problemswithpinningdownwordmeaning确定词汇意义语义学作业

1、3.4 Problems with pinning down word meaning3.5 Lexical Relations 3.5.1 Homonymy 3.5.2 Polysemy 3.5.3 Synonymy3.4 Problems with pinning down word meaning-Contextual effectsContext has an influence on word meaning.Contextual effects:1.restricting influence: is the tendency for words to occur together

2、repeatedly-collocation eg. strong/powerful + arguments strong tea powerful tea strong car powerful car Collocation: can undergo a fossilization process until they become fixed expressions.Eg. husband and wife salt and vinegar hot and cold running water Idioms: expressions where the individual words

3、have ceased to have independent meanings.Eg. kith and kinContextual effects2.Contextual effects can also pull word meanings towards creativity and semantic shift.Eg. A noun like run can have somewhat different meaningsa.I go for a run every morning.b.The tail-end batsmen added a single run before lu

4、nch.c.The ball-player hit a home-run.d.We took the new car for a run.e.He built a new run for his chickens.f.Theres been a run on the dollar.g.The bears are here for the salmon run.Ambiguity and Vagueness Ambiguity: the context will cause one of the senses to be selected. （歧义） Vagueness: the context

5、 can add information that is not specified in the sense. （模糊）The proposal is that if each of the meanings of run in a-g is a different sense, then run is seven ways ambiguous; but if a-g share the same sense, then run is merely vague between these different uses.do so identity testKempsons test reli

6、es on this identity: if the preceding verb phrase has more than one sense, then whichever sense is selected in this first full verb phrase must be kept the same in the following do so clause.a.Charlie hates mayonnaise and so does Mary.b.He took a form and Sean did too.3.5 Lexical Relations Lexicon i

7、s a network. Lexical field: is a group of lexemes which belong to a particular activity or area of specialist knowledge, such as the terms in cooking or sailing; or the vocabulary used by doctors, coal miners or mountain climbersHomonymy Homonyms: are unrelated senses of the same phonological word.

8、（同音异义词） Homographs: senses of the same written word. Homophones: senses of the same spoken word.Different Types of Homonymssyntactic behavior & spelling different types1.lexemes of the same syntactic category, and with the same spelling: e.g. lap circuit of a course and lap part of body when sitting

9、 down.2.of the same category, but with different spelling: e.g. the verbs ring and wring. 3.of different categories, but with the same spelling: e.g. the verb keep and the noun keep; 4.of different categories, and with different spelling: e.g. not, knot.Polysemy polysemy & homonymy: Both deal with m

10、ultiple 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. Lexicographers tend to use criteria of relatedness to identify polysemy.E.g. speakers intuition, and what is known about the histor

11、ical development of the items. Various senses of hook are treated as polysemy and therefore listed under one lexical entry.Hook: n. 1. a piece of material, usually metal, curved or bent and used to suspend, catch, hold, or pull something. 2. short for fish-hook. 3. a trap or snare The groups of sens

12、es of hooker are treated as unrelated, therefore a case of homonymy, and given two separate entries:Hooker: n. 1. a commercial fishing boat using hooks and lines instead of netsHooker: n. 1 a person or thing that hooks Historical fact and speaker intuitions may contradict each other.E.g. (unrelated)

13、 sole bottom of the foot sole flatfish So, should be given separate lexical entries as a case of homonymy. They are however historically derived via French from the same Latin word solea sandal. So an argument could be made for polysemy.Synonymy Synonyms: are different phonological words which have

14、the same or very similar meanings.E.g. couch/sofa boy/lad lawyer/attorney large/big toilet/lavatory True and exact synonyms are very rare. Synonyms often have different distributions along a number of parameters.1. belong to different dialects and then become synonyms for speakers familiar with both

15、 dialects:E.g. Irish English-press British English-cupboard2. belong to different registers, those styles of language, colloquial, formal, literary etc. that belong to different situations.E.g. wife & spouse - old lady & missus (more formal)3. Synonyms may portray positive or negative attitudes of the speaker:E.g. naive/ gullible - ingenuous (more critical) 4. One or other of the synonyms may be collocationally restricted. She called out to the young lad. She calle