Outline%20of%20Semantics

1
Outline of Semantics

• Forms of thought
• Mapping meaning onto language
• Word meaning
• Semantic features
• Prototypes and Stereotypes
• Relational meanings
• (Word meaning and) longer expressions
• Reference and Sense
• Sentence meaning
• propositions
• sentence v.s. utterance
• Discourse meaning cohesion, coherence,
• background knowledge, the cooperative principle
• Markedness

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Forms of thought

• A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a
  shower of words.
• Mental representation
• Have you ever had the experience of wanting to
  express a thought, but you couldn't find the
  words for it?
• Language is NOT the basic form of thought.
  (Then, what is?)

3
Mental Representation

• Mental imageries
• A. sound images
• B. visual images
• C. math
• D. movementaction patterns

4
Sound Images

• You can play music in your head, no?
• Reading music

5
Visual Images

• Pictures in your mind
• How do you find your way home?
• see the whole bus/car route home to school
• Remembering scenery the apt. I stayed in NYC, in
  Hsintien, and the one I stay now.
• Recognizing people matching pictures already in
  memory with what you see now.
• Painters Michelangelo
• Matching colors dressing.

6
Math

• Doing math problems in your head.
• (Hsin Swan ??)

7
Movement (Action Patterns)

• How to tie knots, use tools, dance, write Chinese
  calligraphy, tie your shoes, braid hair, use
  chopsticks, etc.
• Books explained with pictures and words often
  easier just to follow pictures
• E.g., origami

8
Transfer among Different Forms of Thought

• Yes, we do it all the time
• e.g. We describe pictures in mind in words form
  pictures from words heard put some sort of
  process into maththen explain in words for
  dance draw pictures of steps, etc.
• Therefore, language is not the basic form of
  thought. (And we dont really know what it
  maybe these forms are all basic, we have some
  sort of code that allows us to convert one to
  another).

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Semantics

• However, were interested here in semantics, the
  study of meaning in language, so basically were
  most concerned with how meaning is represented in
  language, but since we can convert one form of
  mental representation to another, semantics is
  related to all forms.
• Importance of meaning the basic function of
  language is communication
• Difficulty to define semantics completely

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Mapping Meaning onto language (1)

• Examples
• English, Chinese, Spanish He gave me a pen.
  (Nash 92)
• Turkish Babam bana topu verdi.
• (father to-me ball gave)
• actor recipient object action
• (possessed by speaker)
  (definite) (past, 3rd person, singular)
• 
  (witnessed by
  speaker)
• Hebrew Aba natan li et ha
  kadur.
• (daddy gave me the
  ball) actor
  action recipient definite object
• (past, 3rd person, singular,
  masculine)

object particle
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Mapping Meaning onto Language (2)

• None of these languages marks all the possible
  elements of meaning or everything we know (e.g.,
  sex of the receiver, how recently when the event
  occurred, how the giving was done).
• All these could be marked in language and each
  language chooses different aspects to mark.
• So, semantic elements are lang. specific.

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Mapping Meaning onto Language (3)

• Examples of possession
• A. my shoes
• can be thrown away when worn out, but other
  people not likely to wear them
• B. my chair
• but other people can sit in it
• C. my nose
• has nothing to do with others, nor will I throw
  it away

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Mapping Meaning onto Language (4)

• Note the differences
• A. He has a big nose.
• (Have I possess something more general
  than own)
• B. He owns a big nose.
• (You cannot own parts of your body only
  materials or object which you can give away or
  buy/sell it, can be owned.)
• C. He is the possessor of his big nose.
• (Possesscloser to own than to have)

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Mapping Meaning onto Language (5)

• How does a child learn semantics?
• Slobin Model (Nash 91)

KNOWLEDGE of the world
Parts of KNOWLEDGE marked in HUMAN LANGUAGE
Parts of KNOWLEDGE marked in language X (language
the child is learning)
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Mapping Meaning onto Language (6)

• Semantics is concerned with the bottom two parts
  of the diagram universal semantics (2nd part)
  and the semantics of particular languages (3rd
  part)
• The child first learns about the world, then
  aspects that have to be marked in language in
  general, and aspects that have to be marked in
  specific language.
• The child has to learn which aspects of
  situations the grammar requires us to mark
• Time, physical characteristics of objects,
  psychological, physical, social aspects of the
  people involved many other things . . . .

