Semantics

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Semantics
Corso diLingua Inglese 1
M. De Meo M. Cordisco
Fisciano - SA 3-5 dicembre 2007
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The study of meaning

• What is meaning?
• To what extent is it a linguistic matter?
• what bits of meaning are given to us directly by
  the forms of the language?
• What kind of theory of meaning is best suited to
  the linguistic facts?

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• The study of meaning
• is called semantics
• and semantics
• is a branch of linguistics.

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Meaning and Language

• Meaning is connected to language via
• the lexicon
• grammar
• Also
• what we do with language

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Grammar and meaning

• Although they are often distinct from each other,
  they come together in the category of tense.
• Tense is the grammaticalization of time.
• While time is an aspect of physics and
  psychology, tense is the way we express time in
  grammar.
• Only some languages build the time distinctions
  into the grammar.

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• Not all languages have a tense system but all
  have a way of expressing time.
• Example in Chinese there is no tense system
  expressed by the verb but time is expressed by
  the words associated to the verb.
• How many tenses do we have in English?
• Only two!
• The future tense is expressed by present forms of
  the verbs that carry different meanings.
• e.g. Im going out tonight.
• I will think about it.
• Even the past tense forms are not confined to
  past events.
• e.g. If I spoke better French, I could get a job
  in Paris.

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• In other words, whether a language has 2, 3 or
  more tenses to epress time, its speakers dont
  have the slightest difficulty in talking about
  any desired point in time, past, present or
  future.

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Conceptual versus associative

• Give a definition of the word diet. (e.g. I
  decided to go on a diet)
• 1. the food that you eat and drink regularly.
• 2. a limited variety of food that you eat for
  medical reasons or because you want to loose
  weight.
• (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary)

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• Conceptual meaning refers to the essential
  components of meaning in relation to the literal
  use of a word. (also called denotation)
• Associative meaning is a set of subjective,
  cultural and/or emotional associations in
  addition to the literal meaning of a word. Its
  an emotional association with a word. (also
  called connotation)

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• Semantics is mainly concerned with the conceptual
  meaning of words and less concerned with its
  associative meaning.
• It is often useful to avoid words with strong
  connotations when striving to achieve a neutral
  point of view. A desire for more positive
  connotations is one of the main reasons for using
  euphemisms.

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• A euphemism is an expression intended by the
  speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or
  troubling to the listener than the word or phrase
  it replaces, or in the case of doublespeak to
  make it less troublesome for the speaker.
• 1.c, 2.a, 3.b

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Guess the words missing
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(No Transcript)
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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

• Chomsky's notorious sentence is anomalous
• why?
• It follows the rules of English grammar but it is
  not meaningful.

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Differenciating meaning

• The kinds of nouns which can be subjects of the
  verb sleep must have specific semantic features.
• A very general feature can be animate being (
  animate) or human, -human, male, -male.
• They represent the basic features in
  differenciating the meaning of each word.
• E.g. That _______ works in a bank.
• N (human)

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• Differenciating meaning, according to semantic
  features, is not always easy, especially if we
  try to distinguish words such as advice, warning,
  etc.

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Semantic roles

• Instead of considering a word like a container of
  meaning we can look at the role it performes in a
  sentence.
• My sister rang the bell with her elbow
• agent theme instrument
• An agent of an action can be human or non human.
  (e.g. the cat rang the bell, the wind blew the
  ball away, curiosity killed the cat)

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• Mary saw a mosquito on the wall
• experiencer theme location
• And she hit the bug with the magazine.
• agent theme instrument
• She handed the magazine back to George
• agent theme goal
• The role of experiencer refers to the entity who
  has a feeling or a state.

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• The meaning of a sentence depends on at least 2
  things.
• The meaning of the words in the sentence.
• The grammatical structure of the sentence.

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Lexical semantics

• It is the study of word meanings.
• It deals not only with meanings of individual
  words, but also with the way in which the
  meanings of different words are related.

