5单元

V. SEMANTICS

5.1 What is semantics?

Semantics is the study of meaning in language.

Meaning is difficult to study. Many linguists have doubted whether meaning can be studied as objectively and as rigorously as grammar and phonology, for the present at least, because they have realized that the problem of meaning does not concern with linguistics, but also with logic, psychology, sociology, etc.

5.2 Some views on semantics

5.2.1 Naming things:

One of the oldest notions concerning meaning was the naming theory proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to this theory, the linguistic forms or symbols or words used in a language are simply labels of the objects they stand for. So word are just names or labels for things.

5.2.2 The conceptualist view

This view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to (i.e., between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. This is best illustrated by the classic semantic triangle suggested by Ogden and Richards.

The semantic triangle of Ogden and Richards

Thought or reference

Symbol Referent

In the diagram, the SYMBOL or FORM refers to the linguistic elements (words, phrase), the REFERENT refers to the object in the world of experience. And Thought or REFERENCE refers to the concept. For example, the word "dog" is directly associated with a certain concept in our mind, i.e., what a "dog" is like, but it is not directly linked to that particular dog mentioned in the sentence "The dog is barking". Thus, the symbol or a word signifiers "things" by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speaker of the language; and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.

5.2.3 Contextualism

From 1930 to 1960, linguists base meaning on context. They hold that meaning

should be studied in terms of situation, use, context—elements closely linked with language behavior. (J. R. Firth)

Situational context: every utterance occurs in a particular spatiotemporal situation the main components of which include apart from the place and time of the utterance, the speaker and the hearer, the actions they are performing at the time, the various objects and events existent in the situation.

Linguistic context: known as context, is concerned with the probability of a word’s co-occurrence or collocation with another word, which forms part of the meaning of the word, and also with the part of text that proceeds and follows a particular utterance

5.2.4 Behaviorism

Behaviorists, represented by Bloomfield, attempted to define the meaning of a language form as the "situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer". This view of meaning is illustrated by Bloomfield with an account of Jack and Jill “Jill is hungry. She sees an apple and gets Jack to fetch it for her by speaking to him”. The following diagram shows his view.

S R

r s

5.3 Lexical meaning

5.3.1 Sense and reference

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 dictionary compilers are interested in. Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real,physical world; itdeals with relationship between the linguistic elements (words, sentences, etc) and the non-linguistic world of experience.

5.3.2 Major sense relations

5.3.2.1 Synonymy

Synonymy is used to mean ‘sameness of meaning’. English is said to be rich in synonyms, because its vocabulary has two sources: from Anglo-Saxon on the one hand from French, Latin and Greek on the other. For example: brotherly/fraternal; buy/purchase; kingly/royal/regal. Five types of synonyms:

a)dialectal synonyms:synonymys used in different regional dialects lift/elevator; football/soccer.

b)Stylistic synonyms: words differing in ‘styles’: gentleman(formal)/man

(general)/chap (colloquial)

c)Synonyms that differ in emotive or evaluative meanings: statesman (respectful)/politician (derogatory)

d)Collocational synonyms: rotten food (eggs, meat, etc); addled eggs; rancid bacon or butter; sour milk

e)Semantically different synonyms: mature /ripe

5.3.2.2 Polysemy

Polysemy refers to the phenomenon that the same word has more than one meaning. Historically speaking, polysemy can be understood as the growth and development of or change in the meaning of word.That is, at first, a word may have one primary meaning. Later on it gradually came to acquire the other meanings it now represents.

5.3.2.3 Homonymy

Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having differentt meanings have the same form, i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. Homophones: two words are identical in sound (sea/see; right/write) Homographs: two words spelled in the same way, but pronounced differently. E.g.; lead (noun)/lead (verb)

Complete homonyms: two words are identical in both sound and spelling.e.g. Fast/fast 5.3.2.4 Hyponymy

Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the ‘superordinate’. The more specific words are called its ‘hyponym’. All the members that can be grouped under the same superordinate are called ‘co-hyponyms’. Hyponyms of the same superordinate are co-hyponyms. E.g:

Superordinate:flow

Hyponyms: rose, tulip, lily, daisy

5.3.2.5 Antonymy

Th e word ‘antonymy’ is used for ‘opposite ness of meaning .

a) gradable antonyms:some antonyms are gradable because there are often intermediate forms between the tow members of a pair. E.g. wide/narrow, old/young, big/small.

b) complementary antonyms: A pair of complementary antonyms is characterized by the feature that the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other.

E.g. single/married, alive/dead.

c) Relational opposites:Pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship

between the two item are called relational opposites.. E.g. win/lose, parent/child, in front of/behind.

1.4 Sense relations between sentences

(i) X is synonymous with Y

(Tom is an orphan is synonymous with Tom is a child and have no father or mother)

(ii) X is inconsistent with Y

(Tom's father has been dead for 5 years is inconsistent with Tom's father is working in a factory)

(iii) X entails Y

(Tom caught a sparrow entails Tom caught a bird)

(iv) X presupposes Y

(Is your father out presupposes You have a father)

(v) X is a contradiction

(This orphan has a father)

(vi) X is semantically anomalous

(The table is smiling at the bag)

5.5 Analysis of meaning

5.5.1 Componential analysis—a way to analyze lexical meaning

Componential analysis is a way proposed by the structural semanticists to analyze lexical meaning. The approach is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components 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

man: + HUMAN + ADULT + MALE woman: + HUMAN + ADULT – MALE boy: + HUMAN – ADULT + MALE gi rl: + HUMAN – ADULT – MALE

The advantage of componential analysis is that by specifying the semantic features of certain words, it will be possible to how these words are related in meaning. Besides, componential analysis provides an insight into the meaning of words and a way to

study the relationships between words that are related in meaning.

5.5.2 Predication analysis –a way to analyze sentence meaning

Sentence meaning:

(1) The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its componet, that is the meaning of a sentence is not to be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its constituent words.

(2) There are two aspects about sentence meaning:

Grammatical meaning: Grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, i.e., its grammatical well-formedness. The grammaticality of a sentence is governed by the grammatical rules of the language.

Semantic meaning: whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions, i.e., constraints on what lexical items can go with what others. These constraints are called selectional constraints because they can govern the selection of lexical items for insertion into underlying structure. Some sentences may be grammatically well-formed, yet they may not be semantically meaning. The reason is that they contain words which are not supposed to go together, thus vilationg the selectional restrictions, e.g.

Green clouds are sleeping furiously.

(3)Predication analysis

Prediction analysis was proposed by the British linguist G. Leech. In his framework of analysis, the basic unit is called predication, which is the abstraction of the meaing of a sentence. This apply to all forms of sentence, including staements, imperative and interrogative forms. A predication consists of argument(s) and predicate.

An argument is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal elements(s) in a sentence.A predicate is something said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.

Predications containing two arguments, one argument, or no argument are called a two-place predication, one-place predication, and a no-place predication respectively. The predicate can be regarded as the main element of the predication, for it includes tense, modality, etc. It may also be said to govern the arguments, for it determines the number and nature of the arguments.