Semantics
1 What is semantics P68/62
2 Some views concerning the study of meaning
1) The Referential Theory / The Naming Theory P68/62
According to this theory, the meaning of a word or expression is the thing it refers to or stands for in the outside world, since words or expressions are used to refer to or name things. (既然词语是用来指称事物，为事物命名的，那么词语的意义就是它所指称的对象)
指称理论的核心是一个词语的意义就是它所指向的客观世界的事物，所以“李白”和“天安门”指向特定的人和物，而“演员”和“电冰箱”则指向一类人和物；“红色”“圆形”那样的词语则指向一个或类物体的性质。 意义---所指 weakpoints:
a) Sometimes meaning is not equal to reference, e.g Morning star----Evening star
b) The meanings of many words or expressions have no reference in the world. fairy, ghost, World War Three 王母娘娘 （无所指） 2) The conceptual theory P68/63
According to this theory, there is no direct association between words and the things in the real world (a linguistic form and what it refers to). Their association is realized by means of ―concept‖. In other words, the meaning of a word is the image/concept which is created by the word in the speaker’s or hearer’s mind. (词语的意义是词语在说话人和听话人头脑中所产生的形象或概念) Weakpoints:
a) It is too concrete to regard meanings as images, for the same word may create different images, e.g
He scratched his head. He is the head of the college. b) Some words, especially functional words, such as if, or, so, do not create images in people’s mind, but they do have meanings, e.g. if, the 3) contextualism P69
4) Behaviorism P70-71
3. Sense and Reference P71-72 / 65-66
Sense and reference are the two terms we often come across in the study of meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning.
Sense refers to the inherent meaning of the ling form. It is the collection of all the features of the ling form. It is abstract and de-contextualized. For example, the word ―desk‖ is defined as ― a piece of furniture with a flat top and four legs, at which one reads and writes‖. This meaning is called the sense of the word ―desk‖.
Reference means what a ling form refers to in the real , physical world; it deals with the relationship ling element and the non-ling world of experience. For example, if we say ―The desk is broken‖, we must be talking about a certain desk existing in the situation. The word ―desk‖
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refers to a desk known to both the speaker and hearer. This is the reference of the word ―desk‖. Sense relates to the complex system of relationship that holds between the linguistic elements themselves, and it is concerned only with intra- linguistic relations. While reference is the relationship between the words and the object, action or properties that the words stand for in the objective world. It deals with the extra- linguistic relationships between words and the world they describe.
Obviously, ling forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations, e.g.
a) I was once bitten by a dog.
b) Mind you. There is a dog behind you.
On the other hand, there are also occasions when ling forms with the same reference might diff in sense, e.g.
Morning star---evening star (Venus金星)
“他打我女儿我就打他老婆”
Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander. (sense and reference) 4. Major sense relations 4.1 Synonymy
a kind of semantic relation in which two or more words are exactly the same in essential meaning. In other words, synonyms share a likeness in denotative meaning as well as in part of speech (e.g. end and final are not synonyms). 1) Dialectal synonym
shop---store; film—movie post—mail
洗澡---冲凉；公鸡/母鸡（普通话）---鸡公/鸡婆（湖南话） 2) stylistic synonyms
employer—boss; investigate—look into; difficult---hard 食盐----氯化钠 故乡----家乡（语体） 3) in emotive or affective meaning slim----skinny; stateman--politician 技巧----伎俩 团结----勾结 4) collocational synonyms
A big mistake * a large mistake Many—much
交换（意见/礼物）---- 交流（思想/文化） 5) semantically different synonyms 4.2 polysemy
a word has more than one meanings or a set of different meanings
4.3. Homonymy
Three kinds of homonyms:
perfect homonyms words identical in sound and spelling but diff in meaning, You have to lie down ----put oneself in a resting position
Don’t lie, tell me the truth. ----make a statement one knows to be untrue Still water runs deep. (not moving)
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Do you still have her phone number?(up to this particular point of toime) homophones words identical in sound but diff in spelling and meaning
son—sun ensure---insure flower—flour night—knight right--write homographs words identical in spelling but diff in sound and meaning. Lead----guide by going in the front
Lead ----a kind of metal which can be easily melted 4.4. hyponymy
Animal
↙ ↘
Livestock wildlife ↙ ↓ ↓ ↘ ↙ ↓ ↓ ↘
Cat dog pig cow wolf tiger lion leopard 4.5. Antonymy
1) gradable antonyms
They are words opposite in meaning and they represent two polarities between which there is a continuum. For example, beautiful and ugly are gradable antonyms, in that we can insert adjectives like charmoing, pretty, good-looking,, homely, plain between them along the continuum.
