EsteRAzLEx Flashcards
Define lexicology
Lexicology
-The study of words and their meaning
-An integral part of any theory of language
oThe conception of language is tripartite – describing separately the sounds, the grammar and the meaning
-Studies total word-stock = ‘lexicon’, ‘lexis’, ‘vocabulary’
-Studies both individual words and the vocabulary as a whole
What is Lexicography?
- Lexicography = making of dictionaries – pragmatic study applying the principles of lexicology for a purpose determined by the intended use of the dictionary by non-linguistic factors
With what LExicology deals?
- Lexicology deals with
o The size and structure of the vocabulary
o The link with extra-linguistic knowledge
o The centre and the periphery of the lexical system and its subsystems
o The synchronic vs. The diachronic approach
o The contact areas with morphology and word-formation
o The notions of ‘word’ and ‘language unit’
o The concept-forming power of the word (a more abstract level)
What is Lexicon?
● lexicon contains systems of lexical items which are interrelated and in which the meaning of each individual word depends on its opposition to other items in the set
What is semasiology/onomasiology/semantics/semiotics/pragmatics
-Study of meaning involves semasiology/onomasiology/semantics/semiotics and pragmatics
Semasiology-proceeds from word to concept(dictionaries are semasiological works)
Onomasiology-procceds from concept to word (found in thesauruses)
Semantics-implies the study of menaing
Semiotics-the study of sings, both verbal and non-verbal (body language, gestures and facial expressions)
Pragmatics-the study of relation between the language sign and its user
What is lexical unit?
-Basic unit of lexical semantics
-In ideal case It has single form and single meaning
-Each lexical unit must be a semantic constituent-must have a meaning and each lexical unit must be at leat one word (no suffix nor prefix can be a LU)
-Er=linguistic sign but not a lexical unit, just a morpheme
-Kick a bucket – in this expression, bucket is not a lexical unit either – the idiom functions as a single unit, cannot be separated
What is sememe?
o Sememe – meaning of a lexical unit
Decomposes into semes/semantic components
Lexeme
conceived as a combination of all the related meanings attached to a particular form
Polysemous unit
single form representing all the related meanings
What is crucial in understanding individual sentences?
o Knowing the meaning of the lexical units
o Grammar, grammatical rules (word order…)
o Context
Was is word?
↳ -various definitions but as a semantic entity
- it is a linguistic unit of single meaning, believed to convey one complete thought
What is ambiguity?
- Only context can help us deduce the meaning in some cases
Influence of context on interpretation of lexical units
Ambiguity may arise in these tow situations:
Sentence ambiguity
-We finally reached the bank. Institution?/RIver bank?
-Homonymy cause ambiguity in this case
Structure of sentece
-Chicken is ready to eat
Semantic transparency and opaqueness
-Terms introduced by Bolinger
-The degree to which the meaning of a word or phrase can be easily understood or deduced from its individual components or parts.
-The compound word “lighthouse” is semantically transparent because its meaning can be inferred from its components: “light” and “house.” a lighthouse is a structure that contains a light used to guide ships.
-The word “butterfly” is semantically opaque because its meaning cannot be derived from the individual meanings of “butter” and “fly.” the term “butterfly” refers to a specific type of insect and has no direct connection to butter or flying.
-Present in idioms and Clipping
Principle of compositionality
The principle of compositionality in lexical semantics states that the meaning of a complex expression is derived from the meanings of its individual parts and how they are combined. The overall meaning of a phrase or sentence is not simply the sum of its parts but depends on the interaction and arrangement of those parts. For example, the phrase “big red ball” refers to a ball that is both big and red, illustrating how the meanings of the constituent words contribute to the interpretation of the expression.
-Cannot be applied to idioms–>to kick the bucket=to die–> cannot be inferred form the meaning of its parts
Idioms
-An expression whose meaning cannot be inferred from the meanings of its parts
-Idioms function as a single semantic unit and as a whole it is a single semantic constituent
-They are lexically compelx (consists of several lexical elements) and semantically simplex (carries single meaning)
Irreversible binominals
oExpressions usually consisting of two nouns, 2 constituents and the order of the constituents cannot be changed - change of order destroys the meaning
oFish and chips – special type of dish…chips and fish can be anything (any sort of fish, any serving…violating basic meaning)
Collocations
-2 constituents that frequently/typically cooccur
-Strong bond between the constituents due to frequent cooccurrence
Examples:Light drizzle, fine weather, high winds…
-Principle of compositionality can be applied to this type of lexical units
Collocational ranges
oPeculiar to each word,
oE.g. Disease and illness are very close in meaning, and yet catch a disease is acceptable and *catch an illness is not
-No two words share exactly the same range and frequency of occurrences within a range
Habitual collocations
Cliches-overused phrase or opinion
Ex. A woman’s place is in the home
Semantic cohesion /sudrznost/
Sometimes the bond between two constituents can be strengthened, there are two situations:
1.One situation: one of the words is not used in its core meaning
*Heavy drinker (heavy not in its core meaning, rather meaning of high consumption)
2.If one constituent can only be used with one word, the bond is very strong
*To foot the bill – to pay the bill…only used in this context, cannot use i will foot it
Lexical relations
-Lexicology is concerned with structures in the system of lexemes, which are of twofold nature
oInternal
Morphologically complex (compounds, suffixations, prefixations) and simple
oExternal
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic
Syntagmatic relations
-Based on syntagma introduced by saussure
-Expresses relation between sentence members/lexical units functioning at the sentence level
-Signs in linear sequence
SR operates:
-On the level of sounds
oReveal which combinations are possible word beginnings in english
(str- spr- yes, stl- not)
-On the semantic level
oSyntagmatic associations indicate compatible combination
The sun rose rather than the sun spoke
Pale moon rather than black-and-white moon.
