Lecture 5-7 - Semantics & Lexicon Flashcards

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1
Q

What is semantics?

A
  • Semantics is the study of the nature and the structure of meaning.
  • Linguists working in the field of semantics are interested in meaning in human language

–> the study of MEANING (of words, phrases and sentences)

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2
Q

Word meaning is conventional and arbitrary, describe!

A

Conventional:
• ‘agreement’ on a meaning
• we create the link and this meaning is set within our speech community (cf. different languages)

Arbitrary:
• no natural link between the form and the meaning of a word

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3
Q

Describe Lexical, Sentential and Discourse semantics

A

Lexical semantics:
- concerned with the meaning of words/morphemes

Sentential semantics (phrasal semantics):
- concerned with the meaning of syntactic units larger than words (e.g. phrases, clauses, sentences)

Discourse semantics:
- meaning that is created in context (very close to pragmatics)

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4
Q

Describe the differences between semantics and pragmatics

A

Semantics:
objective, systematic study of the properties of meaning, focusing on what the words conventionally mean

Pragmatics:
study of the meaning intended by the speaker in context, on a particular occasion

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5
Q

Semiotic triangle:

What is meaning?

A
  • Word meaning is coded and conventionalized
  • Saussure’s concept of the linguistic sign: The relationship between the two aspects of the linguistic sign is arbitrary
  • Meaning is the relation between a linguistic expression and a mental category that is used to classify objects, i.e. a concept. (Plag et al. 2015)
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6
Q

Describe the semiotic triangle

A

1) linguistic form/symbol (links u) –> symbolizes
2) thought/concept (oben) –> refers to
3) referent/object in reality (rechts u): linguistic form stands for referent

form –> hearing –> concept
concept –> speaking –> form

referent –> direct –> concept
concept –> indirect –> referent

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7
Q

Describe the 3 different definitions of meaning

A

1st definition
- “Meaning is the relation between a linguistic expression and the entity for which it can be used” (Plag et al. 2009, a ‘possible’ but problematic definition)
- we commonly use words to point to objects or events in the world, direct connection between
words and things in the real world

2nd definition:

  • Meaning is the relation between a linguistic formal expression (e.g. a morph) and a mental category that is used to classify objects, i.e. a concept.
  • This is a conceptual approach which includes the notion of mental concepts as a third player which is different from the referents in the outside world

3rd view:

  • “The meaning of a word is its use in the language” (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
  • quite radical; but remember the meaning of “coffee”!
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8
Q

Important aspect: meaning is a …

A

relation!

  • -> A concept is in our head and is independent of language
  • -> A meaning relates a linguistic form and a concept

Meaning is the relation between a linguistic expression (i.e. an arbitrary form, e.g. a morph) and a mental category that is used to classify objects (i.e. a concept)
(Plag et al. 150)

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9
Q

Dimensions of word meaning:

Name the 3 pairs of important terms

A
  • sense vs reference
  • denotation vs connotation
  • intension vs extension

l: language-internal (or intra-linguistic) side of meaning
r: language-external (extra-linguistic) reality

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10
Q

Dimensions of word meaning:

Sense vs reference

A

Sense:
• Sense (1st definition): conditions that need to be met in order for the application of a particular word to be appropriate
• Sense (2nd definition): essentially defined by its relation to other expressions
e.g. old - young, medium - large- small
• sense is close to mental concept

Reference:
• Referent: object in the world picked out by a particular word or phrase
• Reference:
- the relationship of an expression (stored in the mind of a speaker/linguistic sign) and the referent
- it is an important function of words to pick out objects in the world

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11
Q

Dimensions of word meaning:

Sense vs reference - give an example

A

Sense:
- President of the United States: ‘the elected political leader of the United States of America’

Referent:

  • > Different referents:
  • In 1789: George Washington
  • In 2000: Bill Clinton
  • In 2010: Barack Obama
  • Now: Joe Biden
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12
Q

Dimensions of word meaning:

Denotation vs Connotation

A

Denotation:

  • primary meaning, dictionary meaning
  • refers to the stable relationship between a linguistic expression and the concrete language external entities to which it refers
  • Example: the denotation of “coffee” is simply all the coffee that can be potentially described by the word; is the same for you and me

Connotation:

  • all associations/ideas/emotions that come to mind in relation to a linguistic expression
  • Example: the connotations of “coffee” are all the associations we have that can be triggered by the word; are different for you and me – or even for you in the morning and in the evening!
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13
Q

