Ch. 1 Semantics in Linguistics
Semantics and Semiotics:
Semiotics:
- The process of creating and interpreting symbols, sometimes called signification, is far wider than language. Scholars like Ferdinand de Saussure(1974) have stressed that the study of linguistic meaning is a part of this general study of the use of sign systems, and this general study is called Semiotics.
- Semioticians investigate the types of relationship that may hold between a sign and the object it represents, or, in de Saussure's terminology, between a signifier and its signified.
- One basic distinction, due to C. S. Pierce, is between icon, index and symbols.
Icon: similarity between a sign and the object it represents, as for example between a portrait and its real-life subject & a diagram of an engine and the real engine.
Index: the sign is closely associated with its signified, often in a causal relationship; smoke is an index of fire.
Symbol: a conventional link between the sign and its signified.(black clothes mourning)
Semantics: concentrate on linguistic meaning(language represents man's most sophisticated use of signs).
Three challenges in doing Semantics:
- circularity;
- how to make sure that our definitions of a word's meaning are exact(the question of whether linguistic knowledge is different from general knowledge) ;
linguistic knowledge: about the meaning of words
general knowledge: about the way the world is - what particular utterances mean in context.
cope with the problem of circularity, one solution is to design a semantic metalanguage with which to describe the semantic units and rules of all languages. We use metalanguage here with its usual meaning in linguistics: the tool of description. An ideal metalanguage would be neutral with respect to any natural languages, i.e. would not be unconsciously biased towards English, French, etc. Moreover it should satisfy scientific criteria of clarity, economy, consistency, etc.
To set up a metalanguage might help too with the problem of relating semantic and encyclopaedic knowledge.
In tackling the third problem, one traditional solution has been to assume a split in an expression's meaning between the local contextual effects and a context-free element of meaning, which we call conventional or literal meaning. - Each of these strategies will be investigated in later chapters of this book: the creation of semantic metalanguage, the modelling of conceptual knowledge, the theory of literal language, and factoring out context into pragmatics.
Semantics in a Model of Grammar:
For many linguistics the aim of doing semantics is to set up a component of the grammar which will parallel other components like syntax or phonology.
What kind of module is semantics?
The answer varies from theory to theory. The real problem is that units at all linguistic levels serve as part of the general enterprise: to communicate meaning. This means that in at least one sense, meaning is a product of all linguistic levels. Changing one phoneme for another, one verb ending for another, or one word order for another will produce differences of meaning. This view leads some writers to believe that meaning cannot be identified as a separate level, autonomous from the study of other levels of grammar. A strong version of this view is associated with the theory known as cognitive grammar, advocated by linguistics such as Ronald Langacker.
Word meaning and sentence meaning:
We call the mental store of these words a lexicon, making an overt parallel with the list of words and meanings published as dictionaries. (lexicon: not static, continually learning and forgetting words)
Phrases and sentences also have meaning, but an important difference between word meaning and phrase and sentence meaning-----productivity.
CHOMSKY generative grammar --- recursive in syntax
This insight has implications for semantic description. If a speaker can make up novel sentences and these sentences are understood, then they obey the semantic rules of the language. So the meanings of sentences cannot be listed in a lexicon like the meaning of words: they must be created by rules of combination too. Semanticists often describe this by saying that sentence meaning is compostitional. This term means that the meaning of an expression is determined by the meaning of its component parts and the way in which they are combined.
We see that meaning is in two places, so to speak, in a model of grammar: a more stable body of word meanings in the lexicon, and the limitless composed meanings of sentences.
Some important assumptions
Reference and sense: One important point made by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure(1974), whose ideas have been so influential in the development of modern linguistics, is that the meaning of linguistic expressions derives from two sources: the language they are part of and the world they describe.
Each oval is a word, having its own capacity for reference, but each is also linked to other words in the same language, like a cell in a network. The meaning of a word derives both from what it can be used to refer to and from the way its semantic scope is defined by related words.
(to be continued...)
Utterance, sentences and propositions
The most concrete is utterance; an utterance is created by speaking(or writing) a piece of language.
Sentences are abstract grammatical elements obtained from utterances.
Proposition: a description of an event or situation which might be shared element in different sentences.
