Unit 1

Question 1

Definition of semantics

Answer 1

Linguistic semantics is the study of how languages organize and express meaning (Kleider)

Question 2

Process of communicating information

Answer 2

In general terms, speaking consists of communicating information: the speaker has something in his/her mind (an idea, a feeling, an intention, etc.) and decides to communicate it linguistically. Vocal noises are then emitted that are heard by the hearer, who seems to “translate” these noises back into ideas. **That ‘something’ that was at first in the speaker’s mind and now is also in the hearer’s mind **(after getting the speaker’s utterance in a language spoken or gestured and a process of successful joint attention) is what we call meaning.

Question 3

Semantics according to Artistotle and Panini

Answer 3

For Aristotle and Panini (IV b.C.), semantics was a central issue for linguistics, to understand the correspondence between linguistic code and meaning was their goal.

Question 4

Sematics according to Saussure

Answer 4

According to Saussure, semantics was an **autonomous linguistics discipline. **

Question 5

Semantics according to American Structuralism

Answer 5

Semantics was banned form linguistics by American structuralism (e.g. Bloomfield) because as long as it was not observable, it could not be scientifically studied.

Question 6

Semantics according to Chomskyan genrativism

Answer 6

Semantics was not a central part of linguistic analysis; their main focus was syntax and universal grammar.

Question 7

Semantics according to Langacker

Answer 7

Langacker (1970) established the centrality of meaning, which is what language was all about; the analyst who ignores it to concentrate solely on matters of form severely impoverish the natural and necessary subject of the discipline and ultimately distorts the character of the phenomena described.

Question 8

Formal semantics

Answer 8

(A.K.A.: truth-conditional semantics, model-theoretical semantics, logical semantics). It follows Frege’s principle of compositionality, which states that the meaning of the whole is a function of the meaning of the parts; thus, syntax has a major role.
Ex: all men are mortal. Nicolas is a man; therefore, Nicolas is mortal.

Question 9

Entity

Answer 9

some specific, identifiable thing to which a predicate can be applied

Question 10

Icon

Answer 10

A relation of similarity between the sign and what it represents. It provides a visual, auditory or any other perceptual image of the thing it stands for.

Ex. Portrait or onomatopoeia.

Question 11

Index

Answer 11

Contiguity in space or time. They are signs where the signifier is caused by the signified. Its association with its meaning is not arbitrary but is physically or causally connected.

Ex. Signpost pointing in the direction to the next town, such as Bath.
➔ The meaning is “go in this direction to get to Bath”

Anything that affects you

Question 12

Symbol

Answer 12

An arbitrary, conventional relationship between sign and meaning. Basically, an agreement by a cultural community. Ex. Red flag and danger.

Linguistic meaning will be (mainly) circumscribed to the third type, since the connection between sounds and meaning is arbitrary and subject to cultural conventions.

Question 13

What is sound symbolism? What are examples of it?

Answer 13

Sound symbolism states that there is a certain association between the sound of an utterance and its meaning. Some examples of this are:

• **Front vowels VS back vowels **
  There seems to be an association of the sound /i/ with small, thin, light things; while there is an association of the sound /o/ with big things. To utter the phoneme /i/, we have to raise the tongue and leave a really small space in our mouth, the contrast with the /o/ phoneme is evident.
  Ex. *Teeny vs. humongous *
• Plosives VS Labials **
  A vast majority of people tend to associate plosive sounds /p,t,k/ with spiky figures; while nasals /m, n/ to round, soft figures. The reason for this lies in the shape of the mouth when pronouncing those words, which imitates the shape of the thing being described. For example, the takete and maluma experiment. This is also known as the bouba-kiki effect.

* Onomatopoeia
When the sound of the word reminds us of the action or object they describe. For example, Plunge, whisper, crack, frizzle

* Phonesthemes
An association of certain sound combinations with a given meaning. For example, the consonant cluster st- is associated with verbs indicating movement such as stomp, step, stroll.

