SEMANTICS
Semantics is the study of
linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences. Subfields of
semantics are;
Lexical Semantics is concerned with the meaning of words, and
the meaning relationships among words.
Phrasal or Sentential Semantics is concerned with the meaning of syntactic
units larger than the word.
Pragmatics is the study of how context and situation
affect meaning.
MEANING
Conceptual Meaning: Conceptual
meaning covers those basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed
by the literal use of a word. It is the type of meaning that dictionaries are
designed to describe. Some of the basic components of a word like needle in
English might include “thin, sharp, steel instrument.”
Associative
Meaning is the type of meaning that people might connect with the use of words.
The associative meaning of an expression has to do with individual
mental understandings of the speaker. Different people might have different associations
or connotations attached to a word like needle. They might associate it with
“pain,” or “illness,” or “blood,” or “drugs,” or “thread,” or “knitting,” or
“hard to find” (especially in a haystack), and these associations may differ
from one person to the next. These types of associations are not treated as
part of the word’s conceptual meaning.
TRUTH- CONDITINAL SEMANTICS
Truth-conditional semantics is a theory of meaning that takes semantic
knowledge of knowing when sentences are true or false as basic. It is the study
of conditions under which a statement can be judged true or false. It is also
called compositional semantics
because it calculates the truth value of a sentence by composing, or putting
together, the meaning of smaller units. The
study of truth or truth conditions in semantics falls into two basic
categories:
1.
The study of different types of truth
embodied in individual sentences:
a)
Tautologies (Analytic Sentences)
b)
Contradictions
c)
Synthetic Sentences
2. The study of
different types of truth relations that hold between sentences.
a)
Entailment
b)
Contradictory Sentences
TAUTOLOGIES (ANALYTIC SENTENCES)
Tautology is a sentence that is true in all situations;
a sentence true from the meaning of its words alone. These sentences are always
true regardless of the circumstances. Their truth is guaranteed solely by the
meaning of their parts and the way they are put together. We don’t need to
check on the outside world to verify the truth of these sentences. Tautologies
are sometimes referred to as analytic sentences or linguistic truths. Examples;
ð A person who
is single is not married.
Circles are
round.
Elephant is
an animal.
Kings are
not female.
My brother
is male.
CONTRADICTIONS
Contradiction describes a sentence that is false by virtue
of its meaning alone, irrespective of context. Contradictions are opposite
of analytic sentences. While analytic sentences are always true, contradictions
are always false as a result of words in them. Examples;
ð Circles are
square.
A bachelor is married.
Kings are female.
A
blue gas is colorless.
In each case, we know the
sentence is false because we know the meaning of words in sentences. It is not
necessary to refer to the outside world in order to judge their truth values.
SYNTHETIC SENTENCES
A synthetic statement is one which is not
analytic or contradictory, but which may be true or false depending on the
context. Synthetic sentences are based on our sensory data and experience. The
truth value of a synthetic statement can’t be figured out solely by logic.
Examples;
ð My oldest
cousin is female.
The table in the kitchen is
round.
My brother is tall.
We cannot judge whether these sentences are
true or false by looking at the words in them. We must verify the truth or
falsity of these sentences.
ENTAILMENT
Entailment is the relationship between two sentences,
where the truth of one necessitates the truth of the other. For example; if you know that
the sentence Jack swims beautifully is true, then you also know that the
sentence Jack swims must also be true. We say that Jack swims beautifully entails Jack swims. Generally,
entailment goes only in one direction (unidirectional). So while the sentence
Jack swims beautifully entails Jack swims, the reverse is not true. Knowing
merely that Jack swims is true does not necessitate the truth of Jack swims
beautifully. Jack could be a poor swimmer. On the other hand, negating both
sentences reverses the entailment. Jack doesn’t swim entails Jack doesn’t swim
beautifully.
CONTRADICTORY SENTENCES
Contradictory:
Mutual
negative entailment: the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the
falseness of another sentence, and
vice versa. Two sentences are
contradictory if, whenever one is true, the other is false. For example, the
sentences Jack is alive and Jack is dead are contradictory because if the
sentence Jack is alive is true, then the sentence Jack is dead is false, and
vice versa. In other words, Jack is alive and Jack is dead have opposite truth
values. Two sentences are contradictory if one entails the negation of the
other. For instance, Jack is alive entails the negation of Jack is dead, namely
Jack is not dead. Similarly, Jack is dead entails the negation of Jack is
alive, namely Jack is not alive. The notions of contradiction (always false)
and contradictory (opposite in truth value) are related in that if two
sentences are contradictory, their conjunction with and is a contradiction.
Thus Jack is alive and Jack is dead is a contradiction; it cannot be true under
any circumstances.
AMBUGITY
Our semantic
knowledge tells us when words, phrases or sentences have more than one meaning,
that is, when they are ambiguous. In structural
ambiguity the same sequence of words has two or more meanings. The boy saw
the man with a telescope is an instance of structural ambiguity. It is
ambiguous because it can mean that the boy saw the man by using a telescope or
that the boy saw the man who was holding a telescope. The sentence is
structurally ambiguous because it is associated with two different phrase structures,
each corresponding to a different meaning. Lexical
ambiguity arises when at least one word in a phrase has more than one
meaning. For example
the sentence “The fisherman went to the bank” is ambiguous; because the word "bank" has
distinct lexical definitions, including "financial
institution" and
"edge of a river".