To sum up, utterances are real pieces of speech. By filtering out certain types of(especially phonetic) information we can get to abstract grammatical elements, sentences. By going on to filter out certain types of grammatical information, we get to propositions, which are descriptions of states of affairs and which some writers see as a basic element of sentence meaning.
Literal and non-literal meaning
The basic distinction: distinguishing between instances where the speaker speaks in a neutral, factually accurate way, and instances where the speaker deliberately describes something in untrue or impossible terms in order to achieve special effects.
Non-literal uses of language are called figurative and are described by a host of rhetorical terms including metaphor, irony, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole and litotes.
Semantics and pragmatics
Morris:
syntax: the formal relation of signs to each other;
semantics: the relations of signs to which they denotes;
pragmatics: the relations of signs to their users and interpreters.
Carnap:
meaning described in relation to speakers and hearers = pragmatics
meaning abstracted away from users = semantics
Some semanticists would claim that there is some element of meaning common to all of these uses and that this common, non-situation-specific meaning is what semantics is concerned with. On the other hand, the range of uses a sentence can be put to, depending on context, would be the object of study for pragmatics.
One way of talking about this is to distinguish between sentence meaning(semantics) and speaker meaning(pragmatics).
Ch. 2 Meaning, Thought and Reality
In semantics the action of picking out or identifying with words is often called referring or denoting. The entity referred to is usually called the referent. For some writers, denote is used for the relationship between a linguistic expression and the world, while refer is used for the action of a speaker in picking out entities in the world.
e.g. If a say A sparrow flew into the room, I am using the two noun phrases a sparrow and the room to refer to things in the world, while the nouns sparrow and room denote certain classes of items.
In other words, referring is what speakers do,while denoting is a property of words.
Another difference which follows from these definitions is that denotation is a stable relationship in a language which is not dependent on any use of a word. Reference, on the other hand, is a moment-by-moment relationship: what entity somebody refers to by using the word sparrow depends on the context.
Two approaches in semantics:
Referential approach: when their basic premise is that we can give the meaning of words and sentences by showing how they relate to situations.
Representational approach: when their emphasis is on the way that our reports about reality are influenced by the conceptual structures conventionalized in our language.
Two approaches are focusing on different aspects of the same process: talking about the world. In referential theories, meaning derives from language being attached to, or grounded in, reality. In representational approaches meaning derives from language being a reflection of our conceptual structures.
Types of Reference
Referring and non-referring expressions: There are linguistic expressions which can never be used to refer, e.g. if, not. These words do of course contribute meaning to the sentences they occur in and thus help sentences denote, but they do not themselves identify entities in the world. We will say these are intrinsically non-referring items. By contrast, nouns is a referring expression since it is being used to identify an entity. So nouns are potentially referring expressions. The second use of the distinction referring/non-referring concerns potentially referring elements like nouns: it distinguishes between instances when speakers use them to refer and instances when they do not.
Constant versus variable reference: One difference among referring expressions becomes clear when we look at how they are used across a range of different utterances. Some expressions will have the same referent across a range of utterances(constant ~), others have their reference totally dependent on context(variable ~).
Referents and extensions: We use the term referent of an expression for the thing picked out by uttering the expression in a particular context. The term extension of an expression is the set of things which could possibly the referent of that expression. So the extension of the word toad is the set of all toads.
Names
Names are definite in that they carry the speaker's assumption that her audience can identify the referent.
Description theory: a name is taken as a label or shorthand for knowledge about the referent, or in the terminology of philosophers, for one or more definite descriptions. In this theory understanding a name and identifying the referent are both dependent on associating the name with the right description.
Causal theory: names are socially inherited, or borrowed. At some original point, or points, a name is given, let us say to a person, perhaps in a formal ceremony. The great advantage of this causal theory is that it recognizes that speakers may use names with very little knowledge of the referent.
The causal theory stresses the role of social knowledge in the use of names, the description theory emphasizes the role of identifying knowledge.
Nouns and noun phrases
Nouns and noun phrases can be used to refer: indefinite and definite NPs can operate like names to pick out an individual.
Reference as a theory of meaning
...to be continued....
Ch. 3 Word meaning
P. 53-71
In this chapter we turn to the study of word meaning, or lexical semantics.
The traditional descriptive aims of the study of word meaning, or lexical semantics:- The relationship by which language hooks onto the world is usually called reference.
- The semantic links between elements within the vocabulary system are an aspect of their sense, or meaning.