We can also see examples of (possible) meanings of prosody (suprasegmental phonology), which are **rhythm, stress and intonation. **This last one is the most versatile of the three.

Intonation is also connected with grammatical form and communicative intention. It is also used to convey the distinction between new information and old or shared information, and help us segment sentences into phrases and understand the relationships between discourse chunks.

Question 14

What is morphology?

Answer 14

Morphology studies **word structure. **Words are the carriers of meaning per excellence: we use words to convey meaning. However, the **different parts of words indicate different types of meaning. **

Question 15

Types of morphemes

Answer 15

Morphemes can be

• free (standing alone, without any other morpheme),
• bond (have to be attached to a word stem),
• inflectional (do not change the grammatical category of the stem and do not change the meaning of the word, but introduces some modifications)
• derivational (change the grammatical category of the stem or alter its meaning in a significant way).

Question 16

Inflectional meaning in nouns

Answer 16

• Plurality: to indicate that there is more than one element.
  Morpheme -s Aphonic plurals Invariant forms
  cat-s man – men sheep – sheep
• Possession: who the possessor of one element is.
  Morpheme -s John’s cat
• Gender: in some nouns there is a distinction between male and female.
  Special morpheme Different words No indication
  Lion-ess King – Queen Doctor
• Size: the diminutive.
  Book-let Pig-let

Question 17

Inflectional meaning in verbs

Answer 17

• Aspect (e.g. -ing for progress)
• Tense (e.g. -ed for past)
• Person (e.g. -s for 3rd person singular)
• Number (e.g. singular/plural)

Question 18

Derivational morphemes

Answer 18

They do change the grammatical category of the stem, and even if they don’t change the category of the word, they alter its meaning in a significant way.

-er: the one that does X.
-ness: state or condition of X.
-less: without X.
-ly: to act in a X way.
-al: relative to X.
-able: able to be X-ed.
-ation: the result of X-ing.
-ful: full of X.
-ian: pertaining to X.
-ology: the science of X.

Question 20

Predicate

Answer 20

word that evoke a relation between two entities.

Question 21

Syntactic bootstrapping

Answer 21

The connection between syntax and semantics is quite solid. Children use **syntactic information **to infer the meaning of unknown words because syntactic categories are normally linked to more or less broad types of meaning. The name of this phenomenon is syntactic bootstrapping, and it was created by the psychologist **Roger Brown **and his Sib experiment.

Question 22

Construction Grammar

Answer 22

The linguistic Adele Goldberg has studies **how grammatical constructions per se, without any lexical context, can convey a meaning of their own. **In their theory, called Construction Grammar, grammatical constructions are complex linguistic signs: **they link a certain form, for example, a grammatical configuration, with a certain content, its associated meaning, which is conveyed by the construction itself. **

Question 23

Examples of constructions

Answer 23

• Transitive: [Subject + Verb + Object] – X acts on Y – John broke the window.
• Ditransitive: [Subject + Verb + Object1 + Object2] – X causes Y to receive Z – She sent him a letter.
• Resultative: [Subject + Verb + Object + Complement] – X causes Y to become Z – He painted the door blue.
• Caused motion: [Subject + Verb + Object + Oblique] – X causes Y to move Z – He kicked the ball into the room.

Question 24

Sign

Answer 24

A sign may be defined as a form which stands for something else, which we understand as its meaning

Question 25

What is semiotics?

Answer 25

The scholarly discipline that studies systems of signs in all their manifestations is semiotics (from Greek semeion “sign”). Human language is the most elaborate system of signs to be studies, but semiotics also looks at other forms of human and non-human communicative behavior.

Question 26

Hierarchy of abstraction of signs

Answer 26

There is a hierarchy of abstraction amongst the three types of signs. Indexical signs are the most “primitive” (e.g., gestures) and the most limited signs in that they are restricted to the “here” and “now”. Yet, indexical signs are very widespread in human communication.

