Lecture 5-7 - Semantics & Lexicon Flashcards
What is semantics?
- 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)
Word meaning is conventional and arbitrary, describe!
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
Describe Lexical, Sentential and Discourse semantics
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)
Describe the differences between semantics and pragmatics
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
Semiotic triangle:
What is meaning?
- 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)
Describe the semiotic triangle
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
Describe the 3 different definitions of meaning
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”!
Important aspect: meaning is 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)
Dimensions of word meaning:
Name the 3 pairs of important terms
- sense vs reference
- denotation vs connotation
- intension vs extension
l: language-internal (or intra-linguistic) side of meaning
r: language-external (extra-linguistic) reality
Dimensions of word meaning:
Sense vs reference
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
Dimensions of word meaning:
Sense vs reference - give an example
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
Dimensions of word meaning:
Denotation vs Connotation
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!
Dimensions of word meaning:
Denotation vs Connotation - give an example
Tree:
Denotation: different trees
Connotation: Relaxation, Park, children climbing trees, woods, birds, countryside, shade, roots, bark, …
Dimensions of word meaning:
Intension vs Extension
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..
How is meaning (linguistic) related to categorization (cognitive)?
Words –> Meanings –> Mental concepts
=> to understand word use, we need to understand mental concepts/categories
What is a table?
- When answering this, we use our mental concept “table”.
- The structure of that mental concept affects how we use word table => affects our language!
Approaches to word meaning and categorization
3 famous approaches to categorization (cognitive):
- Semantic Feature Analysis (Aristotle)
- Family resemblance (Wittgenstein)
- Prototype Theory/ Fuzziness of Meaning (Rosch)
Approaches to word meaning and categorization
Semantic feature analysis - example man/woman + pros and cons
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)
Approaches to word meaning and categorization
Semantic feature analysis - critique of Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 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)
Approaches to word meaning and categorization
Prototype Theory by Eleanor Rosch
- 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
Approaches to word meaning and categorization
Family resemblance theory vs. prototype theory:
- Similarity:
- Both allow gradience/fuzziness
- Both allow for incorporation of associative meaning
Difference:
- family resemblance does not declare some category members as most typical
Lexicon:
How many full entries of words does the 2nd edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contain?
171,476 words in current use
Lexicon:
How many words does an educated adult speaker know?
Between 20,000 and 80,000
Lexicon:
How fast can natives recognize a word?
200 milliseconds after its onset
well before it has been completely pronounced
Lexicon:
How many words (on average) do a 2, 3 and 5 year old use actively?
two-year-old around 500 words
three-year-old over 1000
five-year-old up to 3000
Where are words stored mentally?
huge mental storage device called the mental lexicon
Lexicon:
Give a short definition
the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
Lexicon:
Give a definition from a linguistic POV
In linguistics, a lexicon is a language’s inventory of lexemes.
Lexicon:
Of what parts do Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of?
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
What do Dictionaries represent?
Attempts to list the lexicon of a language in alphabetical order
-> in the mind the lexicon is organized as a network (mental lexicon)
Are words/lexemes isolated from each other?
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
Name problematic and interesting cases in connection with word meanings:
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)
If one compares the relation between different meanings, one can distinguish which forms of meaning variation?
polysemy and homonymy
Words and their senses:
Describe Polysemy
Polysemy:
One form has related meanings
head
- Head of a person
- Head of a nail
- Head of an institution
mouse
- animal
- PC device
Words and their senses:
Describe Homonymy
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
Name the rwo special cases of (partial) homonymy:
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.
The network: Name different semantic relations among words
i) Synonymy: Synonyms
ii) Antonymy: Antonyms
iii) Hyponymy: Hyponyms (more specific) & hyperonyms (umbrella terms)
iv) Meronymy: Part-whole relations
The network: semantic relations among words
Describe Synonymy: Synonyms
Synonyms are words of different form that have (approximately) the same meaning
- > beautiful, lovely, pretty, handsome
- > buy, purchase, acquire
- > try, attempt
The network: semantic relations among words
What are complications with synonymy!
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”)
The network: semantic relations among words
How do synonyms differ!
Synonyms may differ with regard to
- stylistic level
- social or regional variety
The network: semantic relations among words
What is Euphemism?
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
The network: semantic relations among words
Describe Antonymy: Antonyms
- 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
The network: semantic relations among words
Antonyms: Different types of lexical opposites:
- Gradable antonyms (gradable pairs)
- Complementaries (complementary pairs)
- Reversives
- Converses
The network: semantic relations among words
Antonyms: Gradable antonyms (gradable pairs)
- 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
The network: semantic relations among words
Antonyms: Complementaries
- non-gradable, complementary pairs
- either-or
- not x = y
- alive-dead, true-false, temporary-permanent
*This answer is more true.
not alive = dead
The network: semantic relations among words
Antonyms: Reversives
- directional opposites
- describe opposite directions of a movement
- enter-exit, come-go
The network: semantic relations among words
Antonyms: Converses
- relational opposites
- describe the same situations from different perspectives
- buy-sell, teacher-pupil (student), employer-employee, mother-daughter
Words may have different opposites in different contexts:
- 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.
