Pragmatics and Semantics Exam Notes PDF

1.​ Semantics ​ A systems of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar ​ The way someone speaks/writes, the phrases the use ​ A system of communication used by people living in a particular country ​ A system of symbol and rules for writing instructions f...

1.​ Semantics ​ A systems of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar ​ The way someone speaks/writes, the phrases the use ​ A system of communication used by people living in a particular country ​ A system of symbol and rules for writing instructions for computers 2.​ Pragmatics -> Semantics -> Syntax -> Morphology -> Phonology -> Phonetics Meaning (in context) -> Literal meaning -> Phrases/sentences -> Words -> Phonemes -> Speech sounds 3.​ Semantics ​ Literal meaning of words, phrases sentences ​ How grammatical process build complex meaning out of simpler ones ​ Knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language ​ Patterns for building more elaborate meaning - sentence meanings 4.​ Naming (Ferdinand de Saussure) ​ Signifier - a word/sound in the language (sing) ​ Signified- an object in the real world that that a word sound “refers to”, “stands for” or “denotes” ​ Verbs/Adjectives/Prepositions 5.​ Naming ​ “Realistic view” - objects called by the same name have some common features ​ “Nominalist view” objects have no features in common but only the name 6.​ Naming ​ Scientific language ​ Dictionary words - defining in terms of object words ​ Object words - learnt ostensibly- pointing at objects 7.​ Concepts ​ Meaning consists of our ability of associating one thing with the other/recalling that object refers to particular concept 8.​ Associative bond  ​ Permanent association stored in mind ​ Associations stored are mirror images of the words that they are supposed to explain ​ Word = concept 9.​ Sense and reference ​ Sense - interlinguistic relations; cow/bull, fox/vixen, narrow/wide, father/son ​ Reference- relation between linguistic and nonlinguistic world; cow/bull, fox/vixen 10.​Deictics ​ Words or phrases which refer and substitute the names of people/objects/phenomena Types of meaning 1.​ Grammatical meaning includes the meaning of ​ Affixes/function words ​ Grammatical functions- subject, object ​ Different sentence types- negations/interrogations 2.​ Lexical meaning reflects the meaning of ​ Lexemes that belong to 1 of 4 word classes- nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs 7 types of meaning by Geoffrey Leech 1.​ Conceptual (Cognitive/Denotative/Descriptive) ​ +/- features- such as human/female/animate 2.​ Connotative ​ Lamb= innocence -> Secondary meaning of the expression 3.​ Social ​ Kick the bucket/Pass away ​ What is communicated of the social circumstances of language use (expression conveys some info. About social characteristics) 4.​ Affective ​ What is communicated of the feelings and attitude  ​ More a direct reflection of the speaker's personal feelings towards the listener/target ​ Such feelings/attitudes are usually negative or insincere in nature (would you be quiet? Shut the hell up) 5.​ Reflected ​ What is communicated via association with another sense of the same expression ​ The comforter- comfort 6.​ Collective ​ What is communicated via association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word (familiar grouping) ​ Pretty- woman, girl, flower, 7.​ Thematic ​ What is communicated by the way in which a message is structure ​ The difference between various grammatical structures ​ She has never read this book/This book has never been read by her… Structural semantics 1.​ Structural- applied to many approaches in linguistics/other fields 2.​ Linguistics- all approaches are structuralist 3.​ Structuralist- the investigated phenomenon is perceived as a system/products of systems; Phenomenon is not an isolated item 4.​ Saussure division of the language: ​ Langue - focus of the linguistic investigation ​ Parole 5.​ Diachronic and Synchronic studies 6.​ Langue ​ An arbitrary connection between linguistic signs and their referents ​ The value of a particular unit within the system depends on its opposition to other units in the system 7.​ Lexical fields  ​ Particular paradigmatic grouping within the lexicon -> Elements belonging in each case to the same parts of speech ​ Nouns, verbs, adjectives ​ Could be used in: Lexicology, Semantics and Cognitive Linguistics; Lexicography; Psycholinguistics; Anthropology; Medical Neourscince and Clinical Linguistic ​ Are positioned between the whole lexicon and individual elemts ​ L.F. and words are the elements of a lexicon ​ Encapsulate a form level and content level ​ Allow one to establish the senses of individual elements ​ Deal with one particular conceptual domain 8.​ Semantic relations ​ Associations that exists between the meaning of words phrases or sentences Three types of semantic relations 1.