3. Major sense relations 3.1 Synonymy同义词
Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.
1) Dialectal synonyms---- synonyms used in different regional dialects, e.g. autumn - fall, biscuit - cracker, petrol – gasoline…
2) Stylistic synonyms----synonyms differing in style, e.g. kid, child, offspring; start, begin, commence;…
3) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning, e.g.collaborator- accomplice,… 4) Collocational synonyms, e.g. accuse…of, charge…with, rebuke…for; … 5) Semantically different synonyms, e.g. amaze, astound,…
3.2 Antonymy反义词
a. Gradable antonyms----there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair, e.g. old-young, hot-cold, tall-short, …
b. Complementary antonyms----the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other, e.g. alive-dead, male-female, …
c. Relational opposites----exhibits the reversal of the relationship between the two items, e.g. husband-wife, father-son, doctor-patient, buy-sell, let-rent, employer-employee, give-receive, above-below, …
Complementary antonyms 3.3 Polysemy多义词
Polysemy----the same one word may have more than one meaning, e.g. “table” may mean: A piece of furniture
All the people seated at a table The food that is put on a table
A thin flat piece of stone, metal wood, etc. Orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc. ……
3.4 Homonymy
Homonymy---- the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, e.g. different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both.
Homophone同音字 ---- when two words are identical in sound, e.g. rain-reign, night/knight, …
Homogragh ---- when two words are identical in spelling, e.g. tear(n.)-tear(v.), lead(n.)-lead(v.), … Complete homonym---- when two words are identical in both sound and spelling, e.g. ball, bank, watch, scale, fast, …
Note: A polysemic word is the result of the evolution of the primary meaning of the word (the etymology of the word); while complete homonyms are often brought into being by coincidence.
3.5 Hyponymy上下义
Hyponymy ----the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word.
a. Superordinate: the word which is more general in meaning. b. Hyponyms: the word which is more specific in meaning. c. Co-hyponyms: hyponyms of the same superordinate. e.g. Superordinate: flower
Hyponyms: rose, tulip, lily, chrysanthemum, peony, narcissus, … Superordinate: furniture
Hyponyms: bed, table, desk, dresser, wardrobe, sofa, …
4. Sense relations between sentences (1) X is synonymous with Y X is synonymous with Y
X: He was a bachelor all his life. Y: He never got married all his life.
X: The boy killed the cat.
Y: The cat was killed by the boy.
If X is true, Y is true; if X is false, Y is false.
(2) X is inconsistent with Y X: He is single. Y: He has a wife.
X: This is my first visit to Beijing. Y: I have been to Beijing twice.
If X is true, Y is false; if X is false, Y is true.
(3) X entails Y
X: John married a blond heiress. Y: John married a blond.
X: Marry has been to Beijing. Y: Marry has been to China.
Entailment is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, then the meaning of X is included in Y. If X is true, Y is necessarily true; if X is false, Y may be true or false.
(4) X presupposes Y
X: His bike needs repairing. Y: He has a bike.
Paul has given up smoking. Paul once smoked.
If X is true, Y must be true; If X is false, Y is still true.
(5) X is a contradiction
*My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.
*The orphan?s parents are pretty well-off.
(6) X is semantically anomalous *The man is pregnant.
*The table has bad intentions.
*Sincerity shakes hands with the black apple.
5. Analysis of meaning
5.1 Componential analysis---- a way to analyze lexical meaning. The approach is based on the belief that
the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. For example,
?Man: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE] ?Boy: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE] ?Woman: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE] ?Girl: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE]
5.2 Predication analysis
1) The meaning of a sentence is not to be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its component words, e.g “The dog bites the man” is semantically different from “The man bites the dog” though their components are exactly the same.
2) There are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning, e.g. *Green clouds are sleeping furiously.
*Sincerity shook hands with the black apple.
Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions.
Predication analysis is a way to analyze sentence meaning (British G. Leech).
Predication----the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. A predication consists of argument(s) and predicate.
An argument is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal elements in a sentence.
A predicate is something said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.
According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, we may classify the predications into the following types:
One-place predication: smoke, grow, rise, run, … Two-place predication: like, love, save, bite, beat,… Three-place predication: give, sent, promise, call, … No-place predication: It is hot.
