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WorksheetsCore Semantic Terms
Total questions: 28
Worksheet time: 14mins
Which sentence contains a referring expression as defined in semantics?
Water is essential for life
Fred hit me last week
There’s no Fred at this address
Dogs are useful animals
What best characterizes an opaque context in a sentence?
It yields different meanings with different referents
It becomes complete with any noun
It ignores all referring expressions
It remains identical across substitutions
In the pair A: “Laura Bush thinks that the President is a genius” and B: “Laura Bush thinks that the Leader of the Republican Party is a genius,” why can A and B differ in truth?
Because Laura Bush may misidentify the person
Because the two titles have distinct senses
Because thoughts never involve identities
Because genius is a vague predicate
Which option exemplifies an indefinite noun phrase?
the sun on the table
my car in the garage
a book on the table
the book we discussed
Which description fits a definite noun?
Always plural or uncountable nouns
Refers to a specific identifiable entity
Marked by "a" or "an" articles
Used for any member of a class
What is an equative sentence designed to assert?
The existence of an entity
The quantity of a set
The identity of two referents
A property of one noun
Which sentence is equative in form?
That woman over there is my daughter’s teacher
A teacher works at a local school
Teachers are important professionals
The book is on the wooden table
Which choice correctly distinguishes indefinite from definite nouns?
Indefinite uses possessives; definite avoids them
Indefinite is always plural; definite is singular
Indefinite uses "the"; definite uses "a"
Indefinite is non-specific; definite is specific
Which expression in the table is classified as a classic referring expression because it points to a specific person?
travel is an action, not delimited
or is a linker, has no referent
Mary is a proper name, specific person
a unicorn is imaginary, not specific
Why is “a unicorn” not treated as a referring expression?
It is too specific and concrete
It names a historical individual
It lacks a referent in the world
It functions as a linker word
Select the option that best explains why “my table” counts as referring.
It expresses a general sense only
It describes an abstract concept
It links clauses without content
It indicates a specific physical object
Which entry is identified as having no referent at all due to its grammatical role?
or functions as a linker word
a book points to a distinct object
travel is a clearly delimited thing
my table refers to physical furniture
Which pair contrasts sense versus reference most clearly in the table’s analysis?
Mary vs Abraham Lincoln, both senses
a book vs my table, both abstract
or vs travel, both have reference
a unicorn vs my table, sense vs referent
What justifies treating “a book” as referring in the examples?
It names any book in general
The speaker has one specific book
It lacks a thing in the world
It denotes an action or process
Why is “travel” marked as not referring in the table?
It is an abstract action, not delimited
It is a deceased historical figure
It points to a specific person
It functions as a linker word
Which explanation supports “Abraham Lincoln” being a referring expression despite being deceased?
He is a clearly delimited person in history
He is an abstract concept without referent
He is a generic category with only sense
He is a linker with no world entity
In the sentence "His father married a dancer," what does "a dancer" most likely function as?
Equative with "his father"
Predicative category assertion
Referring to a specific individual
Generic description of dancers
Which interpretation makes "John wants to marry a dancer" referring rather than non-referring?
John prefers dancers generally
John has no particular person in mind
John dislikes all specific dancers
John has a particular dancer in mind
Identify the status of "The whale is the largest mammal."
Equative between two names
Non-referring generic sentence
Opaque belief context
Referring to a unique individual
"The man who shot Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald" is best analyzed as which type?
Ambiguous indefinite article
Referring expression identification
Non-referring predication
Utterance-level phenomenon
What drives the ambiguity in "I am looking for a pencil"?
Tense variation only
Phonetic realization of "pencil"
Whether "a" is interpreted generically
Scope of the indefinite article
Why can "Dan believes that the President of the United States signed the bill" be an opaque context?
Presidents cannot be belief subjects
All belief sentences are transparent
Belief may misidentify co-referring names
Beliefs avoid referential confusion
Which is an equative sentence?
Fred is the man with the gun
William the Conqueror is the current King
Detroit is a nearby city
Mary is a genius
Why is "Detroit is a nearby city" not equative?
It forms an opaque context
It equates two referring names
It uses a predicative category
It denies identity claims
Choose the best reason "A box of cookies is what I would like" counts as equative.
It denies identity between names
It asserts a generic preference
It categorizes desires broadly
It equates two referring expressions
Explain why "Detroit is not the largest city in the USA" is equative in form.
It predicates a property of Detroit
It creates generic non-reference
It denies identity between two referents
It reports an utterance event
Match each term to its correct description for the case "It’s a tree."
Referent: actual physical object
Utterance: physical speaking event
Sentence: grammatical structure
Reference: mental link to object
Which statement correctly distinguishes reference from referent in "It’s a tree"?
Reference is the object; referent is the act
Reference is the act; referent is the object
Both are physical objects
Both are purely grammatical forms