beautiful—charming—pretty—good-looking—homely—plain--ugly
hot—warm—tepid(温)—lukewarm（微温）—cool—cold
rich—well-to-do—moderately wealthy—comfortably off—hard up—poor The gradable antonyms have three characteristics:
a) they can be used in comparative and superlative degree(faster, fastest) b) they can be modified by adverbs of degree, very, fairly, quite, rather, etc; c) they can follow how in questions (How large is the room?)
2) complementary antonyms
They are words whose crucial semantic features are mutually exclusive, or opposite to each other. The positive of one implies the negative of the other. There is no intermediate ground between the two . e.g. dead—alive, male—female. John neither passed nor failed in the exam. The weather is neither hot nor cold.
This kind of antonym can not be modified by adverbs of degree, ―very‖ (very dead, very male). And they do not have comparative or superlative degree forms either. Besides, they cannot appear in questions beginning with how.
A man cannot be neither alive nor dead. The Chinese ―半死不活‖ can only be used for someone who is still alive.
John is more dead than Peter. He is more dead than alive
= It is more correct to say he is dead than to say he is alive. (supporting evidence) He is more mad than stupid. 3) converse antonymy
They are words whose crucial semantic features display a reciprocal relationship. One
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member of the pair presupposes the other.
buy---sell husband—wife above—below X buys something from Y---Y sells something to X X is the husband of Y---Y is the wife of X
This type of antonyms is typically seen in reciprocal social relation(相互社会角色),kinship relation, temporal and spatial relationship. 5. Sense relations between sentences 1) synonymous
He is too young to go to school.
He is so young that he can not go to school He is not old enough to go to school 2) inconsistent 3) entailment
(a) John is a bachelor. (b) John is a man. 4) contradiction
My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor. That bachelor is pregnant. The spinster’s child is a cat. 5) anomalous
She murdered her husband by accident. The dog kicked the bucket.
This program is for the oper-lover who don’t like opera. Mr.White gave birth to a child 6. Analysis of meaning P79 / 72 6.1. Componential analysis
Componential analysis – a way to analyze lexical meaning
Proposed by structural semanticists, this approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components, which are called semantic features. Plus and minus signs are used to indicate whether a certain semantic feature is present or absent in the meaning of a word, and these feature symbols are usually written in capitalized letters. For example, the word ―man‖ is analyzed as consisting of semantic features of +HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE. One advantage is to show how the words are related in meaning. It is senseless to analyze the meaning of every word by dividing it into its meaning components. 6.2 Predication analysis P80 / 73 a way to analyze sentence meaning
1）The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components.
2）There are two aspects in sentence meaning: grammatical meaning (grammaticality, grammatical well-formedness) and semantic meaning (governed by selectional restrictions, which are constraints on what lexical items can go with what others).
Proposed by British G. Leech, the basic unit in semantic analysis of a sentence is called predication, which is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. A predication consists of argument(s)(论元) (logical participant and generally identical with the nominal element) and predicate (谓语) (something that is said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments). Grammatical form of a sentence does not affect its semantic predication.
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Predicate is the main element.
According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, predications may be classified into: two-place predication (containing two arguments), one-place argument (one) and no-place argument (no argument).
Exercise: T/F
1.Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations while linguistic forms with the same reference always have the same sense.
2. The contextualist view of meaning holds that meaning should be studied in terms of the situational context and linguistic context.
3.Of the views concerning the study of semantics, the contextual view, which places the study of meaning in the context in which language is used, is often considered as the initial effort to study meaning in a pragmatic sense.
4.The conceptualist view of meaning holds that there is no direct link between a symbol and reference, i.e. between language and thought. 5. If a word has sense, it must have reference.
6. In semantics，word sets like male/female，married/single，alive/dead，etc. ，can be taken as examples of complementarity.
7.There are words with more or less the same meaning used in different regional dialects.
8. Componential analysis is a way proposed by the structural semanticists to analyze sentence meaning.
9. All the grammatically well-formed sentences are not necessarily semantically well-formed.
10. When the lexeme X contains the semantic components occurring in the meaning of the lexeme Y, then X is the superordinate of Y.
11. ―He saw a child‖ entails ―He saw a girl‖.
