Linguistics5

Semantics

∗ Language uses a system of linguistic signs, each of
which is a combination of meaning and phonological
and/or orthographic forms.
∗ Semantics is traditionally defined as the study of
meaning in language.

Semantics
∗ Linguists and dictionary makers face considerable
problems in dealing with meaning. There are two
traditional schools of theories of meaning: the
reference theory and the representation theory .
∗ Some have been trying to establish definitions of the
meanings of words so that the meaning of linguistic
expressions can be given. Saeed (1997) calls it the
definition theory.

The referential theory
∗ The referential theory holds that a linguistic sign
derives its meaning from it refers to something in the
reality.
∗ This suggests that language is a system of arbitrary
vocal symbols used for human communication.
∗ For example, words like man, fish, are meaningful in
that they each refer to an individual or a collection of
living beings existing in the reality.
∗ However, some linguistic signs, like God, ghost,
dragon, unicorn, merely denote something
imaginative.

The referential theory
∗ Some entities or concepts are hypothesized and so may
be contrary to the actual reality. For example, our
knowledge of the current social-political reality of
France tells us that the referent of the nominal phrase
"the King of France" in "The King of France is bald." is
non-existent, but this does not prevent us from taking
this sentence as meaningful.

The representational theory
∗ The representational theory holds that language in
general, and words in particular, are only an icon (or
representation) for an actual thing (or form) being
symbolized.
∗ In other words, they conjure in our minds pictures of
the things, happenings and ideas. This suggests that
there is one kind of "natural" resemblance or
relationship between words and the things represented
by them. For the most part, this seems to happen.
∗ But there are a number of function words, such as a, an,
the, or, which "conjure" no pictures of this kind.

Types of meaning
∗ According to Leech (1981), there exist seven types of
meaning, five of which are included in the associative
meaning.

Conceptual meaning
∗ Conceptual meaning is also called “denotative ( 指称
的） ", "logical" or "cognitive" meaning.
∗ This refers to the definition given in the dictionary. It is
widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic
communication and is integral to the essential
functioning of language.
∗ For example, man can be defined by the contrastive
features [+Human], [+Male], [+Adult], as distinct from
girl, which can be defined as [+Human], [-Male], [-Adult].

Associative meaning
∗ This refers to the meaning associated with the
conceptual meaning, which can be further divided into
following five types:
∗ Connotative （内涵的） meaning: This is the
communicative value attributed to an expression over
and above its purely conceptual meaning.
∗ woman

Associative meaning
∗ Social meaning: This refers to what is communicated of
the social circumstances of language use, including
variations like dialect, time, topic, style.
∗ Affective meaning: This is what is communicated of the
feelings and attitudes of the speaker/writer towards the
listener and/or what is talking about.

Associative meaning
∗ Reflected meaning: This is the meaning when we
associate one sense of an expression with another.
∗ Collocative meaning: This refers to what is
communicated through association with words which
tend to occur in the environment of another word.

Thematic meaning
∗ This is what is communicated by the way in which the
message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.
Now compare the following pair of sentences:
∗ (1) The young man donated the kidney voluntarily.
∗ (2) The kidney was donated by a young man
voluntarily.

Ambiguity
∗ Ambiguity refers to the linguistic phenomenon in which
one linguistic expression allows more than one
understandings or interpretations.
∗ Lexical ambiguity
∗ Structural ambiguity

Lexical ambiguity
∗ The multiple meaning of the utterance depends on the
meaning of the single word.
∗ For example, the sentence "I saw him at the bank" could
mean he was cashing a check at the money bank, or
fishing at the river bank, or even giving some blood at
the blood bank.

Structural ambiguity
∗ The multiple meaning of the utterance depends on the
sentence structure.
∗ For example, the following sentences allow for two
understandings
when
we
attribute
different
interpretations to its structure:
∗ Flying kites can be dangerous.
∗ Mike didn't beat his wife because he loves her.

∗ Ambiguity is not desirable in most cases. We can
employ the following means to disambiguate the
problematic expressions:
∗ (1) Pragmatic factors
∗ (2) Lexical or grammatical devices
∗ (3) Phonological devices

∗ Pragmatic factors
∗ The most commonly-used effective way of
disambiguation is to locate an ambiguous expression
and related it to the context. For example, the sight
of a fishing rod can normally justify our interpretation
of the word bank in the sentence "I saw him at the
bank." as "the river bank".

