FINAL TEST – SYNTAX & SEMANTICS
PART 1
1. Which of the following is not a reliable test for constituency in English?
a. Movement test
b. Replacement by a single word
c. Adding an adjective
d. Question-answer test
2. In the sentence “The girl gave the boy a present,” what is the correct phrase structure of
the VP?
a. VP → V NP
b. VP → V NP PP
c. VP → V NP NP
d. VP → V AdvP
3. Which structure is an example of a right-branching NP?
a. The [tall] [student]
b. The [student of linguistics]
c. The [tall student of linguistics]
d. The [of linguistics student]
4. Which of the following best describes the relation between ‘very’ and ‘happy’ in “very
happy”?
a. Complementation
b. Coordination
c. Modification
d. Predication
5. Identify the correct phrase marker rule for a sentence adverbial:
a. It is a sister of VP
b. It is a daughter of V
c. It is a sister of S in a higher S
d. It is always adjacent to the subject
6. Which of the following verbs is most likely to take a prepositional complement?
a. Give
b. Know
c. Apply
d. Watch
7. In the sentence “It seems that she lied,” what is the syntactic function of “that she lied”?
a. Subject
b. Predicate
c. Subject-predicative
d. VP-adverbial
8. Which of the following sentences shows VP coordination?
a. He bought and read the book.
b. He and she read the book.
c. The book and the pen were lost.
d. They walked in and out the door.
9. Which is true about auxiliary verbs?
a. They can never be negated
b. They always appear after lexical verbs
c. They allow subject–verb agreement
d. They support tense and voice distinctions
10. In which sentence does the WH-question involve fronting of both a WH-word and an
auxiliary?
a. Who the man saw?
b. Where are you going?
c. What did she gave you?
d. When he is coming?
11. Which of the following violates semantic selectional rules?
a. She baked a cake.
b. The cat slept peacefully.
c. The cloud painted the wall.
d. The student passed the exam.
12. Choose the sentence pair that demonstrates mutual entailment (paraphrase):
a. John lost his keys. / John dropped his keys.
b. Mary wrote a letter. / A letter was written by Mary.
c. That dog is barking. / The cat is meowing.
d. He swam in the lake. / He dived into the lake.
13. Identify the sentence that is syntactically correct but semantically anomalous:
a. The students read a book.
b. The thunderstorm slept soundly.
c. The artist painted a mural.
d. She cooked dinner for her guests.
14. “The whale is a mammal.” This sentence is:
a. Contradictory
b. Analytic
c. Synthetic
d. Paraphrastic
15. What kind of reference does “the sun” exemplify?
a. Variable reference
b. Generic reference
c. Constant reference
d. Co-reference
16. “All tigers are animals” entails:
a. All animals are tigers
b. Some animals are not tigers
c. Some tigers are animals
d. All tigers are mammals
17. In which of the following does the word “light” demonstrate polysemy?
a. Light (not heavy) / Light (not dark)
b. Light / Lightning
c. Light / Delight
d. Light / Night
18. Identify the non-referring expression:
a. The Prime Minister of the UK
b. My mother
c. A unicorn
d. The Eiffel Tower
19. Which of the following sentences shows gradable antonymy?
a. Male / Female
b. Alive / Dead
c. Old / Young
d. Parent / Child
20. In “That man is not a human,” if meant literally, the sentence is:
a. Analytic
b. Synthetic
c. Contradictory
d. Figurative
21. In “She handed me the report,” which noun phrase is the direct object semantically?
a. She
b. Me
c. The report
d. Handed
22. Choose the pair that exhibits co-reference:
a. Jane / Her
b. This / That
c. Apple / Fruit
d. You / One
23. Which example demonstrates a generic sentence?
a. The tiger escaped from the zoo.
b. Tigers are dangerous animals.
c. This tiger is rare.
d. I saw a tiger at the zoo.
24. The sense relation between knife and tool is:
a. Synonymy
b. Antonymy
c. Hyponymy
d. Co-reference
25. “The boy with the telescope saw the girl” is:
a. Ambiguous due to homonymy
b. Lexically ambiguous
c. Structurally ambiguous
d. Unambiguous
26. “Fortunately, he arrived on time.” The adverbial is best described as:
a. VP-adverbial
b. S-adverbial (disjunct)
c. Complement
d. Modifier of noun
27. Which of the following is an example of anomaly for effect (not literal meaning)?
a. This girl is my sister.
b. My homework exploded last night.
c. The train arrives at 5.
d. Water boils at 100 degrees.
28. “He’s a cold person.” This is an example of:
a. Literal meaning
b. Figurative meaning
c. Contradiction
d. Equative sentence
29. Which pair of words are binary antonyms?
a. Rich / Poor
b. Sleep / Awake
c. Teacher / Student
d. True / False
30. If sentence A: “She devoured a sandwich.” Sentence B: “She ate something.” Then:
a. A contradicts B
b. A entails B
c. B entails A
d. A and B are unrelated
PART 2
1. Question 1
Analyze the following sentence both syntactically and semantically:
“The teacher said that the student had failed the exam.”
a) Perform Adverbial Clausal Analysis (ACA)
b) Identify the proposition(s)
c) Determine if the sentence is analytic, synthetic, or contradictory. Justify your answer.
2. Question 2
Transform the sentence below into a WH-question.
“Anna is reading a book in that library.”
a) Rewrite it as a WH-question about the object
b) Provide a phrase marker or clear syntactic breakdown
c) Identify deictic elements and their reference
d) Explain the referent vs. sense of “that library”
3. Question 3
Consider the sentence: “He saw her duck.”
a) Give two interpretations (one lexical ambiguity, one structural)
b) For each interpretation, describe the syntactic structure
c) Discuss if polysemy or homonymy is involved
4. Question 4
Analyze: “The small dog chased the cat under the table.”
a) Draw the full phrase marker
b) Identify the semantic field of nouns and verbs
c) Which NPs are referring expressions? Why?
d) Describe the sense relation between “dog” and “cat”
5. Question 5
Sentence: “The man who owns a red car lives next door.”
a) Is the relative clause restrictive or non-restrictive? Explain
b) Identify possible entailments from the sentence
c) Classify the sentence as analytic, synthetic, or contradictory
d) Rewrite it as a generic sentence referring to a class