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Mapping Meaning onto Language (7)

• The childs problems of mapping meaning onto
  language
• A. Which aspects of knowledge of world would
  likely to be marked?
• B. Which aspects must be marked in a particular
  language?
• C. How are they marked? (words word order,
  affixes, function words, )
• So, well look at various attempts to explain how
  some aspects of our knowledge of meaning are
  expressed in language.

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Word Meaning

• Word meaning including
• A. features
• B. prototypes
• C. stereotypes
• D. relational meanings (degree, direction)
• E. reference and sense (take us into semantics
  of longer expressions)

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Features

• Definition more basic concepts/ideas that cannot
  be defined any further primitive semantic
  elements.
• Combinations of features - (e.g., see Nash
  94-95)
• A. Advantages
• 1. a universal element found in all langs.
  (Nash 95)
• 2. similar to phonological features
• B. Disadvantage very limited application

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Advantage 1 Universal

• While we may speak different languages, were all
  humans with the same human brain, perceive the
  world with the same human senses.
• e.g. HUMAN, ANIMATE, ROUND, MALE,
  FEMALE, LIQUID, - MOVEABLE, etc.

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Advantage 2 Similar to Phonological Features

• Psychologically similar to phonological features
• Same kind of mental operation from phonology ?
  semantics, the use of -
• Phonemes defined by its features
• e.g. /p/consonantal, -voiced, stop,
  bilabial

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Disadvantage

• Very limited applicationdo not work for many
  words
• e.g. A. chair/stool/bench/bean bag
• B. ugly/beautiful
• C. red/green
• D. table/desk
• E. book/pamphlet
• Lead to idea of prototypes
• activity have some students draw a tree

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Prototype (1)

• Definition a typical/ideal example (serving to
  represent the whole class) an examplar
• Concept of prototype helps to explain meaning of
  certain words in terms of resemblance to the
  clearest examplar.
• Eleanor Roschs experiments
• A psychologist at the Univ. of California at
  Berkeley
• Carried out experiments in order to test the idea
  that people regarded some types of birds as
  birdier than other birds, or some vegetables
  more vege-like, or some tools more tooly
• Questionnaires passed to more than 200 psychology
  students

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Prototype (2)

• A category name (e.g., fruit, vegetable, bird,
  clothing, etc.)
• About 50 examples for each category
• Rate how good an example of the category is, on a
  7-point scale
• Results surprisingly consistent
• A. bird
• Robin, sparrow, canary, dove, lark, parrot, owl,
  . . . peacock, duck, . . . penguin, ostrich, . .
  . bat
• B. clothing
• shirts, dresses, skirts, pajamas, bathing suit,
  shoes, stockings, tie, hat, gloves
• C. vegetable
• pea, carrot, cauliflower, . . . onion, potato,
  mushroom

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Prototype (3)

• Judgment not based on frequency of usage of the
  word (though likely to have some effect) nor on
  the basis of appearance or use
• People seem to have some idea of the
  characteristics of an ideal examplar (in Roschs
  words, a prototype). Then they match other
  terms against the features of the prototype to
  determine if its a member of the same category
  (i.e., sufficiently similar to the prototype, but
  not have to share all its characteristics).