∗ Lexical or grammatical devices
∗ The most common way of disambiguation is to employ some lexical
and/or grammatical devices to alter the linguistic context, i.e. the
words and expressions occurring before or after a lexical item, e.g.
∗ (1) a. the bank of the river
∗ 　 b. the richest bank in the city.
∗ (2) a. It was because he loves his wife that he didn't beat her.
∗ 　 b. It was not because he loves his wife that he beat her.

∗ Phonological devices
∗ Stresses and other phonological devices can also help
to eliminate lexical and/or grammatical ambiguity, e.g.
∗ a. Do you know anything about the `greenhouse
effect?
∗ b. Do you know anything about the green `house?

The Traditional Approach
∗ The traditional approach is founded on the assumption
that the word (in the sense of lexeme) was the basic unit
of syntax and semantics.
∗ Ogden and Richards (1923) argue that the link between
words and things can be made only through the use of
mind. For every word, there is an associated concept.
They present the following triangle:

The Functional Approach
∗ Functional linguists emphasize the social aspect of
language and view language as "social semiotic". Text
is the basic unit of the semantic process and
represents choice the speaker makes in context.
∗ According to Halliday (1978), a text is what is meant,
selected from the total set of options that constitute
what can be meant.
∗ The meaning potential is characterized in two ways:
context of situation and context of culture, and can
be represented as the range of options that is
characteristic of a specific situation type.

The Pragmatic Approach
∗ This approach emphasizes the dependency of the
understanding of an utterance on the situational
context.
∗ What the hearer takes to be the speaker's meaning
is the meaning of the utterance. On most occasions,
the meaning of the speaker's utterance is the same
for each hearer.
∗ However, it may mean different things to different
hearers. In other words, his utterance has as many
meanings as it communicates to the different
hearers. A distinction is thus made between
sentence meaning and utterance meaning.

Synonymy and Antonymy

∗ Because of the way lexemes occur in sequence and the
way in which lexemes can substitute for each other, we
can recognize several kinds of sense relations between
lexemes.

Synonymy
∗ Words or expressions with the same or similar
meaning are said to be synonymous. In other words,
synonyms are words or expressions that share
common semantic features.
∗ couch ←→sofa,
∗ homely ←→ domestic;
∗ large ←→ big ←→ enormous ;

∗ However, true synonyms are rare. In most cases,
synonyms may differ in one or more of the following
aspects:
∗ A. Difference in origin
∗ B. Difference in the shades of meaning
∗ C. Difference in socio-expressive meaning
∗ D. Difference in stylistic meaning
∗ E. Differences in collocation and distribution

Antonymy
∗ Antonymy is the relationship of oppositeness of
meaning. When two or more lexemes or expressions
are "opposite" in meaning, they are said to be
antonyms. According to the semantic relationship,
antonyms can be loosely divided into three
categories:
∗ A. Complementary antonyms
∗ B. Gradable antonyms
∗ C. Relational opposites

∗ Complementary antonyms:
∗ dead - alive 　 single - married 　 male – female
∗ Gradable antonyms ： hot cold （ we can insert
adjectives like warm and cool between them along
the continuum. )
∗ Relational opposites :
∗ wife - husband 　 student - teacher 　 father - son

Meronymy and Hyponymy
∗ Meronymy is a term used to describe a part-whole
relationship between lexical items. Root, trunk, branch
and leaf are meronyms of a tree because they are in the
relationship of X is part of Y, or Y has X.
∗ Hyponymy is used to refer to a specific-general
semantic relationship between lexical items.
∗ Dog and cat, wolf and tiger are respectively hyponyms
(or subordinates) of livestock and wildlife, which in
turn are both hyponyms of animal.

Polysemy and Homonymy
∗ When a single lexeme has several meanings, it
is called polysemic.
∗ For example, the English word chip has several
meanings. It may mean "electronic circuit", "a
kind of food" or "a piece of wood".

