Chapter 5 Meaning. Semantics: the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.

Transcription

1 Chapter 5 Meaning Semantics: the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.

2 5.1 Meanings of meaning 7 types of meaning(leech): 1. Conceptual meaning: Logical, cognitive, or denotative content Associate meaning: 2. Connotative meaning:what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to. 3. Social meaning:what is communicated of the social circumstances of language use. 4. Affective meaning: What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer.

3 5. Reflected meaning: What is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression. 6. Collocative meaning: What is communicated through association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word. 7. Thematic meaning: What is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis. -Connotation and denotation

4 5.2 The referential theory -The theory of meaning which relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to, or stands for, is known as the referential theory. -Semantic triangle(ogden and Richards): concept -Sense and reference word thing

5 5.3 Sense relations Sense: the semantic relations between one word and another, or more generally between one linguistic unit and another. 3 kinds of sense relations: 1) Sameness relation---synonymy 2) Oppositeness relation---antonymy 3) Inclusiveness relation---hyponymy

6 5.3.1 Synonymy 1) Differ in style: buy and purchase 2) Differ in connotations: thrifty, economical and stingy 3) Dialectual difference: autumn and fall, flat and apartment, underground and tube

7 5.3.2 Antonymy 1) Gradable antonymy: good-bad, long-short, bigsmall, hot-cold, warm-cool Marked (unusual) and Unmarked (the cover term, unusual, e.g. old) 2) Complementary antonymy:alive-dead, malefemale,present-absent, pass-fail (a test),oddeven, hit-miss (a target), boy-girl 3) Converse antonymy(relational opposite): buysell, lend-borrow, give-receive, before-after, husband-wife, host-guest, employee-employer

8 5.3.3 Hyponymy Hyponyms: the members, the lower terms Co-hyponyms: members of the same class Superordinate:the name of a class A superordinate may be missing. Hyponyms may also be missing.

9 Ex. living plant animal bird fish insect animal human animal tiger lion elephant

10 5.4 Componential analysis Componential analysis refers to an approach by structural semantics in describing the meaning of words. It aims at breaking down the meaning of a word into its minimal distinctive features which are also called components. E.g. the meaning of the word boy may be analyzed into three components: HUMAN, YOUNG and MALE. Girl may be analyzed into HUMAN, YOUNG and FEMALE; man into HUMAN, ADULT and MALE, and woman into HUMAN, ADULT and FEMALE.

11 5.5 Sentence meaning An integrated theory The principle of compositionality: the meaning of a sentence depends on the meanings of the constituent words and the way they are combined. A semantic theory consists of two parts(katz and Postal): a grammantical classification and semantic rules.

12 Grammatical/Syntactic markers Semantic markers Distinguishers Selection restrictions Problems

13 5.5.2 Logical semantics Propositional logic ( propositional calculus or sentential calculus) is the study of the truth conditions for propositions: how the truth of a composite proposition is determined by the truth value of its constituent propositions and the connections between them. A proposition is what is expressed by a declarative sentence when that sentence is uttered to make a statement. (J.Lyons) Predicate logic ( predicate calculus) studies the internal structure of simple propositions.

14 Argument and predicate An argument is a term which refers to some entity about which a statement is being made. A predicate is a term which ascribes some property, or relation, to the entity, or entities, referred to. In terms of the number of arguments it takes, it can be classified into: one-place predicate: Socrates is a man. two-place predicate: John loves Mary. three-place predicate: John gave Mary a book.

15 Questions and Exercises Some people maintain that there are no true synonyms. If two words mean really the same, one of them will definitely die out. Do you agree? In general what type of meaning we are talking about when we say two words are synonymous with each other? Consider the following antonyms: friendly:unfriendly, honest: dishonest, normal: abnormal, logical: illogical.which type of antonymy do they belong to?

16 Comment on F.R.Palmer s following argument: We can treat male/female, married/single, alive/dead as gradable antonyms on occasions. Someone can be very male or more married and certainly more dead than alive. Which type of antonymy do the following antonyms belong to? Bigger:smaller, longer:shorter, better: worse, older: younger. 姜望琪 (1991:79) claims that To some extent, we can say that any two words of the same part of speech may become antonyms, as long as the meaning difference between them is what needs to be emphasized in the particular context. He uses the two sentences below as examples. What do you think of the claim? You have to peel a raw potato but you can skin a boiled one. He s no statesman, but a mere politician.