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WHAT IS SEMANTICS? LINGUISTIC SEMANTICS. A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Semantics is crucial to Chomskys goal for the studying of competence (the knowledge that a person
has of the rules and norms of a language). It is a crucial point for overall linguistic competence.
Nowadays semantics is realized as a fully fledged discipline.
A 2nd tradition has its own understanding of Semantics which influenced the essence of the latter.
The Bearing of Semantics as a Concept or Method on Linguistic Issues.
Linguistic Semantics it concerns the relation b/n semantic structure and overt (obvious) linguistic
form. One of its aims is to explain the mechanism of cultural variation on the basis of the discovered
language universals. It aims at shedding light on the relationship b/n languages and cultures.
The Hypothesis of Linguistic relativity (Sapir - Whorf Hypothesis)
People do not live in the objective world, but in the world created by their language languages
determine the world we live in. The way culture divides the universe into different parts.
Linguistic Semantics how language carves up and expresses universal semantic space in
grammatical form. Its goal is to identify the properties that configure our mental models and surface in
the grammar of a language. An LTS must capture the exact nature of word meaning, the relations b/n
words, b/n words and sentences, b/n sentences and utterances.
Homonymy two separate words with different etymological development
Polysemy one and the same word that has developed different meaning through metaphorical or
metonymic extension of meaning.
Sentenceutterance the actual realization of the sentence in speech.
In dealing with all these relations linguistic semantics should be able to explain all syst. Differences
b/n meaning and form.
Logical/Formal Semantics studies the meaning in terms of truth condition (truth key concept)
whether the utterances correspond to the truth conditions.
Model Theoretic Semantics- it is made of formal syntax or formal semantics and semantic
interpretation which is given to the word to which expression can in principle refer.
Philosophical Semantics tries to answer the questions: What is for sth to be meaningful? How we
know what we know? What are the criteria for truth and falsehood?
Lexical Semantics (Lexicology) it is concerned with the identification, definition and evolution of
the meanings of words and uncovering of the multiplicity of relations b/n them.
Discourse Semantics a specific type of analysis accounting for the organization of a piece of
language along with the social, interpersonal, institutional intertextual and broadly contextual
dimensions. It is interested in the relations of power holding b/n the interlocutors. The setting of the
communicative act, its genre specifications and its suitability for achieving the communicative goals.
Situational Semantics deals with the meanings of sentences and the basic idea is that sentences
designate situation types which can be released by an indefinite member of particular situation.
Semiotics all possible sign processes and signifying systems semiotics is considered either as
synonym or as a branch of it. Both of them claim that all previous approaches to meaning have a gross
mistake trying to explain meaning in terms of other sciences.
Cognitive Semantics the youngest offspring of linguistics and semantic theories and it is a specific
method which follows semantics backwards into the head of the individual speaker not outwards
toward communication. It deals with the way meaning emerges in the process of cognition (a method
of semantic representation).
Each of these covers or maps a different portion of semantics. Each one tries to establish a consistent
/reliable and clear method of stating meaning which is a system of semantic representations. The main
controversies concern the optimal system of semantic representation.
The terms in which representation is composed comprise the semantic metalanguage.
Theory a precisely specified coherent and economical framework of interdependent statements and
definitions constructed so that as large a number of particular basic facts can either be seen to..
For the time being there is no such theory accounting for all the phenomena subsumed under the scope
of semantics.

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II. Historical Overview of the Development of Semantics throughout the ages.

The ancient Greek philosophers spent much time in debating the problem of the way words acquired
their meaning. Why is a thing called by a given name? There are two different ways to answer:
The names of things were arrived at naturally. Their properties determine their names
PHYSEI Theory
Names are arrived at arbitrarily through convention THESEI Theory. F de Saussure was
supporter of this theory.
Plato/Cratylus discusses the problem of controversy. Defines logos as the expression of ones
thoughts by means of the constituents of the logos (language).
Onomata the name of the performer of the action.
Rhemata stands for the action itself
Plato opened the way to the analysis of the sentence (partly linguistic, partly logical). He was
dealing with the meaning of utterances rather than with the meaning of separate words.
In the 5th century A. D. the neo-Platonic philosopher Proclus surveyed the whole field of semantic
changes and distinguished a number of basic types: cultural changes, metaphor, widening and
narrowing of meaning.
Democritus clearly saw the two kinds of multiple meaning polysemy and synonymy.
Aristotle - his general approach to language was that of a logician. He was the first who identified one
of the levels of analysis - the lexical one, the main purpose of which was to study the meaning of
words either in isolation or in syntactic constructions.
Aristotles works Rhetoric and Poetics represent the next major contribution of Antiquity to
language study in general and semantics in particular.
His general approach is that of a logician. What man is to know? How men know it? How they
express it?
The level of analysis (the lexical one), whose main purpose was to study the making of the words,
either in isolation or in syntactic constructions. He also discussed different semantic matters
synonymy, polysemy, homonymy and developed a fully fledged theory of metaphor.
During the Middle Ages - the activity of the so called group of the Modistae (a group of philosophers
whose writings and texts were based on the modes of signification). They adopted the THESEI point
of view and directed their efforts in pointing on toward:
The modi intelligendi the ways in which we know things.
The modi significandi the ways in which we signify things.
The etymology of words was also debated, but the explanation of the meanings and forms of words
were marred by their disregard of phonetic laws.
Middle Ages - activity of 'Modistae' who adopted the thesei point of view. They point out the 'modi
intelligendi' - the ways in which we can know things and 'modi significandi' - the various ways of
signifying them.
All the above are based on philosophic speculation and logical reasoning.
Second 1/2 of the 19th century, two factors emerged - 1 the rise of comparative philology and
scientific linguistics. 2 the Romantic Movement in literature.
Since about 1825 the classic scholar Reisig had began to evolve a new conception of grammar. He set
up semasiology as one of the main divisions of grammer, the other two being etymology and syntax.
He viewed semasiology as a historical science studying the principles governing the evolution of
meaning.
The history of the subject falls in three phases: 1 1825 - 1880 - the underground period of semantics. 2
1880 - 1930 Breal in 1883 outlined the programme of the new science and gave it the name by which
it is still known - senantics. He regarded semantics as a purely historical study. They studied the
changes in meaning, the causes for these changes, to classify them, to formulate general laws and
tendences underlying them. 3 The beginning of the 20th century - a monomental synthesis was
published in 1931 by Stern, it was a new purely empirical classification of semantic changes. In the

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same year Trier's monograph on terms of knowledge and undersanding. According to Sausseur there
were two basically different and equally legitimate approaches: the synchronic, recording language as
it exists at a give moment and diachronic, tracing the evolution of the various elements of the
language. Secondly, he visualized language as a totality in which the various elements are
interdependent and derive their significance from the system as a whole.
Philosophy and Logic
In the 19th century Semantics came into being as a separate branch.
Ch. Reisig the first to formulate the object of study in the new science of studying the principles
governing the evolution of meaning.
Herman Paul the problem of change of meaning
M. Breal was the 1st to introduce the term Semantics. This marked the birth of Semantics as a
modern discipline. The theoretical sources of the upcoming science psychology are added. His
interest was focused on identifying certain laws governing the changes in meaning. Some of these
laws are arrived at through the meaning of logic (extension, narrowing of meaning, transfer)
whereas others are due to psychological approach.