Dimensions of word meaning:

Denotation vs Connotation - give an example

A

Tree:

Denotation: different trees
Connotation: Relaxation, Park, children climbing trees, woods, birds, countryside, shade, roots, bark, …

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14
Q

Dimensions of word meaning:

Intension vs Extension

A
Intension: 
- Set of semantic properties which are shared by all members
e.g. bird:
[+ animate]
[- human]
[+ wings]
[+ feathers]
- Semantic features, semantic properties, a word’s semantic components. (Componential analysis)

Extension:

  • The actual entities in the real world that ”satisfy” the intension
  • Extension of bird includes all birds: doves, parrots, penguins..
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15
Q

How is meaning (linguistic) related to categorization (cognitive)?

A

Words –> Meanings –> Mental concepts
=> to understand word use, we need to understand mental concepts/categories

What is a table?

  1. When answering this, we use our mental concept “table”.
  2. The structure of that mental concept affects how we use word table => affects our language!
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16
Q

Approaches to word meaning and categorization

3 famous approaches to categorization (cognitive):

A
  1. Semantic Feature Analysis (Aristotle)
  2. Family resemblance (Wittgenstein)
  3. Prototype Theory/ Fuzziness of Meaning (Rosch)
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17
Q

Approaches to word meaning and categorization

Semantic feature analysis - example man/woman + pros and cons

A
man: 
\+ human 
\+ male
\+ adult
boy: 
\+ human 
\+ male
- adult
woman: 
\+ human 
- male
\+ adult
girl: 
\+ human 
- male
- adult

Pros:
easy to understand, easy to apply; naturally defines relations

Cons:
- features are themselves concepts!
- some objects are somehow better examples for a category (is penguin a bird?..)
- some features are not atomic
- componential analyses do not grasp all there is to word meaning
(spinster/bachelorette).
- which features should be listed (which are essential / necessary?)
- sometimes impossible to find core attributes at all (advice, threat)

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18
Q

Approaches to word meaning and categorization

Semantic feature analysis - critique of Ludwig Wittgenstein

A
  • one of the first to realize the problem with semantic features
  • his famous example is the category GAME (tennis, cards, roulette, Solitaire, soccer, chess, …)

Game:

  • done for entertainment
  • somebody wins
  • requires training or practice
  • involves more than one person…
  • > Problem: not all games share all those features
  • > Wittgenstein’s suggestion was to speak about family resemblance (finding partial similarities)
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19
Q

Approaches to word meaning and categorization

Prototype Theory by Eleanor Rosch

A
  • Members graded according to their typicality
  • Central members share many features with the prototype

Advantages of prototype theory:

  • Allows for non-typical/ peripheral members
  • Allows for gradience/ fuzzy boundaries
  • Includes associative meaning (e.g. bachelor)
  • Explains linguistic expressions that distinguish different grades of belonging to a category:
    • typically
    • strictly speaking, loosely speaking, technically speaking
    • as such
    • sort of, kind of, -ish
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20
Q

Approaches to word meaning and categorization

Family resemblance theory vs. prototype theory:

A
  • Similarity:
  • Both allow gradience/fuzziness
  • Both allow for incorporation of associative meaning

Difference:
- family resemblance does not declare some category members as most typical

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21
Q

Lexicon:

How many full entries of words does the 2nd edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contain?

A

171,476 words in current use

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22
Q

Lexicon:

How many words does an educated adult speaker know?

A

Between 20,000 and 80,000

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23
Q

Lexicon:

How fast can natives recognize a word?

A

200 milliseconds after its onset

well before it has been completely pronounced

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24
Q

Lexicon:

How many words (on average) do a 2, 3 and 5 year old use actively?

A

two-year-old around 500 words
three-year-old over 1000
five-year-old up to 3000

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25
Q

Where are words stored mentally?

A

huge mental storage device called the mental lexicon

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26
Q

Lexicon:

Give a short definition

A

the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge

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27
Q

Lexicon:

Give a definition from a linguistic POV

A

In linguistics, a lexicon is a language’s inventory of lexemes.

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28
Q

Lexicon:

Of what parts do Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of?

A

1) a lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language’s words (its wordstock)
2) a grammar, a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences

lexicon is thought to include:

  • bound morphemes which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes)
  • compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions and other collocations
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29
Q

What do Dictionaries represent?

A

Attempts to list the lexicon of a language in alphabetical order

-> in the mind the lexicon is organized as a network (mental lexicon)

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30
Q

Are words/lexemes isolated from each other?

