SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS
PART 1
SenseUnicorn
ReferenceCat
Night/knight phonologically (/n/)Lift/lifted morphologically (roots)Write/paint syntactically (transitive)Pot/pan semantically (sister terms)
WORD RELATIONSHIPS
Dog & Poodle All poodles are dogs = X is always included as a part of Y Dog and poodle are hyponyms
Sister Term Two or more terms that are on the same level within a
hyponymous hierarchy
HYPONYMY & SISTER TERMS
BUILD YOUR OWN HYPONYM
SYNONYMS
Two words that share the exact same reference.
What is the antonym to emasculate? : to make (a man) feel less masculine : to deprive (a man)
of his male strength, role, etc. : to make (something) weaker or less effective
What’s the difference between a complementary pair and gradable pair? Discuss with your neighbor-
How _____ is he/it?
ANTONYMS
Semantics at the sentence levelEntailment
All dogs barkSally’s dog barks
Mutual Entailment Ian has a female sibling Ian has a sister
PROPOSITIONS
“The meaning of a sentence (or any other multi-word expression) is a function of the meanings of the words it contains, and how these words are syntactically combined.Sally loves Polly.Polly loves Sally.
PRINCIPLE OF COMPOSITIONALITY
Shramped flonked flo britter.Shramped flonked the britter.Shramped kicked the britter.Roberto kicked the britter. Roberto kicked the ball.Roberto kicked the bucket.
SEMANTICS AND SYNTAX
Think of 3 idiomatic expressions in English. Invent 1 new idiomatic expression in English.
Idioms in Spanish/other languages? Pan comido (piece of cake) Llevar leña al monte (to carry coals to Newcastle)
IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS
PART 2
Sentence: There is a platypus in the bathtub.
Utterance: The event that occurs when a sentence is spoken. The same sentence could have an infinite number of
utterances. Properties of utterances include: time, place, volume, the
speaker
SENTENCE VS. UTTERANCE
Deictic words Those things that hold the place of other things in a thing
when someone says it.
What does (can) this sentence mean? Can you take the trash out?
CONTEXT AND MEANING
Linguistic What precedes a particular utterance in a discourse. Do you like green beans?
Yes. Yes, I do.
Situational Nonlinguistic information that allows for an utterance to be
understood. It smells.
Social Relationships between interlocutors
KINDS OF CONTEXT
The difference is intuitive. Judgments of felicity may differ from one speaker to
another.
What do you do for a living? I’m a linguistic professor at Ohio State.
What do you do for a living? I have a job.
FELICITOUS & INFELICITOUS
Steven Pinker (The cooperative principle)
THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE
1. Maxim of Quality2. Maxim of Relevance3. Maxim of Quantity4. Maxim of Manner
5. Violations
GRICE’S MAXIMS