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• Lexical meanings
• sense relations
• synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy
• component features
• bachelor male, -married
• meaning and grammar
• putting meanings together

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• Definitions are not sufficient to explain
  meaning.
• The stereotype theory states that meaning makes
  sense to us when it matches the idea or the
  object we carry in our heads.

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• Can you write a definition of the word dog?

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• dog /dog/ noun 1 C an animal with four legs
  and a tail, often kept as a pet or trained for
  work, for example hunting or guarding buildings.
  There are many types of dog, some of which are
  wild I took the dog for a walk. I could hear a
  dog barking. dog food - guard dogs - a dog and
  her puppies - see also guide dog, gun dog,
  hearing dog, lapdog, prairie dog, sheepdog,
  sniffer dog, tracker dog
• Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary

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• dodgy ???????? adj. (BrE informal) 1. seeming or
  likely to be dishonest. SYN Suspicious He made a
  lot of money using som very dodgy methods. I
  dont want to get involved into anything dodgy.
  2. not working well, not in good conditions I
  cant play, Ive got a dodgy knee. 3. involving
  risk, danger or difficulty. If you get into any
  dodgy situation call me.

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Synonymy

• Synonymy means that two or more words have the
  same meaning.
• begin/start
• below/beneath/underneath
• Words do not have meaning in isolation
• Beware that even when words in isolation have the
  same meaning, they most often have different
  associations or collocations

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Look at the following examples

• a. The baby started/began to cry as soon as they
  had left.
• b. I couldnt begin the car the battery was
  flat.
• Two words may be close in meaning and yet not
  collocate with the same items.
• Native speakers accept A as correct but not B

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Fill the matrix
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(No Transcript)
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Antonymy

• Antonyms are words which have opposite meaning.
• The water is neither hot nor cold.
• The table is neither clean nor dirty.
• The door is neither open nor shut.
• Janet is neither married nor single.
• My friend is neither male nor female.
• Your statement is neither true nor false.
• Her results are neither good nor bad.

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• Gradable antonyms (e.g. hot/cold tepid, warm,
  cool)
• Non-gradable antonyms (e.g. true/false,
  dead/alive)
• Reverses (e.g. tie/untie, lock/unlock)
• When a word doesnt mean the opposite, but the
  reverse. Unlock doesnt mean not lock but the
  reverse of lock.

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A word may have different opposites in different
contexts.

• light bag ______ bag
• light wind ______ wind
• light colours ______ colours
• rough sea ______ sea
• rough texture ______ texture
• rough area ______ area
• rough person ______ person
• rough calculation ______ calculation

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Take a look!

• light bag heavy bag
• light wind strong wind
• light colours dark colours
• rough sea calm sea
• rough texture smooth texture
• rough area quiet area
• rough person gentle person
• rough calculation precise calculation

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Hyponymy indicates a relationship of inclusion
between words.
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• The relation of hyponymy captures the idea of is
  a kind of as when you give the meaning of a word
  by saying
• an asp is a kind of snake.

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• Taxonomies may subdivide into greater specificity
  in some languages than in others.
• The task of the learner is to map L2 taxonomies
  on to L1 and note overlaps, gaps and partial
  correspondence.
• Native-speakers themselves often do not agree on
  hyponymyc relations many native speakers would
  include planes and boats under the superordinate
  vehicle while others think of vehicle only in
  terms of wheeled vehicle.

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Prototypes

• The concept of prototype helps explaining the
  meaning of certain words.
• It is an hyponym that best resembles the idea of
  the superordinate.
• e.g. a robin is considered a prototype of bird.

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Homonymy

• 1. Im just off to the bank to deposit a cheque.
• 2. The bank was steep and overgrown.
• Bank 1 e 2 are homonyms. They have the same form
  but different meanings.