Hypo- and Hyperonymy:
What is Hyponymy? What is Hyperonymy? examples?
- 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, …
What is Meronymy?
- 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
Syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic relations
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.
What are Collocations
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.
Give the Definition of Collocation
- 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
Give examples for collocations
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
Collocations with get
Get: lost, fired, a job, a life, married
Collocations with take
Take: part in something, a break, a seat, a look, a picture, a chance
Collocations with have
Have: fun, lunch, dinner, a fight, a baby
Collocations with break
Break: the news, s/o heart, a promise, a record, a habit, the law, free
Collocations with catch
Catch: fire, a bus, a cold, the flu, a thief
Collocations with save
Save: time, money, space, energy, someone a seat,
Syntagmatic associations among words
Totally predictable collocations
addled eggs, rancid butter, blond hair
Syntagmatic associations among words
Less predictable collocations
candle: burn, blow out, birthday, Christmas
brown: hair, bread, leaves, shoes, car
Syntagmatic associations among words
non predictable collocations
- but not everything goes
- have, be, the,…
- e.g. the can co-occur with a Numeral, Adjective, Noun but not with a Verb
What is a Colligation
- subtype of a collocation
- occurrence of a lexical item in a grammatical structure
Give examples for a Colligation
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
Collocational differences between language
kochen -> boil, cook, make, brew
boil water, boil/cook potatoes, cook/make stew, make/brew coffee
Schwarzbrot - brown bread
Collocational bonds
- affect words not necessarily immediately next to each other
- bridge word classes and syntactic structure
Give an example of a collocational bond
argument - strong:
- a strong argument
- she further strengthened her argument by…
- the strength of her argument
- she argued strongly for…
What are highly fixed collocations?
- 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
Give examples for highly fixed collocations
Good morning! sick and tired How do you do? Have you ever...X? ladies and gentlemen
Idioms: non-compositional expressions:
The Principle of Semantic Compositionality
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
Idioms: semantically compositional, semi-compositional, non-compositional expressions
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
definition of an idiom
- 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 - A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words
- Fixed collocational pattern/chunk which has a metaphorical meaning that is often not clear or obvious and which has to be learned by heart
Meaning classification:
transparent/compositional and non-transparent/non-compositional idioms
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
Syntactic Classification:
- 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
Weather idioms
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
food idioms
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
Idioms:
Strong syntactic restrictions may apply to idioms:
Uncle Tony finally kicked the bucket.
- The bucket was finally kicked by uncle Tony.
- Uncle Tony’s kicking of the bucket was really sad.
Idioms:
there is modification potential and some syntactic flexibility with some idioms:
spill the beans > The beans were spilled.
take a rain check > take a long raincheck.
Idioms:
Translational differences:
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
Phrasal and sentential semantics:
- 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
Co(n)textual meaning:
- 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.
Source of ambiguity:
lexical and/or structural
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?
Phrasal and sentential semantics:
Phrasal/sentential objective meaning (semantics) vs. speaker meaning (pragmatics)
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
Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
- Paraphrase (~synonymy)
- Entailment (~ hyponymy)
- Contradiction (~antonymy)
Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
Paraphrase (~synonymy)
- 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
Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
Paraphrase: Proposition and Truth Value
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.
Meaning relations among sentences:
Relations among the propositions of declarative sentences
Entailment (~hyponymy)
- 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.
Meaning relations among sentences
Contradiction (antonymy):
- 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.
Semantic roles
How language really works
Who does what to whom?
- Action: Attack
- Entities involved: Attacker, The Attacked, Sword
Semantic roles (longer)
- 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
Name the Semantic Roles
- Agent: entity actively and deliberately performing an action
- Experience: sentient entity that receives sensory or emotional input
- Force/Natural Cause: non-animate force which mindlessly performs the action
- Patient/Theme: entity undergoing an action or process, either changing or not changing its state
- Beneficiary/Benefactive/Recipient: element for or against whose benefit the action is performed (subtype of goal)
- Stimulus: Entity that prompts sensory or emotional feeling
- Instrument: entity used to carry out an action
- Source: starting point of a movement, where the action originates
- Goal: end point of a movement, where the action is directed towards
- Location: place at which entity/action is located
- Path: trajectory that lies between the source and the goal
- Time: the time at which the action occurs
- Manner: the way in which an action is carried out
Name the problems with Semantic Roles
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?