A

No, they are connected to each other -> word association test

  • Strong psychological evidence for links among words in our minds
  • The meaning of words is greatly influenced by their connections to other words
  • There are different kinds of connections
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31
Q

Name problematic and interesting cases in connection with word meanings:

A

Synonyms:
word1 => meaning1
word2 => meaning1
eg.: I’ve just seen a bat flying around. He hit the ball with his bat.

Multiple meanings:
word1 => > meaning1, meaning2, meaning3
eg.: She hit the nail on the head. The rock hit him on the head.

–> the words have different meanings (lexical ambiguity)

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32
Q

If one compares the relation between different meanings, one can distinguish which forms of meaning variation?

A

polysemy and homonymy

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33
Q

Words and their senses:

Describe Polysemy

A

Polysemy:
One form has related meanings

head

  • Head of a person
  • Head of a nail
  • Head of an institution

mouse

  • animal
  • PC device
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34
Q

Words and their senses:

Describe Homonymy

A

Homonymy:
One form has multiple unrelated meanings

bat

  • small flying animal
  • piece of wood for hitting a ball

bark

  • a dog is barking
  • the bark of a tree
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35
Q

Name the rwo special cases of (partial) homonymy:

A

1) Homophony:
- same sound
- two or more different forms have the same pronunciation
- eight, ate
- flower, flour
- knight, night
- die, dye
- be, bee
- bear, bare
- sent, cent
- chilly, chili

2) Homography:
- same written form
- same spelling, different pronunciation
- dove (sitting on a branch), dove (into the lake)
- tear (in my eye), tear (apart)

Homographs which are not pronounced identically are sometimes called heteronyms. All heteronyms are homographs, but not all homographs are heteronyms.

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36
Q

The network: Name different semantic relations among words

A

i) Synonymy: Synonyms
ii) Antonymy: Antonyms
iii) Hyponymy: Hyponyms (more specific) & hyperonyms (umbrella terms)
iv) Meronymy: Part-whole relations

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37
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Describe Synonymy: Synonyms

A

Synonyms are words of different form that have (approximately) the same meaning

  • > beautiful, lovely, pretty, handsome
  • > buy, purchase, acquire
  • > try, attempt
38
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

What are complications with synonymy!

A

Synonyms are not always interchangeable:

1) I did a good job. - I did a good *occupation.
task - professional employment
2) I tried Sushi today. - I *attempted Sushi today.
do or use in order to discover whether one likes it - attempt to do something

As a special case, only one meaning of polysemous words may have a synonymy
-> head = boss?

=> On close inspection: no true synonyms / no perfect synonymy (only “near-synonyms”)

39
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

How do synonyms differ!

A

Synonyms may differ with regard to

  • stylistic level
  • social or regional variety
40
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

What is Euphemism?

A

the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener; sometimes used to avoid taboo words, but also for fun
Einwanderer/ Personen mit Migrationshintergrund

  • die/ pass away
  • crippled > handicapped > disabled > physically challenged > differently abled
  • Einwanderer/ Personen mit Migrationshintergrund
  • Putzfrau/ Raumpflegerin
41
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Describe Antonymy: Antonyms

A
  • Oppositeness of meaning
  • Antonyms are opposites with respect to at least one component of their meaning

big – small
clean - dirty
dead - alive

  • -> A bit counterintuitively, to be opposites you need to have a lot in common!
    eg. : come - go are opposites with respect to direction but both involve the notion of movement
42
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Antonyms: Different types of lexical opposites:

A
  • Gradable antonyms (gradable pairs)
  • Complementaries (complementary pairs)
  • Reversives
  • Converses
43
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Antonyms: Gradable antonyms (gradable pairs)

A
  • polarity
  • gradable pairs
  • opposite poles of a continuum
  • more of x is less of y
  • large/small, hot/cold, clean/dirty, love/hate,…
  • scale: hot, warm, tepid, cool, cold, freezing
44
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Antonyms: Complementaries

A
  • non-gradable, complementary pairs
  • either-or
  • not x = y
  • alive-dead, true-false, temporary-permanent

*This answer is more true.
not alive = dead

45
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Antonyms: Reversives

A
  • directional opposites
  • describe opposite directions of a movement
  • enter-exit, come-go
46
Q

The network: semantic relations among words

Antonyms: Converses

A
  • relational opposites
  • describe the same situations from different perspectives
  • buy-sell, teacher-pupil (student), employer-employee, mother-daughter
47
Q

Words may have different opposites in different contexts:

A
  • light bag, heavy bag
  • light wind, strong wind
  • light colors, dark colors
    You know by now that words may have several meanings.
    light has different antonyms in its different meanings.
48
Q

Hypo- and Hyperonymy:

What is Hyponymy? What is Hyperonymy? examples?

