to explore
alternative forms of lifestyle or artistic expression. It also means the underground
railway, especially the one in London (p. 1621). According to form of lexical
ambiguity, the word underground is in the form of homonymy which is two words or
more that the pronunciation and spelling are identical but meanings are unrelated.
These two possibilities creates different interpretation. The first interpretation is that
Ranjeet being the part of an organization that against the government. The second
interpretation that he works on the London underground railway. According to this
ambiguity, Mr. Brown tries to clarify what kind of underground it is.
On the next dialogue Ranjeet clarifies that underground which he said is that London
Underground railway. We can see by the sentence “mind the door” which is usually existed
on the Underground railway. Therefore it can be concluded that the underground that is said
by Ranjeet means London underground railway.
2. Masalah dengan Donald Trump adalah tidak ada yang benar di otak kirinya, dan tidak ada
yang tersisa di otak kanannya. No it is not. The sentence has a figurative meaning which
means that Donald Trump has non-linear logic and facts and does not have things in his right
brain such as imagination, holistic thinking, intuition, and arts.
3. Verbal humor deals with language. It is an utterance with a humorous effect in conversation
such as in play, film or literary text. If the utterance or a referring expression makes sense, it
means verbal humor as an ontological reality.

4. Each word has a meaning and makes sense if it has been applied in a sentence. It has a
different meaning depending on the context of the sentence. For example : the word “table”
has ontological meaning if it is used in a sentence, that is “Mr. Joko puts an apple on the
table in the living room”. (definite specific reference)

5. No. 4 relates to No. 5. When we use language we convey meaning. Meaning is an important
part to understand what the speaker wants to say. When we convey meaning, we refer to
beings or realities. The meaning of a word makes sense or not, we can prove it in its use in a
sentence. For example : The water in this river is heavily polluted. The word “water” in this
sentence refers to spesific water, that is “the water in this river” (it’s example of definite
specific reference)

EXERCISE E
The sentences below are all about the English language. They are given here to test you how well
you know the intricate structures of English. Instruction: Give your judgment whether each of
the following sentences is an analytic or contradictory sentence, and provide a reason or
supporting evidence for your answer. (Recall that an analytic sentence is semantically true,
whereas a contradictory sentence is semantically false.)
1. The word air is an abstract noun because you cannot see it.
 Contradictory sentence. Air is concrete noun even we cannot see it, we can feel it
with our senses.
2. The adjective early remains the same (early) when it becomes an adverb.
 Analytic sentence. Both adjective and adverb early has the same meaning, happening
near the beginning of a particular time or period
3. Like the word earth (N) becoming earthly (A), the word ear (N) may become early (A).
 Contradictory sentence. Ear (N) and early (A) are totally unrelated meaning. Ear (N)
is telinga and early (A) is dini.
4. The sentence I do believe you is grammatically correct and socially acceptable.
 Analytic sentence. Using “do” + verb in affirmative sentence adds more emphasize.
It’s only commonly used in the South of the US.
5. The sentence I need your help is ungrammatical. (It should be I need your helping.)
 Contradictory sentence. There are many ways to change verb into noun. By adding
suffixes or staying in the basic word such as help, need, love, hurt, etc.
6. An imperative sentence like Do it now has only a VP predicate but has no NP subject.
 Contradictory sentence. [[Do]v [it]p now]vp. The word “it” refers to noun.
7. The VP predicate in a declarative sentence always contains a finite verb (a verb which
contains a tense: present or past).
  Contradictory sentence. In declarative sentence, VP predicate can be a finite verb or
non-finite verb.
8. The correct form of the NP is grammar books, not grammatical books.
 Analytic sentence. Grammatical is commonly used in a way which follows the rules
of grammar.
9. The sentence He works hard can be paraphrased into He hardly works.
 Contradictory sentence. If the first sentence paraphrased into the second one, it would
have a totally different meaning. If He works hard means work really hard with a big
effort, in contrast with He hardly works means barely never having any effort to
work.
10. The sentence I ever met him in Singapore some time in 2017 is ungrammatical.
 Analytic sentence. The sentence is ungrammatical because in present perfect subject
is followed by have/has. I have ever met him in Singapore…. the words “some time”
is miss-spelling. It should be sometime. The complete sentence: I have ever met him
in Singapore sometime in 2017.

