Chapter Six Semantics胡壮麟语言学讲义第六章(复习)

Chapter 6 Meaning

Teaching aims: enable the students to have a better understanding of semantics and wording meaning.

Focal points: Leech’s seven classifications of meaning, semantic triangle, sense relations between words and sentences

Teaching difficulties: sense relations between sentences, different types of antonymy

Teaching procedure：

The outline of the chapter:

1 Semantics

2 Meanings of “meaning”

2.1 meaning by Ogdan and Richards

2. 2 meaning by G. Leech

3 Theories

3.1 The referential theoryP95

3.1.1 concept

3.1.2 arguments

3.1.3 problems

3.2 Semantic triangle

3.2.1 concept

3.2.2 arguments

3.3 Conceptual meaning

3.3.1 concept

3.3.2 arguments p96

3.3.3 problems

4 Major Sense relations

4.1 Sense relations between words

4.1.1 Sense relations

4.1.2 word meaningP97

4.1.3 componential analysis: word meaning analysis 4.2 Sense relations between sentences

4.2.1 Sense relations

4.2.2 Sentence meaning

4.2.3 integrated theory (Sentence meaning analysis)

1 Semantics

The subject concerning the study of meaning is called semantics. In linguistics, semantics is thestudy of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular. Its goal is to reveal how language is matched with their proper meanings by the speakers of that language. Semantics is an old and young branch. Dating from Plato, the study of meaning has a long history.

So you may find several books bearing the title “semantics” but

talking about different things. Here we just focus on linguistic semantics.

In linguistics, compared with other branches we have discussed, semantics is very young and new. The term semantics is a recent addition to the English language.

It has only a history of over 100 years.

1893 French linguist Breal coined “semantique”

1897 Breal first use it as the science of meaning.

1900 its English version came out

1980s semantics began to be introduced into China “Cinderella of linguistics” (Kempson)

One of the most famous books on semantics is The Meaning of Meaning published in 1923.

2 Meanings of “meaning”

2.1 meaning (by Ogdan and Richards)

1) their book about meaning

2)arguments: 16 major category

What is the meaning of “desk”?√

I didn't mean to hurt you. (intend)

Life without faith has no meaning. (value)

It was John I mean not Harry (refer to ) √

2.2 meaning (by G. Leech)

1)his book about meaning

2)arguments: 7 major category

Denotation: the core sense of a word or a phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world.

Connotation: some additional, esp. emotive meaning.

3 Theories

3.1 The referential theory

3.1.1 concept

The referential theory Relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to, or stand for.

3.1.2 arguments

3.1.3 problems

3.2 the semantic triangle

3.2.1 concept

3.2.2 arguments

Proposed by Ogden & Richards in their “The Meaning of Meaning”. They saw the relationship between the word and the thing it refers to is not direct. It’s mediated by concept.

thought or reference

symbol referent

In this diagram, the symbol o r form refers to linguistic elements (words, phrases), the referent refers to the things in the real world, and t hought or reference refers to “concept”.

e.g. The dog over there looks unfriendly.

The word “dog” is directly associated with a certain concept in our mind, i.e. what a “dog” is like, but it is not directly linked to the referent (the particular dog) in this particular case. Thus, the symbol of a word signifies thing by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the mind of the speaker of a language, and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.

3.3 Conceptual meaning

Sense and reference are the two terms often encountered in the study of word meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning

3.3.1 concept.

1)Sense-----the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; It’s abstract and de-contextualized. It’s t he aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested in. It is concerned with the intra-linguistic relations.

2) Reference-----What a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; It deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements and the non-linguistic world of experience. For example, the word “dog” is given the definition “a common domestic animal kept by human beings for work, hunting etc or as a pet”. This doesn’t refer to any particular dog that exists in the real world, but applies to any animal that meets the features described in the definition, so this is the sense of the word “dog”. But if we say “The dog is barking”, we must be talking about a certain dog existent in the situation, the word “dog” refers to a dog known to both the speaker and the hearer. This is the reference of the word “dog” in this particular situation.

3.3.2 arguments

3.3.3 problems

To some extent, we can say every word has a sense, i.e. some conceptual content. But not every word has a reference e.g.

grammatical words like but if etc, don’t refer to anything. Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations.

e.g. I was bitten by a dog.

Mind you. There is a dog over there.

Here the two “dog” bear the sam e sense, but have two different references in the two utterances. Sometimes linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense

e.g. “morning star” and “ evening star” can refer to the same star “Venus”

4 Major Sense relations

4.1 Sense relations between words

Words are in different sense relations with each other. There are generally 3 kinds of sense relations: sameness relation, oppositeness relation and inclusiveness relation.

4.1.1 Sense relations

1) synonymy

Sameness or close similarity of meaning.

Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.

2) Antonymy

Oppositeness of meaning

Words that are opposite in meaning are antonyms.

Oppositeness can be found on different dimensions.

①Gradable antonymy (mainly adj.)

good/ bad, long /short, narrow/ wide

They are gradable. That is, the members of a pair differ in terms of degree. The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion of the other. There are often intermediate forms between them.