Iconic signs are more complex in that their understanding requires the recognition of similarity. The iconic link of similarity needs to be consciously established by the observer.

Symbolic signs are the exclusive prerogative of humans. People have more communicative needs that pointing to things and replicating things; we also want to talk about things which are more abstract in nature such as events in the past or future, objects which are distant from us, hopes about peace, etc. This can only be achieved by means of symbols, which humans all over the world have created for the purpose of communicating all possible thoughts. The most elaborate system of symbolic signs is natural language in all its forms, which is largely based on conventionalized links between gestures and meanings.

Indexical signs reflect a more general principle, whereby things that are contiguous can stand for each other (e.g. metonymy is always considered indexical).

Iconic signs reflect the more general principle of using an image for the real thing.

Symbolic signs allow the human mind to go beyond the limitations of contiguity and similarity and establish links between any form and any meaning.

Question 27

Principle of indexicality

Answer 27

The principle of indexicality means that we can “point” to things in our scope of attention. We consider ourselves to be at the centre of the universe, and everything around us is seen from our point of view. This egocentric view of the world also shoes in our use of language. When we speak, our position in space and time serves as the reference point for the location of other entities in space and time. The place where we are is referred to as “here”, and the time when we speak is “now”

**Deictic expressions **(from Greek “show”) relate to the speaking ego, who imposes his perspective on the world. Deictic expressions depend for their interpretation on the situation in which they are used.
The ego also serves as the “deictic centre” for locating things in space. Far bigger things than oneself may be located with respect to the speaking ego. The ego furthermore serves as the deictic centre for locating things with respect to other things. When the speaker moves, his/her deictic orientation changes too. The inherent orientation that we give to things is an extension of our human body.

We transpose our egocentric orientation onto the human being as such. Our psychological proximity to fellow humans leads to an anthropocentric perspective, which follows from the fact that we are foremost interested in humans like ourselves (their actions, thoughts, experiences, possessions, movements, etc.). We, as human beings, always occupy a privileged position in the description of events.** If a human being is involved in an event, he or she tends to be named first, as the subject of the sentence.**

It is only with special focus on an object that a non-human entity is preferred over a human entity and becomes the subject of the sentence. The human being is given special prominence in other areas of grammar too (different between human and non-human pronouns).

Question 28

Principle of iconicity

Answer 28

The principle of iconicity in language means that** we conceive a similarity between a form of language and the thing it stands for.** Iconicity may manifest itself in three sub- principles, i.e. those of linguistic expressions related to sequential order, distance and quantity.

• The **PRINCIPLE OF SEQUENTIAL ORDER **is a phenomenon of both temporal events and the linear arrangement of elements in a linguistic construction. In its simplest manifestation, the principle of iconicity determines the order of two or more clauses. Sequential-order iconicity is also found within the structure of a sentence. Thus, sentences with the same words but arranged in a different manner convey different meanings. The iconic principle also determines the sequential order of the elements in “binary” expressions which reflect temporal succession. All the following binary expressions are irreversible. Any reversal of them would only occur for special communicative effects. (now and then, sooner or later, etc.)
  Further evidence of this iconic principle is also found in the word order of subject, verb, and object in a sentence. In almost all languages of the world, the subject precedes the object and it is motivated by the way humans perceive the internal structure of events.
• The PRINCIPLE OF DISTANCE accounts for the fact that things which belong together conceptually tend to be put together linguistically, and things that do not belong together are put at distance.
• The iconic PRINCIPLE OF QUANTITY accounts for our tendency to associate more form with more meaning and, conversely, less form with less meaning. For example, by stretching the o-sound of long as in “That ’s a loooooooong story ” we iconically express the idea of an extremely long story.
  Children sometimes express the notion of plurality repeating the same word several times (reduplication). This principle also shows up in politeness strategies. Thus, the larger the quantity of language forms, the greater respect for the hearer. The use of wordy phrases also illustrates the way in which people try to attach more importance to a subject matter (i.e. be petulant).
  Finally, the quantity principle also implies that **less meaning requires less form. **This is precisely what happens with information that is felt to be redundant.