A
  • Semantic hierarchies
  • X is a kind of Y
  • Hyperonym: superordinate
  • Hyponym: subordinate

Hyperonym: color; Hyponym: red, blue, green, …
Hyperonym: flower; Hyponym: rose, tulip, lily,…
Hyperonym: animal; Hyponym: dog, cat, …

49
Q

What is Meronymy?

A
  • Part-whole relationship
  • meronymy refers to parts of real objects
  • pit is part of a peach, finger is part of a hand, branches + trunk = tree
50
Q

Syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic relations

A

Julia loves strong tea.
Mary hates weak coffee.
Fred adores mild whisky.

syntagmatic relation ->
‘horizontal’ relationship between linguistic forms which co-occur in the same structure.

paradigmatic realtion !
‘vertical’ relationship of linguistic forms which can replace each other in a structure.

51
Q

What are Collocations

A

cases of strong syntagmatic relations

patterns of co-occurence:

  • some lexemes work together very frequently in predictable ways
  • e.g. Happy birthday! but Merry Christmas!

Collocations form an important organizing principle in the vocabulary of any
language.
If you choose the wrong collocation in a foreign language, this is considered non- idiomatic linguistic behaviour and makes you sound foreign.

52
Q

Give the Definition of Collocation

A
  • co-occurrence of lexical items in a text (word partnerships)
  • the increased likelihood of two elements to co-occur in a text
  • the habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance
  • statistical tendency of words to co-occur
53
Q

Give examples for collocations

A

beige car and blond hair, NOT: blond car and beige hair
-> Blond collocates with hair

  • strong NOT powerful coffee
  • tall NOT high tree
  • rich NOT deep taste
  • big NOT large mistake
  • great NOT big fun
  • sweet NOT nice dreams
54
Q

Collocations with get

A

Get: lost, fired, a job, a life, married

55
Q

Collocations with take

A

Take: part in something, a break, a seat, a look, a picture, a chance

56
Q

Collocations with have

A

Have: fun, lunch, dinner, a fight, a baby

57
Q

Collocations with break

A

Break: the news, s/o heart, a promise, a record, a habit, the law, free

58
Q

Collocations with catch

A

Catch: fire, a bus, a cold, the flu, a thief

59
Q

Collocations with save

A

Save: time, money, space, energy, someone a seat,

60
Q

Syntagmatic associations among words

Totally predictable collocations

A

addled eggs, rancid butter, blond hair

61
Q

Syntagmatic associations among words

Less predictable collocations

A

candle: burn, blow out, birthday, Christmas
brown: hair, bread, leaves, shoes, car

62
Q

Syntagmatic associations among words

non predictable collocations

A
  • but not everything goes
  • have, be, the,…
  • e.g. the can co-occur with a Numeral, Adjective, Noun but not with a Verb
63
Q

What is a Colligation

A
  • subtype of a collocation

- occurrence of a lexical item in a grammatical structure

64
Q

Give examples for a Colligation

A

looking forward to +ING

  • I am looking forward to seeing you
  • *I am looking forward to see you

the verb present + prepositional object construction

  • *I’d like to present you my project
  • I’d like to present my project to you
65
Q

Collocational differences between language

A

kochen -> boil, cook, make, brew
boil water, boil/cook potatoes, cook/make stew, make/brew coffee

Schwarzbrot - brown bread

66
Q

Collocational bonds

A
  • affect words not necessarily immediately next to each other
  • bridge word classes and syntactic structure
67
Q

Give an example of a collocational bond

A

argument - strong:

  • a strong argument
  • she further strengthened her argument by…
  • the strength of her argument
  • she argued strongly for…
68
Q

What are highly fixed collocations?

A
  • sentence starters, frames, fixed phrases
  • are stored as chunks/are stored as a single word
  • are more than the sum of their parts
  • have a specific pragmatic function
  • cannot be modified (or very little)
  • we have to learn them by heart -> patterns learned and used as wholes

A highly fixed collocational phrase with a non transparent meaning like out of the blue is often called an idiomatic structure/idiom

69
Q

Give examples for highly fixed collocations

A
Good morning!
sick and tired
How do you do? 
Have you ever...X? 
ladies and gentlemen
70
Q

Idioms: non-compositional expressions:

The Principle of Semantic Compositionality

A

The meaning of a phrase or a sentence is determined by the meaning of its component parts and the way they are combined structurally.

