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Semantics

Semantics. Part 1: An Introduction. Major concerns. What is meaning all about? How to represent meaning? reference/sense symbol/name referent/thing. The meanings of meaning. He meant to write. intended A green light means go. Indicate

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Semantics

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  1. Semantics Part 1: An Introduction

  2. Major concerns • What is meaning all about? • How to represent meaning? reference/sense symbol/name referent/thing

  3. The meanings of meaning • He meant to write. intended • A green light means go. Indicate • Health means everything. has importance • What the meaning of life? point • What does it mean to you? convey • What does ‘ghost’ mean? refer to in the world

  4. The real/possible world 1a. Plato b. piano 2a. ask b. difficult c. culture d. dragon

  5. Natural/conventional meaning • Plato There was an intrinsic connection between sound and sense. • Aristotle The connection between sound and meaning was purely arbitrary.

  6. Semiotics and semantics • Icon: a portrait vs. a real person • Index: smoke vs. fire • Symbol: black/white clothes vs. mourning

  7. Problems of definition • Circularity: large – big • Exactness a) linguistic vs. encyclopaedic b) folk vs. scientific: water – H20 c) collocations: strong tea – powerful car • Context: go for a run – take for a run a) ambiguity b) vagueness

  8. Semantics Part 2: Word Meaning

  9. Word relations • Homonymy: not vs. knot • Polysemy: dead • Synonymy • Antonymy a) complementary: dead/alive b) gradable: hot/warm/tepid/cool/cold c) reverse: come/go • Hyponymy/superordinate

  10. Word meaning • Noun • Pronoun/reflexive • Logic word 1. Peter is a linguist. 2. He likes him/himself. 3. Two and two makes four. 3. I got an interview at the BBC the other day and was shocked by the deteriora-tion of the city.

  11. Semantics Part 3: Sentence Meaning

  12. Necessary/sufficient condition • If no p then no q (nec cond) • If p then q (suf cond) • Iff p then q (nec+suf cond) Plants will not grow without water. Metal expands when heated. We’ll leave if and only iff we’re forced to.

  13. Necessary-contingent/a priori-posteriori/ analytical-synthetic truth 1a. Either he’s still alive or he’s dead. b. He is the first man to visit Mars. 2a. Two and two makes four. b. The panda is extinct. 3a. The morning star is the morning star. b. The morning star is the evening star. Metaphysical(1), epistemological(2) or semantic in orientation(3)

  14. Logic and empirical truth • p¬q (propositional) p ¬q T F F T 1.You are Chinese. 2.You are not Chinese.

  15. p∧q (propositional) p q p∧q T T T T F F F T F F F F 1a.The house is on fire. b.The fire brigade are on the way. 2.The house is on fire and the fire brigade are on the way.

  16. p∨q (inclusive) p∨eq (exclusive) p q p∨q p q p∨eq T T T T T F T F T T F T F T T F T T F F F 1. I’ll see you todayortomorrow. 2. Pay the fineoryou will go to jail.

  17. p→q (material/causal/counterfactual) p q p→q T T T (sufficient condtn) T F F F T T F F T 1. If it rains, I’ll go to the movies. 2. If you go to the party, I’ll go too. 3a. If I were you, I would take it. b. If I were you, I would not take it.

  18. p≡q (biconditional) p q p≡q T T T (nec+suf condtn) T F F F T F F F T We’ll leave if and only if we’re forced to.

  19. Entailment and presupposition p q p q T  T T  T F T/FFT F F ?  F T/F  T T/F  T 1a. She killed/didn’t kill the President. b. The President is dead. 2a. Her husband is/isn’t a fool. b. She has a husband.

  20. Presupposition triggers 1a. He didn’t pass the test. b. He failed (in) the test. c. He took the test. 2a. The enemy destroyed the city. b. The city was destroyed by the enemy. c. There was a city.

  21. Contd 3a. He’s even more stupid than you are. b. You’re stupid. 4a. What disgusted me was his behaviour. b. Something disgusted me. 5a. He realized that he was wrong. b. He thought that he was wrong. c. He was wrong.

  22. Strategy and truth value gap 1a. His brother is here. b. He has a brother. (Assertion 1) c. The brother is here. (Assertion 2) 2a. She’s bringing us a bottle of champagne. b. Who’s she? (Do I know her?)

  23. Context-free vs. context-bound 1a. He blamed me for telling her. b. He accused me of telling her. c. I told her. 2a. She cried before she finished her paper. b. She died before she finished her paper. c. She finished her paper.

  24. Contd 3a. It was Harry who Alice loved. b. Alice loved someone. 4a. It was Alice who loved Harry. b. Someone loved Harry. 5a. He does regret doing linguistics. b. He did linguistics. c. If he does linguistics, he’ll regret it.

  25. Semantics Part 4: Contextual Meaning

  26. Pragmatics and other disciplines Syntactics/syntax: the study of “the formal relation of signs to one another Semantics: the study of “the relations of sings to the objects to which the signs are applicable”(their designate) Pragmatics: the study of “the relation of signs to interpreters”

  27. Main areas of overlap • Semantics: intention, implication, presupposition, effects, etc. • Stylistics and sociolinguistics: social relation, extralinguistic setting, subject-matter, etc. • Psycholinguistics: attention, memory, personality, etc. • Discourse analysis: cohesion, coherence

  28. (Non)encoded meaning 1a. Can you cook? b. I know how to put a kettle on. 2a. How is your son? b. He’s grown another foot. 3a. Elton John sang at Diana’s funeral. Did you see it? b. I spent the whole day in Kensington Gardens. I felt I had to. The smell was amazing. Incredibly moving.

  29. Contd 4a. Would you like some more cake? b. Thank you. c. Merci. 5a. Tu vs. vous b. 你vs.您 6a. No smoking. b. Please flush after use.

  30. Grice’s cooperative principle • Maxim of quality: do not say that for which you lack evidence; do not say what you believe to be false. • Maxim of relevance: be relevant. • Maxim of quantity: make your contribu-tion as informative as is required, but not more so. • Maxim of manner: be perspicuous.

  31. Conversational implicatures • Implications the hearer believes the speaker intended to convey • Can be cancelled 1a. Some people there were miserable. b. Indeed everyone was, though some were showing it less than others.

  32. Relevance: a cognitive constraint The more information some stimulus yields, the more relevant it is said to become, but the more effort the interpretation of that stimulus requires, the less relevant it will become.

  33. Optimal relevance The hearer succeeds with least effort or without undue cognitive effort in arriving not merely at some most informative interpretation, but at the interpretation which the speaker intended (i.e. impli-cature).

  34. Contd - Elton John sang at Diana’s funeral. Did you see it? - I spent the whole day in Kensington Gardens. I felt I had to. The smell was amazing. Incredibly moving. Every woman cried as she went past the gates. Every woman cried as a) she came through the gates. b) she put down her flowers.

  35. Speech acts & felicity conditions • Locutionary/illocutionary/perlocutionary act, i.e. 发话/示意/取效 • Preparatory condition: promise, declare • Sincerity condition: apologize, believe • In the correct manner Will you shut the door?

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