​ Hyponymy ​ “A type of” relation ​ Rose is hyponymy of a flower ​ Is a relation of inclusion ​ Hyperonymy/Hyperonymy/Superordinancy- superordinate terms/umbrella terms; words with broder meaning ​ The relation that holds between a hyponym and hyperonymy Synonymy 1.​ Synonymous phrases 2.​ Full synonymy ​ Words that are logical synonyms in all their sense; rare ​ Gorse/furse 3.​ Sense synonymy/ polysemous ​ words tend to be synonymous for some of their sense; the more common ​ Shut/close 4.​ Near-synonymy ​ words which denotes similar, but not the same meaning ​ pretty- beautiful 5.​ Register synonymy- choo-choo/salt-sodium chloride 6.​ Implicature mislay-lose/ manage to - succeed 7.​ Dialect motorway/highway 8.​ Affect freedom fighter-rebel 9.​ Synonyms can also differ with respect to ​ connotation- horse/steed/nag ​ degree ​ intensity- rain/sprinkle/shower ​ formality: privy,loo,w.c… Opposites 1.​ Antonymy ​ two words which share all relevant properties except for one that causes them to be incompatible (minimal difference) 2.​ Antonyms ​ referring to contrasting gradable antonyms 3.​ Gradable antonyms  ​ we can create a scale (icy-cold-neutral-warm-steaming ​ they exhibit markedness phenomena ​ markedness - actress, unmarked actor; marked- how young is he? unmarked- how old is he? ​ Unidimensionality- exactly one criterion is used to order individuals according to the property they describe (cold, hot, tepid) ​ Multidimensionality- multiple criteria for ordering individuals with the property (health - cardiovascular system/immune system) 4.​ Complementarity/ Contradictory ​ Non-gradable ​ Single/married; male/female; dead/alive ​ The assertion of one entails the negation of the other 5.​ Conversness ​ Reversible opposites- undoing of some action ​ Unbutton/button; Tie/Untie; Left/Right 1.​ Homophones ​ flour/flower 2.​ Homonymy ​ bat (animal) and bat (baseball)- they are not at all connected 3.​ Polysemy ​ fire (as in the bonfire) fire (as in a shot) connected in some ways 4.​ Lexical and syntactic ambiguity ​ My aunt saw a bat ​ She has killed [the woman] [with a handbag]/[the woman with a handbag] 5.​ Entailment and inclusion ​ Entailment is a relation between two sentences ​ A entails B when it is a logical consequence ​ It is not reversible ​ “The dog is brown and calm” entails “the dog is brown” ​ Sentence A includes sentence B -> 1. I'm allergic to dairy” includes ‘’I am allergic to cheese and milk” -> It's also not reversable as one may be allergic to cheese, but that does not mean they are allergic to dairy as well 6.​ Contradiction ​ Statement/sequence of utterances is logically contradictory -> If one is true the other is false ​ “He is orphan” Contradicts “His parents are alive” ​ He is a student” contradicts “he is mentally well” 7.​ Meronymy ​ Semantic relation between an object and its' parts ​ Week-> month ​ Head-> body 8.​ Paraphrase 9.​ Denotation and connotation ​ Denotation - literal meaning without anything added ​ Connotation- we are already giving some opinion, attitude 10.​Anomaly ​ Utterance that has no meaning- “The corpse ran into the room” (zombie) 11.​Presupposition ​ What is assumed beforehand by an utterance/What is taken for granted ​ For instance: I gave him an answer -> the presupposition is that he asked a question; Sam stopped smoking -> presupposition he used to smoke ​ Factive-> we presuppose that something happened/they denote true events -> I regret having done that= I did something ​ Non-factive-> we cannot presuppose that something happened/they denote obligation or an intention -> He appears to be a teacher ​ Counter-factive -> we talk about situations which have not happened and which probably won't occur -> If I were a millionaire ( T_T ) 1.​ Componential Analysis ​ +/- features ​ Info. Similar as in the defintion ​ A definition can also be rephrased in terms of semantic components ​ Binary features- only -/+ are possible ​ In theory every word has a unique set of features ​ Features can be used to compare words and talk about sense relations ​ It's difficult to apply binary system to some fields ​ Semantic components may be seen as abstract, underlying elements of meaning ​ Features to analyze nouns: collective (generally countable); count (If they can be make plural or no); concrete (tangible things, can be known through senses); common; animate; human; Fe/male 2.​ Categorization ​ Language - means to categorize experience ​ Definitions are lists of items which are necessary and all together sufficient for particular meanings -> Something must meet all the requirements to be put in a certain category ​ There are some members which are better examples of certain category than the others 3.​ The prototype theory- category membership status is graded * Basic level terms- most culturally salient in a folk taxonomy * Basic level terms tend to be structurally simple * Basic level categories maximize the number of shared attributes 1.​ Proposition - consists of 2 types of terms (below) ​ Predicates [pred] and arguments [arg] ​ [Pred]- verb/verb phrase ​ Arg- the necessary components/noun phrases 2.