Word Meanings & Vocabularies

WORD MEANINGS & VOCABULARIES

I. THE MEANING OF WORDS Imposter, n. One who assumes a false character or personality; swindler. (Oxford Dictionary of Current English)

Exercise: Which of the following words or expressions appear to have the same or very similar meanings; list them in pairs of letters. (a) effluent (b) knock over (c) sympathise (d) boycott (e) outflow (f) construct (g) show sympathy (h) the day after today (i) endure (j) build up (k) put up with (l) tomorrow (m)take a calculated guess at (n) estimate

A. Sameness and Difference of Sense

ENTAILMENT Example: If car and automobile are synonyms, then I am driving an automobile is the same as I am driving a car, and if I am driving a car, is the same as I am driving an automobile.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 1 Exercise on Synonymy & Entailment: In the following examples, what the first sentence expresses entails what the second expresses. Does the second sentence also entail the first? If it does, is this due to synonymy of words or phrases in each sentence? (a) Evelyn won the race. The race was won by Evelyn. (b) Greg has hit the ball to hard. Greg has struck the ball too hard. (c) My socks are both scarlet. My socks are both red. (d) I bought some ripe tomatoes. I purchased some ripe tomatoes. (e) My dog is bigger than your dog. Your dog is smaller than my dog. (f) This pencil belongs to Roger. Roger owns this pencil. (g) Ken almost shot his foot. Ken nearly shot his foot.

Polysemous Example: SIGHT has the general meaning of the ‘capacity to see’ Jerry slowly regained his sight. The Grand Canyon is a magnificent sight.

Example of Homonyms/ homophony - sight and site

Exercise on Polysemy & Homonymy: Are the senses of the italicized and underlined words related, i.e., is there one word with polysemous senses, or are these homonyms? (a) The ship was listing badly. We are listing the requirements for the course. (b) He gave her a diamond ring. His glass left a ring on the table. (c) They came to a fork in the road. He placed the fork beside the knife on the plate. (d) The dog tried to lap the water. The cat sat in my lap. (e) The dog had no bark. Don’t remove the bark from the tree. (f) It is hard to play the violin. Ebony is a hard wood.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 2 PUNS are jokes that play with words. They are possible because words are polysemous and homonyms. Exercise #1 on Puns: What is the play on words that makes the jokes below work? Joke #1: English Teacher An English teacher spent a lot of time marking grammatical errors on her students' papers and was beginning to doubt whether she was getting through to them. One day as the stress got to her, she leaned over her desk and rubbed her temples. "What's the matter, Mrs. D?" one passing student asked. "Tense," she mumbled. The student hesitated a moment, then said, "What could be the matter? What has been the matter? What was the matter?"

Joke #2: Airport I was arrested at the airport. Just because I was greeting my cousin Jack! All that I said was "Hi Jack", but very loud.

Joke #3: The Blind Man A Catholic convent is renovating a room. The Mother Superior orders two nuns to paint the room, but commands not to get any paint on their clothes. So the two nuns lock the door, take off all their clothes and proceed to paint the room. Suddenly, there's a knock on the door. "Who is it?" asks one of the nuns through the door. "Blind man," comes the reply. The two nuns look at each other and decide that a blind man would be permitted. So, they open the door. The man says, "Nice Boobs! Now, where do you want these blinds?"

Exercise #2 on Puns: Think of or make up 3 jokes that rely on puns.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 3 B. Oppositeness of Sense Example of Antonyms: Hot ≠ cold boiling hot warm tepid/ lukewarm cool cold frigid freezing

Unmarked – In the case of pairs of antonymous senses and the lexical items which bear those senses, one of the pair of lexical items often has, as well as one of the antonymous senses, a neutral sense which includes both senses. It is the lexical item we use in questions such as:

Example: How old is she? (Does not mean the person is old, e.g. a week-old baby) ≠ How young is she? (Can not ask this question without implying the person is young)

Complementary senses – ungradable antonyms that belong to a semantic field with only their senses in it, i.e., they are mutually exclusive opposites.

Example: Boy ≠ girl Solid ≠ liquid ≠ gas

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 4 Converse senses – two words that are essentially synonyms but the relationship which they denote are differently allocated by the two senses. Examples: buy and sell husband and wife These pairs look as though they are opposite in sense but strictly speaking they are not, since they denote the same action or relationship but from a different perspective in that the person who is buying something from someone is having the someone sell something to them. If there is a married relationship then on one side of that there is a wife and on the other side there will be a husband.

Entailment of antonymy, complementarity and converseness:

Example of gradable antonyms: If someone is old then they are not young. ≠ If someone is not young, it does not follow that they are old.

Example of complementary antonyms: If someone is not married then they are single and if they are not single, then they are married.

Example of converse antonyms: If A buys X from B, then it follows that B has sold X to A.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 5 C. Sense Components Superordinates and Hyponyms ‘Hot’ is a temperature. ≠ ‘Temperature’ is a kind of hot. ‘Cold’ is a temperature. A girl is a kind of child. ≠ A child is a kind of girl.