Each oval is a word, having its own capacity for reference, but each is also linked to other words in the same language, like a cell in a network. The meaning of a word derives both from what it can be used to refer to and from the way its semantic scope is defined by related words.
(to be continued...)
Utterance, sentences and propositions
The most concrete is utterance; an utterance is created by speaking(or writing) a piece of language.
Sentences are abstract grammatical elements obtained from utterances.
Proposition: a description of an event or situation which might be shared element in different sentences.
To sum up, utterances are real pieces of speech. By filtering out certain types of(especially phonetic) information we can get to abstract grammatical elements, sentences. By going on to filter out certain types of grammatical information, we get to propositions, which are descriptions of states of affairs and which some writers see as a basic element of sentence meaning.
Literal and non-literal meaning
The basic distinction: distinguishing between instances where the speaker speaks in a neutral, factually accurate way, and instances where the speaker deliberately describes something in untrue or impossible terms in order to achieve special effects.
Non-literal uses of language are called figurative and are described by a host of rhetorical terms including metaphor, irony, metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole and litotes.
Semantics and pragmatics
Morris:
syntax: the formal relation of signs to each other;
semantics: the relations of signs to which they denotes;
pragmatics: the relations of signs to their users and interpreters.
Carnap:
meaning described in relation to speakers and hearers = pragmatics
meaning abstracted away from users = semantics
Some semanticists would claim that there is some element of meaning common to all of these uses and that this common, non-situation-specific meaning is what semantics is concerned with. On the other hand, the range of uses a sentence can be put to, depending on context, would be the object of study for pragmatics.
One way of talking about this is to distinguish between sentence meaning(semantics) and speaker meaning(pragmatics).
Ch. 2 Meaning, Thought and Reality
In semantics the action of picking out or identifying with words is often called referring or denoting. The entity referred to is usually called the referent. For some writers, denote is used for the relationship between a linguistic expression and the world, while refer is used for the action of a speaker in picking out entities in the world.
e.g. If a say A sparrow flew into the room, I am using the two noun phrases a sparrow and the room to refer to things in the world, while the nouns sparrow and room denote certain classes of items.
In other words, referring is what speakers do,while denoting is a property of words.
Another difference which follows from these definitions is that denotation is a stable relationship in a language which is not dependent on any use of a word. Reference, on the other hand, is a moment-by-moment relationship: what entity somebody refers to by using the word sparrow depends on the context.
Two approaches in semantics:
Referential approach: when their basic premise is that we can give the meaning of words and sentences by showing how they relate to situations.
Representational approach: when their emphasis is on the way that our reports about reality are influenced by the conceptual structures conventionalized in our language.
Two approaches are focusing on different aspects of the same process: talking about the world. In referential theories, meaning derives from language being attached to, or grounded in, reality. In representational approaches meaning derives from language being a reflection of our conceptual structures.
Types of Reference
Referring and non-referring expressions: There are linguistic expressions which can never be used to refer, e.g. if, not. These words do of course contribute meaning to the sentences they occur in and thus help sentences denote, but they do not themselves identify entities in the world. We will say these are intrinsically non-referring items. By contrast, nouns is a referring expression since it is being used to identify an entity. So nouns are potentially referring expressions. The second use of the distinction referring/non-referring concerns potentially referring elements like nouns: it distinguishes between instances when speakers use them to refer and instances when they do not.
Constant versus variable reference: One difference among referring expressions becomes clear when we look at how they are used across a range of different utterances. Some expressions will have the same referent across a range of utterances(constant ~), others have their reference totally dependent on context(variable ~).
Referents and extensions: We use the term referent of an expression for the thing picked out by uttering the expression in a particular context. The term extension of an expression is the set of things which could possibly the referent of that expression. So the extension of the word toad is the set of all toads.
Names
Names are definite in that they carry the speaker's assumption that her audience can identify the referent.
Description theory: a name is taken as a label or shorthand for knowledge about the referent, or in the terminology of philosophers, for one or more definite descriptions. In this theory understanding a name and identifying the referent are both dependent on associating the name with the right description.
Causal theory: names are socially inherited, or borrowed. At some original point, or points, a name is given, let us say to a person, perhaps in a formal ceremony. The great advantage of this causal theory is that it recognizes that speakers may use names with very little knowledge of the referent.