Exercise F

1. When you heat water for 15 minutes and it boils at 1000 Celsius, its temperature will
rise to 2000 when you keep boiling it for 30 minutes.
(True: the meanings are in accord with facts about science and temperature)
2. The stars are gone during the day although in reality they remain there in the outer
space.
(True: the meanings are true based on astronomy)
3. A kilogram of iron is heavier than a kilogram of cotton.
(True: the meanings are analytic sentence)
4. When you are driving, you can easily violate the laws of traffic as well as the law of
gravity.
(False: the meanings are contradictive with the reality and policy)
5. For a tribe or nation, history began when they started inventing a writing system.
(True: the meanings are true because it is in accord with history)
6. The surface of the earth is equally covered by the land and the water / sea.
(False: the meanings are not in accord with science knowledge)
7. The moon is surrounded by the air (the atmosphere) the same way as the earth is.
(False: the meanings are not in accord based on science and astronomy)
8. Unlike the sun, the moon does not give out light of its own.
(True: it is synthetic analysis because the moon is not star so it can’t give out the light)
9. Astronomically speaking, the statement “the sun rises in the east and sets in the
west” is (somewhat) ridiculous.
(True: it is an analytic analysis because the term ‘east’ and ‘west’ depends on where we
live and since the earth is round, it is not easy to define north, south, west and east)

10. Without literacy a human community can never accumulate knowledge.

 (False: it is a bit contradictive since human can actually accumulate knowledge through
experience but indeed, they will gain the knowledge much slower than use literacy)

Exercise G

1. As seen from a linguistic perspective, there is no such thing as a primitive language.

(True: all languages that can communicate a community are named as language)
2. Written language is better than spoken language since the former has good grammar.
(False: spoken language is always more common for the former ones even they learn or
do not learn grammar)
3. Children do not acquire grammar until they learn it from their teachers at school.
(True: children acquire first language through spoken languages with their parents and
learn the grammatical structure from school)
4. The alphabetic writing system (as used for Indonesian and English) is easier to learn
than the logographic writing system (as used for Mandarin Chinese).
(True: because most of languages in the world can be understood by alphabet while the
foreigners need to learn the number of Chinese letters which are not easily to write and
understand)
5. The better and easier way of teaching a foreign language is to teach it separately from
the complexity of its culture.
(False: teaching a language means teaching the cross cultural understanding of the
foreign language)

6. The SLA principle “the younger the better” is applicable to the acquisition of any
second language.

According to Hu (2016), “older learners will learn language faster and more
efficient than young learners, whereas young learners will win the achievement in
the long period of language learning. It convinces us that the young learner stands
the superior stage in the second language acquisition and they will perform better
than older learners in ultimate language learning”. Furthermore, that is true.

7. Young children can easily acquire an L2, and at the same time they can easily lose

their L1 if it is not used regularly at the same time.

It is true. Chaer( 2003 p. 243) pointed out that children tend to more easily master other
languages and even replace the language they already master with a new language. In
contrast to adults or those whose critical period has passed, it will not be easy to learn
another language, let alone replace the language they have inherited with another
language.
8. All living languages have more or less the same amount of lexicon or vocabulary.

That is true because every language must have the same vocabulary. To express the same
meaning, every speaker uses the same vocabulary but in different languages.

9. Languages used for writing holy books (i.e., Sanskrit for the Vedas, Aramaic/Hebrew

for the Holy Bible, and Arabic for the Holy Quran) are structurally better than any other

language of the world.

It is true since Holy book is given by God and God is Perfect.

10. Old English or Old Javanese sound much like a foreign language to speakers of

modern English or modern Javanese

It is true because Most of People try to follow the development of technology also the life
style. For example Pamekasan especially in village when parents have a baby, they Will
talk by Bahasa Indonesia. They don't use bahasa Madura or engghi bhunten to speak

Exercise H

Ambiguous sentences (Part 1) are sentences having more than one meaning or interpretation. The
following are all ambiguous sentences. Instruction: Give paraphrases to each of the ambiguous
sentences below. (You may also explain the ambiguity by drawing different tree structures or
Chinese boxes—if you are able to do so.)

