Chapter Six
Semantics:The Study of Linguistic Meaning
? Teaching aims: enable the students to have a better understanding of semantics and wording meaning.
? Focal points:
? semantic triangle, sense relations between words and sentences
? Teaching procedure
? The subject concerning the study of meaning is called semantics. In this chapter, we will study another branch of linguistics-----semantics.
? Semantics----the study of language meaning.
? Meaning is central to the study of communication.
? What is meaning?---- Scholars under different scientific backgrounds have different understandings of language meaning.
? As a preliminary we should note that in everyday English, the word mean has a number of different uses, many of which are not relevant to the study of language. (P228)
? These uses of the word mean can all be paraphrased by other expressions (indicated in parentheses below)
? a. That was no mean (insignificant) accomplishment.
? b. This will mean (result in) the end of our regime.
? c. I mean {intend) to help if I can
? d. Keep Off-the Grass! This means (refers to) you.
? e. His losing his job means (implies) that he will have to look again.
? f. Lucky Strike means (indicates) fine tobacco.
? g. Those clouds mean (are a sign of) rain.
? h. She doesn't mean (believe) what she said.
The meaning of meaning
? C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning.
? John means to write.
? A green light means to go.
? Health means everything.
? His look was full of meaning.
? What is the meaning of life?
? What does ‘capitalist’ mean to you?
? What does ‘cornea’ mean?
? The transparent, convex, anterior portion of the outer fibrous coat of the eyeball that covers the iris and the pupil and is continuous with the sclera.
? a. Procrastinate means “to put things off”
? b. In saying “It‘s getting late, she meant that we should leave. (P229)
? These two uses of the word mean exemplify two important types of meaning, linguistic meaning (a) and speaker meaning (b)
? In general, the linguistic meaning of an expression is simply the meaning or meanings of that expression in the language. In contrast, the speaker meaning can differ from the linguistic meaning, depending on whether the speaker-is speaking literally or nonliterally. (P229)
Some views concerning the study of meaning
? Naming theory (Plato) 命名论
? The conceptualist view 意念论
? Contextualism 语境论
? Behaviorism (Bloomfield)行为主义论
Naming theory (Plato)
? Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
? Meaning has been studied for thousands of years by philosophers, logicians and linguists. E.g. Plato & Aristotle.
? Words are names or labels for things.
? Limitations:
1) Applicable to nouns only.
2) There are nouns which denote things that do not exist in the real world, e.g. ghost, dragon, unicorn, phoenix…
3) There are nouns that do not r
efer to physical objects but abstract notions, e.g. joy, impulse, hatred…
The conceptualist view
? Meaning relates words and things through the mediation of concepts of the mind.
? There is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to (i.e., between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.
Ogden and Richards: semantic triangle
Ogden and Richards: semantic triangle
? The symbol or form refers to the linguistic elements (words and phrases);
? The referent refers to the object in the world of experience;
? Thought or reference refers to concept.
? The symbol or a word signifies things by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speaker; and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.
e.g. The dog over there looks unfriendly
? The word “dog” is directly associated with a certain concept in our mind, i.e. what a “dog” is like, but it is not directly linked to the referent (the particular dog) in this particular case.
? Thus, the symbol of a word signifies thing by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the mind of the speaker of a language, and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.
The contextualism
? Meaning should be studied in terms of situation, use, context----elements closely linked with language behavior. Two types of contexts are recognized:
? Situational context: spatiotemporal situation
? Linguistic context: the probability of a word’s co-occurrence or collocation.
Context
? the situational context:
? the place, time, the speaker and the hearer, the actions they are performing at the time, the various objects and events existent in the situation
? the linguistic context :
? the probability of a word's co-occurrence or collocation with another word
? the part of text that precedes and follows a particular utterance.
? black hair; black coffee
? For example, “black” in black hair & black coffee, or black sheep differs in meaning; “The president of the United States” can mean either the president or presidency in different situation.
? E.g.The seal could not be found.
Behaviorism
? Behaviorists attempted to define meaning as “the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer”.
? The story of Jack and Jill:
Jill Jack
S_________r--------s_________R
Lexical meaning
? Sense and reference are both concerned with the study of word meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning.
? Sense(意义)---- is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested in.
? Reference(所
指)----what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.
Note:
? Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations; on the other hand, there are also occasions, when linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense, e.g. the morning star and the evening star, rising sun in the morning and the sunset at dusk.
? E.g
? I like the tiny brown dog.
Meaning Relations
? Not only do words have meaning properties (such as ambiguity, or having a meaning). they also bear various meaning relations to one another.(P238)
Major sense relations
? Synonymy 同义词
? Antonymy 反义词
? Polysemy多义词
? Homonymy 同音异义；同形异义
? Hyponymy 下义关系
Synonymy
? For example, one central meaning relation is synonym, "sameness" of meaning or "paraphrase." Thus, we say that automobile is synonymous with car. plane (in one of its senses) is synonymous with aircraft, kid (in one of its senses) is synonymous with child, and so on.(P239)
? Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.
