2. SEMANTIC RELATIONS 2.0 Review: meaning, sense, reference A word has meaning by having both sense and reference. Sense: Word meaning: = concept Sentence meaning: = proposition (1) a. The man kissed the woman. b. The woman kissed the man. c. The man was kissed by the woman. Sentences may have the same concepts but different propositions. Reference: relates sense, through the Mind, to a referent in the real or imaginary world (i.e. extralinguistic), and contextually depends on who, where and when. 2.1 Semantic relations: an overview (2) SENSE RELATIONS Similarity: synonymy, hoponymy, entailment, paraphrase, metonymy, anaphora,?presupposition Oppositeness: antonymy, anomaly, ambiguity, polysemy, homonymy, contradiction 2.2 Sense relations: identity and similarity 2.2.1 Synonymy Q: What s the relationship between the paired expressions? Are the meanings identical in every aspect, i.e. are they true synonyms? In what way(s) can they differ in meaning? (3) a. Which courses are you going to take next fall? b. Which courses are you going to take next autumn? (4) a. Do you know that gentleman over there? b. Do you know that man over there? c. Do you know that guy over there? (5) a. The politicians tried to hide the truth from the public. b. The statesmen tried to conceal the truth from the public. (6) a. That s a big house you ve bought. b. That s a large house you ve purchased. (7) a. That s a big mistake you ve made. b.?that s a large mistake you ve made.
Palmer (1976): Dialectal synonyms belong to different dialects of the same language: (3) Stylistic synonyms belong to different styles/registers of the same language: (4) Emotive synonyms have the same cognitive meaning but differ in emotive meaning (i.e. connotation): (5) Collocational synonyms have the same cognitive meaning but differ in co-occurrence w/ other words: (6-7) Lyons (1995): (8) Conditions of absolute synonymy Two expressions are absolutely synonymous iff a. all their meanings are identical; b. they are synonymous in all contexts; c. they are semantically equivalent (i.e., their meaning or meanings are identical) on all dimensions of meanings, descriptive and non-descriptive. (9) a. They live in a big house. b. They live in a large house. (10) a. I will tell my big sister. b. I will tell my large sister. (11) a. You are making a big mistake. b.?you are making a large mistake. (12) X is (descriptively) synonymous with Y if X entails Y and Y entails X. (13) a. Astounded, she saw this very large creature walking towards her. b. Astounded, she saw this humongous creature walking towards her. (14) a. stingy; economical b. crafty; cunning, clever c. fat, plump d. thin, slender, skinny syntactic synonymy: (15) a. The police arrested Tom. b. Tom was arrested by the police. (16) a. In LING 3P94, every student reads two books. b. In LING 3P94, two books are read by every student. (17) a. Unwillingly the police arrested Tom. b. Unwillingly Tom was arrested by the police.
Symmetric predicates: switch of NP arguments without change in predicate does not change propositional meaning: (18) a. John is (not) married to Mary. b. Mary is (not) married to John. (19) a. Niagara Falls is near Toronto. b. Toronto is near Niagara Falls. Converse predicates: switch of NP arguments with corresponding change in predicate does not change propositional meaning (20) a. John is taller than Mary. b. Mary is shorter than John. (21) a. John bought a used book from Mary. b. Mary sold a used book to John. 2.2.2 Paraphrase (22) a. He s a bachelor. b. He s an unmarried man. (23) a. John owns this car. b. This car belongs to John. 2.2.3 Hyponymy (24) red, blue, yellow, pink, scarlet, crimson, colour (25) Superordinate Set / \ / \ Hyponym: Hyponym: Hyponym:... Subset... blue red yellow / \ / \... member... hyponym: hyponym: hyponym: pink scarlet crimson (26) Definition of hyponymy: a. Hyponymy is the sense relation between two expressions whereby the sense of one expression is included in the sense of another, i.e. entailment at word level. b. More formally, X is a hyponym of Y if X can be said to be a kind of Y; X and Y are cohyponyms if both X and Y are a kind of Z.