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Stereotype

• Definition
• a list of typical characteristics which describes
  the prototype
• more abstract representation of possible
  qualities
• e.g. bird
• feathers, wings, beak, fly, lay eggs . . . .
• e.g., elephant
• gray, very thick-skinned, hairless, with a trunk
  and two tusks, heavy (adult weighing several
  tons)

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Relational Meanings

• Words may differ - a feature (e.g., man/boy,
  man/woman). But, many sets of words differ, or
  may be grouped, in other ways, including degree
  and direction.
• Degree amountcontrast to - of features
• e.g., hot/cold, long/short, tall/short,
  hard/soft, good/bad, wet/dry, beautiful/ugly
• Direction buy/sell, come/go, give/receive,
  borrow/lend, read/write.
• Note A. fatheralso relational (in a different
  way)
• B. kill and hurtcause and effect
  relations (Nash 95, 96)

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Longer Expressions

• Our examples of features for words like father,
  kill, hurt, etc. seem to remain at the word
  level. ? word meanings interact with syntax
• However, we have to use phrases and even clauses
  (e.g., x causes y pain) to get at word meaning.
• So, word semantics cannot be separated from the
  semantics of longer units of language, to which
  we now move ? reference sense.

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Reference Sense (1)

• Reference and sense applying to semantics of
  both words and longer expressions
• Reference dealing with the relationships between
  language and the world (Nash 98) part of
  language that refers to WHAT/Sth. (a real thing
  or person) in the world.
• e.g. My son is in the beech tree.
• (identify person) (identify thing)
• the largest city in Taiwan
• the students in the linguistics class
• my husband, dragon, ghost, all your children
  will be handsome

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Reference and Sense (2)

• Sense dealing with relationships inside the
  language. Something in the head extra meaning
  or an abstract ideaconcerned with relations
  within language itself relations with other
  words.
• e.g. The moon was bright last night.
  (reference, refers to a certain object)
• My love is like the moon. (sense, something
  more is involved in the phrase the moon than
  just the object)

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Reference and Sense (3)

• Sense but not reference function words, such as
  and, or, never, perhaps, otherwise, but. These
  make connections between meanings of different
  units of language.
• Every expression that has meaning has sense, but
  not every expression has reference.
• Same reference but different sense
• e.g. The evening star west. (sunset)
• The morning star east. (sunrise)
• Same object (same reference) but different sense
  (different aspect) different ways of referring
  to the same thing (i.e., the planet you see at
  different time)

Venus
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Reference and Sense (4)

• The same word can have more than one sense (i.e.,
  meaning). For example,bank
• a. I have an account at the Bank of Scotland.
• b. We steered the raft to the other bank of the
  river.
• c. The DC-10 banked sharply to avoid a crash.
• d. The banks of dark cloud promised rain.
• e. Who do you bank with?
• f. Hospital blood banks have saved many lives.

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Reference and Sense (5)

• Other examples
• my father/ the man who married my mother (same
  reference? Could be different? Different
  senses/meaning?)
• Could have different reference
• e.g. stepfather or illegitimate child
• ???/????
• different senses, although refer to the same
  person (same reference)

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Reference and Sense (6)

• Examples of reference/sense (Nash 99-100)
• When I said Turn in your homework, I meant the
  homework due today.
• When my niece said in Taiwanese that she wanted a
  cup of te, she meant drinking water, not tea.
• Thats the man! Which man do you mean? There
  are several men there.
• What does semantics mean?
• Its hard to say exactly what love means.
• Partial means not complete.

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Reference and Sense (7)

• In the above examples the first three ? reference
  (use refer to) the 2nd three examples ? sense
  (cannot use refer to)
• In every day conversation, the words meaning,
  mean, etc. are used to indicate reference
  sometimes, and sense other times.

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Sentence Meaning (1)

• Proposition the basic idea/thought of the
  sentence events or states say something about
  events/states.
• Proposition predicate argument(s) (Nash 19-20.
  84)
• A sentence can have more than one propositions.
• Proposition
• only linguistic element, without interpersonal
  meaning
• corresponds roughly to a complete independent
  thought

Aspect of entity, quality, state, activity,
relation with other entity/ things.
entity (some sort of thing)
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Sentence Meaning (2)

• sentence
• sentence or propositional meaning only
• utterance
• what speakers say or write you can give the
  time, date, place of an utterance
• includes intonation, stress, patterns, gestures
• has propositional and contextual (or
  interpersonal) meaning

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Sentence

• Definition a unit of language (an abstract
  thing, a part of language itself) a string of
  words put together by the grammatical rules of a
  language.
• Meanings of a sentence come from only within the
  language, independent of context.