​ Types of predicates ​ 0 place predicates -> It is running/It is hot/ It is snowing -> subject is “dummy it” (impersonal constructions) ​ 1 place predicates - intransitive verbs + some copula + subject complements (be depressed, be a lawyer) ​ 2 place predicate - transitive verbs (break, suprise) ; Elliptical structures as following would be also included (presence of a latent object) -> Jack is eating (something)  ​ 3 place predicate - ditransitive (give), complex transitive (put, donate , crawl) and prepositional verbs (extend) -> The police officer gave a ticker to the speeder ​ 4 place predicate - complex transitive with embedded prepositional phrases -> Brutus stabbed Caesar in the back with a knife/He traveled from Spain to Finland via Poland 1.​ Thematic structure ​ Partial representation of its meaning, consisting minimally of a semantic relation and its arguments (oft. With more detalied semantic and syntactic information) ​ John is baking brownies -> Semantic roles-> Baker (john)(agent) bakee (brownie)(theme) those are called thematic roles/theta-roles 2.​ Semantic roles ​ Agent- the animate initiator, causer, doer ​ Force- an inanimate cause of an action ​ Patient/Theme - the person/thing affected by an action; entity undergoing change ​ Experienced- the animate being affected by a state/action ​ Goal - place/person an action is directed to, including indirect objects and directional adverbs (we hung the picture on the wall) ​ The Recipient: a sub-type of goal, changes of possession (Bill sold the car to Suzan; My grandmother got a postcard) ​ Source: the entity from which smth moves literally/metaphorically (I got the book from the library; Bob ran from the policeman) ​ Location: the place in/at (Tuesday) ​ Instrument: means/tool generally inanimate (Alcohol killed him) ​ Benefactive: the person/thing for which an action is performed (Jack answered the phone for Sam) Pragmatics 1.​ Pragmatics delays with “the signs to interpreters”  ​ It is used where the explicit reference is made to the user of the language ​ Simply - what we do when we communicate, how we respond to others ​ The study of how language is affected by the situation; How Lang. Is used to get things or perform actions; how words can express things; how outside factors contribute to both literal meaning and non-literal meaning 2.​ Sentence Vs Utterance ​ S. “A well-formed strong of words” grammatical ​ U. - concrete realization of the sentence in particular situation ​ S. Meaning- abstract meaning; no concrete context ​ U. What the speaker intends to convey via that particular utterance 3.​ Utterance test (passing one or more- pragmatics field) ​ Is it made to someone ​ Is it made to the intention of the speaker or the interpretation of the hearer ​ Made to context  ​ Made to the kind of act of action performed by me and of or by virtue using language 4.​ Context ​ Linguistic context + the extra linguistic context ​ Lin.-> Textual environment -> words, clauses, sentences… ​ E.Ling. cont-> non-linguistic but relevant to the utterance 5.​ Key aspects of contexts crucial ​ Situational context -> what people know about what they can see around them ​ Co-textual context- what people know about what they have been saying ​ Background context - what people know about each other and the world 6.​ Speech acts ​ When logical positivism prevailed ​ Language- describe a fact/state of affairs ​ Statement cannot be tested for truth/falsity- meaningless ​ Lang. Is used to do things ​ Lang. Can go beyond literal meaning ​ Using lang.- performing acts ​ Giving orders, making requests, giving warnings, giving advice 7.​ Utterance ​ Uttering words -> utterance acts ​ Refering and predicting -> propositional acts ​ Stating, questioning, commanding… -> illocutionary acts Three aspects of speech 1.​ Locution - literal meaning -> Locutionary act 2.​ Illocution- the purpose of the utterance -> Illocutionary act 3.​ Perlocution - the intended/actual effect of a locutionary act -> Perlucutionary act 1.​ Speech act theory ​ Utterance may be described in terms of the actions they perform ​ Play a key role in linguistics and philosophy ​ Study of the meaning should not be concentrated on the bald statement taken out of context because language in speech can be used for many functions - promises, requests… 2.​ Constatives ​ Declarative sentences that expresses state of affairs ​ Descriptions, assertions ​ True/False 3.​ Performatives ​ Used to perform an action ​ Ordering, apologising, giving, commending… ​ Either explicit or implicit ​ Explicit- includes performative verbs ​ Implicit- no performative verbs, the meaning can be performed implicitly ​ Don't touch it (IMP.)-> I order you to not touch it (EX.) 4.