Semantics PDF

M/Th 1:00-2:30 PM Dr. Glenda Cadiente ELS108 SEMANTICS Semantics is the study of sentence meaning and word meaning. Semantic meaning illustration: ‘Hold out your arm’ arm- ‘upper limb’ or ‘horizontal side bar on some types of chair’ your arm- ‘left upp...

M/Th 1:00-2:30 PM Dr. Glenda Cadiente ELS108 SEMANTICS Semantics is the study of sentence meaning and word meaning. Semantic meaning illustration: ‘Hold out your arm’ arm- ‘upper limb’ or ‘horizontal side bar on some types of chair’ your arm- ‘left upper limb’ or ‘right upper limb’ hold out- ‘extend’, or ‘refuse to capitulate’...’Without knowing the context its meaning cannot be confidently explained much more than this.’ (Griffiths, 2006) Hence, semantics is the study of literal meaning, with no considered context. Semantics is best understood by distinguishing it from pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of utterance meaning, wherein utterances are identified by their contexts. Stages of Interpretation: 1. Literal meaning (the semantics of sentences in the abstract) Pragmatic Meaning 1. Explicature- the basic interpretation of an utterance using the basic contextual information and word knowledge (pragmatics of reference and disambiguation) 2. Implicature- the sender’s agenda (the pragmatics of hints) Illustration: Ann sends a text message to Bess saying: Missed 10 pm bus. Bess replies: That was the last bus. Semantic meaning: That- the bus was- past form related to the earlier time last bus- final Explicature: Either ‘that was the final bus on tonight’s schedule’ or ‘that bus could be the last that goes to where you might be going.’ Implicature: Hints that possible either mean: 1. sympathy or a reprimand 2. an invitation to spend the night with her. Semantics, the study of the “toolkit” for meaning: knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and in its patterns up to the level of sentence meanings. Do these sentences mean the same thing? 1. I’ll be back. 2. I will return after some time. In the question: What did John mean when he said he’ll be back later? Is the question primarily asking: a. what the SENTENCE I’ll be back later means. b. what JOHN meant in saying it Do you find meaning in language vague? 1. Meaning as shown in a communication model.  Speaker- communicates a message Message- linguistic encoding Signal- message in its initial form (linguistic encoding which when executed results in an acoustic signal) Channel- through which a signal travels Receiver- the one who decodes and picks up the message Decoding according to the three aspects of meaning: 1. Speaker’s meaning- the speaker’s intended meaning 2. Hearer’s meaning- hearer’s inferred message 3. Sign meaning- the sum of properties of the signal which can make it more apt that other signals for conveying the speaker’s intended message 2. Meaning through Grammar 2.1 Morphology word sturcture un+friend 2.2 Syntax- phrase/clause structure The boy is mine. Mine the boy. 2.3 Semantics- the organization of meaning 2.3.1 Reference- pertains to the world red- the color that resembles blood chair- furniture on which a human can sit 2.3.2 Sense- relation to other words ‘narrow’ is the opposite of ‘wide’ Meaning is both the beginning and the end point of language. If a speaker has some message in mind, that speaker chooses words with suitable meanings and puts them together in appropriate grammatical constructions. Successful understanding is dependent on how words are carefully chosen and whether words are arranged correctly to form sentences in order for them to be meaningful. Linguistic Signs “Human language is a complex sign system designed to ensure infinite expressive capacity.” (Cruse, 2000) The sign system is finite, but one can produce an infinite number of words and rearrange them to form an expression of human experience. Example: This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the corn. Linguistic Signs: 1. Arbitrary Signs Arbitrary signs are those with no natural analogical correspondences between their forms and their meanings. Three 3 2. Iconic Signs Iconic Signs are those whose forms mirror their meanings is some respect Iconicity enters language in several guises: 1. Onomatopoeic words- sounds suggestive of their meanings tweet, whack, snip 2. Iconicity as apparent in grammar- words that belong together occur together The young girl (’young’ as a modifier comes right next to the noun), baby boy, twin tub 3. Iconocity is apparent in the different linguistic levels: phoneme level- clusters (cr- in creepy [mystery], - ck in rock [hard, harsh]) morpheme level- affixed form: -ed, -s, -ing, among others -ed (suggest past), -s (suggests presence, recency, active), -ing (suggests ongoingness, never-ending) clause level- sentence or question John is here. Is John here? text level- poem, paragraph form, essay Iconicity however, is a matter of degree and usually coexists