②Complementary antonymy

alive/ dead, male/ female, present/ absent, pass/ fail , boy/ girl

It is characterized by the feature that the denial of one member of

the pair implies the assertion of the other and the assertion of one means the denial

of the other.

In other words, it is not a matter of degree between two extremes, but a matter of either one or the other.

③Converse antonymy (relational opposites)

buy/ sell, lend/ borrow, before /after, teacher/ student, above /below

The members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities.

3) Hyponymy ( a matter of class membership)

the sense relation between a more general,more inclusive word and a more specific words .

cow/ animal, rose/ flower, honesty/ virtue

The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate, and the more specific word are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the same super-ordinate are co-hyponyms to each other.

4.1.2 word meaningP97

4.1.3 componential analysis:word meaning analysis

Componential analysis refers to an approach adopted by structural semanticists in describing the meaning of words or phrases. This approach is based on the belief that the total meaning of a word can be analyzed in terms of a number of distinct elements or meaning components (called semantic features)

The study of meaning in any language shows that lexical items overlap in meaning and share common properties e.g. Lions and tigers both contain an element of “wild animal ness”. Calf puppy and baby can be considered as all sharing an element of non adultness, while cow, woman and tigress all containing an element of “femaleness, But because of other properties each word contains, none of them will be said as being synonymous to any one of the others.

One attempt to account for this phenomenon is to assume that lexical items, like phonemes are made up out of a number of component parts. Componential analysis is often seen as a process

aiming at breaking down the meaning of a word into its minimal distinctive features or properties, which are also called components by some linguists. One way of describing the components of a word is to use feature symbols, which are usually written in capitalized letters, with “+” “-“ before them, plus sign indicates the presence of a certain property, and minus sign indicates the absence of it. e.g.

man : + HUMAN+ ADULT+ MALE

woman: + HUMAN+ ADULT- MALE

boy: + HUMAN- ADULT+ MALE

girl: + HUMAN- ADULT- MALE

words like father, mother, daughter and son, which involves a relation between two entities, may be shown as follows:

father = PARENT (X,Y) & MALE (X)

mother = PARENT (X,Y) & MALE (X)

verbs can also be analyzed in this way, for example

take = CAUSE (X, (HAVE (X,Y))

give= CAUSE (X, (HAVE (X,Y)))

?Advantages: by specifying the semantic features of certain words, we may better account for sense relations,

Synonymy ---- having the same semantic components Antonymy ----- having a contrasting component

Hyponymy-----having all semantic components of another.

?Disadvantages: It would be senseless to analyze the meaning of every

word by breaking it into its meaning components.

4.2 Sense relations between sentences

Sense relationships also exist between sentences

4.2.1 Sense relations

1) A entails B ( A is an entailment of B )

A: He has been to France.

B: He has been to Europe.

A: John picked a tulip.

B: John picked a flower.

Entailment is a relation of inclusion if x entails y, the meaning of x is included in y.

In term of truth value: If x is true, y is necessarily true; If x is false, y may be true or false; If y is true, x may be true or false, If Y is false, x is false.

In formula: A→B

-B→-A

2) Presupposition (A presupposes B)

A: The queen of England is old.

B: England has a queen.

A: Is your father at home?

B: You have a father.

It refers to the kind of meaning which the speaker doesn’t assert but assumes the hearer can identify form the sentence.

In term of truth value: If A is true, B must be true. If A is false, B is still true; If B is true, A is either true or false. If B is false, no truth value can be said about A.

In formula: A→B

-A→B

3) A is inconsistent with B

A: John is married

B: John is a bachelor

In term of truth value: If A is true, B is false and if A is false, B is true.

4 ) A is synonymous with B

A: The boy killed the dog.

B: The dog was killed by the boy.

5) A is a contradiction

My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.

6 ) A is semantically anomalous

The table has bad intentions.

4.2.2 Sentence meaning

The defining of sentence meaning has turned out to be a more complicated issue than the defining of the meanings of individual lexical items. The meaning of a sentence is not simply the sum total of the meanings of all its components. The meaning of a sentence is a product of both lexical and grammatical meaning. There are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning.

4.2.3 integrated thoery

1) the theory

2) main argument

3) semantic analysis

4) problems

Homework:

1 Explain the internal structures of the following words

Simplify dis-tempered sunflower desk

2 what are differences between inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes?

3 Analyze the sentence with the structural approach : The girl hit the colorful ball.

4 Give the name of the word-formation process for each of the following word and give the word(s) from which they are derived.

Workmate windmill Coke transistor boatel bus(verb) flu fan bike plane WTO NATO Radar tea laser enthusiasm.

5 What is positional relation? Explain the sentence:Boy the ball kicked the.

6 make 3 sentences in terms of relation of substitutability based on the

following sentence: The boy smiles.

7 Analyze the construction of the following sentences:

1)The boy like English. (from the traditional approach)

2)Mary passed the entrance exam. (from the structural approach)

8 Explain your understanding of the three theories we have learned by using the following words as proper examples: Mary chair table ghost God success

9 Does animal language have duality, why?

10 Explain the meaning of the following sentences by using the integrated theory. The man hit the colorful ball.

11 Explain the meaning of the following two sentences:

1)The man chased the dog.

2)The dog chased the man.

12 What are the differences between semantics and pragmatics?