? 1) Dialectal synonyms---- synonyms used in different regional dialects, e.g. autumn - fall, biscuit - cracker, petrol – gasoline…
2) Stylistic synonyms----synonyms differing in style, e.g. kid, child, offspring; start, begin, commence;…
Synonymy
3) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning, e.g.collaborator- accomplice,…
4) Collocational synonyms, e.g. accuse…of, charge…with, rebuke…for; …
5) Semantically different synonyms, e.g. amaze, astound,…
Antonymy
? Sometimes words can share an aspect of meaning but be "opposite'' in some other aspect of meaning. We say that such sets of words are antonymous. (P240)
? Typical examples of word antonymy include the following:
? Small and large share the notion "size" but differ in degree.
? Cold and hot share the notion "temperature" but differ in degree.
Antonymy
? Gradable antonyms渐次反义词
? Complementary antonyms互补反义词
? Relational opposites相反反义
Gradable antonyms
? Gradable antonyms ----there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair, e.g. old-young, hot-cold, tall-short, …
Gradable antonymy
? good ----------------------- bad
? long ----------------------- short
? big ----------------------- small
? Can be modified by adverbs of degree like very.
? Can have comparative forms.
? Can be asked with how.
? They are gradable. That is, the members of a pair differ in terms of degree. The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion of the other. There are often intermediate forms between them.
Complementary antonyms
? Complementary antonyms ----the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other, e.g. alive-dead, male-femal
e, …
Complementary antonymy
? alive : dead
? male : female
? present : absent
? innocent : guilty
? It is characterized by the feature that the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other and the assertion of one means the denial of the other.
? In other words, it is not a matter of degree between two extremes, but a matter of either one or the other.
? Relational opposites----exhibits the reversal of the relationship between the two items, e.g. husband-wife, father-son, doctor-patient, buy-sell, let-rent, employer-employee, give-receive, above-below, …
Relational opposites
? buy : sell
? lend : borrow
? give : receive
? parent : child
? husband : wife
? The members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities.
Polysemy
? Polysemy----the same one word may have more than one meaning, e.g. “table” may mean:
? A piece of furniture
? All the people seated at a table
? The food that is put on a table
? A thin flat piece of stone, metal wood, etc.
? Orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.
……
Homonymy
? Words may also be homophonous; that is, they may have identical pronunciations but have distinct spellings in the written language, such as Mary. marry, and merry.
? Two words with the same spelling (and pronunciation) are homonymous (i.e.. they are homonyms). (P239)
? An often-cited example of homonymy is the word bank referring to the side of a river versus the word bank referring to a financial institution.
? Homonymy---- the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, e.g. different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both.
? Homophone同音异义---- when two words are identical in sound, e.g. rain-reign, night/knight, …
? Homogragh同形异义---- when two words are identical in spelling, e.g. tear(n.)-tear(v.), lead(n.)-lead(v.), …
? Complete homonym---- when two words are identical in both sound and spelling, e.g. ball, bank, watch, scale, fast, …
Note:
? A polysemic word is the result of the evolution of the primary meaning of the word (the etymology of the word); while complete homonyms are often brought into being by coincidence.
Hyponymy
? Another important meaning relation is meaning inclusion, illustrated bellow :
? a. The meaning of sister includes the meaning of female.
? b. The meaning of kill includes the meaning of dead.(P239)
Hyponymy
? Hyponymy----the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word.
? Superordinate: the word which is more general in meaning.
? Hyponyms: the word which is more specific in meaning.
? Co-hyponyms: hyponyms of the same superordinate.
Hyponymy
? Inclusiveness
? A is included in / a kind of B.
? Cf.: chair and furniture, rose and flower
? Superordinate/hypernym: the more general term
? Hyponym: the more specific term
? Co-hyponyms: members of
the same class
Animal
bird fish insect animal
human animal
tiger lion elephant ...
? The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate, and the more specific word are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the same super-ordinate are co-hyponyms to each other.
Hyponymy
? Superordinate: flower
? Hyponyms: rose, tulip, lily, chrysanthemum, peony, narcissus, …
? Superordinate: furniture
? Hyponyms: bed, table, desk, dresser, wardrobe, sofa, …
Sense relations between sentences
? (1) X is synonymous with Y同义
? (2) X is inconsistent with Y对立
? (3) X entails Y蕴含
? (4) X presupposes Y预设
? (5) X is a contradiction矛盾
? (6) X is semantically anomalous不规则
X is synonymous with Y
? X: He was a bachelor all his life.
Y: He never got married all his life.
? X: The boy killed the cat.
Y: The cat was killed by the boy.
? If X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false.
X is inconsistent with Y
? X: He is single.
? Y: He has a wife.
? X: This is my first visit to Beijing.
? Y: I have been to Beijing twice.
? If X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true.
