Chapter Five Meaning

1. Chapter Five Meaning

2. What is Semantics ? Semantics is generally considered to be the study of meaning in language.

3. Meanings of meaning

4. G. Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning. Seven types of meaning: • Conceptual meaning • Connotative meaning • Social meaning • Affective meaning • Reflected and meaning • Collocative meaning • Thematic meaning

5. 3.1 Conceptual meaning • Also called ‘denotative’ or ‘cognitive’ meaning. • Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative content.

6. 3.2 Connotative meaning • The communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.

7. 3.3 Social meaning • What a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use. • Dialect: • Time: • Province: • Status:

8. 3.4 Affective meaning • Reflecting the personal feelings of the speaker, including his attitude to the listener, or his attitude to something he is talking about.

9. 3.5 Reflected meaning • Arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense.

10. 3.6 Collocative meaning • The associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment.

11. 3.7 Thematic meaning • What is communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis.

12. Denotation and Connotation • Denotation • Human • Tom • Mary

13. Denotation and Connotation • Connotation • Human • biped • Featherless • rational

14. 4. The Theory of Reference • What is Reference Theory? • What is concept?

15. 4. The Theory of Reference concept symbolizesrefers to symbol -------------------------------------- referent (word) stands for (object)

16. Desk

17. Nameing Theory In other words, the semantic relationship holding between words and things is the relationship of naming.

18. 5. Sense relations • That words ‘have meaning’ means only that they are used in a certain way in a sentence. There is no ‘meaning’ beyond the meaning of individual words and sentences.

19. The family tree • 舅父 = ‘mother’s brother’ • 叔叔 = ‘father’s younger brother’ • 伯父 = ‘father’s elder brother’ • 姨母 = ‘mother’s sister’ • 姑母 = ‘father’s sister’

20. One symbol must be related to other symbol. • Example • 温昌盛

21. Sense Sense relates to the complex system of relationships that hold between the linguistic elements themselves; it is concerned only with intra-linguistic relations.

22. Pairs of words can be formed into certain patterns to indicate sense relations. sow/boar, ewe/ram, mare/stallion

23. Narrow/wide, male/female, buy/sell, etc. show a different pattern related to opposition.

24. In fact, when we are talking of sense relations, we are talking of synonymy, antonymy etc.

25. 6. Sense Relations • Synonymy • Antonymy • Hyponymy Gradable Complementary Converse

26. 6.1 Synonymy • buy/purchase • thrifty/economical • autumn/fall • flat/apartment • tube/underground

27. 6.2 Gradable antonymy • good ----------------------- bad • long ----------------------- short • big ----------------------- small

28. 6.3 Complementary antonymy • odd : even • pass : fail • boy : girl • hit : miss • alive : dead • male : female • present : absent • innocent : guilty

29. 6.4 Converse antonymy • buy : sell • lend : borrow • give : receive • parent : child • husband : wife • teacher : student • above : below • before : after • host : guest • employer : employee

30. 6.5 Hyponymy • Inclusiveness • A is included in / a kind of B. • Cf.: chair and furniture, rose and flower • Superordinate/hypernym: the more general term • Hyponym: the more specific term • Co-hyponyms: members of the same class

31. Animalbird fish insect animal human animal tiger lion elephant ...

32. 7. Componential Analysis • HUMAN • man (ADULT, MALE) • woman (ADULT, FEMALE) • boy (NON-ADULT, MALE) • girl (NON-ADULT, FEMALE)

33. 8. Sentence Meaning • The meaning of a sentence is obviously related to the meanings of the words used in it, but it is also obvious that sentence meaning is not simply the sum total of the words.

34. The cat is chasing the mouse. • The mouse is chasing the cat. • I have read that book. • That book I have read.

35. An Integrated Theory

36. 8.1 Compositionality • An integrated theory • Katz & Fodor (1963): The structure of a semantic theory. A 40-page long paper published in Language. • The method itself is years out of date but the debate about the principle of compositionality is by no means over (Cruse, 2004: 77).

37. The idea behind the principle was to solve the problem of generating grammatical but incorrect sentences like Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • The purpose was to wage an attack on Chomsky’s basis assumption that correct sentences could be generated by syntactic transformations alone, disregarding the semantic rules at Surface Structure.

38. Although many semanticists turned away from Chomsky by developing formal semantic theories by themselves, Chomsky did admit soon that semantic rules would be found at Deep Structure as well as Surface Structure (EST) and later on placed semantic rules/representation in the S-Structure altogether (since REST). Other ideas were also incorporated into Chomsky’s later models of grammar, e.g. the concept of projection.

39. According to the principle of compositionality, each word in the lexicon is equipped with certain components and combinations of words into sentences must go through certain selection restrictions in order to produce acceptable sentences. Thus we can say colorful ball because

40. colorful {Adj} a. (Color) [abounding in contrast or variety of bright colors] <(Physical Object) or (Social Activity)> b. (Evaluative) [having distinctive character, vividness, or picturesqueness] <(Aesthetic Object) or (Social Activity)>

41. ball {NC} a. (Social Activity) (Large) (Assembly) [for the purpose of social dancing] b. (Physical Object) [having globular shape] c. (Physical Object) [solid missile for projection by engine of war]

42. Then it is possible to work out four readings of the combinations of color and ball, and further combinations with other words (projections) will determine which of the four is the actual meaning in the sentence John hit the colorful balls and We had a colorful ball last night.

43. 8.2. Noncompositional meaning • Idioms: cannot be built up as the sum of its parts. Idioms are phrases derived by metaphor and other types of semantic extension. • get up on the wrong side of the bed • in the doghouse • green with envy • kick the bucket • face the music

44. kick the bucket: which? A. Because she got mad, that hen kicked a bucket. B. A cartoon painter about to kick a bucket of paint. C. the process of dying

45. Frozen metaphors: a class of idiom-like expressions which may show some of the features of syntactic frozenness typical of idioms, such as resistance to modification, transformation, and so on, but which differ from idioms in an important respect: the effect of synonym substitution is not a complete collapse of the non-literal reading.

46. The ball’s in your court now. on your side of the net A cat can look at a queen. mousean archbishop I can read her like an open book. decipher He has one foot in the grave. both feettomb one legcoffin

47. I gave him a piece of my mind. partconceptual system He drives me up the wall. forcesroom partition He has a bee in his bonnet about it. hornethelmet

48. 8.4 Collocations

49. 8.5 Clichés • I’ve made my position absolutely clear. • I’ve given an unambiguous exposition of my views. • It’s raining dogs and cats. • He arrived safe and sound.

50. 8.6 Noun compounds • pocket knife: knife that can be carried in the pocket • kitchen knife: knife for use in the kitchen • meat knife: knife for cutting meat • tablecloth: cloth used to cover a table • dishcloth: cloth used to wipe dishes