Compositionality: the meaning of the whole is determined by the meanings of its parts and the way they are assembled

71
Q

Idioms: semantically compositional, semi-compositional, non-compositional expressions

A

semantically compositional:
to cook some beans (bean + s is morphologically comp.)
- mean what the words mean

semi-compositional:
- to spill the beans = divulge information

non-compositional

  • kick the bucket = to die
  • out of the blue, play with fire
  • they don’t mean what the words mean, they have another meaning, different meanings
72
Q

definition of an idiom

A
  1. an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements and the general grammatical rules of a language
    - e.g. tough cookie, over the moon, see the light or as clear as day
  2. A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words
  3. Fixed collocational pattern/chunk which has a metaphorical meaning that is often not clear or obvious and which has to be learned by heart
73
Q

Meaning classification:

transparent/compositional and non-transparent/non-compositional idioms

A

Transparent/compositional:

  • fight a losing battle, leave no stone unturned, as clear as day
  • you can guess what it means

Non-transparent/non-compositional:

  • kick the bucket, hit the hay (going to bed), saw logs
  • you have no idea what it means
74
Q

Syntactic Classification:

A
  • Verb + object: draw the line, have second thoughts
  • Prepositional phrase: in cold blood, out of the blue
  • Compounds: a stumbling block, a couch potato
  • Binominals: high and mighty
  • Simile: as blind as a bat, as cool as a cucumber
  • Conversational phrases: long time no see
  • Sayings & proverbs: don’t count the chickens before they are hatched
  • Lexical classification: to make a killing, to make your blood boil
  • Classification via topics: idioms regarding food, the weather, body parts,
    animals
75
Q

Weather idioms

A

come rain or shine = whatever happens
fair-weather friend = doesn’t support u in bad times
take a raincheck = postpone sthg
weather the storm = survive a difficult situation
blow hot and cold = keep changing ur attitude

76
Q

food idioms

A

tough nut to crack = difficult problem
baker’s dozen = 13
egg on one’s face = be embarrassed, feel foolish
grain of salt = be skeptical of a statement
bigger fish to fry = have more important things to do
above the salt = of high standing or honor
bad egg = s/o who is not to be trusted

77
Q

Idioms:

Strong syntactic restrictions may apply to idioms:

A

Uncle Tony finally kicked the bucket.

  • The bucket was finally kicked by uncle Tony.
  • Uncle Tony’s kicking of the bucket was really sad.
78
Q

Idioms:

there is modification potential and some syntactic flexibility with some idioms:

A

spill the beans > The beans were spilled.

take a rain check > take a long raincheck.

79
Q

Idioms:

Translational differences:

A

You can’t translate idioms directly from one language into the other!

German:
- aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen
English:
- *make a mosquito out of an elephant
- to make a mountain out of a molehill

Katzensprung: *cat’s jump

80
Q

Phrasal and sentential semantics:

A
  • The meaning that can be created by combining more than one word
  • The lexicon is large but finite; (core) meanings can be listed
  • You can create phrases and sentences in an infinite number, you can combine and create a sentence with a new meaning

Principle of Semantic Compositionality:

  • The meaning of an expression is determined by the meaning of its component parts and the way in which they are combined
  • e.g., large red balloon, a balloon which is red and large
  • The order of the words is important too!
  • e.g., Peter hit John, John hit Peter
81
Q

Co(n)textual meaning:

A
  • Lexical ambiguity is usually resolved by co-text, a word never shows up
    alone, syntagmatic relations help to distinguish meaning (e.g. with polysemous words or homophones)

I have a problem with this letter.
B is the second letter in the alphabet.
I’ve never received a love letter in my life.

82
Q

Source of ambiguity:

lexical and/or structural

A

Lexical:

  • The Rabbi married my sister
  • did he marry her? Or did he perform the marriage ceremony?

Structural:

  • Sherlock saw the man using a binocular
  • does Sherlock have the binocular?
  • Or does the man?
83
Q

Phrasal and sentential semantics:

Phrasal/sentential objective meaning (semantics) vs. speaker meaning (pragmatics)

A

Semantic:
- Phrasal objective meaning, what is coded in language?