Exercise #1 on Hyponmy: Arrange the words in each group so that every word is a hyponym of the word immediately before it. Example: (a) mouse, rodent, mammal Answer: mammal, rodent, mouse (b) house, building, bungalow, structure (c) run, jog, move (d) pistol, weapon, firearm, revolver (e) person, uncle, relative. (f) dog, beast, beagle, hound (g) pilfer, steal, take

Exercise #2 on Hyponmy: Arrange the following sets of words in a tree diagram to show which words are hyponyms of which. (Note that these tree diagrams show hierarchical order not linear). Example: (a) Bic, biro, fountain pen, pen Pen

fountain pen biro

bic (b) station wagon, car, convertible, vehicle, bus, van (c) shrub, tree, plant, poppy, rhododendron, flower, marigold (d) steal, borrow, embezzle, get, burgle, buy (e) sing, speak, croon, chat, vocalize, yodel (f) denim, worsted, cotton, muslin, fabric, tweed, wool (g) amble, run, sprint, locomote, stroll, jog, walk

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 6 Exercise on Hyponymy and Entailment: Does the first sentence entail the second? If it does, is this due to hyponymy or not? (a) All dogs have fleas. My dog has fleas. (b) Bob killed Charles. Charles is not alive. (c) The bus is late. The bus is very late. (d) Alan planted marigolds. Alan has planted flowers. (e) Tom took a pig. Tom stole a pig. (f) Goldie ate the porridge. Someone ate the porridge. (g) I saw a human being. I saw a person. (h) Betty has not planted the tulips. Betty has not planted the flowers. (i) I am wearing black boots. I am wearing black footwear. (j) A tall pygmy came in. A tall person came in. (k) I ran home last night. I went home last night. (l) Bob killed Charles. Bob murdered Charles. (m) My socks are bright red. My socks are red. (n) My socks are almost dry. My socks are dry. Entailments: a, b, d, f, g, I, j, k, m Entailments resulting from hyponymy: d, I, j, k

Semantic field. – an area of meaning covered by words with related meanings.

Exercise #1 on Semantic Fields and Components: Examine the following words. Sort out what sense components differentiate the senses of the various words. Rope, twine, cable, hawser (steel cable), wire, string, thread, cord.

Exercise #2 on Semantic Fields and Components: Find all the words that English makes available for us to use for members of a family, and see if you can work out how they relate to each other.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 7 Answer to Exercise #2: Let us suppose that the significant semantic components of one’s kin are whether they are male or female; whether they are the same generation as oneself or from one or two, or three generations older, or one, two, or three generations younger, and whether they are in direct line of descent with oneself or at one or more removed from direct line of descent. That gives the following semantic features: (a) male vs. female (b) same generation as self vs. 1,2,3 generations older vs. 1,2,3 generations younger (c) direct line of descent vs. 1,2,3 degrees of distance from direct line of descent.

Using these semantic features we can say that the senses of some of our kinship terms are: Sister: female, same generation as self, same line of descent Aunt: female, 1 generation older than self, 1 degree of distance from direct line of descent Father: male, 1 generation older than self, direct line of descent

Selectional restrictions – restrictions created by the way senses fit with each other in phrases or sentences. Examples: People can not eat gasses. You can sew only things that are sewable. Only female mammals can be pregnant.

Example: the verb honour seems to need the thing which is honoured to be a person or a human quality. The Nobel Prize committee honoured Nelson Mandela or they honoured his courage. You can not say: The architectural committee honoured the building.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 8 Selectional restrictions are a factor in some sentences containing contradictions. Look at the following two sentences and indicate what causes the contradiction and why is this so. (a) My male aunt bought a piano. (b) Babies are adults.

Semantic redundancy: (a) Degas painted naked nudes. (b) I bought a male bull at the market.

II. VOCABULARIES

Example - dryhten

Active vs. Passive vocabulary

A. Adding to Vocabularies Lexical borrowing Norse dialects - egg, husband, and window. Borrowed vocabulary from Normans - warden and castle.

Exercise on Finding Source languages: From which languages did the following words come? Yacht, curry, transfer, pyjama

For example, in the Middle Ages the French word for sheep, mouton, became the English word for sheep meat, mutton. In more recent times words like casserole, sauté, and soufflé have been borrowed from French.

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 9 Blend - New words are occasionally made by putting the first part of one word together with the second part of another.

Examples: Smog- smoke and fog Avionics - aviation and electronics.

Acronym - a word made up from the first letters or syllables of a phrase.

Examples: United Nations Education and Cultural Organization – Unesco CIA – Central Intelligence Agency

Exercise on Acronyms: Find the sources of the following acronyms: Laser, NASA, NATO, AIDS, UFO, MP

Inglês IV OHP Transparencies on WORD MEANINGS 10