IL2 Semantics - Lecture Notes for Introduction to Linguistics 2 PDF

Preview

Summary

Lecture Notes for Introduction to Linguistics 2...

Description

INTRODUCTION

TO

LINGUISTICS 2

SEMANTICS 

a linguistics discipline specializing in meaning of “words”



however, meaning transmitted through language is a complex issue.



even though it seems straightforward to us.



what is exactly meaning?

Words carry meaning but how consider a dictionary entry for CHAIR.

Arbitrariness of the sign: 

to start with the word itself.



an arbitrary combination of sounds.



arbitrariness of sign.



nothing chairy in the word chair.



certain points in perhaps



perhaps onomatopoeia.

Definition: 

description of conditions.



relation between a linguistics expression.



and the ‘real-world’ entity – world.



constructed by our experiences and thoughts. = a chair: a seat especially for one person usually having four legs for support and a rest for the back and often having rests for the arms.



consider the following. 

armchair



recliner



the object which the old man sat every afternoon.

representatives: 

obvious that not all objects are equally representative of the given defined category.



1

consider these:

 it depends on the way how or where you grew up.

 worksheet: Class 1 Reference: -

linguistic expressions used with the intention of communicating.

-

conveying information about the ‘real-world’.

-

often important to determine the given object precisely.

-

referent

-

the relationship between the word and the possible refereents.

-

denotation.

“Can you pass me the chair?”  heart the referent, linked the word to their own concept. Denotation is the neutral definition of a word. deictic expressions: -

help establishing a referent.

-

the / this / that / here / my / then…

-

point to people

-

objects

-

places

-

time etc…

 worksheet! to sum up:

2

-

linguistics systematic study of language.

-

semantics is a study of meaning.

-

meaning is relation between a linguistic expression (a word).

-

a mental category used to classify an object ( a concept).

-

and the given object.

-

denotation marks a generic item in the ‘real’ world.

-

reference is the choice of a possible referent.

Meaning revisited: -

meaning is relation between a linguistic expression ( a word)

-

a mental category used to classify an object ( a concept)

-

and the given object.

Compositional meaning: -

of sentences

-

of derivatives

-

of compound words

-

of inflected words.

Compositional meaning of sentences: -

semantic meaning = ‘meaning of the sentence itself’ (meaning of the individual parts of the sentence + the way in which they are combined).

-

pragmatic meaning = ‘communicative purpose of the sentence’ (situational and world knowledge).

in-convenien-ce Prefix - … - Suffix in- = ‘not x’ (meaning as not) -ce = ‘a state of being x’  ‘state of being not convenient’ Compositional meaning of compound words: dog house ‘small house that has been built for a dog to live in.’  house with a lot of dogs living in it?  cat house Compositional meaning of inflected words: The blue boxes looked terrific.  plural suffix in ‘boxes’ is not plural suffix in ‘the blue boxes looked terrific.’ Example: Handout exam!! 1. Which of the following units can be viewed as having non-compositional meaning and which are only compositional ones: 

desk  non-compositional meanings.



desktop  compositional meaning: 2 meanings: top of the desk; computer screen.



3

desktop computer  compositional meaning.



It is on my desktop.  compositional meaning:2 meanings: it could be on the desk or on the desktop of the computer.



My desktop is completely empty.  compositional meaning: actual desktop or desktop on the computer.

Which of the previous compositional units are ambiguous - which can be interpreted in more than one way? Think of the context for each of the possible interpretations. 2. Looking at compositionality of meaning, think of morphological and semantic issues influencing the meanings of the following words: 

postman  compositional (man from the post.)



dog house  most generally compositional / could have idiomatic meaning.



cat house  compositional



smog  compositional



lived  compositional (becuase the -ed)



look after  non-compositional



kick the bucket  compositional (ambiguous)



cranberry  non-compositional

The Mental Lexicon: Our very own storage of words (like a dictionary): Used in: -

speech production

-

comprehension

Entries ae called lexemes (grammatical words). Lexemes: Lexemes contain information about two aspects of a word: -

Form: spelling pronunciation, word class, inflectional class.

-

Meaning: semantics

-

Examples: “DIG” is the lexeme for “digging”

how are Lexemes stored? Unlike in a dictionary, NOT alphabetically, but with a multitude of links between lexemes forming a network. Linked lexemes, which are related in meaning, form so-called lexical fields. (links which are all based on meaning.) Example: DIG and DIGGER are both lexemes, and related in meaning.

Word association:

4

-

study by Aitschison (2003): 10 most common responses could be divided into 3 distinct groups with a shared common aspect. “red” – “color” Common aspect in meaning is called hyponymy.

connotation vs. sense relation:

o

difference between why someone would say color than saying other colors.

o

“color” is semantically related to “red”

o

the other colors are not semantically related to “red” ( it’s a connotation)

Hyponym – Hyperonym: Definition: Hyponym is a word or phrase whose lexical field is contained within that of another word. Example: ”hammer”, “wrench”, “screwdriver” are all hyponyms of “tool” “tool”

in

turn

is

the

hyperonym

(Überbegriff)

for

“hammer”,

“wrench”,

and

“screwdriver”.

!! Example:

 Poultry is the hyperonym and the other words would be co-hypernyms. Co-Hyponyms: -

Words which are classified in a common, higher level category are called cohyponyms.

-

So goose, chicken and duck are all co-hyponyms of their hyperonym poultry.

-

Co-hyponyms are the most common choices in word association.

-

Semantic (meaning) relations between words which share a crucial aspect of their meaning are called sense relations.