Tom smokes. ? TOM (SMOKE)
The tree grows well. ? TREE (GROW)
The kids like apples. ? KIDS (LIKE) APPLE I sent him a letter. ? I (SEND) HIM LETTER
Chapter 6 Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of language in use or language communication; the study of the use of context to make inference about meaning.
---- the study of how speakers of a language use sentences to effect successful communication. Some basic notions in Pragmatics Context
Pragmatics vs. semantics
Sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning
Correctness vs. appropriateness Context
Context---- a basic concept in the study of pragmatics. It is generally considered as constituted knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer, such as cultural background, situation(time, place, manner, etc.), the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, etc.…. Pragmatics vs. semantics
Semantics---- is the study of the literal meaning of a sentence (without taking context into consideration).
Pragmatics---- the study of the intended meaning of a speaker (taking context into consideration), e.g.
“Today is Sunday”, semantically, it means that today is the first day of the week; pragmatically, you can mean a lot by saying this, all depending on the context and the intention of the speaker, say, making a suggestion or giving an invitation… Sentence meaning vs. utterance meaning ---- Sentence meaning:
Abstract and context-independent meaning; literal meaning of a sentence;
having a dyadic relation as in: What does X mean? ----utterance meaning:
concrete and context-dependent meaning; intended meaning of a speaker;
having a triadic relation as in: What did you mean by X? For example, “The bag is heavy” can mean a bag being heavy (sentence meaning);
an indirect, polite request, asking the hearer to help him carry the bag; the speaker is declining someone’s request for help.
Note: The meaning of an utterance is based on the sentence meaning; it is the realization of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or simply in a context; utterance meaning is richer than sentence meaning; it is identical with the purpose for which the speaker utters the sentence.
Correctness vs. appropriateness
*“John play golf”---- grammatically incorrect;
?“Golf played John” ---- logically incorrect; but it might be appropriate pragmatically in certain context.
Speech act theory
Speech acts is a term derived from the work of the philosopher J. L. Austin (1962) and now used to refer to a theory which analyzes the role of utterances in relation to the behavior of the speaker and the hearer in interpersonal communication. It aims to answer the question “What do we do when
using language?”
Two types of utterances
Constatives (叙述句) ---- statements that either state or describe, and are thus verifiable;
Performatives (施为句) ---- sentences that do not state a fact or describe a state, and are not verifiable.
Note: Sometimes they are easy to get confused, e.g.“It is raining outside” can be a constative, and also a performative, for by uttering such a sentence, we may not only state a fact, but involve in the act of informing someone about the rain. Some Examples of Performatives “I do”
“I name this ship Elizabeth.”
“I give and bequeath my watch to my brother.” “I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.” “I declare the meeting open.”
Austin’s new model of speech acts
----According to Austin’s new model, a speaker might be performing three acts simultaneously when speaking: locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.
The locutionary act----an act of saying something, i.e. an act of making a meaningful utterance (literal meaning of an utterance);
The illocutionary act----an act performed in saying something: in saying X, I was doing Y (the intention of the speaker while speaking).
The perlocutionary act----an act performed as a result of saying something: by saying X and doing Y, I did Z.
For example,“It is cold in here.”
Its locutionary act is the saying of it with its literal meaning the weather is clod in here; Its illocutionary act can be a request of the hear to shut the window;
Its perlocutionary act can be the hearer’s shutting the window or his refusal to comply with the request.
----Analyze one more example: “You have left the door wide open.”
Note: Of the three acts, what speech act theory is most concerned with is the illocutionary act. It attempts to account for the ways by which speakers can mean more than what they say.
Analyze the illocutionary acts of the following conversation between a couple: ----(the telephone rings) ----H: That? the phone. (1)
----W: I?m in the bathroom. (2) ----H: Okay. (3)
This seemingly incoherent conversation goes on successfully because the speakers understand each other’s illocutionary acts:
(1) Making a request of his wife to go and answer the phone.
(2) A refusal to comply with the request; issuing a request of her husband to answer the phone instead.
(3) Accepting the wife’s refusal and accepting her request, meaning “all right, I?ll answer it.” Searle’s classification of speech acts (1969) Assertives/representatives(陈述) Directives(指令) Commissives(承诺) Expressives(表达) Declarations(宣布)