∗ Homonymy refers to cases where lexemes with the
same phonological or morphological shape have
different meanings.
∗ Homographs refer to words which are written in the
same way but differ in meaning and sometimes in
pronunciation or derivation as well. e.g. Lead
∗ Homophones are words with identical pronunciation
but with different spellings and meanings. Examples
include: flour flower, I eye

Intersentential Semantic
Relations
∗ An entailment refers to something that logically
follows from what is asserted in the utterance.
∗ In the following example, (a) entails (b) because
if we assert (a), i.e. the speaker really saw a boy,
then (a) is also true, i.e. he really saw a child.
Conversely, if (b) is false, i.e. the speaker didn't
see a child, then (b) is also false.
∗ (a) I saw a boy.
∗ (b) I saw a child.

Presupposition
∗ A presupposition refers to what is assumed by the speaker
and/or assumed by him to be known to the hearer before
he or she makes the utterance. Such semantic
presupposition can be defined as a truth relation. As in the
following example, if someone utters (a), then he or she
must presuppose (b); otherwise, what he or she utters is
nothing but nonsense:
∗ (a) Mary's dog is barking. (p)
∗ (b) Mary has a dog. (q)

Implicature
∗ In communicative practice, the speaker may use an utterance to
imply further information. He may imply what he does not
literally mean. Such information is called implicature.
∗ Sometimes, the interpretation of such implications largely
depends on the contexts in which the utterance is made. In the
following example, the utterance (a) in some situations may be
taken as a request like (b):
∗ (a) Don't you think it's quite stuffy here?
∗ (b) Would you please open the windows to air the room?

Componential Analysis

∗ Componential analysis defines the meaning of a lexical
element in terms of semantic components or semantic
features. Each word has certain semantic elements of its
own.

Tautology
∗ Tautology traditionally refers to a proposition which is
automatically true by virtue of its meaning but
informatively empty. The following are some examples:
∗ (1) Hungry people are hungry.
∗ (2) A bachelor is unmarried.
∗ (3) This orphan has no father.

Metaphor
∗ Words and phrases may be used to achieve certain
special effect and do not have their usual or literal
meaning. Metaphor is a non-literal use of words and
phrases in which one thing is spoken of as if it were
some other thing. For example,
∗ The man is a tiger.

Knowledge
∗ Getting knowledge about something is like making a
map of a place or like travelling there. Teaching
someone is like showing them how to reach a place.
∗ This term, we will be exploring the psychology of
sport.
∗ In today’s class, I will map out the most important
concepts.

Knowledge
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗

We can approach the subject from several directions.
Can you give me a few pointers? What should I read first?
It is an excellent guide to English vocabulary.
The program allows you to navigate the Web more easily.
The first step in learning a language is to learn its sounds.
This aspect of his work is very much uncharted territory.
We’re on surer/more familiar ground here.
New students have to take an orientation course.

Knowledge
∗ When you have some knowledge about something, it
is
∗ as if you are shining a light on it. Not having
knowledge is like being in darkness.
∗ Allow me to shed/throw some light on the matter.
∗ Can you enlighten me as to what your intentions
∗ are?
∗ There are a couple of points that I’d like you to clear up.
∗ Her work has greatly illuminated this aspect of the
subject.

Knowledge
∗ This spotlights/highlights the problems of bilingual
children.
∗ He kept us in the dark about his plans.
∗ The book concerns the shadowy world of espionage.
∗ I only have a dim recollection of what happened next.
∗ I haven’t got the foggiest/faintest idea.

Angry
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗

Being angry is like being hot or on fire.
She burned with indignation.
He has a fiery temper.
Jack was a hot-tempered young man.
Their parents were having a heated argument/debate about where to go.
They were having a blazing/flaming row.
She often flares up over nothing.
It made my blood boil.
I lost my cool.
Alison was getting very hot under the collar.

Angry
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗
∗

Losing your temper is like an explosion.
When she told him, he nearly exploded.
He blew up at her.
Steve couldn’t contain his anger any longer.
It was an explosive situation.
I’m sorry I blew my top.
There was another angry outburst from Chris.
Alex was bursting with anger.
She’ll blow a fuse/a gasket if she finds out.
Bob went ballistic when he saw what they had done.
A major row erupted at the meeting.

∗ End of Lecture
∗ Thank you for your attention

Linguistics5

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