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Utterance

• What speakers say or write you can give the
  time, date, place of an utterance (including
  intonation, stress, patterns and gestures)
• An event in the world which can be thought as an
  example of a sentence, or of part of a sentence
  (e.g., a phrase or a word)
• Definition the meaning of an utterance comes
  from both the language the context from
  features of language (e.g. intonation, stress,
  gestures)
• Different functions in context
• statement of fact thanks apology
• explanation tease promise
• suggestion insult
• denial request, compliment
• e.g. Mr. Nash likes tea. (Nash 20)
• argument argument
• predicate (shows
  relationship)

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Sentence Meaning (3)

• Propositional meaning (sentence) vs.
  interpersonal meaning (utterance)
• Proposition (Nash 84-85) vs. utterance (Nash
  100-101) analysis
• e.g. The book is open.accusation
• Tom opened the book

defense against accusation put blame on someone
else
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Sentence Meaning (4)

• Examples of utterance
• Can you open the window?mother to child
  (order)
• Is your homework ready?
• student student (can I copy it?)
• teacher students (now, turn it in)
• Meaning of utterances based on the context
  (depending on the interactions of the speakers
  and their relationship).

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Sentence Meaning (5)

• Sentence vs. utterance
• e.g. He loves her.sentence
• He loves her.utterance
• (in a movie/novel with context)
• Expressions without propositional meaning, only
  interpersonal meaning e.g. Hello, Goodbye,
  pardon, Hey, Hooray (? something like verbal
  gestures) (Nash 101)

(understand, but who are they?)
(with knowledge of reference of pronouns)
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Sentence Meaning (6)

• Utterance meaning has to be determined from the
  context (intentions of speaker/hearer, their
  relationship the time, place, roles)
• Sentence meaning (propositions) is independent of
  context.

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Sentence Meaning (7)

• Practice

Utterances Sentences Propositions
Can be loud or quiet
Can be grammatical or not
Can be true or false
In a particular regional accent
In a particular language
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Sentence Meaning (8)

• Practice

Utterances Sentences propositions
Can be loud or quiet - -
Can be grammatical or not -
Can be true or false
In a particular regional accent - -
In a particular language -
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Sentence Meaning (9)

• Utterance
• A concrete thing an event
• Can be spoken or written, context involved
• Sentence
• An abstract linguistic unit or structural form
• An abstract unit (including linguistic content)
• Flesh frame
• Proposition
• Ideas, concepts very loosely structured thinking
• Flesh only

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Proposition, Sentence, Utterance (1)

• Family tree relationship
• proposition
• sentence sentence sentence
• utterance utterance utterance utterance
  utterance utterance

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Proposition, Sentence, Utterance (2)

• A single proposition could be expressed by using
  several different sentences (e.g., He killed
  Jane, or Jane was killed by him) and each of
  these sentences could be uttered an infinite
  number of times.
• I do. a sentence, but can be uttered several
  times ? different utterances
• Elizabeth Tayor married several times. Every
  time when she said, I do. ? a different
  utterance.

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Proposition, Sentence, Utterance (3)

• mental processes
• thoughts
• abstract semantic entities
• propositions
• linguistic entities
• e.g. sentences
• actions e.g. utterances

• physical actions
• gestures

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Discourse (1)

• Language longer than a sentence naturally spoken
  or written language in context
• Paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc.
• Important at many levels syntax morphology
  meaning discourse structuresthe structures of
  units longer than a sentence.
• Textbook e.g. (Nash 101)
• The monster danced with Yang Li-Hua. He enjoyed
  it. She didnt.
• It shows meaning syntax have to be analyzed in
  units longer than a sentence.

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Discourse (2)

• Examples of different discourse structures
• A. writing
• a. paragraph
• b. composition (longer organization)
• c. book (chapter)
• d. storytypical structure chronological
  order
• e. sonnet, ????,????,????
• B. apartment descriptions
• American vs. Chinese

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Discourse (3)

• In conversation, discourse grows between
  speakersmany discourse pairs
• Greeting/greeting Q/A compliment/reply (accept
  or reject) complaint/apology, etc.
  (interpersonal meaning obviously involved here)
• Conversation casual/classroom/ ordered
  discussion/debate/interview/ritual (e.g. church
  ritual, graduation, wedding ritual, classroom
  ritual??.??.??.??)

