Semantics 2 Outline PDF

Semantics 2 Outline WORDS: 1. Containers of meaning (semantic features) 2. Fulfil roles (semantic roles) 3. Have relationships (lexical relations) Lexical relations Relations in a system 1. Syntagmatic (string of constituents, linear order) 2. Paradigmatic (competing possibilities, selection)...

Semantics 2 Outline WORDS: 1. Containers of meaning (semantic features) 2. Fulfil roles (semantic roles) 3. Have relationships (lexical relations) Lexical relations Relations in a system 1. Syntagmatic (string of constituents, linear order) 2. Paradigmatic (competing possibilities, selection) Semantics – It is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. Linguistic semantics deals with the conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences of a language. Meaning Conceptual meaning (=denotation/cognitive meaning) covers these basic, essential components of meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of a word, e.g needle: thin , sharp, steel, instrument. Associative meaning (=connotation/expressive meaning/stylistic meaning) is the idea, connection what that specific word brings to you, e.g needle : painful. ***ex 1*** Analyse the following examples and name them in terms of denotation, connotation, reference: Cat = „A small domesticated carnivorous mammal with soft fur, a short snout, and retractable claws. It is widely kept as a pet or for catching mice, and many breeds have been developed” (oxforddictionaries.com) „When I came home, the cat was waiting by the door” Suppose John has two sons – Bill and Henry; a nephew Pete; and a grandson Dave. What is the connection between the phrases: Bill's father, Henry's father, Pete's uncle, Dave's grandfather? What are the possible connotations of cat? Reference - the relation between the Positive, negative or no particular connotation? linguistic expression and the entity in vehicle, democracy, politics, tall, strong-willed, pig-headed, the real world to which it refers. university Negative or positive connotations? politician/statesman, sensitive/touchy, economical/stingy Any particular connotations? the colour red vs the colour green *** glittering generalities, e.g. truth, freedom, patriotism, justice buzzwords, e.g. information society, solidarity, think outside the box, win-win weasel words, e.g. "some people say", "most people think”, and "researchers believe", “the cream helps reduce wrinkles” Lexical relations 1. synonymy (relation of similarity: two or more forms with very closely related meanings, e.g broad – wide, hide – conceal); does perfect synonymy exist? my big brother vs my large brother near synonymy (different kinds of context): let – allow – permit; start – begin – commence; end – finish – terminate; intoxicated – drunk – pissed (register), thin – skinny – slender (connotation), pavement – sidewalk (regional use) 2. antonymy (relation of oppositeness, contrast, opposition of meaning); graded (gradable): antonyms that can be used in comparative constructions. e.g bigger than – smaller than; words are on the same scale but at opposite ends: big-small, young-old, ugly-beautiful, dark-light, tall-short, loud-soft, etc. The negative of one member of the pair does not necessarily imply the other, e.g. That dog is not old. (It does not have to mean “that dog is young“) -- things can fall anywhere on the continuum (kind of young, young- ish; older or the oldest of your siblings); adj can be modified with adverbs such as very and most; can be made comparative; marked vs unmarked members: how tall are you? vs how short are you? non-graded (complementary): comparative constructions are not normally used, and the negative of one member does imply the other, complementary pair. There’s no in-between: true/false, pass/fail, e.g. dead / deader / more dead => not possible e.g. that person is not dead: that person is alive. relational: if A is in a certain relation to B, it means that B is necessarily in some other relation to A: buy-sell, teacher-student, parent-child; but NOT: parent-daughter 4. homonymy (=’same name’, same form, same sound, unrelated meaning), e.g. light (not heavy vs not dark), mean (intend vs unkind), bank (the side of a river vs financial institution), state (say vs political unit), date (fruit vs day); homonyms are ‘any pair of words that which are both homophones and homographs’ 5. homophony (=’same sound’, same pronunciation, different spelling, different meanings, different words): e.g. bear – bare, two-to-too, they’re-their-there, pale-pail, reed-read, flower-flour 6. homography (same spelling, different pronunciation, different meanings): e.g. lead [lI:d] vs. lead [led], bow /baʊ/ vs bow /bəʊ/ 7. polysemy (same word, multiple conceptually related meanings/senses/uses), e. g. head => top of your body / top of a glass of beer / top of a company; mouth => part of your face / the mouth of the river / the mouth of the bottle; glass (the material vs the drinking vessel), diamond (the shape vs the gem), hand (body part vs hand sb sth) BUT! Some words have the same etymology, e.g. pupil (of your eye vs in school)  ***ex 2*** a) Find a homophone for each of the words: wood, new, whether, piece, way, root, tale, break, here, be, sea, which, meat, flour, deer, wrap, write, bear, wait, sale b) Read the following sentences: 1. Billy will present Tom with his present. 2. I object to that object being here. 3. The dove dove quickly from the sky. 4. The judge will convict the convict today. 5. Part of the experiment is to subject the subject to a series of tests. 6. The wind was so strong that the sailor couldn't wind the sail. 8. metonymy: part-whole relation (associative, synecdoche): A type of relation between words based on a close connection in everyday experience (within the same domain) e.g. bottle – coke (a container – contents relation) Whole-part relationships America/the pill He washed the car./He ate an apple. PART FOR THE WHOLE (synecdoche): PART OF A SCENARIO FOR THE WHOLE England/ the crown/ Adidas/ Aspirin SCENARIO: The modelling agency is looking for some new He went to the cinema./ Mary speaks Chinese. faces./ She needs a strong arm to lean on. Association metonymy: 1.MATERIAL FOR THE THING MADE OF IT: cash or plastic? 2.CLOTHES FOR PEOPLE WEARING THEM: white collars/blue collars 3.CONTAINER FOR CONTENT: he drank two bottles 4.PLACE FOR PEOPLE/INSITUTION: Wall Street, White House, The kitchen can prepare your dish 5.PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT: She wore Chanel, He played Chopin 6. CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED: Bush bombarded Iraq, The buses are on strike today ***ex 3*** Name metonymies: 9. hyponymy (relation of inclusion); e. g. rose – includes the meaning of the word flower, carrot – vegetable rose is a hyponym of flower - carrot is a hyponym of vegetable animal (superordinate/hyperonym) => horse / dog / bird horse, dog, bird => co-hyponyms of animal superordinate / hyperonym: move hyponyms: walk, run, fly, swim Fig. Relationships in a taxonomy Prototype “While the words canary, cormorant, dove, duck, flamingo, parrot, pelican and robin are all equally co-hyponyms of the superordinate bird, they are not all considered to be equally good examples of the category “bird.” According to some researchers, the most characteristic instance of the category “bird” is robin. The idea of “the characteristic instance” of a category is known as the prototype.” (Yule 2009: 104) Eleanor H. Rosch | UC Berkeley „Think of dogs. You all have some notion of what a “real dog,” a “doggy dog” is. To me a Retriever or a German Shepherd is a very doggy dog while a Pekinese is a less doggy dog. Notice that this kind of judgment has nothing to do with how well you like the thing… You may prefer to own a Pekinese without thinking that it is the breed that best represents what people mean by dogginess. In this study you are asked to judge how good an example of a category various instances of the category are.” ***ex 4*** Name the semantic relation in the following examples: -First shoot your dog, then freeze it -On lead we lead -What did the barman say when the ghost asked for a drink? -'We don't serve spirits'. -What did the beaver say to the tree? -'It was nice gnawing you'. -Have your eyes ever been checked? -No, they've always been plain blue. 5 6 7 Based on: Meaning by Birner (2023) & The Study of Language by Yule (2006)