12. Some words are always superordinates while some others are always hyponyms.
13. Entailment is a semantic relation of inclusion; thus the statement ―He is married‖entails―He has a wife.‖
14. Pairs of antonyms such as dead and alive, man and woman are called complementary antonyms because the denial of one member of a pair results in the assertion of the other.
15.An important difference between presupposition and entailment is that presupposition, unlike entailment, is not vulnerable to negation. That is to say, if a sentence is negated, the original presupposition is still true.
16. The superordinate term is more inclusive in meaning than its hyponyms.
17. Componential analysis is based on the belief that the meaning of a word cannot be dissected into components, called semantic feature.
18.One merit of componential analysis is that by specifying the semantic features of certain words, it will be possible to show how these words are related in meaning. 19. Two sentences using the same words may mean quite diffeerently.
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20. Conceptualists maintain that there is no direct link between linguistic form and what it refers to. This view can be seen by the Semantic triangle.
Multiple Choice
1. The semantic triangle holds that the meaning of a word ______. A. is interprepreted through the mediation of concept B. is related to the thing it refers to
C. is the idea associated with that word in the minds of speakers D. is the image it is represented in the mind
2. When the truth of sentence (a) quarantees the truth of sentence (b), and the falsity of sentence (b) quarantees the falsity of sentence (a), we can say that ______. A. sentence (a) presupposes sentence (b) B. sentence (a) entails sentence (b)
C. sentence (a) is inconsistent with sentence (b) D. sentence (a) contradicts sentence (b)
3. ―John killed Bill but Bill didn’t die‖ is a(n) ______.
A. entailment B. presupposition C. anomaly D. contradiction
4. The phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form is called ______. A. polysemy B. hyponymy C. antonymy D. homonymy 5. The naming theory was proposed by ______.
A. the Greek scholar Plato B. C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards
C. the British linguist J. Firth D. the American linguist L. Bloomfield 6.Predication analysis is a way to analyze _______ meaning. A. phoneme B. word C. phrase D. sentence 7. The classic semantic triangle reflects the ______
A. naming theory B. conceptual view C. contextualism D. behaviourist theory 8. The sentence ―John gave Mary a present‖ contains ______arguments. A. no B. one C. two D. three
9. The meaning relationship between the two words ― couch‖ and ―table‖ is ____. A. synonymy B. polysemy C. hyponymy D. co-hyponym 10. The pair of words ―lend‖ and ―borrow‖ are _______. A) gradable opposites B) relational opposites C) synonyms D) co-hyponyms
11. ―Words are names or labels for things.‖ This view is called ______ in semantic theory. A) mentalism B) conceptualism C) naming theory D) contextualism 12._______ are written identically but sound differently.
A) Homographs B) Homophones C) Homonyms D) Synonyms 13.Two words that are opposite in meaning are called ______.
A) synonyms B) homonyms C) antonyms D) homophones
14. ______ deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and non-linguistic world of experience.
A) Sence B) Reference C) Symbol D) Thought 15. ―I bought some roses‖ __________ ―I bought some flowers‖. A) entails B) presupposes
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C) is inconsistent with D) is synonymous with
16.Which of the following two-term sets show the feature of complementarity? A) single/married B) lend/borrow C) hot/cold D) old/young 17 ―Can I borrow your bike?‖ ____ ―You have a bike.‖ A)is synonymous with B )is inconsistent with C) entails D) presupposes
18. The semantic features of word ―girl‖ can be expressed as ______. A) +ANIMTE, -HUMAN, +ADULT, +MALE B) +ANIMATE, +HUMAN, -ADULT, +MALE C) +ANIMATE, +HUMAN, +ADULT, -MALE D)+ANIMATE, +HUMAN, -ADULT, -MALE
19.The semantic components of the word ―gentleman‖ can be expressed as __. A. [+animate], [+male], [+human], [-adult] B. [+animate], [+male], [+human], [+adult] C. [+animate], [-male], [+human], [-adult] D. [+animate], [-male], [+human], [+adult]
20.If two lexical items consist of the same components, they are ____ . A) synonymous B) homonymous C) hyponymous D) antonymous
21. What is the meaning relationship between the two words ―flower/rose‖? A) Homonymy B) Synonymy C) Polysemy D) Hyponymy
22. When a word is_____, the same form will stand in different sense relationships with different words.
A) hyponymous B) polysemous C)antonymous D) synonymous
23. What is the meaning relationship between the two words ―vegetable/tomato‖? A. Polysemy B. Homonymy C. Hyponymy D. Antonymy 24. Which of the following is not true?
A. Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. B. Sense is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form. C. Sense is abstract and de-contextualized.
D. Sense is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are not interested in.
25. ___________ is a way in which the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features.
A. Predication analysis B. Componential analysis C. Phonemic analysis D. Grammatical analysis 26. ―alive‖ and ―dead‖ are ______________.
A. gradable antonyms B. relational opposites C. complementary antonyms D. None of the above
27. _________ deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.
A. Reference B. Concept C. Semantics D. Sense
28. ___________ refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same
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form.
A. Polysemy B. Synonymy C. Homonymy D. Hyponymy 29. The words ¨sand, hair, rice, mud, wine〃 may be characterized in the lexicon with the semantic feature of
a) [+count] b) [-count] c) [+animate] d) [-animate]
30.The kind of antonymy between \ (A) converseness (B) relational opposites
(C) complementarity (D) gradable opposites 31.\ (A) inconsistency (B) presupposition
(C)semantic anomaly (D) tautology
32. In the study of meaning, ______ holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to.
A) naming theory B) conceptualist C) contextualist D) behaviourist
33. Synonyms are classified into several kinds. The kind to which ―girl‖ and ―lass‖ belong is called______ synonyms.
A. stylistic B. dialectal C. emotive D. collocational 34. The words ―baggage‖ and ―luggage‖ are ______. A. dialectal synonyms
B. synonyms differing in emotive meaning C. collocationally-restricted synonyms D. synonyms differing in styles
35. The words ―kid, child, offspring‖ are examples of ______. A. dialectal synonyms B. stylistic synonyms C. emotive synonyms D.collocational synonyms 36. The theory of semantic triangle is proposed by ______.
A. G. Leech B. Chomsky C. Bloomfield D. Ogden and Richard 37. The relationship between ―plant‖ and ―tree‖ is known as ______. A. entailment B. hyponymy C. homonymy D. synonymy 38. The relationship between ―begin‖ and ―commence‖ is ______. A. dialectal synonyms B. stylistic synonyms
C. collocational synonyms D. semantically different synonyms 39. The noun ―tear‖ and the verb ―tear‖ are ______.
A. homophones B. homographs C. polysemic word D. complete homonyms 17. ―John hit Peter‖ and ―Peter was hit by John‖ are of the same ______. A. proposition B. sentence C. Utterance D. Truth
40. The sense relation between the following two sentences is ______. X: John has given up smoking. Y: John used to smoke.
A. X entails Y B. X presupposes Y
41. Which of the following pairs of words can be categorized as collocational synonyms? A. touch—flashlight B. pretty—handsome
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C. amaze—astound D. luggage—baggage
42. The following pairs all belong to ―reversal antonyms‖ except ______.
A. push—pull B. buy—sell C. employer—empolyee D. pass—fail 43. What is the sentential relation between ―He likes skating.‖ And ―He likes sports‖? A. Presupposition B. Entailment C. Contradiction D. Hyponymy
Questions and answers
1. What is sense and what is reference? How are they related?
Sense and reference are two terms in the study of meaning. (1) Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It
is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning that dictionary compilers are interested in. Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. (2) Obviously, linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations. On the other hand, there are less frequent occasions when linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense, e.g. ―morning star‖ and ―evening star‖.
2. How many semantic relations are there among sentences? Give examples.
3.What are the semantic relations recognized in the study of lexical meaning? Use examples to show them.
4 In what way is componential analysis similar to the analysis of phonemes into distinctive features?
Componential analysis is a way propsed by the structural semantics to analyze word meaning. It is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. And the analysis of phonemes also believes that a phoneme can be analyzed into smaller components called distinctive features.
5 What is grammaticality? What might make a grammatically meaningful sentence semantically meaningless?
Grammaticality refers to sa sentence’s grammatical well-formedness and is governed by the grammatical rules of the language. If a sentence is grammatically perfect, yet it voilates selectional restrictions, i.e. constrains on what lexical items can go with others, and it then becomes grammatically meaningless.
6. Try to analyze the following sentences in terms of predication analysis: 1) The man sell ice-cream.
Two-place predication consisting of two arguments: MAN and ICE-CREAM, and the predicate (SELL) 2) Is the baby sleeping?
One-place predication: BABY (SLEEP) 3) It is snowing.