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Discourse (4)

• Some important elements in discourse cohesion,
  coherence, background knowledge, the co-operative
  principle
• Cohesion
• the ties and connections which exist within
  texts.
• Something which exists in the language
• Two kinds of links
• Grammatical
• Lexical

Text a piece of spoken or written language.
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Cohesion (1)

• Examples of cohesion (Yule 140)
• pronouns, (e.g. he, my, I , it) lexical
  connections (e.g. Lincoln convertiblethe carthe
  convertible) general connections with shared
  meaning elements (e.g. moneyboughtsavingpenny
  worth a fortunesoldpay) relationship marker
  (e.g. however) tensefirst 4 sentences past
  tense, last one presenta different time.

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Cohesion (2)

• Cohesion the grammatical and/or lexical
  relationships between the different elements of a
  text. This may be the relationship between
  different sentences or between different parts of
  a sentence.
• Example
• A Is Jane coming to the party?
• B. Yes, she is.
• There is a link between Jane and she, also
  between is coming and is.

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Coherence (1)

• The relationships which link the meanings of
  utterances in a discourse or of the the sentences
  in a text.
• These links may be based on the speakers shared
  knowledge (background knowledge)
• e.g. A Could you give me a ride home?
• B Sorry, Im visiting my sister.
• Theres no grammatical or lexical link between
  As Q and Bs reply, but the exchange has
  coherence, because both A and B know that Bs
  sister lives in the opposite direction to As
  home.

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Coherence (2)

• Coherence that the text makes sensecoherence
  achieved more by people than by texts (than by
  language itself)we expect coherencewe try to
  arrive at an interpretation which is in line with
  our experience of the way the world is (Yule
  141).
• Generally, a paragraph has coherence if its a
  series of sentence that develop a main idea
  (i.e., with a topic sentence and supporting
  sentences which relate to it).
• An example of coherence without cohesion (Yule
  142)

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Coherence (3)

• A cohesive text, without coherence (Yule 141)
• Coherence sth. Which exists in people
  (experience of the world) beyond linguistic
  knowledge (i.e., beyond knowledge of the world,
  of how conversational interaction works)
• Obviously, theres something else involved what
  is it? in the interpretation of a conversation,
  except the information expressed in the
  sentences.

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Coherence (4)

• It is clear that language users must have a lot
  of knowledge of how conversational interaction
  works which is not simply linguistic knowledge.
• This leads us to Conversational Interaction
  (e.g., turn-taking, pauses, see Yule 143-144 ?
  read on your own) and Background Knowledge and
  Co-operative Principle.

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Background Knowledge

• Examples (Yule 146-47)inference, build-up,
  changing inference
• first two sentences Who is John?
• Hows he traveling? (plane? boat?)
• 3rd sentence Whos John? (How traveling?)
• 4th sentence Whos John?
• 5th sentence surprise
• We create what the text is about (not just the
  text does this), based on expectations of what
  normally happens (background knowledge).

60
The Cooperative Principle (1)

• In conversation participants are assumed (by
  others) to be cooperating. (Yule 145-146)
• Four Maxims set out by Grice (1975)
• Quantity as informative as is required no
  more, no less.
• Quality Dont say something you believe to
  be false or something you dont know.
• Relation Be relevant.
• Manner Be clear, brief, and orderly

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The Cooperative Principle (2)

• These are the normal expectations
• e.g., expectations about Quantity To make a
  long story short, I wont bore you with all the
  details.
• Quality As far as I know Correct me if I am
  wrong I think I feel Its possible
  that (maybe)

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The Cooperative Principle (3)

• The 4 maxims and the whole principle ? allow
  interpretations (see Yule 145 bottom)
• Carol Are you coming to the party tonight?
• Lara Ive got an exam tomorrow.
• Lara assumed to be relevant informative
  (quantity) exam tomorrow ?study tonight ? no
  party tonight (relying on background knowledge)
• Imagine she replies Linguistics is
  interesting.
• Just a brief introduction to Discoursemany more
  elements involved, very complex.