ð Our knowledge of lexical and structural ambiguities reveals that the
meaning of a linguistic expression is built both on the words it contains and
its syntactic structure.
PRINCIPLE OF COMPOSITIONALITY
The
Principle of Semantic Compositionality (sometimes called
Frege’s Principle) is the principle that states that the meaning of a complex
word, phrase or sentence is determined by the meaning of its parts and how they
are combined structurally. When it becomes difficult or impossible to
understand the meaning of a word, phrase or sentence by the meaning of its
parts compositionality breaks down. If one or more words in a sentence do not
have a meaning, then obviously we will not be able to compute a meaning for the
entire sentence. Moreover, even if the individual words have meaning but cannot
be combined together as required by the syntactic structure and related
semantic rules, we will also not get to a meaning. We refer to these situations
as semantic anomaly. This is what
happens in metaphors and idioms.
Anomaly
Anomaly is a
violation of semantic rules resulting in expressions that seem nonsense. The
semantic properties of words determine what other words they can be combined
with. A sentence widely used by linguists illustrates this fact:
Colorless
green ideas sleep furiously.
The sentence obeys
all the syntactic rules of English. The subject is colorless green ideas and
the predicate is sleep furiously. It has the same syntactic structure as the
sentence “Dark green leaves
rustle furiously”. However, there is obviously something semantically wrong
with the sentence. The meaning of colorless includes the semantic feature
“without color,” but it is combined with the adjective green, which has the
feature “green in color.” How can something be both “without color” and “green
in color”? Such sentences are semantically anomalous
(semantically ill-formed).
ð Other English “sentences” make no sense at all because they include
“words” that have no meaning; they are uninterpretable. They can be interpreted
only if some meaning for each nonsense word can be dreamt up. Lewis Carroll’s
“Jabberwocky” is probably the most famous poem in which most of the content
words have no meaning—they do not exist in the lexicon of the grammar. Still,
all the sentences sound as if they should be or could be English sentences:
Twas brillig
and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All
mimsy were the borogoves,
And
the mome raths outgrabe.
Semantic
violations in poetry may form strange but interesting aesthetic images, as in
Dylan Thomas’s phrase a grief ago. Ago is ordinarily used with words specified
by some temporal semantic feature:
a week ago *a
table ago
an hour ago but not *a
dream ago
a month ago *a mother ago
a century ago
When Thomas used
the word grief with ago, he was adding a durational feature to grief for poetic
effect, so while the noun phrase is anomalous, it evokes certain feelings.
ð The fact that we are able to understand, or at least interpret,
anomalous expressions, and at the same time recognize their anomalous nature,
demonstrates our knowledge of the semantic system and semantic properties of
the language.
Metaphors
Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a
comparison is made between two unlike things. When what appears to be an
anomaly is nevertheless understood in terms of a meaningful concept, the
expression becomes a metaphor. Technically, metaphors are anomalous, but the
nature of the anomaly creates the salient meanings that metaphors usually have.
Metaphors may have a literal meaning as well as their metaphorical meaning.
To interpret a
metaphor we need to understand the individual words, the literal meaning of the
whole expression, and facts about the world. To understand the metaphor Time is
Money it is necessary to know that in our society we are often paid according
to the number of hours or days worked. Many expressions now taken literally may
have originated as metaphors, such as “the fall of the dollar,” meaning its
decline in value on the world market. Many people wouldn’t bat an eyelash
(another metaphor) at the literal interpretation of saving or wasting time.
Metaphor is one of the factors in language change. Metaphorical use of language
is language creativity at its highest.
Idioms
An idiom is an expression whose meaning
does not conform to the principle of compositionality, that is, may be
unrelated to the meaning of its parts. Languages
contain many idioms whose meanings are not predictable on the basis of the
meanings of the individual words. Most idioms originate as metaphorical expressions
that establish themselves in the language and become frozen in their form and
meaning. Idioms have fixed meanings that must be learned. They are similar in
structure to ordinary phrases except that they tend to be frozen in form and do
not readily undergo rules that change word order or substitution of their
parts.
She put her
foot in her mouth. We can’t change this expression as “Her foot was put in
her mouth”.
Idioms,
grammatically as well as semantically, have special characteristics. They must
be entered into the lexicon or mental dictionary as single items with their
meanings specified, and speakers must learn the special restrictions on their
use in sentences.
LEXICAL SEMANTICS (WORD
MEANINGS)
The meaning of a
phrase or sentence is partially a function of the meanings of the words it
contains. Similarly, the meaning of morphologically complex words is a function
of their component morphemes. However, there is a fundamental difference
between word meaning—or lexical semantics—and sentence meaning. The meaning of
entries in the mental lexicon—be they morphemes, words, compound words, idioms,
and so on—is conventional; that is, speakers of a language implicitly agree on
their meaning, and children acquiring the language must simply learn those
meanings outright. On the other hand, the meaning of most sentences must be
constructed by the application of semantic rules. Although the agreed-upon
meaning of a word may shift over time within a language community, we are not
free as individuals to change the meanings of words at will; if we did, we
would be unable to communicate with each other. All the speakers of a language
share a basic vocabulary—the sounds and meanings of morphemes and words. Each
of us knows the meanings of thousands of words. . This knowledge permits us to
use words to express our thoughts and to understand the thoughts of others. The
meaning of words is part of linguistic knowledge. Your mental storehouse of
information about words and morphemes is what we have been calling the lexicon.
