Word Meaning The study of words LING 130 ! What does a word mean? Fall 2005 ! To what extent is it a linguistic matter? James Pustejovsky ! To what extent is it a matter of world knowledge? Thanks to Richard Wright, U. Washington, for use of some slides Lexical semantics Synonymy ! = meanings of morphemes and words ! If A is synonymous with B, ! semantics overlaps with morphology ! A and B mean the same thing, A can be paraphrased by B ! Some meaning relations ! ! Synonymy Synonymous words ! Ambiguity ! postpone = put off ! Antonymy ! vomit = throw up ! Hyponymy and hypernymy ! couch = sofa Ambiguity Scope Ambiguity ! A linguistic expression is ambiguous if it ! Everyone in Boston is following one supports two or more possible baseball team. interpretations. ! There is one baseball team that everyone ! Scope in Boston is following (e.g., Red Sox) ! Syntactic (structural) ! Everyone in Boston is following one team or another (e.g., Red Sox, Yankees, ! Lexical Tigers, Cardinals) Syntactic Ambiguity Lexical Ambiguity ! [ [Competent women] and men] have all the ! Arises when a single word is associated good jobs in the company. with more than one meaning. ! [Competent [women and men ] ] have all ! You should have seen the bull we got from the good jobs in the company. the Pope. ! Papal communication ! Male cow ! nonsense Lexical and Syntactic Ambiguity Lexical Ambiguity ! Mary claims that John saw her duck. ! Polysemy vs. homophony ! John claims that Mary saw his/him duck. ! Polysemous morpheme ! meaning1 meaning2 ! e.g. hard ! “difficult” “durable, solid” ! Single lexical entry Puns and Zeugmas Homophony Ambiguous words used in different senses in ! Homophones parallel syntactic construction. ! morpheme1 morpheme2 •‘water’: ‘pour water into’, ‘dilute with water’ Dave watered the plants, and Rose, the drinks. meaning meaning 1 2 •‘suggest’: ‘advise verbally’, ‘indicate’ ! e.g. pass (‘I’m going to pass’) The fuel indicator and Mary suggest we get some gas. ! ‘abstain’ ‘succeed’ ! Distinct lexical entries Synonymy Synonymy Problems ! Semantic equivalence. Synonyms can be substituted for each other without ! A big house = a large house affecting a sentence’s truth value. ! A big sister ! a large sister ! Youth/adolescent ! Automobile/car ! Remember/recall ! Purchase/buy Antonymy Non-gradable antonymy ! If A is an antonym of B, then A means ! e.g. ‘married’ vs. ‘single’ the opposite of B ! if ‘married’ then ‘not single’ and ! Non-gradable antonymy (complementarity) ! if ‘single’ then ‘not married’ ! Gradable antonymy (contrary) ! ‘dead’ vs. ‘alive’ ! ‘over’ vs. ‘under’ Gradable antonymy Gradable antonyms Gradable pairs (typically adjectives) " meanings are relatively subjective ! Tall vs. short, cute vs. ugly, etc. " may depend on context ! Meanings can be further modified " e.g. ‘big’ vs. ‘small’ ! Comparative and superlative forms ! ‘tallest’, ‘cuter’, etc. ! Modify with ‘quite’, ‘very’, etc. ! ‘really cute’ Dumbo, a small elephant More on antonymy Hyponymy and hypernymy ! Gradable/nongradable distinction often blurred by language users. Nongradable ! If B is a hyponym of A, then antonyms: ! the meaning of B is a special case of A ! ‘half dead’, ‘barely alive’, ‘more dead than ! If A is a hypernym of B, then alive’, ‘quite pregnant’ ! the meaning of A is a more general instance of ! Antonyms often not in equal use: B ! ‘How heavy is it?’ (not: ‘How light is it?’) ! ‘How tall is he?’ (not: ‘How short is he?’) ! ‘Marital status’ (not: ‘Single status’) B A Hyponyms: nouns Hyponymy: adjectives colored (‘contains color’) red yellow blue purple black green turquoise royal blue Hyponymy: verbs Productive ways of forming hyponyms strategy hyponym hyponym hypernym dance move adjectival/ car Japanese car sentential flower the flower I picked last slice cut modification night compoundin pickle dill pickle drive motate g rage road rage adverbial interesting incredibly interesting modification Caveats re adjectival modification Caveats re adjectival modification ! Anti-intersection adjectives (require negation of noun with which they combine): ! ‘Non-intersection’ adjectives: is not a hyponym of: is not necessarily a hyponym fake $100 bill $100 bill of: possible solution solution the former president the president (i.e. current) alleged thief thief phony offer offer thief alleged alleged thief thief phony offer offer ?? ?? Caveat re compounding Encoding of kinship concepts ! Exocentric compounds: ! ‘parent’s sibling’ is not a instead ! Other possible concepts: hyponym hyponym of: of: ! sex: not specified, male, female boombox box sound ! side of family: not specified, maternal, system paternal station wagon car ! 3 x 3 = 9 possible distinct concepts wagon soap opera opera TV show ‘parent’s sibling’ English Witsuwit’en Sahaptin sex of parent’s sibling side of family 1 ‘parent’s sibling’ -- -- -- 1 not specified not specified 2 ‘mother’s sibling -- -- -- 2 not specified maternal 3 ‘father’s sibling’ -- -- -- 3 not specified paternal 4 ‘parent’s sister’ aunt -- -- 4 female not specified 5 ‘mother’s sister’ -- -aq’´j?-eq’´j paXa@X 5 female maternal 6 ‘father’s sister’ -- -pits piSíS 6 female paternal 7 ‘parent’s brother’ uncle -- -- 7 male not specified 8 ‘mother’s brother’ -- -´z?E káka 8 male maternal 9 ‘father’s brother’ -- -thaj mˆXa 9 male paternal Lexical semantics summary ! Relations between meanings of lexical items ! Synonymy, antonymy, ambiguity (polysemy, homophony), hyponymy ! Cross-linguistic variation in meanings encoded by morphemes.