The causal theory stresses the role of social knowledge in the use of names, the description theory emphasizes the role of identifying knowledge.
Nouns and noun phrases
Nouns and noun phrases can be used to refer: indefinite and definite NPs can operate like names to pick out an individual.
Reference as a theory of meaning
...to be continued....
Ch. 3 Word meaning
P. 53-71
In this chapter we turn to the study of word meaning, or lexical semantics.
to represent the meaning of each word in the language;
to show how the meanings of words in a language are interrelated.
Words and Grammatical Categories
It is clear that grammatical categories like noun, preposition etc., though defined in modern linguistics at the level of syntax and morphology, do reflect semantic differences: different categories of words must be given different semantic description. It seems that semantic links will tend to hold between members of the same group rather than across groups.
Words and lexical items
Words can be identified at the level of writing, where we are familiar with them being separated by white space, where we can call them orthographic words.
They can also be defined at the levels of phonology, where they are strings of sounds which may show internal structuring, which does not occur outside the word, and syntax, where the same semantic word can be represented by several grammatically distinct variants.
Bloomfield's definition about "word" : A word, then, is a free form which does not consist entirely of (two or more) lesser free forms; in brief, a word is a minimum free form.
Lyons(1968) 's idea for how to define words grammatically: the attachments between elements within a word will be firmer than the attachments between words themselves.
more details: https://prezi.com/u5xcbizr9x6i/definition-of-the-word-and-lexeme-and-its-relation-lexical/
Lexical Relations:
Homonymy: Homonoyms are unrelated senses of the same phonological word. Some authors distinguish between homographs, senses of the same written word, and homophones, senses of the same spoken word.
Polysemy: There is a traditional distinction made in lexicology between homonymy and polysemy. Both deal with multiple senses of the same phonological word, but polysemy is invoked if the senses are judged to be related.
Opposites(antonymy): are words which are opposite in meaning.
Words and Grammatical Categories
It is clear that grammatical categories like noun, preposition etc., though defined in modern linguistics at the level of syntax and morphology, do reflect semantic differences: different categories of words must be given different semantic description. It seems that semantic links will tend to hold between members of the same group rather than across groups.
Words and lexical items
Words can be identified at the level of writing, where we are familiar with them being separated by white space, where we can call them orthographic words.
They can also be defined at the levels of phonology, where they are strings of sounds which may show internal structuring, which does not occur outside the word, and syntax, where the same semantic word can be represented by several grammatically distinct variants.
Bloomfield's definition about "word" : A word, then, is a free form which does not consist entirely of (two or more) lesser free forms; in brief, a word is a minimum free form.
Lyons(1968) 's idea for how to define words grammatically: the attachments between elements within a word will be firmer than the attachments between words themselves.
more details: https://prezi.com/u5xcbizr9x6i/definition-of-the-word-and-lexeme-and-its-relation-lexical/
Lexical Relations:
Homonymy: Homonoyms are unrelated senses of the same phonological word. Some authors distinguish between homographs, senses of the same written word, and homophones, senses of the same spoken word.
Polysemy: There is a traditional distinction made in lexicology between homonymy and polysemy. Both deal with multiple senses of the same phonological word, but polysemy is invoked if the senses are judged to be related.
- Polysemous senses are listed under the same lexical entry, while homonymous senses are given separate entries.
Opposites(antonymy): are words which are opposite in meaning.
- complementary pairs(binary pairs): the negative of one implies the positive of the other.(dead, alive)
- gradable antonyms: where the positive of one term does not necessarily imply the negative of the other.(hot, cold)
- Reverses: where one term describes movement in one direction, and the other the same movement in the opposite direction(push/pull)
- Converses: a relation between two entities from alternative viewpoints, as in the pairs(employer/ employee)
- Taxonomic sisters: words which are at the same level in a taxonomy.(red, orange, yellow, green, blue)
Hyponymy: a relation of inclusion. A hyponym includes the meaning of a more general word. The more general term is called the superordinate or hypernym.
Meronymy: a part- whole relationship between lexical items.
Meronymy: a part- whole relationship between lexical items.
Member-collection: the word for a unit and the usual word for a collection of the units.(tree/forest; book/library)
Portion-mass: the relation between a mass noun and the usual unit of measurement or division.(drop of liquid/ grain of sand)
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