63
Lexicon (1)

• Lexicon
• the set of all the words idioms of any language
• a mental system which contains all the
  information a person knows about words
• Q Do the lexical items (words) of a language
  have some sort of overall structure/organization
  like phonology, morphology, and syntax have?
• No not reducible to rulesinstead a listing of
  meaningsdifferent from other aspects of
  language not predictable from overall rules.
• Whats the exact nature of a unit for definition?
  That is, what is a lexical unit (a word)?

64
Lexicon (2)

• Dictionary entry is not exactly what we think of
  as a word. Its really a paradigm an example of
  all the forms of a word, used to represent the
  whole set.
• Examples
• child (the word listed head word)represents
  child, childs, children, childrens
• taketake, takes, taking, took, taken.
• Some sets include only one member how, yet, often

65
Lexicon (3)

• How is the paradigmatic form chosen?
• e.g. find a new word in the dictionary
• ritualistic ? look up what?
• ritual
• larger ?look up?
• large

66
Unmarked

• The paradigmatic form is the unmarked form the
  form which does not seem special in any way
  the form that seems most basic, that has
  nothing added (phonemes, sounds, morphemes).
• e.g. child childs, children
• large larger
• car cars
• ritual ritualistic
• strangle strangulation
• old/young
• How old is she? the normal Q (Which is
  acquired first?)

67
Markedness (1)

• Markedness the theory that in the languages of
  the world certain linguistics elements are more
  BASIC, NATURAL, and FREQUENT (these elements are
  unmarked less basic, natural, frequent elements
  are marked)
• Examples
• A. Singular/plural nouns
• carcars (plural derived from singular in
  English, so singularunmarked plural marked)
• B. S-V-O sentence I dislike such people.
• O-S-V sentence Such people I dislike.
• Which is marked and which is unmarked?

68
Markedness (2)

• Marking may be a basic principle for assigning
  universal (and possibly innate) values to certain
  kinds of features

Slobin Model
(Nash 91)
69
Markedness (3)

• C. Frequency more frequent ?
• e.g. falling intonation vs. rising intonation
• D. Common more common ?
• (more specific marked)
• e.g. dog vs. bitch
• E. Distribution unrestricted (or less
  restricted in degree)
• unmarked
• e.g. How tall is John? vs. How short is John?
  (also, which is more natural?)

70
Markedness (4)

• Markedness theory applies at all levels
• A. phonology
• e.g. /p, t, k, s, n/ unmarked consonants
• /v, z, Q, ð/ more marked (less common)
• falling intonationunmarked
• rising intonationmarked
• B. lexicon e.g. dog vs. bitch (marked)
• C. morphology e.g. car vs. cars (marked)
• D. syntax e.g. active vs. passive (marked)

71
Markedness (5)

• Discourse e.g. politeness
• too polite unmarked too informal
• (marked) (marked)

Could you lend me a pencil?
Would you be so kind just let me borrow your
pencil for a minute?
Without saying anything, just grasp the pencil.
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Markedness (6)

• Unmarked elements easier to acquire
• Marked elements more difficult to acquire
• Some experimental evidence shows that teaching
  marked forms can lead to faster acquisition of
  both marked and unmarked forms, but teaching only
  unmarked forms wont help students learn marked
  forms.

73
Markedness (7)

• Problem
• Judging markedness still mostly by intuition
  (but, can we trust that?)
• Which is marked?
• his/her
• easy/difficult
• early/late
• dangerous/safe

74
Homework

• On markedness Yule 125 D (i)
• small/big, short/long, wild/tame,
  cheap/expensive, near/far, many/few, early/late,
  dangerous/safe, good/bad, fresh/stale,
  easy/difficult, strong/weak, thick/thin,
  wide/narrow, full/empty