State the roles of context in determination of word meaning. Illustrate your points with examples.
【正确答案】：Context plays a vital role in the following three aspects.
1) Elimination of Ambiguity. When word with multiple meanings is used in inadequate context, it creates ambiguity, e.g. "He is a hard businessman."The word hard in this context can mean both hardworking and 'difficult'. The context fails to narrow down the meaning so that it is difficult for the reader to decide what exactly the speaker means.
2) Indication of Referents. English has a large number of words such as now/then, here/there,/you, this/that, which are often used to refer directly to people, time, place, etc. Without clear context, the reference can be very confusing. For example, the word now always means the time of speaking, naturally refeming to a past time when the speech took place in the past or a present moment if the person is speaking.
3)Provision of Clues for Inferring Word Meaning Context may prove extremely yaluable in guessing the meanings of new words. Context clues vary a great deal but can be summed up as follows: definition; explanation; example synonymy; antonymy, hyponymy; relevant details; word structure.
