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Chapter Five Meaning 1. The Study of Meaning Semantics: The meaning of words: Lexical semantics Chapter Five The meaning of sentences: Propositional meaning, compositional meaning Meaning Linguistic semantics vs. Logical Meaning semantics/philosophical semantics Pragmatics: The meaning of utterances 1 2 2. Semantic Meaning Logicians and philosophers have tended to concentrate on a restricted range of sentences (typically, statements, or ‘propositions’) within Semantics is the study of meaning in language. a single language. Meaning has been studied for thousands of The linguistic approach aims to study the years by philosophers, logicians and linguists. properties of meaning in a systematic and E.g. Plato & Aristotle. objective way, with reference to as wide a range of utterances and languages as possible, ∴ broader in scope. 3 4 3. The meaning of meaning Geoffrey Leech (1974, 1981). Semantics: The 3. The meaning of meaning Study of Meaning. Seven types of meaning: C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. Conceptual meaning John means to write. Connotative meaning A green light means to go. Social meaning Health means everything. Associative Affective meaning His look was full of meaning. Meaning What is the meaning of life? Reflected and meaning What does ‘capitalist’ mean to you? Collocative meaning What does ‘cornea’ mean? Thematic meaning 5 6 1 3.2 Connotative meaning 3.1 Conceptual meaning The communicative value an expression has by ‘ ’ ‘ ’ Also called ‘denotative’ or ‘cognitive’ meaning. virtue of what it refers to, over and above its Refers to logical, cognitive or denotative purely conceptual content. content. A multitude of additional, non-criterial Concerned with the relationship between a properties, including not only physical word and the thing it denotes, or refers to. characteristics but also psychological and social properties, as well as typical features. 7 8 3.3 Social meaning ‘ ’ Involving the ‘real world’ experience one What a piece of language conveys about the associates with an expression when one uses social circumstances of its use. or hears it. Dialect: the language of a geographical region Unstable: they vary considerably according to or of a social class. culture, historical period, and the experience Time: the language of the 18th c., etc. of the individual. Time: the language of the 18th c., etc. Province: language of law, of science, of Any characteristic of the referent, identified advertising, etc. subjectively or objectively, may contribute to advertising, etc. the connotative meaning of the expression Status: polite, colloquial, slang, etc. which denotes it. Modality: language of memoranda, lectures, jokes, etc. Singularity: the style of Dickens, etc. 9 10 3.4 Affective meaning domicile: very formal, official residence: formal Reflecting the personal feelings of the speaker, abode: poetic including his attitude to the listener, or his attitude to something he is talking about. home: general You’re a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobate, and I hate you for it! steed: poetic I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if horse: general you would be so kind as to lower your voices a little. or nag: slang Will you belt up. gee-gee: baby language 11 12 2 3.5 Reflected meaning 3.6 Collocative meaning Arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, The associations a word acquires on account when one sense of a word forms part of our of the meanings of words which tend to occur response to another sense. in its environment. When you hear ‘click the mouse twice’, you pretty: girl, boy, woman, flower, garden, colour, think of Gerry being hit twice by Tom so you village, etc. feel excited. handsome: boy, man, car, vessel, overcoat, Many taboo terms are result of this. airliner, typewriter, etc. 13 14 3.7 Thematic meaning 4. The Theory of Reference Words → Meaning: Words ‘name’ or ‘refer to’ What is communicated by the way in which a things -- Platonic speaker or writer organizes the message, in Words→Concepts→Things: Ogden & Richards terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis. thought/concept/image Mrs Bessie Smith donated the first prize. The first prize was donated by Mrs Bessie symbolizes refers to Smith. They stopped at the end of the corridor. symbol -------------------------------------- referent At the end of the corridor, they stopped. (word) stands for (object) 15 16 5. Sense ‘The meaning of a word is its use in the language’. (Ludwig Wittgenstein) ‘Meaning’ is not some kind of ‘entity’ Meaning is studied by making detailed separate from language. analyses of the way words and sentences are That words ‘have meaning’ means only that used in specific contexts. they are used in a certain way in a sentence. Reference: how language refers to this There is no ‘meaning’ beyond the meaning external world of individual words and sentences. Sense: the way people relate words to each other