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Polysemy

• They met at the foot of the mountain.
• He hurt his foot.
• Theres a diagram at the foot of the page.
• or
• Shes head of the department.
• Ill meet you at the head of the valley.
• Have you hurt your head?
• Foot and head have something about their meaning
  that carries over from one example to the next.
• They are polysemous. Foot is a single lexical
  item with multiple senses.
• There is no necessary implication that any one
  sense is primary.

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How many meanings or senses do you know for the
following English words?

• top page button ring

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Metonymy

• A type of relation between words based simply on
  a close connection in everyday experience
• Container-content relationship (can/juice)
• Whole-part relationship (car/wheels)
• Representative-symbolic relationship (king-crown)
• E.g. He drank the whole bottle.

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(homework) Consider the following English words
and decide whether they are best thought of in
terms of homonymy or polysemy, and why.

• cap face row club way bed match plot
• - Try translating them into your native language.
  
• - Are there several possible translation
  equivalents?

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Consider the translatability of the word back.
Which of the following sentences could be
translated using the L2 word meaning the rear
part of the human body?

• 1. She sat at the back of the class.
• 2. My back aches from all that work.
• 3. The index is in the back of the book.
• 4. Im tired, I want to go back.
• 5. The back of the chair is broken.
• 6. The back of your jacket is stained.
• 7. Open the back of the camera to put the film in.

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Collocations

• We know which words tend to occur with other
  words.
• Some collocations are joined pairs
• salt and pepper
• husband and wife
• knife and fork

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Compositional meaning
When the meaning of the phrase/sentence is the
result of the meaning of the single words
componing it So for example the first clause (as
well as the second) of I got up on the wrong
side of my bed, and therefore tripped over my
shoes. has compositional meaning, because it's
the literal sense. Therefore if you know the
meaning of all the words, plus you have the
syntactic parse, you can figure out what the
whole construction means. But in Watch out for
the boss--he must have gotten out of bed on the
wrong side. the meaning of the similar clause is
non-compositional or metaphoric it means
something other than rolling out of bed on to the
floor. Re-edit compositional meaning (to pay
again) Repay non compositional meaning (it
doesnt mean to pay again)
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Ambiguity

• The following sentences are ambiguous
• Identify the two possible interpretations
• Mary has plans to leave
• The chicken is ready to eat
• Ringing bells did not annoy him
• He likes galloping horses

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Metaphorical meaning

• The central meaning of a word may often be the
  basis of metaphorical extensions of a word.
• Metaphors enable us to talk about one thing in
  terms of another.
• Metaphors are useful in expanding existing
  concepts and creating new ones.

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Metaphors we live byLakoff and Johnson (1980)

• Most of our conceptual system is metaphorical in
  nature.
• Time is money
• Youre waisting my time
• Taking the bus will save you hours.
• I dont have time to give you.
• How do you spend your time these days?
• Ive invested a lot of time in her.
• I dont have enough time to spare with that.
• Youre running out of time.
• Its not worth your time.
• You dont use your time profitably.

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• Argument is war
• Your claims are indefensible.
• He attacked every weak point in my argument.
• His criticisms were right on target.
• I demolished his argument.
• Ive never won an argument with him.
• You disagree! OK, shoot!
• If you use that strategy, hell wipe you out.
• He shot down all my arguments.

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Even declaratives arent always statements
posh restaurant

• I need a tie.
• statement
• (Appropriate reply
• What a shame.)

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Even declaratives arent always statements

• I need a tie.
• request
• (Possible reply
• Well show you
• everything we have, sir.)

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Even declaratives arent always statements

• I need a tie.
• order
• (Appropriate reply
• Certainly, sir,
• Ill bring one
• immediately)

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• Meaning doesnt just depend on linguistic
  knowledge of words but also on the context of use.

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Key to the homework.

• cap - polysemy
• face - polysemy
• row homonymy (homographs)
• club - homonymy
• way - homonymy
• bed - polysemy
• match - homonymy
• plot - polysemy