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Chapter 5 Meaning

5.1 Meanings of “meaning” 5.2 The referential theory 5.3 Sense relations 5.3.1 Synonymy 5.3.2 Antonymy 5.3.3 Hyponymy

5.4 Componential analysis 5.5. Sentence meaning 5.5.1 An integrated theory 5.5.2 Logical semantics

Semantics: the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular.

5.1 Meanings of “meaning”

Ogden & Richards: 16 major categories of meaning, with 22 sub-categories

Ogden, C. K. & I. A. Richards. 1923. The Meaning of Meaning[M]. London:

Routledge & Kegan Paul. Leech: 7 types of meaning

Leech, G. 1981[1974]. Semantics: The study of Meaning [M]. Harmondsworth:

Penguin.

? Conceptual meaning (概念意义): similar to reference (指称)

? Connotative meaning (内涵意义): some additional, especially emotive meaning. E.g. c.f. politician & statesman

Note: Connotation and denotation in philosophy CONNOTATION (内涵) DENOTATION (外延) E.g. human

? Thematic meaning (主题意义)

Question: How to explain the meaning of a word in the conceptual meaning? E.g. DESK

1) to point to a desk directly

2) to describe it as “a piece of furniture with a flat top and four legs, at which one reads and writes.

3) to paraphrase it as “a desk is a kind of table, which has drawers” 4) to give the Chinese equivalent 书桌

5.2 The referential theory Problems:

The concrete thing pointed at differs from the abstract concept behind the thing. The object pointed at does not directly correspond to the concept.

CONCEPT

Semantic triangle

concept

word thing

C.f. Sense & reference

1) Sense: the abstract properties of an entity—— concept —— connotation Reference: the concrete entities having these entities —— denotation 2) Every word has a sense, but not every word has a reference. E.g. grammatical words like but, if, and

5.3 Sense relations ? Sense ? Reference

Three kinds of sense relations: sameness relation, oppositeness relation, and

inclusiveness relation

5.3.1 Synonymy

SYNONYMY: the sameness relation ? Stylistic difference

E.g. Little Tom ___________ a toy bear. c.f. buy & purchase ? Connotative difference.

E.g. “I’m thrifty. You are economical. And he is stingy.” ? Dialectical difference E.g. c.f. autumn & fall

5.3.2 Antonymy

Antonymy: the oppositeness relation (1) Gradable antonymy

E.g. good: bad, long: short, big: small

gradable---comparative and superlative degree; lexicalization E.g. good & bad

graded against different norms---no absolute criterion E.g. c.f. a big car & a small plane

one member of a pair, usually the term for the higher degree, serves as the cover term E.g. How old are you?

C.f. Unmarked & marked

? Unmarked: the term is more often used

? Marked: the term is less used, odd, or unusual

(2) Complementary antonymy E.g alive:dead, male:female

NOTE 1: Not only the assertion of one means the denial of the other, the denial of

one also means the assertion of the other.

NOTE 2: No comparative or superlative degrees are allowed. E.g. alive, dead, 半死不活

*John is more dead than Mary. C.f. John is more mad than stupid.

C.f. Gradable and complementary

1. The difference between the gradable and the complementary is somewhat similar to

that between the contrary and the contradictory.

In logic, a proposition is the contrary of another if it is impossible for both to true, or

false.

E.g. The coffee is hot.

The coffee is cold.

A proposition is the contradictory of another if it is impossible for both to be true, or

false.

E.g. This is a male cat.

This is a female cat.

b

a a b

gradable complementary

2. The norm in complementary is absolute. E.g. male & female

3. There is no cover term for the two members of a pair. E.g. Is it a boy or a girl? *How male is it?

Exception: true & false (Pp 167)

(3) Converse antonymy E.g. buy: sell, lend: borrow

X buys something from Y. == Y sells something to X. RELATIONAL OPPOSITES

5.3.3 Hyponymy HYPONYMY

SUPERORDINATE HYPONYMS CO-HYPONYMS

flower

rose peony jasmine chrysanthemum tulip violet

AUTO-HYPONMY

living

plant animal

bird fish insect animal

human animal

tiger lion elephant …

5.4 Componential analysis carnation SEMANTIC FEATURES/SEMANTIC COMPONENTS: semantic units smaller than the meaning of a word. (Pp 170) E.g. boy: HUMAN, YOUNG, MALE

woman: HUMAN, ADULT, FEMALE YOUNG: ～ADULT FEMALE: ～MALE

E.g. father = PARENT (x, y) & MALE (x)

mother = PARENT (x, y) & ～ MALE (x) son = CHILD (x, y) & MALE (x) die = BECOME (x, (～ALIVE(x)))

kill = CAUSE (x, (BECOME (y, (～ALIVE (y)))))

murder = INTEND (x, (CAUSE (x, (BECOME (y, (～ALIVE (y)))))))

? Synonyms: words or expressions with the same semantic components E.g. bachelor, unmarried man: HUMAN, ADULT, UNMARRIED ? Antonyms: words with contrasting semantic components E.g. cold & hot, give & take

? Hyponyms: words which have all the semantic components of another E.g. boy & girl are hyponyms of child Sense relations between sentences:

E.g.1.a. * John killed Bill but Bill didn’t die.

b. * John killed Bill but he was not the cause of Bill’s death. c. * John murdered Bill without intending to.

Entailment

E.g. a. John killed Bill.

b. Bill died.

Difficulties

1) Polysemous words will have different sets of semantic components. 2) The difference between the semantic components differs.

C.f. MALE and FEMALE (absolute) & ADULT and YOUNG (relative) boy and man (clear-cut)& girl and woman (vague)

3) There may be words whose semantic components are difficult to ascertain. Question: How to express the semantic features?

METALANGUAGE (原语言): a language used for talking about another language

5.5. Sentence meaning

1) The sentence meaning is not merely a sum of word meaning, and it is related to word order.

E.g. a. The man chased the dog.

b. The dog chased the man. 2) Sentences have thematic meaning. E.g. a. I’ve already seen that film.

b. That film I’ve already seen.

3) The sentence meaning is connected with its syntactic structure. E.g. The son of Pharaoh’s daughter is the daughter of Pharaoh’s son.

5.5.1 An integrated theory

Principle of COMPOSITIONALITY

systematic information

grammatical classification

dictionary idiosyncratic information

Semantic theory semantic information

projection rules

? Dictionary: to provide the grammatical classification and semantic information of

words

? Grammatical classification

Grammatical markers/syntactic markers Systematic information

? Systemic part — Semantic markers: (Male), (Female), (Human), (Animal) ? Idiosyncratic information — Distinguishers(辨义成分) E.g. bachelor

a. [who has never married];

b. [young knights serving under the standard of another knight]; c. [who has the first or lowest academic degree];

d. [young fur seal when without a mate during the breeding time].

? Projection rules: responsible for combining the meanings of words together

S

NP VP

Det N V NP

the man hits Det N

the Adj N

colorful ball

Selection restrictions

Problems

1. The distinction between semantic marker and distinguisher is not very clear. E.g. (Young)

2. The collocation of words may not be accounted for by grammatical markers, semantic markers or selection restrictions.

E.g. a. He said hello to the nurse and she greeted back.

b. My cousin is a male nurse. c. ? My cousin is a female nurse.

3. The use of semantic markers like (Human), (Male) and (Adult), is elements of an artificial meta-language.

5.5.2 Logical semantics sentence meaning

PREPOSITIONAL LOGIC(命题逻辑)/ PROPOSITIONAL CALCULUS(命题演算)/ SENTENTIAL CALCULUS(句子演算):