THEORIES OF MEANING
Odgen & Richards (1931) The Meaning of Meaning
.
Conceptual theories of meaning maintain that meaning is all in the mind. Meaning is the
specification of the cognitive meaning as competent speakers of the language. These are closest to
the commonsense view of meaning because they view meaning as the structure idea (concept) of
the person using the expression. As children growing in a culture we acquire in the form of word
meanings a huge amount of pre-packaged concepts shared by those around us.
Because these underline concepts are shared communication becomes possible. This view of
meaning is often associated with the 17 th c. philosopher John Locke. Words in their primary
immediate signification stand for nothing but ideas in the mind of he who uses them. Conceptual
theories take various forms, especially as regards the following important question: If meanings
are concepts/ideas how are they acquired?
Locke believed that the human mind is analogous to a blank state (tabula rasa) but since we all
share the same sense organs and therefore experience the same way we come to have influences,
the same basic ideas. Our complex ideas are then built up form these complex ideas, derived from
experience. This is the empiricist position because it emphasizes the importance of knowledge
derived through the senses.
Modern versions of these positions are maintained by some psychologists and some linguists
including G. Lakoff and R. Langader. Their theory The Cognitive Theory of Language
abstract concepts are formed via a metaphorical, conceptual transfer from the more concrete to the
more abstract domains of experience.
The alternative position to empiricism is rationalism which is held by contemporaries of Lockes
such as G. Leibniz & R. Descartes. They claim that the very simplest concepts are a natural or
innate property of the human mind, activated by experience but not wholly or solely derived from
it.
One argument in favour of semantic rationalism is that it is hard to see how concepts as time
causation and identity could ever be derived from purely sensorial experience. Another argument
comes from the vast complexity and intricacy of Language. It seems implausible that children can
acquire the complexity of language without some innate pre-disposition.
Rationalism: our basic concepts are innate.
The present day linguists who adhere the rationalist view are Noah Chomsky, K . Jackendoff and
A. Wierzbicka.

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A key concept: Semantic primitives. They claim that if meaning analysis is possible at all there
must be a set of basic terms which cannot be defined or reduced further and we would reach as the
end point of all analyses. Such elementary meanings are called semantic primitives (though they
were known as simple ideas to the 17th c. philosophers).
Jackendoff Semantics and Cognition (1983) claims that meaning mirrors thought and is
universalist in nature. He is a proponent of the idea of strong innateness and claims that general
cognitive abilities are sufficient to explain all linguistic behaviour. His work is immersed in the
tradition of generative linguistics and consequently he maintains that knowledge is described in
terms of a finite set of formal principles that collectively describe the infinite set of well-formed
structures and expressions. Semantics according to him should describe the mapping between
surface form and conceptual meaning. He is preoccupied with larger than the word linguistic
elements which he claims are built bottom up from the combination of semantic primitives,
according to the rules of semantic and syntactic well formedness. Jackendoff proposes that among
the innate concepts is a set of conceptual categories which are semantic parts of speech. These
include thing, event, state, action, place, path, property and amount. Each of these can be
elaborated into a function argument organization by means of what he calls conceptual
functions. Conceptual functions include go, stay, to, from, via and cause among others.
(a) event GO ([THING], [PATH])
[EVENT]
(b) event STAY ([THING], [STAY])
(a) Bill went to New York
(b) Bill stayed in the kitchen.
A constituent which is an event can take the form of either of the two event functions (1 st go,
motional path; 2nd stay-stasis over a period of time).
Each of these f( ) takes 2 arguments the 1st of which in both cases is a thing and the 2nd a path in
the case of go and stay in the case of stay.
This approach of abstract metalanguage of conceptual functions is subject to a serious critique,
which emerges once we ask the question What is the relationship between this metalanguage and
ordinary English. A semantic metalanguage can serve its functions only if it is intelligible and the
only way to understand a formula is via our knowledge of the meanings of words. Any abstract
metalanguage is therefore a degenerate form of a natural language. To understand the formula we
have to turn it back mentally into ordinary English undoing the deformation that has been involved
in turning it into a technical formula.
Wierzbickas theory is akin to Jackendoffs theory. She claims that meaning can be described by
using the most natural kind of metalanguage because meaning is universal in Nature. And the
semantic primitives are the same for all people due to the cognitive and psychological unity of
human kind.
Meaning in natural languages is a property of words and is a combination of semantic primitives
which generate the overall meaning of the word. She proposes a table of the semantic primitives
which constitute a list of lexical universals. She proposes a number of about 60 such primitives
which are the ultimate components that combine in a certain specifiable ways to express meaning.
The ways are described with the help of a natural semantic metalanguage using the method of
reductive paraphrase. An ideal semantic metalanguage analysis is a paraphrase composed of the
simplest possible terms thus avoiding circularity and obscurity. No technical terms, fancy words,
logical symbols or abbreviations are allowed in the paraphrase which should contain only simple
expressions form ordinary natural languages. (I, you, someone, do, happen, thing, big, because).
TYPES OF MEANING
CONCEPTUAL M a central factor in Linguistic comm.. Applied to the conceptual content of an
expression/word usually the conceptual content is given in the form of semantic primitives. Woman
[human; adult; female] /universal/ semantic primitives. Bachelor of Arts [human, adult, male]. The