REFERENCE
Reference (Extension) is
the relation between the linguistic expression and the entity it denotes in the
real world. For example when you say Jack you refer to the person whose name is
Jack.
Referent is the concrete
object or concept that is designed by a word or expression. For example;
ð Princess Diana is the referent of Rose of England.
The relationship
between Princess Diana and Rose of England is called reference.
Co-reference
is the
relationship between two noun phrases that refer to same entity. For example;
ð Mark Twain and Samuel Langhorne Clemens are co-referential as they refer to same person.
ð The morning star and the evening star are co-referential because they
both refer to Venus.
Antecedent
is a
noun phrase with which a pronoun is co-referential. For example;
The young boy watched the
bluebird until he saw the
babies.
Antecedent of pronoun “he”
The
man who is eating bit himself.
Antecedent of pronoun “himself”
Pronoun-
Antecedent Agreement:
« A pronoun should
clearly refer to one clear noun, or else it causes faulty or vague pronoun
reference.
Samuel called Steve twelve times while he was in London. [The pronoun he can refer either to Samuel or
Steve]
After putting the disk in the cabinet,
Jerry sold it. [The pronoun it can refer to either to
disk or cabinet]
The supervisors told the workers that they would receive
a bonus. [The pronoun they can refer either to workers or supervisors.]
The
candy dish was empty, but we were tired of eating it anyway. [The reader of this sentence might think that the dish was being eaten because dish appears to be the antecedent
for the pronoun it. The
sentence can be fixed as, "We were tired of eating candy."]
Although Mrs.
Smith was wealthy, she made poor use of it. [In
this example, the pronoun it has no antecedent to which it can
refer. The reader knows that Mrs. Smith is "wealthy," but it
cannot refer to wealthy because wealthy is not a
noun. Pronoun it must be replaced by a noun; “Although Mrs. Smith was wealthy,
she made poor use of her wealth”]
The suitcase was on the plane, but now it's
gone. [What is gone? The suitcase or the plane?]
« The pronoun must agree in number — singular/plural — with the thing to which it refers. The indefinite pronouns anyone, anybody,
everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, no one, and nobody are
always singular. The same is true of either and neither, which
are always singular even though they seem to be referring to two things.
ð I never go
to that place because they have stale bread. (What does “they” refer to?
Both I and place are singular.)
I never go to that place
because it has stale bread. [Correct]
ð Every
student must have their pencils. [Both every and student are
singular; therefore, his, her, or his or her must be used. Their
is plural and cannot refer to a singular noun]
ð Somebody
has left their
bag on the floor. [Somebody is singular, therefore can’t be antecedent of
“their”. The sentence can be corrected as; “Somebody has left his or her bag on
the floor”]
ð Incorrect: No
American citizen should lose their
right to vote.
Incorrect: No
American citizen should lose his right
to vote.
Corrected: No American citizen should lose his or her
right to vote
SENSE
If
meaning were reference alone, then the meaning of words and expressions would
be entirely dependent on the objects pointed out in the real world. For
example, the meaning of dog would be tied to the set of canine objects. An
obvious problem for such a theory, however, is that speakers know many words
that have no real-world referents (e.g., hobbits, unicorns etc.).Yet speakers
do know the meanings of these expressions. Similarly, what real-world entities
would function words like of and by, or modal verbs such as will or may refer
to? A further problem is that two expressions may refer to the same individual
but not have the same meaning. For example, Barack Obama and the President
currently refer to the same individual, but the meaning of the NP the President
is, in addition, something like “the head of state,” which is an element of
meaning separate from reference and more enduring. This element of meaning
separate from reference is often termed sense.
Sense
is the inherent part of an expression’s meaning that together with context,
determines its referent. For example, knowing the sense of a noun phrase such
as “the president of the United States in the year 2010 allows one to determine
that Barack Obama is the referent. Sense is what you grasp when you understand
an expression. It includes the properties that an expression has which
distinguishes that expression from other expressions. For example sense of a
chair is a seat with four legs and a back, sense of aunt is parent’s sister
etc.
Unicorns and hobbits have sense but no reference (with
regard to objects in the real world). Proper names typically have reference,
but no sense. A name like Chris Jones may point out a certain person, its
referent, but has little linguistic meaning beyond that.
LEXICAL RELATIONS
Lexical relations are the relationships of meaning between words. Words
are semantically related to one another in a variety of ways:
SYNONYMY
Synonymy is used
to mean sameness of meaning. Synonyms are
words with the same or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be
synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. Synonyms can
often, though not always, be substituted for each other in sentences. We should
keep in mind that the idea of “sameness” of meaning used in discussing synonymy
is not necessarily “total sameness.” It has been said that there are no perfect
synonyms—that is, no two words ever have exactly the same meaning. There are
many occasions when one word is appropriate in a sentence, but its synonym
would be odd. For example, whereas the word answer fits in the sentence Sandy
had only one answer correct on the test, the word reply would sound odd.
Synonymous forms may also differ in terms of formal versus informal uses. The
sentence My father purchased a large automobile has virtually the same meaning
as My dad bought a big car, with four synonymous replacements, but the second
version sounds much more casual or informal than the first.
