WhatisSemantics.doc

What is Semantics?v Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.Geoffrey Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The Study of Meaning. Seven types of meaning: Conceptual meaning Connotative meaning Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected meaning Collocative meaning Thematic meaning1.Meanings of meaning?1.1 Conceptual vs. associative meaning1.2 Connotation and denotationv homev Conceptual meaning (概念意义) is also called “denotative”（外延义）and it is concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it refers to.v Associative meaning (联想意义) is the total of all the meanings a person thinks of when they hear the word.v Conceptual meaning is meaning given in the dictionary.v Associative meaning is the meaning which a word suggests or implies.v Connotative meaning (内涵意义) is that what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to. They may vary according to culture, historical period and the experience of the individual, and thus are indeterminate and open-ended.v Social meaning (社会意义) is sometimes defined stylistic meaning, “is that which a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use.”v Dialect: the language of a geographical region or of a social class.v Time: the language of the 18th c., etc.v Province: language of law, of science, of advertising, etc.v Status: polite, colloquial, slang, etc.v Modality: language of memoranda, lectures, jokes, etc.v Singularity: the style of Dickens, etc.v Affective meaning (感情意义) is concerned with the expression of feelings and attitudes of speakers or writers. Affective meaning cannot stand on its own. It depends on conceptual meaning, stylistics meaning, etc. v Reflected meaning (反射意义) means that arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense.v Collocative meaning (搭配意义) means that associations a word acquires on account of the meanings or words which tend to occur in its environment.” Some, mainly synonyms, share the same conceptual meaning, but are used or collocated differently; therefore the meaning is also quite different.eg. girl boy boy man Pretty woman handsome vessel flower overcoat garden airliner village typewriterv Thematic meaning (主位意义) is “what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.”v Connotation and denotation can be used in two different ways: grammatical and logical.v In grammar, a words denotation (指示意义) is whatever the word directly refers to, roughly equivalent to its lexical definition. Thus, the word “atheist” denotes a person who denies the existence of gods. One possible connotation (内涵意义) for “atheist” might be someone who is immoral and wicked.v “west wind”(西风)v Chinese will associate it with coldness, sadness, desolation and departure, because the “west wind” usually blows in late autumn and winter in China.v But people live in Britain : West wind is described as an agreeable figure associated with spring and flowers by Chaucer on the first page of The Canterbury Tales:When the sweet showers of April have pierced The drought of March, and pierced it to the root,And every vein is bathed in that moistureWhose quickening force will engender the flower;And when the west wind too with its sweet breathHas given life in every wood and fieldTo tender shoots. 夏雨给大地带来了喜悦 送走了土壤干裂的三月 沐浴着草木的丝丝经络 顿时百花盛开 生机勃勃 西风轻吹留下清香缕缕 田野复苏吐出芳草绿绿 In late winter and early spring the west wind usually blows in Britain, so it is regarded as a signal of spring; a symbol of hope, power and revolution.v In logic, the denotation of a term is the list of a class of objects referred to by the word. The connotation of a word is the list of attributes implied by the word.e.g. denotes London, New York etc. city connotes largeness, populousness.2. The Referential Theory 2.1 The Referential Theory 2.2 The Semantic Triangle 2.3 Sense and Reference2.1 The Referential Theory A: “What is a desk?” B: “This is a desk” The referential theory (指称理论) is the theory of meaning which relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to.A: “what is a desk?” B: “It is a piece of furniture with four legs.”2.2 The Semantic Triangle The semantic triangle is the indirect relation between a word and a thing it refers to and it is mediated by concept. concept word - thing Ogden and Richards “semantic triangle”2.3 Sense and Reference Chen yan is Alice.Do Chen yan and Alice have the same meaning? Chen yan is Alice. Yes, because they both refer to the same person. No, because one is my Chinese name, the other is my English name. The Morning Star is the Evening Star. Sense (涵义) is a set of properties possessed by a name. Reference (指称) is the symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with the concrete object. The sense of an expression is the thought it expresses, while its reference is the object it represents. Every word has a sense, but not every word has a reference. The referential theory: meaning = reference The semantic triangle: meaning = concept Sense and reference: meaning =sense + reference3. Sense Relationsv Synonymyv Antonymyv Hyponymyv In everyday talk, we frequently give the meanings of words in terms of their relationships. liberty freedom shallow the opposite of deep daffodil it is a kind of flowerv Synonymy (同义关系) Synonymy is for the sameness relation. The words in such a relation are called synonyms.v But total synonymy is rare. They may differ in style, connotations and dialect. father dad purchase buy politician statesman thrifty stingy economical autumn fall underground subwayv Antonymy (反义关系) Antonymy is for the oppositenessrelation. Two words with oppositemeanings are called antonyms.Antonymy (反义关系)v Gradable antonymy (等级反义关系)v Complementary antonymy (互补反义关系)v Converse antonymy (反向反义关系v Gradable antonymy (等级反义关系) It is the relation of those antonyms which are gradable, because there are often intermediate forms between the pairs. e.g. hot cold old young big small v The negative of one does not necessarily imply the other.v Complementary antonymy (互补反义关系) single married male female alive deadv The denial of one implies the assertion of the other and the assertion of one implies the denial of the other.v Converse antonymy (反向反义关系) buy sell husband wife give receive teacher student v The converse antonyms show the reversal of a relationship between two entities. e.g. X buys sth from Y Y sells sth to Xv Hyponymy (上下义关系) It refers to a relationship between two words, in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other words. move walk run swim fly Two or more terms which share the same superordinate term are co-hyponyms. From another point of view, animal is a hyponym of itself. In this sense, it is called auto-hyponym (自我下义词) eg. Chicken: cock, hen, chicken dog: dog, bitch, puppyv Polysemy (一词多义) Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have more than one meaning. A word having more than one meaning is called a polysemic word.v Homonymy (同音/同形异义现象) Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meaning have same form, i.e. different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. It contains the following three aspects, homophones, homographs and complete homonyms v Homophones(同音异义) meat meetv Homographs(同形异义) lead 铅 lead 领导v complete homonyms (完全同音同形异义) pupil 学生 pupil 瞳孔4. Componential Analysis My cat studied linguistics. Truth broke the window. Why are they semantically odd? Componential analysis is an approach to the study of meaning which analyses a word into a set of meaning components. In CA, the small components dissected from the lexical meaning of a word, such as +MALE、+HUMAN, are called semantic features. boy: a young male person “boy”: + human, +male, - adult girl: a young female person “girl”: + human, - male, - adult table cow girl woman boy mananimate + - - - -human + + + +male + +adult + + - +Componential analysis-nouns father=PARENT(x, y) & MALE (x) x is a parent of y, and x is male. mother=PARENT(x, y) & MALE (x) son=CHILD (x, y) & MALE(x) daughter=CHILD (x, y) & MALE (x)5.Sentence Meaning Sense relations between sentences An integrated theory Logical semantics There are certain relations between sentences and also between constituents of the same sentence. synonymity (同义) a. He was a bachelor all his life. b. He never married all his boy. Sentences a and b are in a synonymous relationship: the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the truth of another sentence. Inconsistency (矛盾) a. Elizabeth II is Queen of England. b. Elizabeth II is a man. Sentences a and b are in a relationship of contradiction: the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the falseness of another sentence. Entailment (蕴涵) a. He married a blonde heiress. b. He married a blonde. Entailment refers to a kind of meaning inclusion. If x entails y, the meaning of x is included in y. A: He has been to France. B: He has been to Europe. A: John picked a tulip. B: John picked a flower. Presupposition (前提预设) It is what a speaker or writer assumes that the receiver of the message already knows.You are late again. You were late before. I dreamed that I was rich. I was not rich. Contradiction (矛盾) My unmarried sister is marrid to a bachelor. Constituents of same sentence in a relationship of contradic