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aim of conceptual semantics is to provide, for any interpretation of a sentence, a configuration of
abstract symbols which is its semantic representation and which shows exactly what we need to know
if we are to distinguish that M form another possible sent. Ms in the L, and to match the M with the
right syntactic and phonol.expression.
Encoding the M. from phonol. synt. - to semantics;
Decoding the Message: Semantics phonol. syntax.
CONNOTATIVE M. the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what refers to, over
and above its purely conceptual context. Connot. M can embrace the putative properties of the
referent, due to the viewpoint adopted by an individual, or a group of people or a whole society. (biped
having a womb - +psychol. properties such as experiencing maternal instincts, irrational, fragile;
social properties of women: gregarious, talkative, experienced in cooking).
Connotations vary form individual to individual in a given speech community. It varies from age to
age (XIX XXI). Vary from society to society in the same age/period. Conn.are relatively unstable.
They R inindetermined and open ended, in a sense wi which conc.M is not.
REFLECTIVE M. - involves an intercommunication on the lexical level of L. It arises in cases of
multiple conceptual M, i.e. polysemy when one sense of the terms conditions or reacts to another
sense of the word. (E.g. In a Church Service: The Holy Ghost, The Comforter refers to the 3 rd p of
the Trinity). The case where refl.M intrudes through the sheer strength of emotive suggestions is most
striking in taboo (e.g. sexual terms intercourse, cock). The process of taboo contamination, brings
about the dying out of the non-taboo sense of a word.
AFFECTIVE M. L can reflect the personal feelings of the speaker, including his attitude to the
listener, or his attitude to the subject. Aff.M issometimes explicitly conveyed by the conc. Or conn. M
of the words used. Factors such as intonation and voice pitch are also important here. Aff.M is largely
a parasitic category in a sense that to express our emotions we rely upon the meditation of other
categories of M conc., conn., or stylistic.
STYLISTIC M. the M which a piece of L conveys about the social circumstances of Ms use. We
recognize st.M through our recognition of diff.dimensions and levels of usage within the same L.
Accent can inform us of the geographical or social origin of the speaker; other features tell us about
the social relationship b/n speaker and hearer. We rarely find words which have both the same
conceptual and the same stylistic M.=>no true synonyms exist.
COLLOCATIVE M. consists of the associations a word acquires on account of the Ms of words
which tend to occur in its environment. [pretty: - girl, boy, woman, flower], [handsome: - man, boy,
vessel, car], [rancid: - butter], [heinous: - crime], [noisome: smell].
[Collco., affective., reflected + stylistic M are associative.].
THEMATIC M. It is a combination b/n the way in which a sp. organizes a message in terms of
ordering, focus, emphasis. [e.g. Mrs Smith donated the 1 st prize or The 1st prize was donated by
Mrs Smith]. Them.M us a matter of choice b/n alternative gram constructions.
Another classification: INTENDED [what the listener infers when he receives the message] vs.
INTERPRETED [the meaning of the speaker]
From theoretical point of view we recognize all these types of meaning and try to analyze them, how
ordinery speakers recognize all these types of meanings? They all have knowledge of the language.
This illustrates that language is innate, we are born with it. First we have the psychology, which deals
with external reality; second, we think in specific structures and models, and third we behave in
specific models. All these show that we are social animals and part of the society.
We express our conception of the world in the language. There are as many conceptions of the world
as many persons. This is a fundamental question, common for semantics, culture, cognition, and
psychology. Is it me as a part of the world or is it me against the world? Thus, we will be able to
understand the meaning of some words. At first it seems that it is me as a part of the world, if I am
alive, everything is alive; it grows, gets old, and dies. Sometimes we use euphemisms instead of

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taboos as an expression of our attitude towards ocean, lightening in case not to make them angry. This
is a product of primitive society. Water and earth are given female names, because they are associated
with birth and death. Heaven is associated with male, so everything that comes from there is given a
male name. Man became more powerful, determiming his own position in the world and formed
sertain oppositios of thinking, which are universal for all cultures and languages, like: young-old,
warm-cold, up-down, etc; usually the first element is the positive one. When we deal with
connotations in the language, we have these -ve and +ve oppositions - basic stucture of human
thinking. Man is in the centre, in the domestic, +ve side, he is the known, where the nature is the
unknown.
The language as a living organism which reacts and changes with the environment. All languages
differ in meaning, or have the same structure of meaning - it is a major problem of linguistics - the
universalism - all languages have the same semantical structure, because we are all human beings. On
the other hand, languages differ in their semantic structures, because they express different view of the
world.
At the beginning of the century, Spair and Whorf started investigating the culture and customs of
American Indians. After they analized these languages, they came up with the idea that they differ
from European ones because the way of thinking is different. They have different idea of space and
time.
MEANING.SENSE. FORM.
Trad semantics give a list of possible links of words or diff senses of 1 and the same word, typical
contexts but no explanation why words have a certain meaning and why they develop semantically.
Weve got certain semantic development which is common to all Ls. ex. Vs denoting visual perception
see usu develops a 2nd meaning of know.
The historical analysis of ling meaning within the historical comparative method tried to establish
similarities among Ls in terms of M. Ex. Eva, lat. juventus cognate roots, but it would not
explain why they have the same root.
Formalism introduced by Russ linguists who tried to approach L from a diff angle, to disregard
meaning and ascribe only forms (sounds, phonetic laws). Again no explanation as to why changes took
place.
Am school of Descriptive Linguistics (L. Bloomfield) they even tried to describe formally some of
the Am Indian Ls although they didnt know the meaning of the words.
As a reaction to this there appears Chomskian linguistics and his transformational and generative
grammar. He is the 1st to say that L is connected with human psychology and he speaks of ling
competence an ability to understand and produce an infinite Number of sentences as well as to
recognize correct and incorrect sentences.
Thus for the 1st time he suggests that we have gram M within other types of meaning. Gram meaning
includes the M of gram forms, categories, WO. Many years before Ch Lewis Carol was aware of this
fact (writing a poem in Alice in W that is grammatical but words have no lex meaning).
Three is also phonol M, although its common to say that phonemes do not express M. But they have
their own M or acquire M in a L because we have examples where words of a given semantic group
contain similar sounds. Ex.: sn snore sneer, sniffle. New words created in the same semantic sphere
use again the same combination. Experiments show that when native speakers are given an invented
word with sn- they relate it to the same field.
The lexical M: the M which refers to objects, persons, ideas in the external and internal word. Such
Ms are usu accompanied by additional markers of the attitude of the speaking community toward a
given pers, obj or idea connotations, valid to and hence understood by the whole community in the
same way. Ex. awfully good very good, not v bad.
Stylistic M: relationships b/n the speaker, the hearer in the thing spoken about. The styl M always
implies choice on the part of the speaker. S/he always has to choose style suiting the occasion.
Pragmatic M: More or less the styl M. The relat b/n the speaker and the situation. The sit includes the
listener and the thing spoken about.