Jog/run
|
Fast/quick
|
Garbage/trash
|
Infant/baby
|
Fall/Autumn
|
Couch/sofa
|
dangerous/risky
|
little/small
|
Conceal/hide
|
big/large
|
fertile/fruitful
|
ready/alert
|
Broad/wide
|
car/automobile
|
hard/difficult
|
rich/wealthy
|
Freedom/liberty
|
outgoing/friendly
|
Lazy/idle
|
mad/crazy
|
buy/purchase
|
cab/taxi
|
intelligent/clever
|
Present/gift
|
ANTONYMY
Antonyms are words with opposite or nearly opposite
meanings. There are several kinds of antonyms.
A. Gradable Antonyms
Gradable antonyms
represent points on a scale that are roughly equal in distance from the middle
of the scale. Two words are gradable antonyms if they are at the opposite ends
of a continuous scale.
Rich—well-to-do—poor
Old—middle-aged—young
Open—ajar—close
Hot—warm—cool—cold
Beautiful—good-looking—plain—ugly
Love—attachment—liking—indifference—antipathy—hate
Happy/sad
|
Easy/difficult
|
Big/small
|
Fast/slow
|
Long/short
|
Clean/dirt
|
Early/late
|
Good/bad
|
ð Gradable antonyms can be used in comparative constructions like “I’m
bigger than you” and “A pony is smaller than a horse”.
ð The negative of one member of a gradable pair does not necessarily imply
the other. For example, the sentence “My car isn’t old”, doesn’t necessarily
mean “My car is new”.
ð Another characteristic of certain pairs of gradable antonyms is that one
is marked and the other unmarked. The unmarked member is the one used in
questions of degree. We ask, ordinarily, “How high is the mountain?” (not “How
low is it?”). We answer “Ten thousand feet high” but never “Ten thousand feet
low”. Thus high is the unmarked member of high/low. Similarly, tall is the
unmarked member of tall/short, fast the unmarked member of fast/slow, and so
on.
B. Non-Gradable
Antonyms (Binary Antonyms-Complementary Pairs)
Non-gradable antonyms (also called complementary pairs or binary
antonyms) are direct opposites. They represent opposed states that cannot be
measured on a scale. There is no continuum or middle ground between the two
sides.
ð
Non-gradable
antonyms cannot be used in comparative constructions and don’t allow
adverbs like very to qualify them. For example; we can’t say “John is deader
than Tom” or “He was more alive than I was”. Non- gradable antonyms are so
opposed to each other that they do not admit any possibilities between them.
ð
Non-gradable
antonyms are complementary in that the negation of one is the meaning of the
other. For example; not dead = alive, not true=false and so on.
Alive/dead
|
Accidental/intentional
|
Against/for
|
Male/female
|
Married/single
|
Same
/different
|
Right/wrong
|
Sink/float
|
True/false
|
Vacant/occupied
|
Forget/remember
|
Man/woman
|
Off/on
|
Fail/pass
|
Hit/miss
|
Boy/girl
|
Present/absent
|
Awake/asleep
|
Day/night
|
Thaw/freeze
|
C. Converses
(Relational Opposites)
Relational
antonyms are sometimes considered a subcategory of
complementary antonyms. The difference is that relational antonyms indicate a
relationship between two (or more) words that one of them cannot be used
without suggesting the other. There is a relationship between two words which
seem to be opposites of each other but in fact actually imply each other. One
exists only because the other exists.
Brother/sister
|
Mother/father
|
Husband/wife
|
Parent/child
|
Own/belong
|
Above/below
|
Fraction/whole
|
Teacher/student
|
Buy/sell
|
Give/receive
|
Predator/prey
|
King/subject
|
Slave/master
|
Employer/employee
|
Lend/borrow
|
Doctor/patient
|
Teach/learn
|
Offense/defense
|
Lead/follow
|
Come/go
|
East/west
|
South/north
|
Win/lose
|
Left/right
|
In/out
|
Inside/outside
|
Front/back
|
Over/under
|
Behind/ahead
|
Before/after
|
Up/down
|
Floor/ceiling
|
ð There is a relationship in which the two opposites must both exist. We
can accept conversive antonyms as representing the same situation from two
points of view. For example, if Tarzan
is Jane’s husband, then Jane is Tarzan’s
wife, if someone is selling something, there must be
someone buying it. If a picture is above the sofa, then the sofa is below the picture. "A owns
B" is the same as "B belongs
to A". If someone wins, someone
must lose. If there is a fraction,
there must be a whole. If X gives something to Y, then Y receives something from X. If John is Sarah’s teacher, then Sarah is John’s student.
D. Reversives
Reversives are antonyms in which the meaning of one is the reverse
action of the other. Reversives are a form of relational opposites. They
represent movement or change in opposite directions.
Appear/disappear
|
Come/go
|
Shorten/lengthen
|
Raise/lower
|
Tie/untie
|
Rise/fall
|
Fill/empty
|
Pack/unpack
|
Zip/unzip
|
Do/undo
|
exhale/inhale
|
Connect/disconnect
|
Progress/regress
|
Lock/unlock
|
Cover/uncover
|
Dress/undress
|
Explode/implode
|
Get on/get off
|
Button/unbutton
|
Inflate/deflate
|
Wrap/unwrap
|
Enter/exit
|
Open/close
|
Ascend/descend
|
Build/demolish
|
E. Autoantonyms
An auto-antonym
or contronym (also spelled contranym), is a word with
multiple meanings, one of which is defined as the reverse of one of its other
meanings. Thus auto-antonyms are their own opposites.