5

!! Example – Handout: 3. Create your own mental lexicon for the following three words: CAT

MOTHER

CURIOSITY 4. Match the hyponyms to their respective hyperonyms: ROOM DOG MEAL a) bulldog

= Dog

b) lunch

= meal

c) dinner

= meal

d) Labrador

= dog

e) classroom = room f) amphithetre

= room

g) breakfast = meal h) hall = room i) terrier

= dog

to clearify then: -

We store lexemes (words) in our mental lexicon.

-

There, words are organized in lexical field, i.e. they are linked in a. common aspect of meaning. This link is called sense relation.

-

This sense relation can be on the same level – in case of co-hyponyms, or on different levels – hyponym – hypernym.

-

lexemes are organized in a certain associative way in our minds.

-

we can organize them according to sense in lexical fields / networks.

-

organizationally important hierarchical sense relation of ‘hyponym’ is a kind of ‘hyperonym’.

6

-

what makes people associate these words with the color red.

-

not hyponymy, not a part of the same field.

-

not a sense relation, not related according to meaning.

-

connection based on the ideas the words are related to.

-

such a relationship based on culture and world-knowledge.

-

connotation: cheese – photography; table – church; forbidden - fruit

Example: 5. Think of your idea of the mental lexicon in the following example. Which of the associations would you keep and which do you think make no sense? Which of these (or some others) would be your top 10? What caused the difference in connotation? THE SUN yellow, hot, star, happiness, mayonnaise, sunflower, cooking oil, spot, explosion, sunburn, summer, cloud, blind, ice-cream, power, waves, light, face, smile

Sense relations – Oppositeness: consider: -

female: male

-

big: small

-

teacher: student

-

relationship of being opposite.

-

it is binary

-

test by a paraphrase  X is not Y (male is not female)

Oppositeness always concerned with pairs of words only.

Complementaries vs. antonyms vs converse relations: -

three types of oppositeness.

-

there is a clear difference between the following three pairs: o

brother – sister

o

hot – cold

o

employer – employee

Complementaries: -

either or rule

-

with animate nouns

-

if you are not male you are automatically female.

-

mother – father

-

bull – cow.

Antonymy:

7

-

adjectives

-

major characteristics is that they are gradable

-

i.e. hot – cold

hot – warm – tepid – chilly – frisky – cold thin – fat tall – short -

something in between exists!

Converse relation: -

context dependent

-

similar to complementaries.

-

you must be one of the two offered

-

within a given context.

-

i.e.: o

teacher – student

o

employer – employee

o

driver-passenger

!! Example: Handout 6. Match the pairs of opposites and identify which type of opposite relation it is (complementaries, antonyms or converses): dog

chair

dog – cat (converse)

black

smart

black – white (antonymy)

alive

broken

alive – dead (complemetaries)

plus

violence

plus – minus (complementaries)

table

dead

table – chair (converse)

stupid

minus

stupid – smart (antonymy)

peace

cat

peace – violence (complementaries)

whole

8

white

whole – broken (complementaries)

Same or different? -

Polysemy: 1a) The university will introduce study fees. (the institution) 1b) They built this university in the 1970s. (the building) 2a) Sam was dark, tall and handsome. (physically handsome) 2b) He made a handsome profit. 3a) I did a pretty good job. 3b) I`m looking for a new job.

-

o

multiple meanings of the lexeme.

o

lexemes may have more than one meaning.

o

polysemous lexemes are: 

lexemes with more than one meaning.



meanings are related.

Homonymy: 1a) I quickly swallow the rest of my coffee. (verb) 1b) A swallow can fly thousands of miles. (bird) 2a) He switched on the light. (noun) 2b) The parcel is as light as a feather. (light as in weight - adjective) 3a) We´ve got all our savings at the bank. (institution) 3b) They walked home along the bank river. (actual size of the river)

o

o

Homonyms are: 

Lexemes that are identical in form (phonological and orthographic).



but have unrelated meanings.

homographs: only orthographic desert (noun) vs. desert (verb)

o

homophones: only phonological brake vs. break

-

Synonymy: o

words that differ in form but are identical in meaning.

o

synonyms are to be considered different lexemes.

o

thesaurus for looking for synonyms helps with essay writing. 1a) You look beautiful in that dress. 1b) You look lovely in that dress. 2a) His job? – He is a teacher?

9

2b) His occupation? – He is a teacher. 3a) He tried to escape. 3b) He attempted to escape.

o

Thesaurus gives you 5 synonyms of the word beautiful. 

lovely, handsome, pretty, comely, fair



still, we cannot use all words interchangeably in any context.



subtle, but important differences.

1a) She is more beautiful than ever. 1b) ? She is more lovely than ever. 2a) Bis is beautiful. 2b) ? Bis is lovely. 3a) ? Richard is a beautiful person. 3b) Richard is a lovely person. 4a) ? That was a beautiful cup of tea. 4b) That was a lovely cup of tea.

Data about the use of words in context comes from electronic corpora. A corpus is a compilation of machine-readable texts (written and spoken. Corpora of English:

British National Corpus: 

contains 100 million words for samples.



used by linguists, dictionary makers



accessed online.



free of charge search function.



http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/

Problems involved in Synonymy: Polysemy

The parameters that determine situation-dependent variation:

10

-

the level of formality.

-

the medium.

-

the social or personal relationship between interlocutors.

Problems involved in Synonymy: Register:

Practice 2:

a. hyperonym – hyperonym - hyponym b. complementaries c. co-hyponyms of clean d. complementarries e. complementaries f. converses Practice 3:

11

sense relations: moth, insect (hyperonym), bird, bug (hyperonym) connotations: fly, yellow, net, pretty, flower.

Practice 4:

Practice 5:

Practice 6:

12

Practice 7:...