Chapter 5 Semantics  Questions to think about  1. In most cases if we don’t understand other people, we may usually say : “I don’t understand your meaning, could you explain it again?” What does “meaning” mean?  2. Decide on the meaning of the following word “good”  1) When the mother found that his son had got a high mark in the examination, she said to him: “You are very good!”

 2) When the mother found that his son had got a very low mark in the examination, she said to him: “You are very good!” and then leave the room.

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.

Some views concerning the study of meaning  Naming theory (Plato)  The conceptualist view  Contextualism  Behaviorism (Bloomfield)

Naming theory (Plato)  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 refer to physical objects but abstract notions, e.g. joy, impulse, hatred…

The conceptualist view  The conceptualist view holds that 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 Symbol/form word/phrase Referent/object in the world of experience Thought/reference/concept

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.

 一个语言形式和我们头脑中某一概念有直接 的联系，听到或看到一个单词就会激活我们 头脑中的一个相关概念，然后我们才能理解 这个语言形式在现实语言交际中的意义。

 概念论的确克服了命名论的某些不足，他的 应用范围覆盖了所有的词类，但它的问题是： “ 概念 ” 究竟是什么似乎有点难以捉摸，语言形 式又是怎么使我们想到这一概念的心理活动 过程也没有得到确切的解释。

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: co-text, is concerned with the probability of a word’s co-occurrence or collocation, also with the part of the text that precedes and follows a particular utterance.  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 situations.

The contextualism  情景语境指语言交际活动发生的时间、地点、说 话人和听话人、他们在说话时所进行的活动等一 系列语言之外的因素。  语言语境指通常所说的上下文，一句话的意义、 一个词的意义常常会取决于出现在它前后的句子 或单词。  Take “I can hear someone talking” as an example. (No talking in class when the teacher say it to the students in class)

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

Behaviorism  According to Bloomfield, meaning consists in the relation between speech (indicated by the capitalized letters r…s) and the practical events represented by the capitalized letters S and R that precede and follow them respectively.

Lexical meaning  Questions to think about  Look at pairs of words. What is the basic lexical relation between these pairs of words?  (1) father son (2) charge accuse 3) suite sweet  (4) table furniture (5)old young (6) thrifty miser  (7)escape flee (8) lift elevator (9) die pass away

Lexical meaning  Sense and reference are both concerned with the study of word meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning.  Sense---- 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----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.

Major sense relations  Synonymy  Antonymy  Polysemy  Homonymy  Hyponymy

Synonymy  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. In other words, some words tend to be formal, others casual, and still others neutral 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, like- love-admire-adore-worship… 4) Collocational synonyms, a matter of usage, differ in the words they go together with. e.g. accuse…of, charge…with, rebuke…for; … 5) Semantically different synonyms :synonyms that differ slightly in what they mean. e.g. amaze, astound,…

Polysemy  Polysemy---- the phenomenon that the same one word has more than one meaning, or to the relation between a word and the multiple meanings it possesses. 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. ……

Polysemy  Historically speaking, polysemy can be understood as the growth and development of or change in the meaning of words. There is a primary meaning that the word had at first.

Homonymy  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 ---- when two words are identical in sound, e.g. rain-reign, night/knight, …  Homogragh ---- 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:  When two forms/words are identical both in sound and spelling, how can be decide whether they are two meanings of the same polysemic word, or two complete homonyms? --- Etymology of the words.  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  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  Superordinate: flower  Hyponyms: rose, tulip, lily, chrysanthemum, peony, narcissus, …  Superordinate: furniture  Hyponyms: bed, table, desk, dresser, wardrobe, sofa, …

Antonymy  Gradable antonyms----is the sense relation between two antonyms which differ in terms of degree. There is an intermediate ground between the two. The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion of the other. Something which is not ‘good’ is not necessarily ‘bad’. It may simply be ‘so-so’ or ‘average’. In other words, there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair, e.g. old-young, hot-cold, tall- short, … ……

Antonymy  Complementary antonyms---- is the sense relation between two antonyms which are complementary to each other. That is, they divide up the whole of a semantic field completely. Not only the assertion of one means the denial of the other, the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other. Not only He is alive means ‘He is not dead’, He is not alive also means “He is dead”. e.g. alive-dead, male-female, …

Antonymy Converse antonymy---- a special type of antonymy in that the members of a pair do not constitute a positive- negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities. X buys sth. from Y means the same as Y sells sth. To X. Relational opposites: another name for CONVERSE ANTONYMS. 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, …

Gradable antonyms  Gradable antonyms -- --there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair, e.g. old-young, hot-cold, tall-short, …

Complementary antonyms  Complementary antonyms -- --the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other, e.g. alive-dead, male-female, …

Relational opposites  Relational opposites----pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items, e.g. husband- wife, father-son, buy-sell, above-below……

Sense relations between sentences  (1) X is synonymous with Y  (2) X is inconsistent with Y  (3) X entails Y  (4) X presupposes Y  (5) X is a contradiction  (6) X is semantically anomalous

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  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.

X entails Y  含义（ entailment ）原本是一种逻辑关系，如 果说 A 蕴涵 B, 那么 B 就是 A 的含义，比如 “ 老张 有四头牛 ” 就蕴涵了 “ 老张有三头牛 ” 、 “ 老张有 两头牛 ” 和 “ 老张有一头牛 ” ； “ 老张有一头 / 两头 / 三头牛 ” 都是 “ 老张有四头牛 ” 的含义。说白了， 蕴涵就是一种包含关系，如果说 A 蕴涵 B ，那 么 A 就包含 B 的意义。

X presupposes Y  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.

X presupposes Y  预设（ presupposition ）也称为前提，实际上 就是一种前提条件（ prerequisite ）。如果 A 以 B 为前提，那么 B 就是 A 的前提。如果说 “ 老 张有四头牛 ” 这句话，前提是 “ 存在一个姓张的 成年男性 ” ，否则这句话就没法说，或没有真 实意义。

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

Componential 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. For example,  Man: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE]  Boy: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE]  Woman: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE]  Girl: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE]

Predication analysis  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, ie.constraints on what lexical items can go with what others.

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) and predicate.  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.

Predication analysis  注意，变元的英语单词 “argument ” 原来是用于数学或逻 辑学的一个术语，和这个词的常见意思 “ 辩论、论点 ” 等 没有关系，被语言学家借用来表示句子中主要的名词性 成分，也有人译为 “ 主词 ” 。谓词的英语 predicate 大体上 相当于语法上的 “ 谓语 ” ，主要指句子的动词性成分。  一个述谓结构只有一个为谓词，但可以有一个或两个以 上变元。

Predication analysis  N.B. 值得一提的是传统的哲学家对句子意义 的研究只限于陈述句，因为他们是从句子的 真实值得角度去探讨语义的，只有陈述句有 真实值，而疑问句、祈使句是无真实与否的， 所以也没有语义可言，他们提出的模式也只 适用于陈述句。但 Leech （也包括一些其他的 语义学家）所提出的句子意义分析模式适用 于所有形式的句子。

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 ---The predicate plays a more important role than the argument.