Temper means
both “to harden” and “to soften”
Cleave can
mean "to cling" or "to split".
Dust can
mean to remove dust (cleaning a house) or to add dust (dust a cake with powdered
sugar).
Fast can
mean "moving quickly" as in "running fast," or it can mean
"not moving" as in "stuck fast."
Skin means
"to cover with skin" (as in to skin a drum) as well as "to strip
or peel off" (as in to skin an animal).
Overlook can
mean "to inspect" or "to fail to notice".
Resign can
mean "give up or quit" or "continue".
Sanction can
mean "to permit" or "to punish".
Terrific can
mean "very good" or "very bad".
F. Antiautonyms
An antiautonym
is one of a pair of words which mean the same thing, although one word seems,
for some reason, as though it should be the "opposite" of the other.
This concept is related to, but different than, an autoantonym, which is
a single word which means both one thing and its opposite. In English there are several ways to
form antonyms. You can add the prefix un-: likely/unlikely, able/unable, fortunate/unfortunate
or you can add non-: entity/nonentity, conformist/nonconformist or you can add
in-: tolerant/intolerant, discreet/indiscreet, decent/indecent. These
strategies occasionally backfire, however. Pairs such as loosen and unloosen;
flammable and inflammable; valuable and invaluable, and a few other
“antiautonyms” actually have the same or nearly the same meaning despite
looking like antonyms.
HYPONYMY
When the meaning of a word is included in the meaning
of another the relationship is described as hyponymy. Hyponyms are
words whose meanings are specific instances of a more general word. For example;
red, blue, yellow are hyponyms of the word color. Hyponyms contain the meaning
of a general word known as superordinate
(or hypernym sometimes spelled as hyperonym). Thus, red, blue and yellow are
hyponyms of superordinate color. Two or more words that share the same
superordinate term are co-hyponyms.
Thus, red, blue and yellow are co- hyponyms.
COLOR
|
SUPERORDINATE
|
|||
RED
|
BLUE
|
YELLOW
|
||
[hyponym]
|
[hyponym]
|
[hyponym]
|
||
[co-hyponyms]
|
||||
ð In general there are a number of hyponyms for each
subordinate. These hyponyms contain feature value of the superordinate, but
they also have additional features. For example, boar, piglet and sow contain
the meaning of the superordinate pig. But they differ in their additional
features, boar (male, adult), sow (female, adult), and piglet (baby pig).
ð Hyponymy is sometimes referred to as inclusion in that the
meaning of a word is included in the meaning of another. If an object is a
rose, then it is necessarily a flower, so the meaning of flower is included in
the meaning of rose. The relationship of hyponymy captures the concept of “is a
kind of” as when we give the meaning of a word by saying rose is a kind of
flower, blue is a kind of color, oak is a kind of or sow is a kind of pig.
ð Words such as punch, shoot and stab, describing actions
can all be co-hyponyms of the superordinate term injure.
PROTOTYPES
Prototype is the most characteristic instance of a category. While
the words canary, cormorant, dove, duck, flamingo, parrot, pelican and robin are
all equally co-hyponyms of the superordinate bird, they are not all considered
to be equally good examples of the category “bird.” According to some
researchers, the most characteristic instance of the category “bird” is robin.
The concept of a prototype helps explain the meaning of certain words, like
bird, not in terms of component features (e.g. “has feathers,” “has wings”),
but in terms of resemblance to the clearest example. Given the category label
furniture, we are quick to recognize chair as a better example than bench or
stool. Given clothing, people recognize shirts quicker than shoes, and given
vegetable, they accept carrot before potato or tomato. It is clear that there
is some general pattern to the categorization process involved in prototypes
and that it determines our interpretation of word meaning.
MERONYMY (PARTONYMY)
A meronym
means part of a whole. It denotes a constituent part of, or a member of
something. Meronymy describes a part –whole relationship between words. For
example; Car/wheel, hand/arm, house/kitchen, head/hair
FACE
FOREHEAD
|
EYES
|
NOSE
|
CHIN
|
MOUTH
|
METONYMY
In metonymy a thing or concept is not called
by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that
thing or concept. Connection between the words can be based on a
container–contents relation (bottle/water, can/juice), a whole–part relation
(car/wheels, house/roof) or a representative–symbol relationship (king/crown,
the President/the White House). It is our familiarity with metonymy that makes
it possible for us to understand He drank the whole bottle; although it sounds
absurd literally (i.e. he drank the liquid, not the glass object). We also
accept The White House has announced …or Downing Street protested ... without
being puzzled that buildings appear to be talking. We use metonymy when we talk
about filling up the car, answering the door, boiling a kettle, giving someone a
hand, or needing some wheels. Making
sense of such expressions often depends on context, background knowledge and
inference.
COLLOCATION
Corpus (plural corpora)
is a collection of language data gathered from spoken or written sources used
for linguistic research and analysis. It is a large and structured set of texts
(nowadays usually electronically stored and processed). Corpus Linguistics is the study of language based on examples of "real life"
language use stored in corpora -computerized databases created for linguistic research. Corpus linguistics
can then use the database to find out how often specific words or phrases occur
and what types of collocations are most common. In corpus linguistics, collocation defines a sequence of
words or terms
that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance.