Paradigmatic relations
-Saussure
-Concerns relations at the level of the system
-Substitutional relationship, concerns signs that could replace it in its position
-Pr are based on
oA common base (teacher-teaching)
oA common affix
oA common conceptual field- all works concerning education
-Pr operate
oAt the level of sounds in a language,
Contrast with one another on the basis of a single sound
*E.g. Back, bag and bat, fat, mat
oOn the lexical level
The paradigmatic contrast
*Indicates which words belong to the same word class (part of speech) so that they can fill the same slot in the sentence pattern
*E.g. He walked/went/ran/rushed/strolled across the road
oStroll, rush, walk, run, etc.
Though all these verbs imply ‘going’,
*Stroll implies ‘going slowly’, that is ‘walking’,
*Rush implies ‘going fast’, that is ‘running’.
So the pairs walk/stroll and run/rush are incompatible.
Paradigmatic substitutions
oAllow items from a semantic set to be grouped together.
Types of paradigmatics relations
o Homonymy
o Polysemy
o Synonymy
o Antonymy
o Hyponymy/hyperonymy
Logical relations
-Logical relations enable us to identify individual lexical relations – talking about the meaning
-There are four types based on relation between 2 sets of elements:
oIdentity – if the 2 sets share the same elements/same meaning
Lexical relation – synonymy
oInclusion – if one set of elements is a part of a larger set of elements/the meaning is included in a broader meaning of another lu
Lexical relation – hyponymy/hyperonymy
oOverlap – if the 2 sets share certain elements but they also have some other elements,
Lexical relation – polysemy, antonymy
oDisjunction – if the two sets share no element, have no element in common
Lexical relation – homonymy, antonymy
Quasi-relation
- Relations that are idiosyncratic
o Dog – animal
o Cat – animal
If it is a dog/cat - it is an animal
But
o Knife – cutlery
Doesn’t work, knife is not a cutlery
Cutlery includes more - doesn’t exist for a single lexical unit but for a group of lexical units
o Fork, spoon, knife – cutlery = quasi-relation
o Red, green – colours
Colour – excludes 2 colours – black, white
Synonymy
-Situation in which 2 lexical units have identical meaning
-But, in language, it doesn’t make sense to have multiple lexical units with identical meaning – huge number of lexical units, impossible to remember, not economical
-Synonymous relations link words from different lexical strata (standard, dialect, informal)
oBut many lexicologists disregard this kind of synonymy and regard
Dialectal synonyms (valley - dale)
Standard - slang synonyms (gir/ - bird)
Synonyms from two standards (sidewalk/pavement?) (tautonyms)
Absolute synonymy
-Not good
-2 lexical units can be replaceable in every possible context without destroying or even modifying the meaning
-Agree in denotation, distribution and connotation
-Usually avoided, disadvantageous – avoid synonymy principle
Cognitive synonymy S
-Refers to lexical units which share the basic denotative meaning, but they differ in connotation
-Connotation – may refer to opposition between formal and informal language, differ in register, literal language vs slang
o Father – daddy
o Rich vs wealthy
o Go on – continue `
Synonyms in phraseology
-There are phrases in which one element (the verb or noun) can be replaced by a certain synonym and the meaning of the phrase remains unchanged
o Beat around/about the bush
o Don’t give a damn/a hang
Close synonyms differing in one seme
-Jump - leap:
o Both mean ‘movement away from the surface and change in vertical position’, but leap in addition to that contains the seme ‘change in horizontal position’
Synonyms differing in intensity
-Greater intensity is often accompanied by expressive or stylistic connotations
o Break - smash; cry — shout, scream, screech
Semantic co-occurrence restrictions
-Every lexical unit has certain restrictions in its use
-Cannot say – table worked all day – table = inanimate
-To die: animate: human, animal, plant
-To kick the bucket – cannot be used with plants or animals, just humans – no logical reasons
-Selectional restrictions – have logical justification
-Collocational restrictions – restriction without logical justification
o E.g. Idioms
Polysemy
-Based on lexemes with related meanings
o E.g. Fox, football
-Sometimes, revealed by antonymy
o Man vs woman, man vs boy, man vs animal – 3 different meanings of man (male, adult, human)
-Economic principle – one form – many meanings
-A special case of polysemy
o When one sense is general and the other specific