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Ch. says that L is innate, not in the sense that we know a part L but that were born with the ability to
speak. Its defined by our psych system. By thinking in terms of specific structure and models, we
behave in terms of specific models, all due to the fact that were social animals. The psych structure is
the way in which we deal with reality how we explain it. Are there as many concepts as persons, or
there are some general patterns for cognition? Do we feel ourselves as parts of the world or is it that
were against the world? At 1st were part was predominant . animistic conception of the world.
Everything is alive and has soul. Everything has its own cycle of living, and you have to be careful not
to make them angry. There was a linguistic taboo not to mention their names. Instead you replace
them with euphemisms a product of primitive society. We find a beautiful name for a dangerous or
ugly thing, but we dont choose at random. Floods, waters, Earth female names, Heaven, thunders,
storms male names. Women symbolize both life and death. Oppositions of this kind which are
universal and valid for all Ls: old young, in-out, right-left, warm-cold, domestic-neutral. 1st
members are [+] , 2nd are [-].
When we use such oppositions they appear in this order. People started interpreting reality in terms of
those oppositions. Some things were good and other bad. Thats thinking in terms of opposites =>
oppositeness is general structure in human thinking. Acquiring thinking man started evaluating his
position: good the domestic (which is +), he is known (as diff from nature which is dangerous), right
is the direction. This presupposes a war with nature => war is a v old idea the conflict b/n 2 opposite
things.
In the 90s L in parliament was full of metaphoric expressions related to war or sports.
L is not gram endings, it expresses our true self as human beings. Its a living organism wihch reacts to
all changes of environment. This is the so-called universalism, that claims that all human Ls have the
same semant structure because were all humans. The opposite point of view is that every L reflects a
different picture of the world. Eur. Ls are different from the Ls of Indians, so is their way of thinking
There is an entirely diff idea of space and time. For us time is a flow that comes from behind and
passes ahead. Am Ind have no idea of Now, it is a variant of the past. Space interpreted in great
details depending on the form of objects that move in sp
NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage).
X is Ys mother. At some time before now Y was v. small and at this time Y was inside the body
of X. Because of this people can think of things like: X wants to do good things to Y; and X
doesnt want bad things to happen to Y.
The paradox of this theory is the fact that it recognizes cultural specificity and relativism. These
enter the picture through the infinite possible combinations of the necessary restrictions by which
the primitives of the universal syntax combine by far. The strength of this theory is in the fact that
it has been grossly substantiated by fieldwork, analytical data and experimentation in a wide range
of natural languages.
Contextual Theories of Meaning claim that meaning is a syntagmatic phenomenon and can never
be pre-given once and for all in langue.
Meaning is generated on the basis of a concentric expansion of contextual embedding form
immediate linguistic context to the ecumenical context of culture. The period 1930 1960 is
known as the period of contextualism, empirical-observational study of meaning.
Major representatives are the anthropologist B. Malinovski, the linguists J. Firth, and L.
Bloomfield. They attempted to formulate the criterion of meaningfulness in terms of the
empiricalness of the verifiability of natural languages. This verifiability principle claims that the
meaningfulness of a proposition is grounded in experience and observation.
J. Firth specified the notion of meaning in terms of the culturally determined context in which
sentences are uttered. He is a radical anti-mentalist claiming that if meaning was expressed in
terms of concepts, ideas or internal mental stages, it would remain beyond the scope of scientific
investigations. Thus, meaning should be analyzed in terms of its contextual appropriateness, or,
the meaning of an utterance will consist in a serial contextualization of our facts, context within
context, each one being a function and organ of the bigger context and all contexts finding a place
in what might be called the Context of culture. The context of culture is the matrix within which
socially significant things occur.

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Malinovski. Utterances become comprehensible only in the context of the whole way of life.
Language is a mode of action, not an instrument of reflection. Words are tools, the meaning of a
tool is its use.
L. Bloomfield. The Behaviourist Theory of Meaning meaning consist in the observable
stimulus response features of utterances.
Jack and Jill walk on a lane. Apple. Jill is hungry and sees the apple. (Stimulus.). (response). I am
hungry, get me that apple. (Stimulus to Jack)Jack goes and gets the apple.
S r .s R
The meaning of this utterance is the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response which
it calls in the hearer.
LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS - Linguistics is looking for properties, relations, characteristics shared
by all human languages.
17th c. Arnot and Lancelot published a book on Language: Rational and Logical Grammar All
human languages have the same structure because they reflect logical structures.
20th c. Chomsky refers to that Grammar.
The usual approach the identifying language universals is to analyze all human languages we know
and generalize their common properties. This set of 5000 languages is called set-minimum the set
of the observed languages. This is an inductive procedure. From the practical to the theoretical, from
the private to the general. Called minimum because we can never be sure these are all languages.
The set maximum all existing Languages. The deductive approach uses certain knowledge about
Ls and formulates some prognostic statements (theoretic assumptions) about L.
Saussure applied deductive method in describing the system of proto-Indo European vowels. He
predicted the existence of special [a] in IE which was not in existing Ls. Several years after that this
vowel was discovered while analyzing Shumerian texts and it had the properties Saussure had
predicted.
It is really possible to analyze all 5000 Ls but if we take samples from different types of Ls we can
form statements. of the Earths population speaks 13 Ls so we can analyze samples of these and
they will be representative of L universals because so many people speak them. Types of Universals:
I. Substantive and Formal Universals
1. Universal categories of L such as Ns, Vs, Adj, ProNs - all languages have these categories.
Also predicates, subjects and objects are in all languages
2. Universal rules in L. When you want to produce an emphatic statement you change the themerheme position. If you want to distinguish b/n Od and Oi, you refer to the word order (ex. In
Eng. usu Oi is before Od).
II. Implicational and non-Implicational Universals
1. It presupposes other features of L, when it exists
E.g. Number and gender: if p then q, but not
If q then f
If there is number in a L we dont expect necessarily to have gender. Number does not presuppose
the existence of L.
But if you have gender (p) then you always have number (q).
It is also true of the relation between aspect and tense. Tense presupposes aspect but not vice
versa.
Some categories of L are more important than others. Aspect and number are more general than
tense and gender. There are Ls that have aspect but not tense, number but not gender.
2. A statement about a category with no connection with other statements. A statement by itself.
Ex. All Ls have at least 2 Vs.
We can apply these 2 univ. to the diachronic study of L and see if some categories develop into
other categories.
e.g. Tense forms develop from aspect forms } universal development
Plural forms develop from dual number.
Some linguists speak of:
III. Exceptionless (Absolute) Universals no single L is an exception to this statement, they are very
general:

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E.g.: All Ls have phonemes. All Ls use intonation.
At first linguists tried to form universals of L only, but today they also try to establish universals of
speech. Everything that is in L has been in speech. Speech is much richer than L.
Ex. We pause when we speak; About 2% of what we say is redundant. Outside these 2% different Ls
are redundant in a Different degree. Bulgarian is more redundant than English because it is more
morphological than English.
E.g. The Adj.- N. agreement we mark three times the same thing in the V in the N and in the Adj.
English has low percent of redundancy but this makes it vague and we always need additional context.
IV. Semantic Universals. Characteristics of meaning which are universal.
1.
Diachronic we expect to find the same type of change
E.g. The oldest process is taboo to make the word sound more polite. This is relative, it is a social
agreement.
Taboo in English undertaker deals with dead people, unpleasant associations. 1 st it was funeral
undertaker then undertaker was preserved only for funeral undertaker and then it was replaced by
another euphemism funeral director.
This tendency of sounding polite us universal in all societies but there is also the reverse process
pejoration of meaning: when normal words acquire negative connotations.
E.g. The word .
A constant cycle of words going form negative to polite and then again. This is the mechanism of
slang not to invent words but to use existing words in different sense and create some kind of Ls
where words acquire additional meanings. The mechanism in jargon is to use foreign words, or
strange words, because slang is some kind of secret L. More than 15% of Bulgarian slang relies on
gypsy words. Am. Slang relies on Hispanic words.
2. Synchronic Semantic Universals - speakers of a L always try to motivate their words to make
them understandable so, theres a constant process of motivation, the strongest expression of this
desire to give motivation is Folk etymology.
E.g.. So long (Folk etymology of Arabic Salam)
18th c sailors were the first to use it. Also words like checkmate a distortion of Sha~ Ma~ = the
king is dead.
UNIVERSALISM AND RELATIVISM, UNIVERSALS IN L AND THOUGHT
- 1. What is the semantic structure of a L? Each L has its own specific structure. Each L is a system of
units ordered in a specific way. The meaning is not derived from an autonomous linguistic unit but is
derived by the value a L unit has in a system, considered in relation to the value of other items.
Saussure: value is the place of the unit within the system. L is a self-contained system in which every
unit derives its essence by its relationship with the other units.
e.g. the value of mutton in E is different from the value of the French mutton
Relativism also on the morphological and phonological level:
e.g. phon.: each L has its own inventory of phonemes and its own its own permissible combinations of
sounds at the beginning of a word (its own stress and intonational pattern, accent, supra-segmental
features)
Morphological structure: the way we express gram. Categories, diff. gram. Categories (no gender in
E).
Semantic structure a fixed inventory of lexemes, the denotations of words in diff languages are not
the same. The meanings of specific lexemes (sense and denotation) are L specific.
2.
To what extent is the semantic structure universal? Is it culture independent or culture
specific? Attitudes toward universalism differ. Medieval scholars took universals as given.
Anthropologists pay more attention to the notion of L relativism. Cognitive linguists claim that there
are no universal semantic structures. One of the greatest supporters if universalism is Chomsky in
their deep structures Ls are the same. Ch.- 2 types of universals:
a). formal determine the form and shape of grammar the rules of L construction (e.g.
transformational rules of grammar ordered in a specific way the same for each L.
b). substantive refer to contents of these rules

10
John Hockins explaining L universals: 3 logical types of universals
Absolute of the form, a given property of L holds for all Ls (no L without vowels, 3 persons and 2
numbers). Chomskys formal and substantive universals belong here.
Implicational universals if a L has some property P, then it has the property Q as well. (e.g.
Greenberg. If a L has a basic V-S-O word order then it will have prepositions before N phrases
before the prepositional phrase).
Distributional Universals Ls of a specific type.
Universals are indisputable but there are different explanations of them:
Chomsky explains them by the innateness hypothesis. They are innately represented in human species.
Both the formal and the substantive universals are generally predisposed in a man.
Ed Keeman claimed there could be semantic explanations for grammatical universals. A specific
morphological universal agreement b/n N and adj. The adj always agrees ub gender with the N in Ls
with gender. This is due to the fact that adjectives exhibit a semantic agreement with the Ns (flat tyre,
flat beer, flat road the meaning of the adj depends on the head N, and not vice versa). Agreement in
morphology mirrors the semantic agreement.
Some explanations have to do with the pragmatic aspect of meaning. Those that make preference to
the discourse content of an utterance (the speaker, the hearer, the shared knowledge, previous
utterances) (e.g. three persons and two numbers for prons in every L because the 3 types of referential
distinctions are necessary for effective communication).
Gram. Universals if a L has a reflexive non-reflexive distinction of the 1 st person pron (me- myself)
then it has the 3rd pers. Pron. Some Ls have this dist only on the 2nd and 3rd pers Sg.
3rd pers. Sg its referents are so many that the distinction between same and non-same is extremely
important again a pragmatic aspect of meaning.
Explanation in terms of perception and cognition: Berlinand Kay, who studied colour categorization in
98 different languages. There are 11 universal colour categories present or not in a given L. They are
identified according to human perceptual and cognitive abilities. 11 psychologically distinguishable
focal points.
Salient obvious, most significant, those that come first are more frequently lexicalized. Universals
are explainable in human perception and human cognition.
SEMANTIC STRUCTURE. RELATIVISM
It is generally accepted in linguistics today that the meaning of L is organized in a specific way so that
we can speak of the semantic structure of a L. The v idea that there is organization of meaning means
that there can be different organizations of the semantic structures.
The Danish linguist Louis Hjelmslev is the creator of the Glossematics school of Linguistics and in his
theory he claims that in L we have two different systems/plains
Plane of content: substance
(The M of L)
Form

Plane of expression: form

(the form of L)
substance

Each plane has its own substance and form. Substance is the acoustic material, form is the phonemes.
What Linguistics is interested in is the form of the 2 plains. Then we can expect that each L will have a
specific form of expression and a specific form which gives the physiognomy of each L. This leads to
the Linguistic Relativism Theory.
The goal of linguistics is to study the 2 forms that of content and that of expression.
Content, he says, is human thinking and its common to all things, because we have the same
apparatus of thinking. But Ls structure the formal content in different ways. If we compare Ls the
differences will be in the sphere of forms.
In this theory of L form and M are separated. An idea that there is s.th. universal for all Ls and thats
M as well as the potentiality of sounds we could use. The differences are only in the sphere of
structure.
2 Ls are semantically isomorphic, i.e. they have identical semantic structure it they have
identical form of content.
Lyons: the squares of colours.