A collocation is made up of two or more words that are commonly used together. Collocations
are word pairings that are expected to come together. Good collocation examples
of this type of word pairing are combinations with 'make' and 'do'. You make a
cup of tea, but do your homework.
save
|
earn
|
spend
|
a difference
|
an effort
|
a mistake
|
|
money
|
a friend
|
make
|
a decision
|
|||
invest
|
waste
|
make
|
a fortune
|
a noise
|
a phone call
|
HOMOPHONES AND HOMONYMS
Meat/meet
|
Flour/flower
|
Right/write /wright
|
Pail/pale
|
To/too/two
|
Bare/bear
|
Be/bee
|
aye/Eye/I
|
Buy/bye/by
|
Here/hear
|
Rain/reign
|
Plain/plane
|
Knew/new
|
Principal/principle
|
Rest/wrest
|
stationary/stationery
|
Root/route
|
Which/ witch
|
Steal/steel/still
|
Sale/sail
|
Mask/ masque
|
Lessen/lesson
|
Mail/male
|
Flea/flee
|
Foreword/forward
|
Forth/ fourth
|
Farther/father
|
Die/dye
|
Fair/ fare
|
Sole/soul
|
Tale/tail
|
Waist/waste
|
Weather/ whether
|
Wood/would
|
Waive/wave
|
There, their,
they're
|
Sweet/suite
|
Some/sum
|
Son/ sun
|
Seas/ sees/ seize
|
Saw/ soar/sore
|
Sea/ see
|
Born/ borne
|
Peace/piece
|
Dear/deer
|
Where/wear
|
Cue/queue
|
Weight/wait
|
Knot/not
|
Knight/night
|
A homonym is one of a group of words
that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have
different meanings
Bank
(of a river) – bank (financial institution)
Bat
(flying creature) – bat (used in sports)
Mole
(on skin) – mole (small animal)
Pupil
(at school) – pupil (in the eye)
Race
(contest of speed) – race (ethnic group)
Ball (as a round object used in game) - ball (as a gathering of people for dancing)
Bear (to tolerate)- bear (animal)
- Homographs (literally "same writing") are usually defined as words that share the same spelling, regardless of how they are pronounced. If they are pronounced the same then they are also homophones (and homonyms) – for example, bark (the sound of a dog) and bark (the skin of a tree). If they are pronounced differently, then they are also heteronyms – for example, bow (the front of a ship) and bow (a ranged weapon).
- Homophones (literally "same sound") are usually defined as words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of how they are spelled. If they are spelled the same then they are also homographs (and homonyms); if they are spelled differently, then they are also heterographs (literally "different writing"). Homographic examples include rose (flower) and rose (past tense of rise). Heterographic examples include to, too, two, and there, their, they’re.
- Heteronyms (literally "different name") are the subset of homographs (words that share the same spelling) that have different pronunciations (and meanings). Such words include desert (to abandon) and desert (arid region); row (to argue or an argument) and row (as in to row a boat or a row of seats - a pair of homophones). Heteronyms are also sometimes called heterophones (literally "different sound").
- Polysemes are words with the same spelling and distinct but related meanings. The distinction between polysemy and homonymy is often subtle and subjective, and not all sources consider polysemous words to be homonyms. Words such as mouth, meaning either the orifice on one's face, or the opening of a cave or river, are polysemous and may or may not be considered homonyms.
- Capitonyms are words that share the same spelling but have different meanings when capitalized (and may or may not have different pronunciations). Such words include polish (to make shiny) and Polish (from Poland); march (organized, uniformed, steady and rhythmic walking forward) and March (the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar). However, both polish and march at the beginning of sentences still need to be capitalized.
Term
|
Meaning
|
Spelling
|
Pronunciation
|
Homonym
|
Different
|
Same
|
Same
|
Homograph
|
Different
|
Same
|
Same or
different
|
Homophone
|
Different
|
Same or
different
|
Same
|
Heteronym
|
Different
|
Same
|
Different
|
Heterograph
|
Different
|
Different
|
Same
|
Polysemy
|
Different
but related
|
Same
|
Same or
different
|
Capitonym
|
Different
when
capitalized |
Same
except for capitalization
|
Same or
different
|
POLYSEMY
Polysemy
can be defined as one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings that are
all related by extension. Examples are the word head, used to refer to the
object on top of your body, froth on top of a glass of beer, person at the top
of a company or department, and many other things. Other examples of polysemy
are foot (of person, of bed, of mountain) or run (person does, water does,
colors do). If we aren’t sure whether different uses of a single word are
examples of homonymy or polysemy, we can check in a dictionary. If the word has
multiple meanings (i.e. it’s polysemous), then there will be a single entry,
with a numbered list of the different meanings of that word. If two words are
treated as homonyms, they will typically have two separate entries. In most
dictionaries, bank, mail, mole and sole are clearly treated as homonyms whereas
face, foot, get, head and run are treated as examples of polysemy. It is
possible for two forms to be distinguished via homonymy and for one of the
forms also to have various uses via polysemy. The words date (= a thing we can
eat) and date (= a point in time) are homonyms. However, the “point in time”
kind of date is polysemous in terms of a particular day and month (= on a
letter), an arranged meeting time (= an appointment), a social meeting (= with
someone we like), and even a person (= that person we like). So the question
How was your date? could have several different interpretations.