E.g. Cat as the beast of pre
* So that the term includes tiger, lion, panther
Cat as the common cat
* A pet animal which includes various breed
Homonymy
-One form represents two different lexemes
-Nothing in common, absolute disjunction
-Mostly one-syllable words
-Homonyms differ in declination and conjugation (lie-lie:different past tense forms)
-Identical form, unrelated meanings
Types of homonyms
-Homonyms – 3 types
o Homographs lead vs lead
o Homophones sun vs son
o Full homonyms bat vs bat
Antonymy
-Opposite meaning
-Contradictory – complementary, inversion
-Contrary – gradable, negation of one does not imply the other
Full antonyms
-Admit only 2 options
-Not gradable
-Negation of one implies the other
o Dead – alive
Graded antonyms/antonymy in narrow sense
-Gradable
-Negation of one doesn’t necessarily imply the other
-Degree/scale
o Cold – warm
Several other degrees – lukewarm, icy, hot…all share a particular feature
Conversness
-Identified by implication – directional implication
-Not gradable
-Negation of one doesn’t imply the other
-Teacher vs student
-John is peter’s student implies that peter is john’s teacher
Directional opposition
-Based on the notion of contrary /opacny/ motion
-Up-down, come-go
Lexical field
-system which is internally structured, and the individual units of this structure are interrelated
-Theoretical foundations on lexical field were laid by Weisgerber, but it is John Trier who is considered the founder of lexical field
-John Trier formulated theoretical principles of lexical field and examined how the terminology for mental properties developed from the beginning of the 13th century
-It is diachronic poit of view (it shows how relations can change)
-Word should not be treated in isolation-Trier was the first one to treat word in interrelations because you cannot objecitvely identify the meaning of a word without taking into consideration all the words that are related to it semantically
-He understood a lexical field as mosaic, meaning that if you take all the words from the lexical field, they are related but the individual words fit the scheme of mosaic-the borderlines between individual words are in his view clearly identifiable
-Lexical field concerns paradigmatic relations, lexical items are related syntagmatically
Lexical configuration based on hyperonymy/hyponymy
-Type of lexical field
-these are relations of sub and superordination, also can be represented as undirectional implications
o Mammal – hyponym of animal
o Animal – hyperonym of mammal
o Hyperonym – broader meaning
o Hyponym – more narrow meaning
o Unidirectional implications
hyperonym is implied by its hyponym…but hyponym is not implied by hyperonym
Branching
Let’s take the lexical field of animal as example. Animal branches into mammal, bird, fish etc. Then, if we reconcentrate into mammal, it branches into numbers of various mammals (dogs, cats etc etc.). Thus, the most specific meanings at the bottom, most general at the top.
-Particular lexical unit can function both as hyperonym and hyponym (dog is hyperonym in regard to cockerspaniel and hyponym to mammal)
Non-branching
-basic linguistic units which represent hierarchy based on the complexity of these units so the most general and most complex unit is sentence and then each lower unit is simpler ; sentence – phrase – word – morpheme - phoneme
Branching configurations-2 princcipels
-2 basic principles control constitution of such branching configuration
o Principle of dominance – reflects the principle of superordination and subordination
More general lexical unit dominates the more specific lexical unit
o Principle of difference – lexical units at the same level of hierarchy must differ in at least one feature (semantic feature)
Proportional series
oRelations between elements must be such that from any three elements the fourth one can be determined
-Stalion is to mare as ewe is to ram-relation based on gender
-It can be extendet horizontally and vertically
Componential analysis
-meaning of each word can be described as a sum of general semantic components (essentials)
o Man= ]]animate, human, adult, male
-Advantage in simplicity with simple words
-Disadvantage is that with many abstract words whose meaning is vague and fuzzy it is imposible to identify semantic components to define them
Relational components
-Many words can be only described by certain relations, so these components employ logical relations between predicate and argument and epress object substances, but also actions
Ex. o John killed peter.
