Chapter Five Meaning

Chapter Five Meaning

Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.

Semantics is relatively young. It remains the least known area in linguistics, compared with phonetics, phonology, morphology and syntax.

1. Meanings of “MEANING”

C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards G. Leech

Geoffrey Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning. Seven types of meaning:

Conceptual meaning Connotative meaning Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected and meaning Collocative meaning Thematic meaning

LINGUISTICS 423/4/20

AssociativeMeaning

3.1 Conceptual meaning

Also called ‘denotative’ or ‘cognitive’ meaning.

Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content.

Concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to.


3.2 Connotative meaning

The communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.

A multitude of additional, non-criterial properties, including not only physical characteristics but also psychological and social properties, as well as typical features.


Involving the ‘real world’ experience one associates with an expression when one uses or hears it.

Unstable: they vary considerably according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the individual.

Any characteristic of the referent, identified subjectively or objectively, may contribute to the connotative meaning of the expression which denotes it.


3.3 Social meaning What a piece of language conveys about the

social circumstances of its use. Dialect: the language of a geographical region

or of a social class. Time: the language of the 18th c., etc. Province: language of law, of science, of

advertising, etc. Status: polite, colloquial, slang, etc. Modality: language of memoranda, lectures,

jokes, etc. Singularity: the style of Dickens, etc.


domicile: very formal, official

residence: formal abode: poetic home: general steed: poetic horse: general nag: slang gee-gee: baby language


3.4 Affective meaning

Reflecting the personal feelings of the speaker, including his attitude to the listener, or his attitude to something he is talking about.

You’re a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobate, and I hate you for it!

I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you would be so kind as to lower your voices a little. or

Will you belt up.LINGUISTICS 1023/4/20

3.5 Reflected meaning

Arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense.

When you hear ‘click the mouse twice’, you think of Gerry being hit twice by Tom so you feel excited.

Many taboo terms are result of this.


3.6 Collocative meaning

The associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment.

pretty: girl, boy, woman, flower, garden, colour, village, etc.

handsome: boy, man, car, vessel, overcoat, airliner, typewriter, etc.


3.7 Thematic meaning What is communicated by the way in whic

h a speaker or writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis.

Mrs Bessie Smith donated the first prize. The first prize was donated by Mrs Bessie

Smith. They stopped at the end of the corridor. At the end of the corridor, they stopped.


4. The Theory of Reference Words → Meaning: Words ‘name’ or ‘refer to’ thing

s -- Platonic Words→Concepts→Things: Ogden & Richards

thought/concept/image

symbolizes refers to

symbol -------------------------------------- referent(word) stands for (object)


5. Sense

‘Meaning’ is not some kind of ‘entity’ separate from language.

That words ‘have meaning’ means only that they are used in a certain way in a sentence. There is no ‘meaning’ beyond the meaning of individual words and sentences.


‘The meaning of a word is its use in the language’. (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Meaning is studied by making detailed analyses of the way words and sentences are used in specific contexts.

Reference: how language refers to this external world

Sense: the way people relate words to each other within the framework of their language


The family tree

舅父 = ‘mother’s brother’

叔叔 = ‘father’s younger brother’

伯父 = ‘father’s elder brother’

姨母 = ‘mother’s sister’

姑母 = ‘father’s sister’


6. Sense Relations

Synonymy

Antonymy

Hyponymy


Gradable

Complementary

Converse

6.1 Synonymy

buy/purchase thrifty/economical/stingy autumn/fall flat/apartment tube/underground


6.2 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.


6.3 Complementary antonymy

alive : dead male : female present : absent innocent : guilty


odd : evenodd : even pass : failpass : fail boy : girlboy : girl hit : misshit : miss

6.4 Converse antonymy

buy : sell lend : borrow give : receive parent : child husband : wife


teacher : studentteacher : student above : belowabove : below before : afterbefore : after host : guesthost : guest employer : employeeemployer : employee

6.5 Hyponymy

Inclusiveness A is included in / a kind of B. Cf.: chair and furniture, rose and flower Superordinate/hypernym: the more gener

al term Hyponym: the more specific term Co-hyponyms: members of the same clas

s


Animal

bird fish insect animal

human animal

tiger lion elephant ...


