Meaning Flashcards
what is speaker meaning
the meaning that the speaker intends to convey through an utterance
give properties of speaker meaning
PRIVATE: only the speaker truly knows their intended meaning
-hearers needs to make an informed guess
What is utterance meaning
meaning of utterances can be observed by both speakers and hearers
-this is examined by linguists
Define Ambiguity
sentences can have more than one meaning
give an example of ambiguity
bank=money?river?station?
Ciara saw the man with the telescope
Give an example of semantic/scope ambiguity
Everyone speaks two languages
-same or different
Define referring/denoting
the action of picking out or identifying words
give an example of referring/denoting
we have just flown back from Cape Town
-Cape town denotes the city (its referent)
give referring expressions
21st Jan 2019
my twin sister
the newspaper
last week
give a distinguished definition: denote
- a property of words
- the relationship between a linguistic expression and the world
- stable relationship in languages, does not depend on any one use of a word
distinguished definition: refer
- what a speaker does
- used for the action of a speaker in picking out entities in the world
- changes and depends on context
How does context influence referring expressions
deictic expressions
- dependent on context for meaning
- often refers to time/person/location
- yesterday=changes when you say it
- I/Me changes on speaker
define sense
the aspects of meaning of an expression that give it the denotation with which it is associated
differences in sense=differences in denotation
Give an example of sense
she is a conductor
- checks tickets
- of an orchestra
- transmits electricity
difference between semantics and pragmatics
semantics = study of sentence and word meaning pragmatics = utterance meaning
give examples of semantics vs pragmatics
It’s cold
explicit/semantics: low temp
implicit/pragmatics: pls close the window
give 2 types of semantics
lexical: word meaning
structural: phrase meaning
what do lexical semantics explore
internal structure of words
un = untrue
ise = legalise
what is implicature
the inference that is derived by trying to understand the utterance in light of the contextual and bg info
-goes beyond the literal meaning
what is presupposition
A (Ps) B = B has to be true for A to be
-a particular kind of inference that concerns bg assumptions
what is entailment
A entails B if A being true guarantees the truth of B
-cannot be cancelled
give an example of an entailment
Jasmine is an Indian singer entails that Jasmine is Indian
give an example of presupposition
Wendy regretted eating the fish (Wendy ate the fish)
Define synonyms
identity of meaning
give an example of a synonyn
couch/sofa
how can words vary
with different connotations and social meanings
-technical vs everyday terms: goosebumps/horripilation
-dialects/varieties
wee/small, vex/angry
what are the two types of opposites in lexical semantics
antonyms
complementaries
what is an antonym
- opposite poles of semantic space (can be NEITHER)
- A and B are antonyms if ‘X’ is A implies ‘X’ is not B
give an example of antonym
short and tall
X is short
(implies X is not tall)
what are complementaries
-they exhaust or completely divide the semantic space (must be one or the other)
A and B if X is A entails X is not B and vice versa
What is converseness?
- a sense relation
- the comparative forms (-er or more) of an antonym pair of adjectives
- types of synonyms that also require the reordering of NPs
Give an example of coverseness
Students are poorer than lecturers
Lecturers are richer than students
Give examples of converseness in verbs and prepositions
V: precede/follow
P:above/below