X cause y not alive
Semantic features and it’s typology
-Overview of different kinds of features inspired by trubetzkoy in semantics
1.Denotative features
o Core features, the core meaning
o Never change
o Based on our cognitive analysis, conceptual analysis
o One word in a different context can mean different things, but the core remains the same
2.Connotative features
o Meaning of words modified by a situation, register used, who is the receiver
Smite (archaic) and strike
Steed (archaic) and horse
Same can occur with neologisms
o Employ in particular situations
3.Relational features
o Concerned with converseness
o One implies the other and the other implies the former
Father and child
4.Transfer features
o Semantic trades and statuses and modifications due to the context
She purred butter into the dish. Liquid feature transferred to butter by increasing its status
o Features of one lexical unit are effect by features of another lexical unit in a particular context
5.Deictic features
o Reference point, proximity to time or point
Far and close
Late and soon
Bring and take (different direction)
Pull and push
6.Inferential feature
o * means to employ ones cognitive abilities
Stick= beat
o Based on our inference that differs from person to person
o Natural and logical
Subjectivist nature of meaning
-Semantic value of an expression depends not only on qualities of the thing or situation it represents, but also on how we perceive and mentally picture it
-This individual subejctivist perception of the world as such as reflected in language is called conceptualizations (how we understand the world, how we approach it…)
Example:
- The glass is half empty/the glass is half full
o The same situation perceived in 2 different ways
Imagery
-we produce an image of the situation in the world around us – this image results of our conceptualization of this situation/object - image is the result of the way how we perceive the world
-Langacker uses the term imagery to indicate our ability to mentally construe (analyze) a conceived situation in alternate ways
oAll cats are playful/any cat is playful/every cat is playful/each cat is playful
All sentences share a certain property/feature of cats – playfulness
Sentences provide different imagery depending on how we mentally construe the situation
-Subjectivist nature of meaning is resulting from conceptualization and manifested in imagery
Cognitive linguistic
-theory of linguistic structure, analyzes linguistic phenomena as a system with its units somehow interrelated and constituting various structure
Fixed meaning assumption
-There is a basic meaning of each word and this basic meaning can be captured by necessary and sufficient conditions
Example:
o Closed, flat figure
o Having four sides
o All sides are equal in length
o All interior angles are equal
4 necessary conditions and as a combination they are sufficient for defining the meaning of the word square
-Nevertheless, this approach faces problems particularly in applicability to all words of a language
-It is impossible to identify the conditions for all words
oAbstract words, words which are perceived differently by different people (e.g., democracy – defined differently in different parts of the world)
-It should be preferable to distinguish between basic hard core of the meaning and an external level
o Basic hard core of the meaning – identical for all users and for all situations
Fuzzy meaning assumption
-Sorts out all the problems connected with conceptualization and subjective perception of the meaning of words
-The meaning of word is elusive, the boundaries between the core meaning and the external/subjective layer are fuzzy/cannot be precisely defined
-The same is true about the boundaries between meaning of related words – they overlap
-2 reasons:
1.Fuzzy edge phenomenon
oThere are no clear-cut boundaries – there are no clear boundaries where one word ends, and the meaning of another word starts
o The meaning of words cannot be defined in absolute way – it depends on circumstances on its use
2.Family resemblance syndrome
oOne of the first to come up with this – ludwig wittgenstein (philosopher)
Compared the situation in the meaning of words with the situation of appearances of members of family
Photo of a family – we are able to identify some similarities, but members are not totally identical – the same situation occurs in words and their meanings
Game – football, boxing, chess, etc.
*There is something that connects these – competition, but they are all different – but they still all belong under game
Prototype theory
Eleonore Rosch
-Came up with a new theory – prototype theory
-If we cannot define the meaning in a traditional way (for the reasons mentioned above) let us try to define the word by its most typical/most characteristic representative
Example:
oBird
Most prototypical = robin
After robin = sparrow, blue jay, bluebird, canary, blackbird, dove
At the opposite end of the prototypicality scale = chicken, turkey, ostrich, penguin, peacock
* Why? They don’t meet one of the basic features that we associate with birds – they cannot fly
Metaphor
-based on similarity between referents
Cognitive theory of metaphor
rests on 3 principles:
1.Metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon (not exclusively lexical)
-It comes in patterns
o Love is a journey – look how far we have come, our love is at crossroads, we have to go our separate ways, this relationship is a dead-end street, our love has been a long bumpy road, we have gone off the tracks..
o Theories and arguments are buildings – foundations of the theory, the theory needs more support, the argument is shaky, we need to construct a strong argument, the argument collapsed…
-Used creatively
o Not fixed once and forever, but can be used creatively by every user
o ex. Do you follow my argument?
-Metaphoric patterns occur outside language: the ‘thumb up’ gesture
2.Metaphors are based on mapping between two domains
- Source and target – journey and evolution of relationship
3.Metaphors are based on experiences
Cognitive theory of metonymy
Metonymy-figure of speech in which the name of an attribte of a thing is used instead of the thing itself crown as monarchy
-Based on metonymic patterns
Part for the whole – we don’t hire longhairs
Producer for product – we brought a new ford, we bought a picasso
Object used for user – the guitar has flu today
Controller for controlled – napoleon lost at waterloo
