语⾔学第五章Semantics
Chapter Five Semantics
Teaching Focus
1. What is semantics
2. Meanings of “meaning”
3. Sense and reference
4. Sense relations
5. Componential analysis --- a way to analyze lexical meaning
6. Predication analysis --- a way to analyze sentence meaning
1. What is semantics?
Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
Or specifically, it is the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.
Different focus of the study in semantics:
Logical semantics/philosophical semantics: Logicians and philosophers have tended to concentrate on a restricted range ofsentences (typically, statements, or …propositions?) within a single language.
Linguistic semantics: The linguistic approach is broader in scope, aiming to study the properties of meaning in a systematicand objective way, with reference to as wide a range of utterances and languages as possible.
1 Sentential Semantics
Chapter One
Semantics & Syntax
a. Lexical meaning & Grammatical meaning
b. The influence of grammar on the semantic comprehension
c. Participant roles
d. Logical form
Lexical meaning & Grammatical meaning
Lexical meaning is composed of conceptual meaning and associative meaning.
Lexical meaning is relatively stable.
Grammatical meaning refers to that part of meaning which indicates
grammatical relationships or functions, such as tense meaning, singular
meaning, etc..
Words with the similar lexical meaning can have different grammatical
meanings, and words with different lexical meanings can have the same
grammatical meaning. Grammatical meaning is in use.
Higginbotham (1990)指出,语义理论必须具备两种不同的推理能力: 首先,根据已知词串的意义,推断出允许出现的句法结构以及这些结构的意义;第二,
从此所出现的位置推断出某些未知词的重要语义特征.
E.g. I cut the fish (yesterday).
chapter5semantics语言学
语义学是对语言单位，尤其是词和句子意义的研究。
1.“意义”的意义
G.Leech提出7种意义：概念意义，内涵意义，社会意义，感情意义，反射意义，搭配意义，主题意义。G.Leech的概念意义包括两个方面：涵义和指称。涵义和指称的区别类似内涵与外延：前者指一个实体的抽象属性，后者指拥有这些属性的具体实体。每个单词都有涵义，即概念意义，否则他们无法使用或理解，但并非每个单词都有指称。
2.指称论（命名论）：该理论把词语意义与词所指或词所代表的事物联系起来。该理论对于解释专有名词或在现实中有所指的名词时很有效。但其无法指称抽象概念。有时同一东西会有不同词语的表达。
3.概念论。代表是语义三角说。该理论认为，词和所指事物之间没有直接关系，而是以抽象的概念为中介。
4，语境论认为应该在具体语境中研究词的意义. 语境包括情景语境和上下文两种。
5.行为主义理论认为词的意义是说话者说话得情景及听话人的反应
6.意义关系 词语词之间的主要意义关系：相同关系，相反关系，包含关系
a.同义关系。完全同义关系很少，所谓的同一都依赖语境，并总在某方面不同。（方言，内涵，文体等）
b.反义关系主要包括：等级反义关系，互补反义关系，关系反义关系。
1）等级反义的特点：第一，否定一方并不必然是肯定另一方，还有中间状态；第二，没有绝对评判标准，标准随对象而改变。第三，通常用其中表示较高程度的词来覆盖整个量级。覆盖性词被称为“无标记的”，即一般性的；被覆盖词被称为“有标记的”，即特殊的。一般使用覆盖性词语。一旦使用被覆盖词语，表示有某种特殊的、不一般的情况。第四，可用very修饰，可有比较级最高级
2）互补反义关系，第一，肯定一方意味着否定另一方。反之亦然。第二，不用very修饰，没有比较级最高级。第三，评判标准绝对。没有覆盖性词语
Chapter 4 From Word to Text
I. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false:
1. Grammatical sentences are formed following a set of syntactic rules.
2. The syntactic rules of any language are finite in number, but there is no
limit to the number of sentencesnative speakers of that language
are able to produce and comprehend.
3. An endocentric construction is also known as headed construction
because it has just one head
4. Constituents that can be substituted for one another without loss of
grammaticality belong to the same syntactic category.
5. In English syntactic analysis, four phrasal categories are commonly
recognized and discussed, namely, noun phrase, verb phrase,
infinitive phrase, and auxiliary phrase.
6. Number and gender are categories of noun and pronoun.
7. Word order plays an important role in the organization of English