No-place predication: (SNOW) 4) The tree grows well.
One-place predication: TREE (GROW)
7 Study the following pairs of words. What is the basic lexical relation between these pairs of words?
(1) shallow—deep (2) mature—ripe (3) suite—sweet (4) table—furniture
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(5)single—married (6) move—run (7) roof—room (8)sew—sow
(9) beef—meat (10) sensation--passion
8 State the principal reason why “man” and “boy” are not considered to be synonyms?
The reason could be seen from the semantic components they include respectively. Man: +HUMAN. +MALE,
+ Adult; while boy: +HUMAN, +MALE, --Adult. Since they do not have the same semantic components, they are not considered to be synonyms.
9 Point out which sense relation between the following sentences a) Mohan has a brother.
b) Mohan’s parents had more than one child. c) Mohan exists.
d) Mohan has a male sibling
The relatioship between a) and b) is one of entailment.
The relationship between a) and c) is one of Presupposition.
The relationship between a) and d) is one of assertion/paraphrase 10 Identify the predication in the following sentences His car is next to my car. (Two-place predication) He is singing. (One-place predication) It is raining. (No-place predication)
11.Why do we say that a meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings
of all its components?
12 For each of the following words, identify what kind of antonym is involved (gradable, complementary, converse)
north/south vacant/occupied literate/illiterate above/below doctor/patient wide/narrow poor/rich father/daughter left/right far/near dark/bright ugly/beautiful good/bad expensive/cheap parent/offspring false/true lessor/lessee pass/fail
hot/cold legal/illegal larger/smaller
fast/slow asleep/awake husband/wife absent/present up/down fair/unfair moving/stationary aunt/uncle possible/impossible black/white agree/disagree beneficial/harmful far/near polite/rude
13. Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences or the constituents of the same sentence. 1) He likes swimming. He likes sports. 2) He speaks English.
He speaks a foreign language
3) This animal is a vegetable (contradiction) 4) A. John is the parent of James. B. James is the child of John.
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(A is synonymous with B)
5) A. Lily is standing with a piece of newspaper in her hand. B. Lily has a piece of newspaper. (A presupposes B) 6) A. Mary boiled an egg. B. Mary cooked an egg. (A entails B)
7) A. Peter is under the table. B. The table is under Peter. (inconsistency)
8) A. John is fatter than Michael and Michael is fatter than Jim. B. John is fatter than Jim. (A entails B))
9) The stone has a good idea. (anomaly) 10) A. When did he stop beating his wife.
B. He beat his wife (A presupposes B))
11) Carl was a bachelor all his life.
Carl never married all his life. (paraphrase) 12) This is my first visit to China.
I have been to China before. (inconsistency) 13) Ted bought two magazines.
Ted bought two things (entailment) 14) He has three girls.
He is a father. (presupposition) 15) He has no sister
His younger sister is beautiful. 16) Jane had another date with John.
Jane has had one date wuith John before. (presupposition)
17) My sister will soon be divorced.----My sister is a married woman. 18) John is the parent of James.----James is the child of John. 19) The bachelor is unmarried.
20) I saw Timothy at the anniversary party
----It was Timothy that I saw at the anniversary party. (paraphrase)
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(A is synonymous with B)
5) A. Lily is standing with a piece of newspaper in her hand. B. Lily has a piece of newspaper. (A presupposes B) 6) A. Mary boiled an egg. B. Mary cooked an egg. (A entails B)
7) A. Peter is under the table. B. The table is under Peter. (inconsistency)
8) A. John is fatter than Michael and Michael is fatter than Jim. B. John is fatter than Jim. (A entails B))
9) The stone has a good idea. (anomaly) 10) A. When did he stop beating his wife.
B. He beat his wife (A presupposes B))
11) Carl was a bachelor all his life.
Carl never married all his life. (paraphrase) 12) This is my first visit to China.
I have been to China before. (inconsistency) 13) Ted bought two magazines.
Ted bought two things (entailment) 14) He has three girls.
He is a father. (presupposition) 15) He has no sister
His younger sister is beautiful. 16) Jane had another date with John.
Jane has had one date wuith John before. (presupposition)
17) My sister will soon be divorced.----My sister is a married woman. 18) John is the parent of James.----James is the child of John. 19) The bachelor is unmarried.
20) I saw Timothy at the anniversary party
----It was Timothy that I saw at the anniversary party. (paraphrase)
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