with some degree of arbitrariness. How is this iconic and at the same time arbitrary? THREE III Approaches to the study of meaning How do we approach the study of meaning? How is it possible for anything to mean something? or What sort of relation must hold between X and Y for it to be the case that X means Y? In psychology and psycholinguistics, meaning us experimente in terms of how meanings are represented in the mind, and what mechanisms are involved in encoding and decoding messages. Branches of the study of meaning in language 1. Lexical Semantics- studies the meanings of words focusing on ‘content’ words Content words [lexical categories] noun- bravery verb- arrive adjective- intelligent preposition- near adverb- always A potential confusion stems from the fact that a word can belong to more than one category. Example: near (preposition, verb, adjective) i.e. near the fence, neared the man, nearer than 2. Grammatical Semantics- studies aspects of meaning which have direct relevance to syntax Aspects of Grammatical Syntax 2.1 Syntactic categories (lexical and non-lexical) lexical- noun, verb, adjectives, adverbs, prepostions non-lexical- determiner, auxiliary, conjuction 2.2 Grammatical morphemes -ed of walked, -er of longer, re- and the -al of retrial, etc. Grammatical semantics overlaps with lexical semantics She wore a yellow hat. (adjective) They painted the room a glowing yellow. (noun) The leaves yellow rapidly once the frosts arrive. (verb) 3. Logical Semantics- studies the relations between natural language and formal logical systems (i.e. argument and predicates in statements) Example: The clause ‘Robby bought the news’ explains that the verb ‘brought’ says soething about the entities- Robby and the news. In this case, the verb ‘brought’ as a semantic center demands two nouns (Robby and the news) to make it logical. Meaning is not just a property of individual words but it is affected by the constructions they appear in. Sentence versus Utterance An utterance is ant stretch of talk, by one person. It is the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word. Anything writtern between single quotation marks represents an utterance. A sentence is a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A sentence is a string of words behind various realizations in utterances. Anything italicized represents a sentence. More distinctions: 1. Accent and voice quality belong strictly to the utterance, not to the sentence uttered. A sentence is in a particular accent, only because a sentence itself is associated with phonetic characteristics such as accent and voice quality through a speaker’s act of uttering it. 2. Not all utterances are tokens of sentences, but sometimes only parts of sentences, e.g. phrases or single words. 3. Utterances of non-sentences, e.g. short phrases, or single words, are used by people in communication all the time. Common sense tells us that people do not always converse in well-formed sentences. The abstract idea of a sentence is tha basis for understanding even those expressions which are not sentences-- non-sentences which are, in fact, incomplete versions, of whole sentences. Proposition A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some ‘state of affairs.’ The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by expressions in the sentence and the situation or action they are involved in. In uttering a declarative sentence, a speaker typically asserts a proposition. The notion of truth can be used to decie whether two sentences express different propositions. True propositions correspond to facts; false propositions do not. When one sentence is true and the other is false, we can be sure that they express different propositions. Example: In the present day world, (1) Is it a fact that there are lions in Africa? Yes/No (2) Is the proposition that there are lions in Africa a true proposition? Yes/No One can entertain propositions in the mind regardless of whether they are true or false, e.g. by thinking them, or believing them. But only true propositions can be known. (1) If John wonders whether Alice is deceiving him, would it seem reasonable to say that he has the proposition that Alice is deceiving him in his mind, and is not sure whether it is true or a false proposition? Yes/No (2) If I say to you, ‘If Maria came to the party, Pedro must have been upset,’ do I thereby put in your mind the proposition that Maria came to the party without necessarily indicating whether it is true or not? Yes/No (3) If I say to you, ‘Was your father in the Army?’, Would it seem reasonable to say that I have the proposition that your father was in the Army in my mind, and wish to know whether this proposition is true or not? Yes/No Declaratives and Interrogatives (and imperatives) have the same propositional content.  