Chapter 5 Semantics.doc

Chapter 5 Semantics1. What are the major views concerning the study of meaning?1. The naming theoryThe word used in a language is taken to be labels of the objects they stand for.2. The conceptualist view There is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to, they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.3. The contextualist viewOne can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds: situational context and linguistic context.Situational: Every utterance occurs in a particular spatiotemporal situation. Include: place and time of the utterance, the speaker and he hearer, the actions they are performing at the time and so on.The linguistic context, sometimes known as co-text E.g. The seal could not be found. The zoo keeper became worried.(seal meaning an aquatic mammal) The seal could not be found. The king became worried. (seal meaning the kings stamp)4. The behaviorist viewSituation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer.2. What is sense and what is reference? How are they related?Sense refers to the inherent meaning of a linguistic form, it is a collection of all the features of linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. For example the sense of the word dog is a domesticated canine mammal, occurring in many breeds that show a great variety in size and form. It does not refer to any particular dog that exists in the real world, but applies to any animal that meets the features described in the definition.Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. If we say” the dog is barking,” We must be talking about a certain dog existent in the situation; the word “dog” refers to a dog known to both the speaker and hearer. This is the reference of the word “ in the particular situation.It is matter of the relationship between form and the reality.3. Explain with example “homonymy,” “polysemy,”, and “hyponymy.”Homonymy refers to words identical in form (either in sound or in spelling, or in both) but different in meaning, (homophones, homographs, complete homonyms.) e.g. night-knight, lead v. lead n., bank (a financial institution) bank (side of a river)Polysemy refers to words having more than one meaning have the same form, e.g. earth our planet, the soil on its surface.Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive words and a more specific word. E.g. furniture-table.4. How can words opposite in meaning be classified? To which category does each of the following pairs of antonyms belong? left/rightfar/nearvacant/occupied father/daughter North/southdoctor/patientdark/brightugly/beautifulAntonyms can be classified into 3 categories, they are Gradable antonyms, Complementary antonyms and Relational opposites.5. Identify the relations between the following pairs of sentences;Toms wife is pregnant.Tom has a wife “Toms wife is pregnant” presupposes “Tom has a wife.”He likes swimmingHe likes sports.“He likes swimming” entails “He likes sports.”My sister will soon be divorced.My sister is a married woman.“My sister will soon be divorced” presupposes “My sister is a married women.”He speaks English.He speaks a foreign language.“He speaks English” entails “He speaks a foreign language.”6. In what way is componential analysis similar to the analysis of phonemes into distinctive features?In the light of componential analysis, the meaning of a word consists of a number of distinctive meaning features; the analysis breaks down the meaning of the word into these features; it is these different features that distinguish word meaning. Similarly, a phoneme is considered as a collection of distinctive sound features; a phoneme can be broken down into these distinctive sound features and it is these sound features that distinguish different sounds.For example, “man” and “boy” share the features of +HUMAN, +MALE and +ANIMATE but differ in the feature of ADULT; p and b are both bilabial and plosive but they differ in the feature of voicing.7. What is grammaticality? What might make a grammatically meaningful sentence semantically meaningless?Grammaticality refers to the grammatical well-formedness of a sentence. A sentence may be well-formed grammatically, i.e. it conforms to the grammatical rules of the language.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. Some sentences may be grammatically well-formed, i.e, they comply perfectly with the grammar rules of the language, yet they may not be semantically meaningful. The reason is that they contain words which are not supposed to go together, thus violating the selectional restrictionse.g. green clouds are sleeping furiously.The problem with the sentence is that no one has ever seen any green clouds, and clouds never sleep, still less sleep furiously. So in the sentence some selectional restrictions have been violated. This has led to the semantic ill-formedness of the sentences.8. Try to analyze the following sentences in terms of predication analysis.1) The man sells ice-cream.Two-place predication consisting of two argument: MAN and ICE-CREAM, and the predicate (SELL)2) Is the baby sleeping?One-place predication: BABY (SLEEP)3) It is snowing.No-place predication: (SHOW)4) The tree grows well.One place predication: TREE (GROW).9. Explain the following terms, using one or two examples for illustration.1) Semantics Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language and why particular utterances have the meanings they do. It is a technical term used to refer to the study of the communication of meaning through language.2) Componential analysisComponential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was proposed by structural semanticists. This approach is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic feature.3) Grammatical meaningThe 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.4) Semantic meaning （见上 7）The semantic meaning of a sentence is governed by rules called selectional restrictions.e.g. green clouds are sleeping5) PredicationIn semantic analysis of a sentence, the basic unit is called prediction. The predication is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.e.g. The tree grows well.One place predication: TREE (GROW).10. How many kinds of contexts are recognized in contextualism? What are they? （见1）Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized: the situational context and the linguistic context.11. Why are complete synonyms rare?Synonyms that are mutually substitutable under all circumstances are called complete synonyms. However, complete synonyms are rare. Because of their different origins, there are often subtle differences between these synonyms. 12. How many types of synonyms are there? What are they?Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.1. Dialectal synonyms which are used in different regional dialects. e.g. British English: autumn. American English: fall2. Stylistic synonyms which differ in style. Start, begin, commence3. Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning e.g. love, like4. Collocational synonyms. Some synonyms differ in their collocation, i.e, in the words they go together with.For example: charge with, accuse of 5. Semantically different synonyms.Differ slight in what the mean. E.g. amaze and surprise13. What