within the framework of their language 17 18 3 The family tree 6. Sense Relations 舅父 = ‘mother’s brother’ Synonymy 叔叔 = ‘father’s younger brother’ Gradable 伯父 = ‘father’s elder brother’ 姨母 = ‘mother’s sister’ Antonymy Complementary 姑母 = ‘father’s sister’ Converse Hyponymy 19 20 6.1 Synonymy 6.2 Gradable antonymy good ----------------------- bad buy/purchase long ----------------------- short thrifty/economical/stingy big ----------------------- small autumn/fall Can be modified by adverbs of degree like flat/apartment very. tube/underground Can have comparative forms. Can be asked with how. 21 22 6.3 Complementary antonymy 6.4 Converse antonymy alive : dead male : female buy : sell teacher : student present : absent lend : borrow above : below innocent : guilty give : receive before : after odd : even parent : child host : guest pass : fail husband : wife employer : employee boy : girl hit : miss 23 24 4 6.5 Hyponymy Animal Inclusiveness A is included in / a kind of B. bird fish insect animal Cf.: chair and furniture, rose and flower Superordinate/hypernym: the more general term human animal Hyponym: the more specific term Co-hyponyms: members of the same class tiger lion elephant ... 25 26 7. Componential Analysis 7.1 Animal words HUMAN MALE FEMALE NON-ADULT man (ADULT, MALE) woman (ADULT, FEMALE) bull cow calf boy (NON-ADULT, MALE) ram ewe lamb girl (NON-ADULT, FEMALE) boar sow piglet 27 28 7.2 Domestic animals 7.3 English motion verbs ONE FOOT NATURAL HURRIED FORWARD ALWAYS ON bull ram boar cow ewe sow calf lamb piglet GROUND walk + ━ + + M + + + — — — ± ± ± march ━ + + + run ━ + + ━ F — — — + + + ± ± ± limp ━ ━ + + 29 30 5 7.4 More complex ones 8. Meaning & Syntactic Structure The meaning of a sentence is obviously related father: PARENT (x, y) & MALE (x) to the meanings of the words used in it, but it x is a parent of y, and x is male. is also obvious that sentence meaning is not take: CAUSE (x, (HAVE (x, y))) simply the sum total of the words. x causes x to have y. give: CAUSE (x, (~HAVE (x, y))) x causes x not to have y. 31 32 8.1 Compositionality The cat is chasing the mouse. The mouse is chasing the cat. An integrated theory Katz & Fodor (1963): The structure of a I have read that book. semantic theory. A 40-page long paper published in Language. That book I have read. The method itself is years out of date but the debate about the principle of compositionality The daughter of Queen Elizabeth’s son is is by no means over (Cruse, 2004: 77). the son of Queen Elizabeth’s daughter. 33 34 The idea behind the principle was to solve the Although many semanticists turned away from problem of generating grammatical but Chomsky by developing formal semantic incorrect sentences like Colorless green ideas theories by themselves, Chomsky did admit sleep furiously. soon that semantic rules would be found at Deep Structure as well as Surface Structure The purpose was to wage an attack on (EST) and later on placed semantic Chomsky’s basis assumption that correct rules/representation in the S-Structure sentences could be generated by syntactic altogether (since REST). Other ideas were also transformations alone, disregarding the incorporated into Chomsky’s later models of semantic rules at Surface Structure. grammar, e.g. the concept of projection. 35 36 6 According to the principle of compositionality, colorful {Adj} each word in the lexicon is equipped with a. (Color) [abounding in contrast or variety of certain components and combinations of bright colors] <(Physical Object) or (Social words into sentences must go through certain Activity)> selection restrictions in order to produce b. (Evaluative) [having distinctive character, acceptable sentences. Thus we can say vividness, or picturesqueness] <(Aesthetic colorful ball because Object) or (Social Activity)> 37 38 ball {NC} Then it is possible to work out four readings a. (Social Activity) (Large) (Assembly) [for the of the combinations of color and ball, and purpose of social dancing] further combinations with other words b. (Physical Object) [having globular shape] (projections) will determine which of the four c. (Physical Object) [solid missile for projection is the actual meaning in the sentence John by engine of war] hit the colorful balls and We had a colorful ball last night. 39 40 8.2. Noncompositional meaning Frozen metaphors: a class of idiom-like Idioms: cannot be built up as the sum of its expressions which may show some of the parts. Idioms are phrases derived by metaphor features of syntactic frozenness typical of and other types of semantic extension. idioms, such as resistance to modification, get up on the wrong side of the bed transformation, and so on, but which differ in the doghouse from idioms in an important respect: the effect green with envy of synonym substitution is not a complete collapse of the non-literal reading. kick the bucket face the music 41 42 7 The ball’s in your court now. I gave him a piece of my mind.
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