7. Componential Analysis

HUMAN man (ADULT, MALE) woman (ADULT, FEMALE) boy (NON-ADULT, MALE) girl (NON-ADULT, FEMALE)


7.1 Animal words

MALE FEMALE NON-ADULT

bull cow calf

ram ewe lamb

boar sow piglet

23/4/20 26LINGUISTICS

7.2 Domestic animals

bull ram boar cow ewe sow calf lamb piglet

M + + + — — — ± ± ±

F — — — + + + ± ± ±


7.3 English motion verbs

NATURAL HURRIED FORWARD ONE FOOT

ALWAYS ON GROUND

walk + ━ + +

march ━ + + +

run ━ + + ━

limp ━ ━ + +


7.4 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.


8. 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.


8.1 Compositionality

An integrated theory Katz & Fodor (1963): The structure of a

semantic theory. A 40-page long paper published in Language.

The method itself is years out of date but the debate about the principle of compositionality is by no means over (Cruse, 2004: 77).


The idea behind the principle was to solve the problem of generating grammatical but incorrect sentences like Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

The purpose was to wage an attack on Chomsky’s basis assumption that correct sentences could be generated by syntactic transformations alone, disregarding the semantic rules at Surface Structure.


Although many semanticists turned away from Chomsky by developing formal semantic theories by themselves, Chomsky did admit soon that semantic rules would be found at Deep Structure as well as Surface Structure (EST) and later on placed semantic rules/representation in the S-Structure altogether (since REST). Other ideas were also incorporated into Chomsky’s later models of grammar, e.g. the concept of projection.


According to the principle of compositionality, each word in the lexicon is equipped with certain components and combinations of words into sentences must go through certain selection restrictions in order to produce acceptable sentences. Thus we can say colorful ball because


colorful {Adj}

a. (Color) [abounding in contrast or variety of bright colors] <(Physical Object) or (Social Activity)>

b. (Evaluative) [having distinctive character, vividness, or picturesqueness] <(Aesthetic Object) or (Social Activity)>


ball {NC}

a. (Social Activity) (Large) (Assembly) [for the purpose of social dancing]

b. (Physical Object) [having globular shape]

c. (Physical Object) [solid missile for projection by engine of war]


Then it is possible to work out four readings of the combinations of color and ball, and further combinations with other words (projections) will determine which of the four is the actual meaning in the sentence John hit the colorful balls and We had a colorful ball last night.


8.2. Noncompositional meaning Idioms: cannot be built up as the sum of

its parts. Idioms are phrases derived by metaphor and other types of semantic extension.

get up on the wrong side of the bed in the doghouse green with envy kick the bucket face the music


kick the bucket: which?

A. Because she got mad, that hen kicked a bucket.

B. A cartoon painter about to kick a bucket of paint.

C. the process of dying


Frozen metaphors: a class of idiom-like expressions which may show some of the features of syntactic frozenness typical of idioms, such as resistance to modification, transformation, and so on, but which differ from idioms in an important respect: the effect of synonym substitution is not a complete collapse of the non-literal reading.


The ball’s in your court now.

on your side of the net

A cat can look at a queen.

mouse an archbishop

I can read her like an open book.

decipher

He has one foot in the grave.

both feet tomb

one leg coffin


I gave him a piece of my mind.

part conceptual system

He drives me up the wall.

forces room partition

He has a bee in his bonnet about it.

hornet helmet


8.4 Collocations

g rea t h ea v y h ig h ex trem e d eep sev ere

fro st －＋－？－＋

ra in －＋－－－－

w in d ？－＋－－－


8.5 Clichés

I’ve made my position absolutely clear.