SEMANTIC FEATURES
Semantic features are conceptual elements by
which a person understands the meanings of words. Decomposing the meanings of words
into semantic features can clarify how certain words relate to other words.
This method represents the meaning of a word in terms of semantic features that
make up the word. For example:
Table
|
Horse
|
Boy
|
Man
|
Girl
|
Woman
|
|
Animate
|
-
|
+
|
+
|
+
|
+
|
+
|
Human
|
-
|
-
|
+
|
+
|
+
|
+
|
Female
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
+
|
+
|
Adult
|
-
|
+
|
-
|
+
|
-
|
+
|
This
simple example is an illustration of a procedure for analyzing meaning in terms
of semantic
features. Features such as“+animate,-animate,”
“+human, -human,” “+female, -female,” for example, can be treated as the basic
elements involved in differentiating the meaning of each word in a language
from every other word. From a feature analysis like this, we can say that at
least part of the meaning of the word girl in English involves the elements
[+human, +female, -adult].
Evidence
for Semantic Features
Semantic
properties are not directly observable. Their existence must be inferred from
linguistic evidence. One source of such evidence is the speech errors, or
“slips of the tongue,” that we all produce.
Intended
Utterance Actual Utterance (Error)
Bridge of the nose
bridge of the
neck
When my gums bled when my tongues bled
He came too late he came too early
Mary was young Mary was early
These errors
reveal that the incorrectly substituted words are not random but share some
semantic feature with the intended words. Nose, neck, gums, and tongues are all
“body parts” or “parts of the head.” Young, early, and late are related to
“time.”
Semantic Features of Nouns
The
same semantic feature may be shared by many words. “Female” is a semantic
feature that makes up part of the meaning of nouns, such as: tigress, hen,
aunt, maiden, doe, mare, debutante, widow, ewe, vixen, girl and woman.
In
some languages, though not English, nouns occur with classifiers, grammatical
morphemes that indicate the semantic class of the noun. In Swahili a noun that
has the semantic feature “human” is prefixed with m- if singular and wa- if
plural, as in mtoto (child) and watoto (children).
Semantic
properties may have syntactic and semantic effects, too. For example, the kinds
of determiners that a noun may occur with are controlled by whether it is a
“count” noun or a “mass” noun.
I
have two dogs. *I have two
rice(s).
I
have a dog. *I have a
rice.
*I
have dog. I have
rice.
He
has many dogs. *He has many
rice(s).
*He
has much dogs. He has much rice.
Count
nouns can be enumerated and pluralized—one potato, two potatoes. They may be
preceded by the indefinite determiner a, and by the quantifier many as in many
potatoes, but not by much, *much potato. They must also occur with a determiner
of some kind. Nouns such as rice, water, and milk, which cannot be enumerated
or pluralized, are mass nouns. They cannot be preceded by a or many, and they
can occur with the quantifier much or without any determiner at all. The
count/mass distinction captures the fact that speakers know the properties that
govern which determiner types go with different nouns.
Semantic Features of Verbs
Verbs
also have semantic features as part of their meaning. For example, “cause” is a
feature of verbs such as darken, kill, uglify, and so on.
Darken cause to become dark
Kill
cause to die
Uglify
cause to become ugly
“Go”
is a feature of verbs that mean a change in location or possession, such as
swim, crawl, throw, fly, give, or buy. Words like swim have an additional
feature like “in liquid,” while crawl is “close to a surface.”
Jack
swims.
The
baby crawled under the table.
The
boy threw the ball over the fence.
John
gave Mary a beautiful engagement ring
“Become”
is a feature expressing the end state of the action of certain verbs. For
example, the verb break can be broken down into the following components of
meaning: “cause” to “become” broken.
Verbal
features, like features on nouns, may have syntactic consequences. For example,
verbs can either describe events;
such as John kissed Mary/John ate oysters, or states, such as John knows Mary/John likes oysters. The eventive/
stative difference is mirrored in the syntax. Eventive sentences still sound
natural when passivized, when expressed progressively, when used imperatively,
and with certain adverbs:
Eventives
Mary
was kissed by John. Oysters were eaten by John.
John
is kissing Mary. John is eating oysters.
Kiss
Mary! Eat oysters!
John
deliberately kissed Mary. John deliberately ate oysters
The
stative sentences seem peculiar, if not ungrammatical or anomalous, when cast
in the same form.
Statives
Mary
is known by John. Oysters
are liked by John.
John
is knowing Mary. John is
liking oysters.
Know
Mary! Like
oysters!
John
deliberately knows Mary. John
deliberately likes oysters.
Negation
is a particularly interesting component of the meaning of some verbs.
Expressions such as ever, anymore, have a red cent, and many more are ungrammatical
in certain simple affirmative sentences, but grammatical in corresponding negative
ones.
*Mary
will ever smile. (Mary
will not ever smile.)
*I
can visit you anymore. (I
cannot visit you anymore.)
*It’s
worth a red cent. (It’s
not worth a red cent.)
Such
expressions are called negative polarity
items because a negative element such as “not” elsewhere in the sentence
allows them to appear Consider these data:
*John
thinks that he’ll ever fly a plane again.