Pragmatic:
- speaker meaning, what is intended/implied by the speaker in a specific context?

Wow, its really hot in here?
-> it’s hot OR open the window?
Get a room!
-> making out w/ ur bf OR get a room for a party

Pragmatic meaning:

  • depends on context!
  • e.g., we need to talk
  • can mean many things
84
Q

Meaning relations among sentences:

Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences

A
  • Paraphrase (~synonymy)
  • Entailment (~ hyponymy)
  • Contradiction (~antonymy)
85
Q

Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
Paraphrase (~synonymy)

A
  • Two sentences that have (roughly) the same meaning are called paraphrases of each other
  • Pairs of sentences that are true under the same circumstances are said to have the same truth conditions
  • The part of a meaning of a sentence that can be said to be either true or false is called the proposition (propositional content)
  • A proposition describes a possible state of the world: either the world is such that ``Mary is running’’ or the world is not
  • Paraphrases at the sentence level are parallel to synonyms at the lexical level

meaning relation: sentence A and B have (nearly) the same meaning
truth conditions: if sentence A is true, sentence B must be true as well
AND if sentence B is true, sentence A must be true as well

86
Q

Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
Paraphrase: Proposition and Truth Value

A

Proposition
state of affairs described by the sentence; “what is said about X”

Truth value
is the propositional content true or false? (Truth-conditional semantics)

(1) All men are mortal.
(2) Aliens are among us.
(3) All swans are white.

87
Q

Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
Entailment (~hyponymy)

A
  • the truth of one sentence necessarily entails (implies) that of the other
  • A entails B but not the other way around.
  • If sentence A is true, Sentence B must be true as well
  • but if sentence B is true, we cannot conclude that sentence A is true as well

(1a) Mary likes all fruit. =>entails (1b) Mary likes apples.
(2a) Mary is Judy’s wife. =>entails (2b) Judy is married.

The entailments above are said to be asymmetrical; a entails b but not the other way round; in contrast the entailment in paraphrases is symmetrical.

88
Q

Meaning relations among sentences

Contradiction (antonymy):

A
  • sentence A and sentence B contradict each other
  • if sentence A is true, sentence B must be false (negative entailment; antonymy)
  • if sentence B is true, sentence A must be false

(1a) Chris is Jane’s brother. (1b) Jane is an only child.
(2a) Charles is a bachelor. (2b) Charles is married.

89
Q

Semantic roles

A

How language really works

Who does what to whom?

  • Action: Attack
  • Entities involved: Attacker, The Attacked, Sword
90
Q

Semantic roles (longer)

A
  • We distinguish between the action that is being performed and the individuals (referential entities) being involved in the action
  • Words that indicate relationships are called predicates (usually verbs)
  • Words that indicate the independent individuals/entities are called semantic
    arguments (usually nouns or nominal pronouns)
  • The linking of arguments to their predicate it called predication
  • Each predicate selects a different number of obligatory arguments
  • The predicate (usually verb) is the most “powerful” element in a sentence because its semantics decides how many other elements must be mentioned for the sentence to be grammatical and meaningful
  • A semantic relation that holds between a semantic argument and its predicate
  • A role that a noun phrase plays in the event described by a sentence
  • Semantic roles are the key elements in establishing who did what to whom
  • Many types of relationships between an argument and its predicate
91
Q

Name the Semantic Roles

A
  1. Agent: entity actively and deliberately performing an action
  2. Experience: sentient entity that receives sensory or emotional input
  3. Force/Natural Cause: non-animate force which mindlessly performs the action
  4. Patient/Theme: entity undergoing an action or process, either changing or not changing its state
  5. Beneficiary/Benefactive/Recipient: element for or against whose benefit the action is performed (subtype of goal)
  6. Stimulus: Entity that prompts sensory or emotional feeling
  7. Instrument: entity used to carry out an action
  8. Source: starting point of a movement, where the action originates
  9. Goal: end point of a movement, where the action is directed towards
  10. Location: place at which entity/action is located
  11. Path: trajectory that lies between the source and the goal
  12. Time: the time at which the action occurs
  13. Manner: the way in which an action is carried out
92
Q

Name the problems with Semantic Roles

A

Problems with semantic roles:
Problem 1: how many roles are there?
Problem 2: One role or several?
e.g., The chimney smoked -> chimney: force or source?
e.g. The bath is filled -> bath: theme? Patient? Recipient? Goal?