I got my forms. Did you get your forms? Get your forms. When a speaker utters a simple declarative sentence, he commits himself to the truth by asserting the proposition. Example: I saw him yesterday. By uttering a simple interrogative or imperative, a speaker can mention a particular proposition, without asserting its truth. Example: Did you see him yesterday? See me tomorrow. Anything that can be said of propositions can also be said of utterances, but not necessarily vice versa. Anything that can be said of sentences can also be said of utterances, but not necessarily vice versa. Sense and Reference Your left ear is the referent of the phrase your left ear. Reference is a relationship between parts of a language and thing outside the language (in the world). In Reference, we mean a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about. The phrase this page is part of the English language. It actually identified a particular sheet of paper, something that you could take between your finger and thum, a little part of the world. The actual page, the sheet of paper, is not a part of the English language, since languages are not made of pieces of paper. So we have two things: 1) The English expression this page (part of the language,) 2) the thing you could hold between your finger and thumb (part of the world) We call the relationship between them ‘reference’. So, this page refers to the physical sheet of paper. The same expression can be used to refer to different things. There are as many potential referents for the phrase your left ear as there are people in the world with left ears. In other words, expressions in language can have variable reference. The reference of an expression vary according to (a) the circumstances (time, place, etc.) in which the expression is used, and (b) the topic of the conversation in which the expression is used. There is very little consistency of reference in language. In everyday discourse, almost all of the fixing of reference comes from the context in which expressions are used. Two different expressions can also have the same referent. Example: the Morning star refers to the planet Venus the Evening star The Sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language. There are two sematic relationships in sense: 1) Sameness 2) Difference One sentence can have different senses too. Philippine Languages 1) Tagalog/Filipino 2) Waray a. Bababa ba? a. Malusad? b. Bababa. b. Malusad. The sense of an expression is not a thing at all. it is sometimes useful to think of sense as that part of the meaning of an expression that is left over when reference is factored out... It is much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the same sense. (like being able to say that two people are in the same place without being able to say where they are. (Hurford et. al., 2007, p. 31.) Sense deals with relationships inside the language; reference deals with the relationships between language and the world. Semantic Roles (Theta Roles) Semantic Roles are also called theta roles. The meaning of the predicate, especially a verb, maybe characterized via the relations that its arguments bear to it. Nine (9) Sematic Roles: 1. Agent- an entity that performs or initiates an action. It is the instigator. Paul grabbed the ball. 2. Force- instigates an action but which is not neccessarily conscious as wind or dog. The wind blew my hair. 3. Theme- the entity that is involved in, that underwent or affected by the action. It can also be the topic or the entity that is simply being described. The theme can be human or non- human. The ball was red. We love Harry. I miss my dog. 4. Instrument- an entity used by an agent to perform an action. The man covered the hole with his trowel. Mary whacked him with her umbrella. 5. Experiencer- an entity who has the feeling, perception or state. Maria heard the noise. 6. Recipient- the destination of a moving object. I sent the package to Jane. 7. Goal- the endpoint or the destination of the entity. I sent the package to Manila. 8. Location- refers to where the entity is. We met at the restaurant. 9. Source- where the entity moves from. We got it from the restaurant. Label the Agent, Theme, Force, Instrument, Experiencer, Location, Source, and Goal in the sentences below: 1. The rain washed the dirt on my face. 2. He loved her. 3. I enjoyed the game. 4. She borrowed the designs from the house of Lee. 5. We shipped the parcel to Paris. Explain how theta roles fill the limitations of grammar. Semantic Features Referential meaning in language This refers to the widely accepted objective or factual meaning-- covering those basic, essential components that are conveyed by the literal use of the word. A ‘needle’ means thin, sharp, steel instrument. Looking at the referential meaning of words is one of the basic ways to check the oddness of a sentence. To do this, we begin at its threshold or literal meaning. (1) The fan walked. (2) The pitcher ate the plate. In (1) and (2) above, we look at the semantic features of the noun fan and pitcher, in order to check if these word contains elements that would be able to fulfill the verb walk and ate. Semantic features are the elements that a syntactic category such as a noun or a verb has in order to fulfill its function in a sentence. To do this, we must assign [+animate] or [-human] to characterize a noun. The hat scratched the wall. N [-animate] [- human] What semantic feature is required in order to appear as the subject of the sentence below. The_____________ is reading the newpaper. The man is reading the newpaper. [+human] [+animate] [male] Componential Analysis is an approach to analysis of how words in a language are connected to each other by looking at its semantic feature as basic elements. Assign semantic features to the following: table house Human Animate Descriptive Meaning Take a look at the following conversation and answer the following questions that follow: a. What’s the matter? b. Somebody’s turned the lights off. 1. Can B’s statement be contested to be true or flse? 2. Can B’s statement indicate who the referent is? 3. Can B’s statement be used to refer to events distant in time and space from the speech event? 4. Can B’s statement be considered as informative? 5. Can B’s statement be negated or questioned? Descriptive Meaning refers to the aspect of meaning that: 1. determines whether or not any proposition it expresses is true or false. 2. that constraints what the expression can be used to refer to; from another point of view, and guides the hearer in identifying the intended referent 3. that which interposes a kind of distance between the speaker and what he says 4. that provides a set of conceptual categories into which aspects of experience may be sorted 5. that determines whether it can be potentially negated or questioned. Dimensions of Descriptive Meaning 1. Quality constitutes the difference between things or concepts (e.g. red and green, dog and cat) A rough-and ready check on difference of quality is whether one can say not X but noy Y without oddness: I didn’t run; I walked. Her dress is not red. It’s green. 2. Intensity Descriptive meaning may vary in intensity, without change of quality, but differ in intesity. It should yield normal results in the following test frame(s): It wasn’t just X, it was Y. 3. Specificity Differences of descriptive specificity show up in various logical properties. Dog is more specific that animal. Slap is more specific that hit. Scarlet is more specific than red. Woman is more specific that person. 4. Vagueness Has two different subdimensions: a. Ill-definedness Ill-definedness is well illustrated by terms which designate a region or gradable scale such as middle- aged.  Age varies continuously: middle-aged occupies a region on this scale. At what age does someone begin to be middle-aged, and at what age does one cease to be middle-aged and become old? There is quite an overlap between middle-aged and in their fifties, but the latter is significantly better defined: we know in principle how to determine whether someone is in their fifties or not. General terms may be better defined that their subclass. For instance, vertebrate and mammal are relatively well defined, whereas the everyday words dog, cat, and so on are much less easily definable. b. Laxness How terms may be defined in a loose way. For instance, the notion of a circle is capable of a clear definition, and everyone is capable of grasping the strict notion, even if they cannot give a correct mathematical specification. For example, the word circle is habitually used very loosely, as in, for instance, The mourners stood in a circle round the grave. No one expects the people to form an exact circle here, yet there is no sense of metaphorical or extended use. 5. Viewpoint A number of linguistic expressions encode as part of their meaning a particular viewpoint on the events or states of affairs designated. Deictic expressions, such as this, that, here, there, now, then and so on, which are usually claimed to encode the viewpoint of the speaker at the moment of utterance. In the exanple, the book on the table, is valid for one speaker in a particular context; however, the validity of this book here, as a description of the same book, would clearly depend on the postition of the speaker relative to the book in question. There are less obvious encodings of viewpoint. Consider the difference between (1), (2), (3), and (4): (1) The village is on the north side of the hill. (2) The village is on the other side of the hill. (3) The village is over the hill. (4) The village is round the other side of the hill. What dimension of meaning are the following encodings understood: 1. She was seated on the left-side of the hall. 2. It was a figure, a man. 3. He was wearing a brown jacket. 4. I wasn’t lying down, I was just leaning on the wall. 5. I am old.