*John
hopes that he’ll ever fly a plane again.
John
doubts that he’ll ever fly a plane again.
John
despairs that he’ll ever fly a plane again.
This
suggests that verbs such as doubt and despair, but not think and hope, have “negative”
as a component of their meaning. Doubt may be analyzed as “think that not,” and
despair as “has no hope.” The negative feature in the verb allows the negative
feature in the verb allows the negative polarity item ever to occur
grammatically without the overt presence of not.
*Negative Polarity Item (NPI): An
expression that is grammatical in the presence of negation, but ungrammatical
in simple affirmative sentences. For example; any in “James does not have any
Money” but * James has any money.
Argument Structure
Verbs
differ in terms of the number and types of NPs they can take as complements.
Transitive verbs such as find, hit, chase, and so on take a direct object
complement, whereas intransitive verbs like arrive or sleep do not.
Ditransitive verbs such as give or throw take two object complements as in John
threw Mary a ball. In addition, most verbs take a subject. The various NPs that
occur with a verb are its arguments.
Thus intransitive verbs have one argument: the subject; transitive verbs have
two arguments: the subject and direct object; ditransitive verbs have three
arguments: the subject, direct object, and indirect object. The argument
structure of a verb is part of its meaning and is included in its lexical
entry. The verb not only determines the number of arguments in a sentence, but
it also limits the semantic properties of both its subject and its complements.
For example, find and sleep require animate subjects. The well-known colorless
green ideas sleep furiously is semantically anomalous because ideas (colorless
or not) are not animate.
THEMATIC ROLES
Thematic role (also called semantic role) is
the semantic relationship between the verb and the noun phrases of a sentence,
such as agent, theme, experiencer, location, instrument, goal and source.
Theta Assignment (thematic role assignment): The
ascribing of thematic roles to the syntactic elements in a sentence.
a)
Agent: The thematic role of the noun phrase whose referent deliberately does
the action described by the verb, the entity that performs the action, the
“doer”.
The
boy kicked
the ball.
Although agents are typically human (The boy), they can
also be non-human entities that cause actions, as in noun phrases denoting a
natural force (The wind), a machine (A car), or a creature (The dog), all of
which affect the ball as theme.
The
boy kicked
the ball.
The
wind blew the ball away.
A
car ran
over the ball.
The
dog caught
the ball.
b) Theme
is the entity that is involved in or affected by the action.
Instrument is the entity by which an action is performed. Theme undergoes the action but does not change its
state
The boy kicked the
ball.
I put the book on
the table.
The theme is typically non-human, but can be human, as in
“The dog chased the boy”. In fact, the same physical entity can appear in two
different semantic roles in a sentence, as in “The boy cut himself”. Here the
boy is agent and himself is theme.
c) Experiencer is the entity that undergoes a sensory, cognitive, or
emotional experience.
Susan heard the song.
Many people fear snakes.
The boy feels sad.
John is amused.
d)
Instrument
is the
entity used to carry out the action.
Jamie cut the ribbon with a pair of
scissors
This
key opens the
door to the main office.
They must have used indelible ink.
e)
Location
is where
the action occurs, where an entity is.
Johnny and Linda played
carelessly in the park
I'll be at Julie's house
studying for my test
We put the book on
the shelf.
The
ship sank at sea.
The
paper is in the folder.
f)
Source
is the
place/individual from which the movement of the action occurs.
She walked away from him
John received a
book from Mary
The baby crawled from the kitchen to the door
John received the
prize from the president.
g)
Goal is where the
action is directed towards, the location or individual to which movement
occurs.
John went home
Lee walked to school.
John gave me the book
He studied for the test.
Susan threw a pen to John.
NOTES
Recipient: a special kind of goal associated with
verbs expressing a change in ownership, possession.
ð I sent John
the letter.
He gave the book to her.
They gave the workers a
raise.
I paid my
landlord the rent.
Time: the time at which the action occurs
ð The rocket
was launched yesterday.
Beneficiary: the entity for whose benefit the action
occurs.
ð I baked Reggie
a cake.
He built a car for me.
I fight for the king.
I prayed for Susan.
John
helped Mary to buy a car.
Manner: the way in which an action is carried out
ð With great
urgency, Tabitha
phoned 911.
Cause: what caused the action to occur in the
first place; not for what, rather because of what.
ð Because
Clyde was hungry, he ate the
cake.
An avalanche destroyed the ancient temple.
An
epidemic killed off
all of the tomatoes.
Measure or amount arguments express extension
along some dimension (length, duration, cost, and so on).
ð They rowed
for three days.
The book costs ten dollars.
« Thematic roles are the same in sentences that are
paraphrases. This is because certain thematic roles must be assigned to the
same deep structure position, for example, theme is assigned to the object of
bit/bitten. This uniformity of theta assignment, a principle of Universal Grammar,
dictates that the various thematic roles are always in their proper structural
place in deep structure.
The
dog bit the stick. The
stick was bitten by the dog.
Agent
theme theme agent
The
trainer gave the dog a treat. The trainer gave a treat
to the dog.
Agent goal
theme agent theme
goal
« Thematic roles may remain the same
in sentences that are not paraphrases, as in the following instances:
The boy opened the door with the key.
The key opened the door.
The door opened.
In all three of these sentences,
the door is the theme, the object that is opened.