I’ve given an unambiguous exposition of my views.

It’s raining dogs and cats. He arrived safe and sound.


8.6 Noun compounds

pocket knife: knife that can be carried in the pocket

kitchen knife: knife for use in the kitchen

meat knife: knife for cutting meat tablecloth: cloth used to cover a

table dishcloth: cloth used to wipe

dishes


8.7 “Active zones” a red hat: whole hat is

red a red book: outside

covers are red a red apple: a

significant portion of outer skin is red a yellow peach: inner

flesh is yellow a pink grapefruit: inner

flesh is pinkLINGUISTICS 4723/4/20

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a red traffic sign: symbols only are red

a red pencil: (1) red on outside; (2) writes red

red eyes: ‘white’ of eyes is red

blue eyes: iris is blue


9. Propositional Logic

Truth condition: conditions which must hold for the

sentence to be used to make a true statement (at least if it is used literally). Thus, before we can truthfully say, on some occasion, The cat is on the mat, there must be some relevant feline occupying a specific position relative to an appropriate item of floor covering.


Those aspects of the meaning of a sentence which determine its truth conditions are collectively known as the propositional content of the sentence.

Two sentences with identical propositional content will yield statements with the same truth values on all occasions of use, as for instance, John caressed Mary and Mary was caressed by John.

By the same token, if two sentences have different propositional content, there will necessarily exist some conceivable situation in which they will yield statements with opposite truth values.


Proposition: a statement, with a truth value (true or false), eg

The earth is flat. The earth goes around the s

un. All teachers are female.


9.1 Logical relations

Not ﹁ / ～ : ¬P And : P Q∧ ∧ Or : P Q, ∨ ∨ ﹁ P Q∨ If … then →: P→Q Equals to ↔ : P↔ Q


9.1.1 Truth value: Not ¬

P ¬P

T

F

F

T


9.1.2 Truth value: And ∧

P Q P∧ Q

F F F

F T F

T F F

T T T


9.1.3 Truth value: Or ∨: P∨Q

P Q P∨ Q

F F F

F T T

T F T

T T T


9.1.4 Truth value: Or ∨: ¬P∨Q

¬P Q ¬P∨ Q

F F T

F T T

T F F

T T T


9.1.5 Truth value: If…then →

P Q P→ Q

F F T

F T T

T F F

T T T


9.1.6 Truth value: Equals to ↔

P Q PQ

F F T

F T F

T F F

T T T


9.2 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


Quantifiers: all ∀ , some ∃ All teachers are female. ∀ x (T(x) F(x)) = For all x, if x is a te

acher, x is female. Some teachers are female. ∃ x (T(x)∧F(x)) = There are some x’s t

hat are both teachers and female.


All teachers are female. ∀ x (T(x)F(x)) John is a teacher. T(j) Hence, John is female. ∴ F(j)


5.4 componential analysis

What is it? The relation between it and the distinctive

features of a phoneme in phonology The advantage of it Problems with it

5.5 sentence meaning

1. 2. 3.

5.5.1 an integrated theory

The definition of it Suggested by ? How was it put forward? The process How it went? Problems with it

Grammatical classification ( grammatical markers ) dictionary part ( syntactic markers) general one (semantic

markers) Integrated theory Semantic information idiosyncratic one ( distinguishers) Projection rules

Problems: 1. 2. 3.

5.5.2 logical semantics

The different stress of traditional grammarians and philosophers

propositional logic Two ideas predicate logic

Propositional logic

What is it? How it goes? Why it can not be applied to the natural lang

uages? The difference between propositional logic a

nd predicate logic命题逻辑不能处理的问题

Knowledge of predicate logic Propositions with “all” or “some” The universal quantifier “all” The existential quantifier “some” The difference of the two How the two relate to each other set theory: another way to explain the validity of

inferences with the universal qualifier and existential qualifier

The development of logic semantics

Montague semantics ( Montague grammar)

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Chapter Five Meaning

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