Question 29

The principle of symbolicity

Answer 29

The principle of symbolicity refers to the conventional pairing of form and meaning, as is typically found in the word stock of a language. This link between the form and the meaning of symbolic units is arbitrary. Often signs which originally made sense have become arbitrary in the course of time.

New words are now motivated because they are built on existing linguistic material and, as such, are meaningful to us. Motivation refers to non-arbitrary links between form and meaning. The factor of motivation is at work both in the hearer and the speaker. The hearer wants to make sense of linguistic expressions, particularly the new ones. In some cases, he will even overuse his search for meaning and create folk etymologies (“hammock” in English from the Spanish word “hamaca”).

Question 30

Utterance

Answer 30

An utterance is a**ny stretch of talk, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that person. **Furthermore, utterances are physical events. Events are ephemeral. Utterances die on the Wind.

Not all utterances are actually tokens of sentences, but sometimes only of parts of sentences. Utterances of non-sentences (e.g.: short phrases, or single words) are used by people in communication all the time. But the abstract idea of a sentence is the basis for understanding even those expressions which are not sentences. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the meanings of non-sentences can best be analysed by considering them to be abbreviations, or incomplete versions, of whole sentences.

It would make sense to say that an utterance was in a particular accent (i.e., a particular way of pronouncing words.) Accent and voice quality belong strictly to the utterance, not to the sentence uttered. It also makes sense to talk about the time and place of an utterance. One can talk of a slow utterance.

Question 31

Sentence

Answer 31

A sentence is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language expressing a complete thought. A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances and inscriptions. Although this definition is vague, it is intended to exclude any string of words that does not have a verb in it, as well as other strings.

In opposition to what we have previously stated with utterances, it would not make strict sense to say that a sentence was in a particular accent, because a sentence itself is only associated with phonetic characteristics such as accent and voice quality through a speaker’s act of uttering it.

Question 32

Proposition

Answer 32

A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs (i.e.: a statement or assertion that expresses a judgement or opinion). The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by expressions in the sentence and the situation or action they are involved in . In uttering a declarative sentence , a speaker typically asserts / declares a proposition. The notion of truth can be used to decide whether two sentences express different propositions (i.e.: different descriptions of states of affairs/situation). Thus , if there is any conceivable set of circumstances in which one sentence is true, while the other is false, we can be sure that they express different propositions.

In our definition of ‘proposition’, we explicitly mentioned declarative sentences, but propositions are clearly involved in the meanings of other types of sentences, such as interrogatives (used to ask questions ) and imperatives (used to convey orders ). Normally, when a speaker utters a simple declarative sentence, he commits himself to the truth of the corresponding proposition: i.e. he asserts /declares the proposition. (We normally use declarative sentences to say that something is true) By uttering a simple interrogative or imperative, a speaker can mention a particular proposition, without asserting its truth .

Propositions, unlike sentences, cannot be said to belong to any particular language. Sentences in different languages can correspond to the same proposition, if the two sentences are perfect translations of each other .

Do not equate propositions with thoughts, because thoughts are usually held to be private, personal, mental processes, whereas propositions are public in the sense that the same proposition is accessible to different persons: different individuals can grasp the same proposition.

Question 33

Difference between semantics and pragmatics

Answer 33

Semantics is the relation of signs to the object. Pragmatics is the relation of signs to interpreters.

Crudely we could say that pragmatics is the meaning described in relation to speakers and hearers, and semantics is the meaning abstracted to users.

There is also a distinction between the sentence meaning and the speaker meaning, semantics do not include all knowledge and pragmatics are purely linguistic interactions

Pragmatics would then be the field that studies how hearers fill out the semantic structure with contextual information (e.g., work out who the speaker is referring to by pronouns, etc.) **and make inferences that go beyond the meaning of what was said to them **(e.g. that I’m tired might mean Let’s go home