1. Visiting relatives can be exhausting

- It is exhausting when visiting relatives
- When relatives visit, it makes exhausting
The word visiting relatives is ambiguous since it could be activity or noun

2. They are washing machines.

-Pronoun "They" refers to people.
-It can be used when there is another sentence before.
3. The old man hit the intruder with a walking stick.
-The old man hit the intruder. He (Intruder) is holding stick.
It's ambiguous sentence because it contains more than one interpretation.
4. Joe Paladino is a dirty street fighter.
-The word "dirty" here doesn't mean "Kotor", but it has other meanings that is suitable to the
content of the sentence above.
5. They are reading books.
- “Reading books” here is a noun
- It could be that they are reading some books
6. He is an old French history professor.
- Some people may think that french is "country" but it is actually its people or language. So it is
ambiguous since French and France are different. French is people or language meanwhile
France is a country
7. Let’s stop controlling people.

-we must halt to control people

It’s ambiguous since controlling people means control people or people that’s controlled

8. The astronaut is going to give a talk on the moon.

- The astronaut will deliver a speech/tell us on the way to the moon
9. The artist enjoyed painting the model bare-headed.
- the artist enjoy the painting of the model with open minded
10. I remember seeing him on a cruise ship
- I remember someone that I ever seen on a cruish ship

Exercise I

Ambiguous sentence (part 2). The following are ambiguous newspaper headline selected and
cited from Google. Give paraphrases to each of this headlines!

Q.
1. Students cook and serve grandparents.
2. Man tries to open checking account with shotgun slung over shoulder.
3. Government says new Bay Bridge won’t open until it’s ready.
4. Bugs flying around with wings are flying bugs.
5. Man tries armed robbery with knives in gun store.
6. County to pay $ 250,000 to advertise lack of funds
7. Woman falls in hospital, told to call ambulance.
8. Navy hunts Amelia lost in Pacific Ocean.
9. City Council runs out of time to discuss shorter meetings.
10. Police: Man thought he could only be charged with burglary at night.

Answer:

a. The students whipped up a meal for their grandparents

b. Man trying to open checking account with arifle slung over the shoulder
c. The government said that the new bridge would be opened as soon as possible
 d. Bugs are flying with the wings
e. Man with a knife attempts to rob a gun store
f. Country to pay $250.000 to advertise underfunded
g. Woman injured in hospital told to call ambulance
h. Amelia was declared dead
i. City council runs out of time to discuss shorter meetings
j. Police arrested a man for the theft at night

Exercise J
1. Q. How do you distinguish between “thing ontology” and “fact ontology” with reference
to different linguistic units (i.e., words and sentences)?
Answer:
Thing ontologies and fact ontologies are one-category-ontologies: they both hold that all
fundamental entities belong to the same category. They disagree on whether this category
is the things or facts. Reism is one form of thing ontology.
2. Q. How do you explain (a) analytic, (b) contradictory, and (c) ambiguous sentences as
ontological facts?
Answer :
a). An analytic sentence is necessarily true, because of the senses of the words in it.
Therefore, an analytic sentence can be judged true without recourse to real-world
knowledge separate from the sense of the words contained in it.

EXAMPLES: Elephants are animals Cats are not fish

b). A contradictory sentence (or a contradiction) is a necessarily false sentence,
because of the senses of the words in the sentence. EXAMPLES: Elephants are not animals.
Cats are fish.
c). An ambiguous sentence has two or more possible meanings within a single sentence
or sequence of words. This can confuse the reader and make the meaning of the sentence
unclear.
3. Q. Referring to three types of sentences in Q.2, how do you explain synthetic sentences
as ontological facts?

Answer :
Analytic sentence is a sentence, which is true because of the meaning relationship between
the subjects and predicate. A contradiction sentence is a sentence, which contains
contradictions. The synthetic sentence is a sentence, which may or may not be true;
interpretationeted would need non-linguistics, information about the subjects the speaker is
referring to.

4. Q . Do you think that “thing ontology” and “fact ontology” are two totally separate types
of ontology? Or are they complementary to each other? Give reasons to your answer.
 Answer:
My opinion about things Ontology is one of the most ancient reasonable studies and
originates from Greece. The study discusses the existence of something concrete and
Fact Ontology is one of the part branches of philosophy that studies concepts such as
existence, being, becoming, and reality. It includes the questions of how entities are
grouped into basic categories and which of these entities exist on the most fundamental
level
5. At this point, how do you explain semantics as an ontological reality?
Answer:
Ontological reality that is not fully perceived by this or that individual consciousness,
since there is a partial or complete non-transparency.