Question 4: Answer the following questions: (i) Write any one of the similaritie

Question

Question 4: Answer the following questions:

(i) Write any one of the similarities & dissimilarities between Syntactic Level & Semantic Level.                                     

                                                                                                                                              (Chapter 25) (0.25 Marks)

(ii) State any two reasons for the software quality dilemma. (Chapter 19) (0.25 Marks)

(iii) Bring out any two relationships between Business Process Reengineering & Software Reengineering.   

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

(i)

It is not easy to describe the relation between syntax and semantics, but it is probably easy to say why that is not easy: there are different perspectives about syntax and semantics, so the relation depends on what you understand by form and meaning, structure and content. If you look at the history of Chomskyan linguistics, you will find the chapter in which a group of people were working on deep structures so much that they actually were doing semantics and not syntax. Moreover, anaphors and quantifiers became really problematic for the framework, so it became insufficient to explain the linguistc phenomena under discussion. But Chomsky and others were not happy about the division, and today there are many syntacticians who keep themselves away from the "dangerous" interface with semantics.

Now, to be more specific about your question, but still general about the definitions, I think that you could see syntax as independent from semantics but not the other way around. Let's say the goal of syntax is to develop theories about the similarities and differences between linguistic structures within and across languages. Let's also assume that we can study elements that are necessary for those structures to be well-formed, and that their meaning is not essential for the interpretation of the whole structure. Then it is possible to say that syntax does not need semantics, or that it is structure what determines meaning. Whether that is interesting or helpful is up to the syntacticians who work under such view. As for semantics, it simply cannot be studied without reference to syntax, for any meaningful phrase or sentence is always a that, a phrase or a sentence, so it must have a certain structure.

If we want to study language in a more comprehensive way, I think the relation bewteen syntax and semantics must be one of interdependence, and thus it is more fruitful to study the way structures are built up and also the meaning that arises from such building operation. Just as we have structure building from a syntactic perspective, we have function application from a semantic perspective. This is one of the several general descriptions of the relation between syntax and semantics, but again, the specific views depend on the theories of syntax and semantics which you are working with.

(ii)

Quality is believed as a complex concept. It is the eye of the beholder and it means different things to different people and highly context dependent . Therefore, “software quality is nothing more than a recipe. Some like it hot, sweet, salty or greasy” . Thus, there can be no single simple measure of software quality acceptable to everyone.As observed from existing quality models for software product assessment, available identified quality attributes is difficult to meet current requirement and specification. Current quality models are much dependent on the usage of the assessment process and development requirement. The earliest models of quality such as McCall, Boehm, FURPS and ISO 9126 are limited to measure of external software characteristics such as reliability, maintainability, portability and functionality which do not consider other necessities needs such as conformance of user requirements and expectation. Software quality is more on customer satisfaction and software correctness is not sufficient to be declaring as good quality without satisfaction by the users . Thus, there are requirements to include measurements of human aspects and the quality impact in the quality model. Integrity as one of the vital attribute in current situation is not considered in previous models.

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