2.2.4 Entailment (27) a. That is a red car. b. That is a car. c. That is not a car. (28) Entailment: A entails B if (i) whenever A is true, B is true; (but if B is true, A is not necessarily true); (ii) the information B conveys is contained in the information A conveys; (iii) [A and not B] is contradictory. In-class exercise: Which of the following does the sentence John kissed Mary passionately entail? a. John kissed Mary. b. John married Mary. c. Mary kissed John. d. Mary was kissed by John. e. John did not kiss Mary. f. Mary was kissed. g. John touched Mary with his lips. h. John kissed Mary many times. 2.2.5 Anaphora A is anaphorically related to B iff its reference is derived from the reference of B. (29) a. John caught some fish, and Mary cooked them. antecedent anaphor - antecedent: the expression to which a pronoun is anaphorically related; - coreferentiality: antecedent and anaphor have identical referent. 2.2.6 Presupposition (30) a. John and Mary are rich. b. John and Mary are not rich. c. Mary is rich. d. Mary is not rich. (31) a. The present King of Canada lives in Toronto. [asserting] b. There is a unique present king of Canada. c. The present King of Canada does not live in Toronto. [denying (a)] d. Does the present King of Canada live in Toronto? [questioning] e. If the present King of Canada lives in Toronto, I d like to see him. [supposing] (32) Presupposition: (C&M: 23) X presupposes Y iff to assert X, deny X, wonder whether X, or suppose X is generally to imply Y and suggest that Y is true and uncontroversially so.
Structure Presupposed p (33) a. The present King of France is bald. [subject] there exists a... b. I regret/remember/forgot/stopped seeing him. [factive v] I saw him c. All her friends are French-speaking. [quantifier] she has friends. d. Mary cooked the fish that John caught. [relative cl] John caught some fish. e. It was John who caught fish. [cleft] Someone caught fish. 2.3 Sense relations: oppositeness and dissimilarity (Allan 1986) 2.3.1 Anomaly Anomaly: involves incompatible presuppositions/knowledge about the world. (34) a.!i ate three phonemes for breakfast. b.!that unicorn s left horn is black. c.!colourless green ideas sleep furiously. 2.3.2 Contradiction Contradiction: involves incompatible entailments between expressions put together (35) a. The Morning Star is the Evening Star, and the Morning Star isn t the Evening Star. b. My brother is an only child. (36) X and Y are contradictory iff a. X and Y cannot both be true; whenever X is true, Y is false, and vice versa; b. a situation describable by X cannot also be a situation describable by Y. (37) I went to the pictures tomorrow; I took a front seat at the back. I fell from the pit to the gallery, And broke a front bone in my back. A lady she gave me some cho late; I ate it, and gave it her back. I phoned for a taxi and walked it. And that s why I never came back. (Anomymous) 2.3.3 Antonymy (38) a. The lights are on. b. The lights are off. [not A] = [B]; [not B] = [A] > complementary antonyms (39) a. John borrowed a book from Mary. b. Mary lent a book to John. [A] = [B]; [not A] = [not B] > converses (40) a. Michael is a happy child. b. Michael is a sad child. [not A] =/ [B], and vice versa > gradable antonyms
2.3.4 Ambiguity, homonymy, polysemy (41) A bird flew into the bank all of a sudden. Table 2.1 Homonymous relations in language Sound Spelling Meaning Homonyms (bank) same same different Homophones (tale-tail) same different different Homographs (tear) different same different (42) Mary found John a good friend. (43) Mary claims that John saw her fly. (44) Someone loves everyone. scope ambiguity: structural ambiguity triggered by quantifiers. 2.4 Conclusion Table 2.2 Semantic relations in terms of form, meaning, and linguistic level 2+ forms: 1 meaning Lexical: synonymy Structural: paraphrase 1 form: 2+ meanings Ambiguity Lexical Structural Homonymy (unrelated M) Polysemy (related M) Homonyms Homophones Homographs