X entails Y
? The most central semantics is entailment. One sentence S is said to entail another sentence S’ when the truth of the first guarantees the truth of the second, and the falsity of the second guarantees the falsity of the first, as in (18):
? a. The ear is red entails The car has a color.
? b. The needle is too short entails The needle is not long enough. (P244)
? X: John married a blond heiress.
? Y: John married a blond.
? X: Marry has been to Beijing.
? Y: Marry has been to China.
? Entailment is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, then the meaning of X is included in Y.
? If X is true, Y is necessarily true; if X is false, Y may be true or false.
? In formula: A→B -B→-A
X presupposes Y
? Closely related to entailment is another truth relation semantic presupposition.
? The basic idea behind semantic presupposition is that the falsity of the presupposed sentence causes the presupposing sentence not to have a truth value (T or F) (P245)
? ……both a sentence and its denial have the same semantic presupposition.
? a. The present king of France is bald
? b. The present king of France is not bald
? c. There is a present icing of France.(P245)
? X: His bike needs repairing.
? Y: He has a bike.
? Paul has given up smoking.
? Paul once smoked.
? If X is true, Y must be true; If X is false, Y is still true.
? In formula: A→B -A→B
X is a contradiction
? *My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.
? *The orphan’s parents are pretty well-off.
X is semantically anomalous
? *The man is pregnant.
? *The table has bad intentions.
? *Sincerity shakes hands with the black apple.
Analysis of meaning
? Componential analysis
? Predication analysis
Comp
onential analysis
? Componential analysis---- a way to analyze lexical meaning.
? The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features.
? The study of meaning in any language shows that lexical items overlap in meaning and share common properties.
? e.g. Lions and tigers both contain an element of “wild animalness”. Calf, puppy and baby can be considered as all sharing an element of non adultness, while cow, woman and tigress all containing an element of ‘femaleness’.
? But because of other properties each word contains, none of them will be said as being synonymous to any one of the others.
? One attempt to account for this phenomenon is to assume that lexical items, like phonemes are made up out of a number of component parts. Componential analysis is often seen as a process aiming at breaking down the meaning of a word into its minimal distinctive features or properties, which are also called components by some linguists.
? One way of describing the components of a word is to use feature symbols, which are usually written in capitalized letters, with “+” “-“ before them, plus sign indicates the presence of a certain property, and minus sign indicates the absence of it.
Componential Analysis
? HUMAN
? man (ADULT, MALE)
? woman (ADULT, FEMALE)
? boy (NON-ADULT, MALE)
? girl (NON-ADULT, FEMALE)
Animal words
Domestic animals
English motion verbs
? Man: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE]
? Boy: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE]
? Woman: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE]
? Girl: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE]
More complex ones
? father: PARENT (x, y) & MALE (x)
? x is a parent of y, and x is male.
? take: CAUSE (x, (HAVE (x, y)))
? x causes x to have y.
? give: CAUSE (x, (~HAVE (x, y)))
? x causes x not to have y.
? Advantages: by specifying the semantic features of certain words, we may better account for sense relations,
? Synonymy ---- having the same semantic components
? Antonymy ----- having a contrasting component
? Hyponymy-----having all semantic components of another.
? Disadvantages: It would be senseless to analyze the meaning of every word by breaking it into its meaning components.
5.2 Meaning & Syntactic Structure
? The meaning of a sentence is obviously related to the meanings of the words used in it, but it is also obvious that sentence meaning is not simply the sum total of the words.
? The cat is chasing the mouse.
? The mouse is chasing the cat.
? I have read that book.
? That book I have read.
? The daughter of Queen Elizabeth’s son is the son of Queen Elizabeth’s daughter.
Predication analysis(述谓结构分析)
? 1) The meaning of a sentence is not to be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its component words, e.g “The dog bites the man” is semantically different from “The man bites the dog” though their components are exactly the same.
? 2) There are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning, e.g.
? *Green clouds are sleeping furiously.
? *Sincerity shook hands with the black apple.
? Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions.
Predication analysis
? Predication analysis---- a way to analyze sentence meaning (British G. Leech).
? Predication----the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. A predication consists of argument(s) 论元and predicate（谓语）.
? An argument is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal elements in a sentence.
? A predicate is something said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.
Predicate Logic
? Argument and Predicate
? John runs. ? runs’ (John’) or R(j)
? John loves Mary. ? loves’ (John’, Mary’) or L(j, m)
? John gave Mary a book. ? gave’ (John’, Mary’, book’) or G(j, m, b)
? One-place predicate: run
? Two-place predicate: love
? Three-place predicate: give
Predication analysis
? According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, we may classify the predications into the following types:
? One-place predication: smoke, grow, rise, run, …
? Two-place predication: like, love, save, bite, beat,…
? Three-place predication: give, sent, promise, call, …
? No-place predication: It is hot.
Predication analysis
? Tom smokes. ? TOM (SMOKE)
? The tree grows well. ? TREE (GROW)
? The kids like apples. ? KIDS (LIKE) APPLE
? I sent him a letter. ? I (SEND) HIM LETTER