11
Brown: E; Fr; Bg
Weve got the extreme case of a hypothetic L where there are only two words for colour. Those Ls can
express all possible colours but not by means of separate words, but descriptively. Ls are not
isomorphic.
Sapir Whorf hypothesis is a hypothesis of L relativity. They came up with a theory about the
semantic structure of Ls saying that the different Ls are different worlds and not simply one and the
same world with different labels attached to it. Every L has his own unique semantic structure => the
structure of our native L determines our way of thinking => people speaking different Ls think in a
different way => thinking is not expressed by means of L. L is not simply an instrument for expressing
our thought. L determines our thinking.
This implies that Ls are incomparable; there is no common basis which is motivated by thinking.
There are no universal features valid for all Ls. => Translation is impossible and we cant learn foreign
Ls because we have to acquire a 2nd way of thinking.
e.g.
Kinship terms are a good example for relativity
Colour terms.
These two examples are entirely different. Kinship terms are based on the structure of society. They do
not constitute a natural system. Colour terms are a natural system based on the colour spectrum which
is a physical entity.
E.g. herbs are entirely human category, because they are identified as useful to human beings.
=> Vast fund of materials to prove that Ls are not similar.
1969 a reaction to the hypothesis: Berlin and Kay Basic colour terms. They are trying to present a
case against the relativity hypothesis and detect the similarities behind the obvious differences. They
used exactly the same data as their opponents but with a different interpretation.
e.g. Kinship terms
1. Universal centre the speaker.
2. the opposition between relatives by blood and relatives by marriage
3. Age as an organizing principle
4. Sex
e.g. colours - there are some colours which seem to be more important than others.
=> There are universal principles valid for all Ls. Above them are the specific differences.
Berlin and Kay stay in the middle. Their position is called the compromise. This brings to the
surface the important category of L Universals.
Saussures theory: also in support of relativism => What is in the semantic structure of a L? Each L
has its own specific structure. Each L is a system of units ordered in a specific way. The M is not
derived from an autonomous linguistic unit but is derived by the value a L unit has in a system,
considered in relation to the value of the other items. Value is the place of the unit within the system. L
is a self-contained system.
Relativism also on the morphological and phonological levels.
e.g. Phonetic Structure: each L has its own inventory of phonemes and its own permissible
combinations of sounds at the beginning of a word (its own stress & intonational pattern, accent).
Morphological structure: the way we express gram. categories, e.g. no gender in E).
Semantic structure: a fixed inventory of lexemes, the denotations of words in different Ls are not the
same. The Ms of specific lexemes (sense & denotation) are specific.
To what extent is the semantic structure universal? Attitudes towards universalism differ. Medieval
scholars took universals for granted. Anthropologists pay more attention to the notion of L relativism.
Cognitive linguists claim that there are no universal semantic structures. One of the greatest supporters
of relativism is Chomsky (in their deep structure Ls are the same).
Types of Universals:
(a) Formal determine the form and shape of grammar the rules of L construction (e.g.
transformational rules of grammar ordered in a specific way the same for each L).
(b) Substantive refer to the contents of these rules.
Chomsky explains universals by the innateness hypothesis they are innately represented in human
species. Both the formal and the substantive universals are generally predisposed in a man. Berlin &
Kay explain universalism in terms of perception and cognition: the 11 colours are identified according
to human perceptual and cognitive abilities.

12
Some explanations have to do with the pragmatic aspect of M they give preference to the discourse
context of an utterance (e.g. speaker 1st person, hearer 2nd person, the shared knowledge, previous
utterances) =>3 persons and 2 numbers for proNs in every L because the 3 types of referential
distinctions are necessary of effective communication.
Ed Keeman semantic explanation to grammatical universals.
A specific morphological universal agreement between N and Adj. The Adj always agrees with the N
in Ls with gender. This is due to the fact that adjectives exhibit semantic agreement with Ns (flat tyre,
flat beer, etc.). M of the Adj depends on the head N) => Agreement in morphology mirrors the
semantic agreement.
Lyons
Text: Relativism and Functionalism. The Prague School and the Copenhagen School: Phonemes and
Ms of words in all Ls can be analysed into yet smaller components (or distinctive features). These
ultimate components of sound and M are L neutral.
Granted a universal inventory of potential distinctions of sound and M, every L might yet make its
own unique selection from this inventory, so that no single distinction is actualized in all Ls. Certain
distinctions are more readily actualized than others.
This proposition is in conflict with the most characteristic aspects of structuralism in linguistics: its
insistence that the actualization of particular phonological grammatical and semantic distinctions in
different L systems is completely arbitrary. This can be referred to as the doctrine of linguistic
relativism (the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis).
It has been challenged by Berlin and Kay thesis: Two Ls might well differ with respect to the
boundaries that they draw in a denotational continuum and yet be central or focal in the deviation of
roughly equivalent words.
All men, whenever they are born and in whatever culture they are reared, are genetically endowed, we
may assume, with the same perceptual and conceptual predispositions that determine the acquisition of
linguistically pertinent distinctions of L and M. Every child is capable of learning a L, provided that
s/he is brought up in an environment in which L is used for all the multifarious activities of everyday
life. By virtue of his conceptual and perceptual predispositions the child will notice certain aspects of
his environment rather that others. These may be described as biologically salient.
Superimposed on the biological salience is the cultural salience. Very L is integrated with the culture
in which it operates and its lexical structure reflects those distinctions which are important in a culture.
Many anthropologists have maintained that there are universals of culture, just as there are
biologically determined universals of cognition. Indeed, it may be impossible in many cases to draw a
distinction between biological and cultural universals.
The Structuralist thesis, that every L system is unique is not invalidated by the possibility that every L
system has a universal intra-structure. Nor is it affected by the possibility that the universals of a L
structure are determined, not by general and biological factors of the kind referred to above, but by a
species specific human capacity for the acquisition of L as such.
Functionalism: the structure of every L is determined by the particular functions that it has to perform.
Since certain human and social needs are universal, there are certain functions that all Ls must fulfill;
and these will tend to be reflected in their grammatical and lexical structure. For example, in all
societies it is necessary to make descriptive statements, to ask questions and to issue commands.
Most Ls distinguish between declarative, interrogative an imperative sentences. All Ls must
provide the means of referring to objects and persons in the situation of utterance; hence the
existence in all Ls a set of grammaticalized and lexicalized deictic distinctions.
In so far as the more specific needs of one society differ from those of another, Ls will tend to differ
one from another in their grammatical and lexical structure.

