Semantics

Question 1

Homonyms

Answer 1

• Words that look the same, but have different etymologies
• bank - riverside, financial situation

Question 2

Referential meaning

Answer 2

• Referent - the thing in the world that is meant by a word
• Sense: the general idea covered by the word
• Words without referents: unicorn, quidditch, numbers

Question 3

Social meaning

Answer 3

Information about the speaker’s context or background

Question 4

Affective meaning

Answer 4

Information about the speaker’s emotions or attitude

Question 5

How do the three types of meaning work together?

Answer 5

• Words can share the same referential meaning but have different social and/or affective meanings
• lift/elevator
• John is very determined/stubborn/pig-headed

Question 6

Sense relations (comparing words)

Answer 6

• Synonymy - oblivion, forgetfulness; sodium chloride, salt
• Antonymy - oblivion, remembrance; hot, cold
• Hyponymy – tulip, flower; snake, reptile (categories and members of those categories)
• Meronymy - vehicle, wheel; person, head (the relationship between the prototype and its parts)

Question 7

Near synonyms

Answer 7

• Please keep/retain your ticket for inspection (interchangeable)
• We keep/retain the door locked at night (doesn’t always work)

Question 8

Four types of oppositeness

Answer 8

• Complementary pairs - up/down, alive/dead
• Gradable antonyms - cold/hot, tall/short
• Converses - relational (mother/child), directional (give/take)
• Mutual incompatibles - January/February/March

Question 9

Semantic field

Answer 9

A cluster of related words
- laugh, giggle, titter, guffaw, howl
- flower, tulip, daffodil, primrose, carnation
- aviation, aircraft, aeroplane, airbus, boeing

Question 10

Semantic features (laugh and giggle)

Answer 10

• Laugh = communication, vocal, audible, non-linguistic, showing pleasure or amusement
• Giggle = communication, vocal, audible, non-linguistic, showing pleasure or amusement, high pitched, repetitive

Question 11

Componential analysis (meaning & problems)

Answer 11

• Breaks down meaning into smaller semantic components
• Criteria are binary and can be categorised according to the presence or absence of semantic properties - or their semantic features
• Features are necessary and sufficient
• Require sharp, fixed boundaries between semantic properties - they are not always available
• The concepts expressed by words do not always have clear-cut boundaries - they can be fuzzy - how rich is rich? How old is old?

Question 12

Prototype theory (Roach 1975)

Answer 12

• An alternative way to look at conceptual meaning - reflect our understanding of the world
• Conceptual categories are structured around the best examples of thar category
• Best examples/highly representative members of a category are called the prototype
• Items are included in the category according to whether they sufficiently resemble the prototype or not - degree

Question 13

Prototype

Answer 13

• Best, clearest example of a cateogry
• Combines all the typical features
• Results from frequent exposure
• Represents the category as a whole

Question 14

Semantic contexts - connotation

Answer 14

• Connotation - associate a word with a positive or a negative connotation - youngster, juvenile, boy, adolescent, youth, lad, teenager
• The connotation of a word describes its associations attached to the literal meaning over time
• Connotation can often add a layer of opinion to what appears to be a neutral report
• Ideological differences often include battles over language

Question 15

Connotation and political correctness

Answer 15

• Political correctness - the way society talks about itself, especially certain groups of people
• Normally used in sensitive domains, such as: race, gender, sexual affinity, ecology, physical and mental personal development

Question 16

Conceptual metaphor theory - Lakoff & Johnson

Answer 16

• Metaphor is a way of understanding the world
• We understand one thing in terms of another
• Language (and the metaphorical use of language) is a window on this process

Question 17

Conceptual metaphor

Answer 17

• Language represents the reality of the speaker and the speaker’s position
• Metaphorical thinking directly deliverable from basic bodily experiences
• “Things are looking up” - we naturally look up before we look down - upwards movement always involves rewarding human effort
• Health and life are up/illness and death are down - “I’m at the peak of my health” “he fell ill”
• Knowledge is light/ignorance is dark - “that idea is very clear” “I was left in the dark about what happened”

Question 18

Hyperbole

Answer 18

• Main function - to intensify the utterance
• Also evaluate
• Introduce humour and informality
• Mark solidarity and mutuality between speakers
• To gain attention

Question 19

Use of metaphor in everyday language - talking about theory

Answer 19

• That is a well-constructed theory
• His theory is on solid ground
• That theory needs support
• She put together the framework of a very interesting theory
• Their theory collapsed under criticism
• Conceptual metaphor - theories are buildings

Question 20

Metonymy

Answer 20

• Links things by means of contiguity rather than similarity
• The use of an entity to refer to another that is related to it in such a way
• We like to read Emily Dickinson/I have bought a Picasso - not reading or buying the people themselves
• Many people are loyal to the crown
• Number 10 declined to comment
• Involves only one conceptual domain - metaphor involves a blending of two conceptual domains

Question 21

Synecdoche

Answer 21

• A particular type of metonymy - the use of the part to represent the whole
• I’ve got a new set of wheels (wheels represent the car)