​ Felicity conditions ​ Performatives must be issued seriously by appropriate person under appropriate circumstances ​ There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain conventional effect ​ Must be executed by all participants both correctly and completely; ​ The procedure is designed for use by persons having certain thoughts or feelings ​ Propositional content conditions - Requires participants to understand the language ​ Preparatory conditions -Requires the speech to be embedded in a context  ​ Sincerity conditions- speakers is sincere in uttering the declarations ​ Essential conditions- all the parties involved intend the result e.g. promise changes state of speaker from obligation to non-obligation Speech Acts Classifications 1.​ Declarations ​ Changes the world via utterance ​ Speaker has a special role ​ “I pronounce you husband and wife” 2.​ Representatives ​ Speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case or not ​ Statements of facts, assertions, conclusions, ​ “The Earth is flat” 3.​ Expressives ​ States what speakers feels ​ Emotions, pleasure, pain ​ I'm really sorry; Congrats 4.​ Directives ​ Speakers uses it to get somebody else to do smth ​ Commands, orders, suggestions ​ Bring me coffee; Could you do the dishes 5.​ Commissives ​ Speakers uses to commit themselves to some future actions ​ Intentions, promises, threats, ​ I'll be back; I'll pass this exam 6.​ Direct and indirect speech acts 1.​ Entailment ​ If sentence A is true B needs to be true ​ Sentence A entails sentence B or sentence B is entailment of A ​ A It is a cat- B it is a feline 2.​ Implicature  ​ Susan yawned- she's tired 3.​ Conversational implicature ​ A real or apparent violation of our shared default expectations about how conversations work ​ Is different from literal sentence meaning ​ Speaker intends for the hearer to understand both the sentence meaning and the implicature ​ Context dependent ​ Often unmistakable but they are not “inevitable” they are not logically necessary ​ Extremely common in everyday language ​ Conventional implicatures are part of the conventional meaning of a word/construction. They are not context-dependant or pragmatically explainable- must be learned on a word-by-word basis Grace's Maxims of conversation 1.​ The connection between what is said and what is implicated, taking context into account  2.​ Relevance/Relation ​ Relevance to the topic 3.​ Quality ​ True statements ​ That which have evidence 4.​ Quantity ​ As informative as required ​ Do not make the utterance too informative 5.​ Manner/Clarity ​ Avoid obscurity of expression ​ Be brief; Avoid ambiguity Flouting maxims 1.​ Hedging ​ Strategy which makes the utterance more tentative and vague 2.​ Quality hedges ​ I think; I guess; I assume- not taking the full responsibility of the uttered words 3.​ Quantity ​ Roughly; More or less; give or take a few - the person does not provide the full/precise information 4.​ Relevance ​ By the way; Oh I know; anyway -> Switching from one topic to another 5.​ Manner ​ What I mean was; More clearly -> Speaker wants to clarify/ elaborate on an issue Tautology - the saying of the same thing twice over in different words Questions from the quiz 1.​ Lexical fields focus exclusively on nouns and verbs ​ False 2.​ What are facility conditions ​ Conditions for successful speech act 3.​ What does componental analysis examine? ​ Semantic features of the word 4.​ Which type of noun denotes groups forming a unit ​ Collective nouns 5.​ What is a prototype according to Eleanor Rosch? ​ A category member with the best representation of that category 6.​ What type of predicate is “it is snowing” ​ 0 place predicate 7.​ What is the key characteristic of synaesthesia ​ Associating a sensory term with another sensory domain 8.​ What is the relationship in the phrase: “Washington is negotiating with Moscow” ​ Metonymy 9.​ What does a predicate represent in propositions? ​ A verb/Relational term 10.​ Metonymy relies on similarity between concepts ​ False 11.​Propositions consists of predicates and arguments ​ True 12.​All members of a category are equally typical in prototype theory ​ False 13.​A tautology always provides new information ​ False 14.​Selectional restrictions are never violated ​ False 15.​Homophones have identical spelling but different pronunciations ​ False 16.​What type of antonymy is represented by hot/cold? ​ Gradable 17.​What are deictics used for?  ​ Indicating time or place 18.​What is the primary focus of pragmatics? ​ The use of language in specific context 19.​What are the two typical parts of context? ​ A particular realization of a sentence in a particular context 20.​What is an utterance ​ A particular realization of a sentence in a particular context 21.​The literal meaning of the utterance “I’m sorry, we're closed. You can come back tomorrow”. Without any context is an example of: ​ Locutionary act 22.​What does the term speech act refer to? ​ The actions performed through language 23.​What is constative? ​ A declarative sentence that expresses some state of affairs 24.​Which of the following is an explicit performance? ​ “I hereby direct…” 25.​Which Grice's maxim is flout here? A: What time is it? B: Postman has just come. ​ Relevance 26.​Which Grice's maxim is hedged here? By the way ​ Relevance