SEMANTIC RELATIONS
There are relationships in semantics. The most general types must correspond to the two basic
types of relation in language. Going back to the theory of levels, we come to the syntagmatic and the

13
paradigmatic relations also valid for the relations among lexical units. A word is related
paradigmatically to other words with which it appears in the same context.
Ex: a ------------- of milk (in the gap words denoting containers). All the words in the gap are
in paradigmatic relation.
A word is in syntagmatic relation with all the words, which it colours: all the words denoting
containers are in syntagmatic relation.
We can analyse the words paradigmatically and look for relations, which organize them in such
a way, and look for linear relations -> syntagmatic relations.
Selectional restrictions the position of the verb in the sentence. The type of verb we choose
usually selects the other words that appear in the sentence.
Ex: S (obligatory) make Od (obligatory) InO Adv Instr
We are absolutely sure for the obligatory and the optional items.
S personal pronouns / human nouns, because the verb make means volitional action.
Od very indefinite category.
Semantic theory is interested in the 2 nd type of selection where the appearance of the words is
not found so sensible, and anomalous. The problem of semantics is why is it anomalous? What makes
it anomalous?
Ex: a stallion got pregnant semantic clash between words.
The silence was pregnant with meaning - no semantic clash. There is no problem when the
word is used metaphorically or figuratively.
The paradigmatic semantic relations group words into smaller subdivisions (smaller than the
semantic fields) and then express very specific relations among or between the words sometimes
they concern two, sometimes more than two words.
We have: synonymy, hyponymy, antonymy, incompatibility, complementarity,
converseness, part of relations, cycles, ranks and so on.
Words are related in many different ways. The relation can be binary oppose or relate two
words only.
Ex: boy girl a binary opposition > sex > privative;

man girl opposed in more than one dimension: sex, age

Privative v/s equipollent opposition:
Privative: implies that one of the members is characterized by the presence of a feature: man:
woman. The first member is always a strong one and carries the feature characterizing the
opposition: man (+male; - female): woman (-male; + female) the features always appear in
this order. Social or cultural agreement is to come first.
Equipollent: a binary opposition, which consists of two members but they are equal they
mutually exclude each other: alive: dead. We can use sentences like: Is he still alive? or Is he
already dead? , but we cannot ask such questions for he 1st type of opposition.
Multiple oppositions: involve more than two words and the relation among such words is of
mutual exclusion: the days of the week always in opposition.
Synonymy: explains the difference b/n synonyms. Synonyms are words with similar meaning.
Words with different meaning are: tree: Universal. Hot v/s cold are antonyms they have 1

14
feature in common. Antonyms have very much the same meaning. The synonyms usually refer
to one and the same phenomenon or object.
The additional elements of meaning can express stable connotations, the attitude of society towards a
given object: unpleasant: ugly: disgusting.
If it is a verb they can differ in the way of performing the action in the goal of doing it or differ in
the way of performing it.
Ex: words for killing: kill, murder, slay, slash, assassinate, electrocute, stab, hatchet, guillotine,
hang, decapitate, behead, poison, drown, stifle, gun, shoot, choke, suffocate, exterminate, massacre,
mutilate, crucify, rape, assault, destroy.
POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY Same form different meaning. Criteria for distinction:
1. Historical derivation of the words.
Homonyms: Developed from formally distinct lexemes.
e.g. bank 1 . of a river; 2.. financial institution
Usually in the dictionary these are given in separate entries, but it is not entirely decisive with respect
to native speakers.
2. On the synchronic plane: criterion of relatedness of meaning. This criterion correlates with the
native speakers feeling of connection between certain words:
Mouth 1. of a river; 2.of a bottle; 3. of the human body
Head: 1. of a body; 2. of a family; etc.
This criterion is not always reliable due to folk etymology:
Ear 1. ~of a corn ( ); of a human organ.
They come from different stems, but native speakers would interpret them as related.
Absolute and partial homonymy.
Absolute: belonging to the same part of speech, all forms are identical and they are syntactically
equivalent: bank river; money.
Partial: the words do not coincide in all forms, or belong to different parts of speech.
e.g. found (=establish), (=past t. of find)
This may give rise to ambiguities: They found the hospital and charitable institutions. But usually
the words occur in different syntactical environment: last (adj), to last (verb).
Polysemy: Cruse defines the relations existing b/n polysemes as linear and non-linear.
Linear relations: If one thing (A) is more basic than another thing(b) and (b) is more specialized than
A then B is a specialization of A
Auto-hyponymy, It occurs when a word has a default, general sense and a contextually restricted sense
which is more specific. (Dogs and cats are animals; Thats not a dog, its a bitch)
Auto-meronymy: Deals with the part-whole relation (finger hand arm). We have automeronymy
when the more specific reading denotes subpart (Go through that door and take the door off its
hinges).
Auto-superordination. The generalization of a subordinate term (men for the whole of humanity)
Auto-holonymy A scratch on the arm means that the scratch is on the non-hand part (She was
waving arm hand included).
Non-linear: Morphosyntactic words which have one and the same phonic representation are called
homophones. Morphosyntactic words which have one and the same orthographic representation
which is formally equivalent in the graphic medium are called homographs. Homophones may be
defined as absolute or partial.
Non-linear polysemy: metaphor based on resemblance of words; metonymy can be characterized for
the use based on associations {Most often Figurative L especially metaphorical extension of the
primary meaning. ( The bed of a river, hood of a car, cock of a gun). Also metonymy surgery
the art of a surgeon; the room where patients are examined. Semantic borrowing: the borrowing of
meaning. (e.g. Lord meant master. Nowadays it also refers to God, due to the influence of the Greek
word for master which set the pattern. The same with French (Segneur).Creation of technical terms:
e.g. action: in law, in military language has more specific technical meaning. Commerce: company,
interest, share Sports: score, goal, back, centre.}

15
Homonymy vs. Polysemy
It could be argued for many NLP applications that a coarse differentiation between the different
meanings associated with a single lexical form is adequate to establish a basic interpretation which can
guide subsequent processing. This might be the case for some MT systems or NLU systems which
only need to establish the general context of discourse. This coarse differentiation might be at the level
of homonyms, leaving polysemous words to be associated with an underspecified lexical semantics
which is never made fully precise. So what is the homonymy-polysemy distinction and on what
grounds is it made? I will show that the distinction is not clear and therefore not a useful basis for
deciding what words/senses to include in the lexicon.
A word with (at least) two entirely distinct meanings yet sharing a lexical form is said to be
homonymous (e.g. mogul, an emperor, or mogul, a bump on a ski piste), while a word with several
related senses is said to be polysemous (e.g. mouth, an organ of the body, the entrance of a cave, etc.)
lyons:77. While these definitions are intuitively clear, it has been pointed out many times in the
literature on lexical semantics that a clear operational distinction between homonymy and polysemy is
lacking. I will review some of the criticisms below, but will begin by introducing an example which
emphasises the difficulties of establishing criteria for distinguishing between homonymy and
polysemy.
One of the most commonly cited examples of a homonymous word is bank, which has a financial
institution sense and a edge of a river sense. These senses seem clearly unrelated, and the fact that they
are associated with the same word form seems purely accidental. However, historical linguistics
research on Italian has revealed that at some point in the development of the Italian language, these
two senses of bank actually coincided by virtue of the fact that bankers (lenders of money) sat on the
riverbanks while doing their business. So going to the financial institution meant going to the edge of
the river, hence to the bank. Thus a connection between the two modern senses of bank can be
established. The relationship between these two senses should presumably not be considered strong
enough to establish a relation between them, and therefore to consider bank polysemous rather than
homonymous, but what criteria for polysemy do they violate? On what criteria do we decide that
senses are related?

Lyons
Lyons lyons:77 devotes a section to the discussion of the homonymy-polysemy distinction (p. 550569). He identifies the following criteria as those traditionally applied in making the distinction:
1. etymological information -- homonymous lexemes ``should be known to have developed from
what were formally distinct lexemes in some earlier stage of the language''
2. relatedness of meaning -- homonymous lexemes have unconnected meanings
Lyons correctly criticises the first criterion as being irrelevant to the synchronic analysis of language,
since native speakers are largely unaware of the etymology of the words of their language yet they are
able to assign meanings to them. Notice that this criterion will not exclude bank as discussed above
from being polysemous, given that the two senses historically derive from a single lexeme and in fact
a single sense. The second he identifies as an important consideration, but points out that relatedness
of meaning is a subjective measure for which intuitions may vary among individuals.
Lyons considers two alternatives to circumventing the homonymy-polysemy issue:
1. Maximise homonymy -- associate every meaning of a word with a distinct lexeme. Lyons
shows that this will lead to considerable redundancy in the lexicon, as much morphological,

16
syntactic, and even semantic information will be repeated in the lexical entries for the distinct
lexemes. However, this redundancy can be greatly reduced given current inheritance-based
approaches to lexicon construction. More problematic is the observation that this approach
depends on the ability to spell out in advance all of the possible senses in which a word will be
used. Lyons suggests that sense distinctions can be ``multiplied indefinitely'' (1977:554) and
that therefore this tack is hopeless. It will never be possible to decide in advance the full range
of possible senses a particular word might be associated with, and furthermore it makes the
computational task of selecting the appropriate lexeme daunting given the number of lexemes
which might be associated with a particular word form (see Section 6.4 below).
2. Maximise polysemy -- adopt the notion that no two lexemes can be entirely distinct when they
are syntactically equivalent and when the set of word forms they are associated with are
identical. On this view, there are only various kinds of partial homonymy (i.e. when there exist
syntactic differences among uses of a word). This removes the vague concept of ``semantic
relatedness'' from the lexicon. However, it would result in an extremely underspecified lexicon
from which very little information about the meaning of words could be gleaned. It suffers
from the problem of an inability to explain the intuitions that underly the notion of
homonymy, and, more relevant to computation, from a complete inability to identify the
normal context of use of a particular word and no basis for establishing synonym classes or
other semantically-based groupings. How any useful interpretation could be accomplished
without some sense differentiation is difficult to see.

Cruse
Cruse (1986) distinguishes lexemes from lexical units. The former are ``the items listed in the lexicon,
or `ideal dictionary' of a language.'' A lexeme corresponds to a particular word or word form, and can
be associated with indefinitely many senses. The latter are ``form-meaning complexes with (relatively)
stable and discrete semantic properties'' (p. 49), and the meaning component is called a sense,
corresponding to the intuitive notion of sense I have been using. So bank is a lexeme, while bankfinancial institution and bank-edge of a river are lexical units.
In discussing the semantic contribution of a word to a sentence, Cruse differentiates between
contextual selection of a sense and contextual modulation of a sense. Selection refers to activation of a
particular sense of an ambiguous word form due to the context, while modulation refers to variation
induced by the context in terms of emphasising or de-emphasising various aspects of the sense. The
sentences in cc1 exemplify modulation in that the two sentences highlight different parts of the car
(the engine and the body, respectively) rather than requiring that car refer to different entities in each
case. The sentences in cc2, on the other hand, are instances of contextual selection: a different sense of
light is selected in each case.

The car needs servicing. The car needs washing.

The room was painted in light colours. (cf. dark/*heavy) Arthur has rather a light teaching load. (cf.
heavy/*dark)
Contextual selection corresponds to the kind of word sense disambiguation undertaken in most NLP
systems -- there is a pre-existing set of senses for a lexeme (word) and the relevant sense must be
identified based on the context. Contextual modulation refers to one creative aspect of language use,
and points to the need for complex representation of knowledge about a word. This is because multiple

17
aspects of a word can be activated simultaneously: The car needs servicing and washing is completely
felicitous despite the fact that different facets of the car are referred to by each of the verbs (cf. ??
Arthur has light teaching loads and rooms in his house which indicates that multiple senses of light
cannot be active at once). This kind of knowledge is directly relevant for discourse processing (e.g.
anaphor resolution, for example in a discourse such as ``The car needs servicing. It also needs
washing.'' where the anaphor refers back to the car as a whole, not just the engine) and generation of
coherent sentences/discourses.
Cruse (1986:68) introduces the concept of a gradient of establishment of senses. By this he means that
a lexical form can be associated with some senses which are potential rather than explicitly
represented in the lexicon. Context can stimulate rules which generate an appropriate sense. This idea
serves as the foundation of recent work on the Generative Lexicon (Pustejovsky 1991,
pustejovsky:95a: see below). Cruse furthermore argues for the existence of sense-spectra, in which the
senses of a lexical form lie along a continuum, with no clear boundaries between them, and in some
cases without an encompassing sense. copestake_briscoe:95 provide an example, shown in cc3.

That book is full of metaphorical language. That book is full of long sentences. That book is full of
spelling mistakes. That book is full of typographic errors. That book has an unreadable font. That book
has lots of smudged type. That book is covered with coffee.
As they point out, co-predication of the first and the last properties seems odd cc4a while copredication of adjacent pairs seems natural, e.g. cc4b.

?That book is full of metaphorical language and is covered with coffee, so it's very hard to read. That
book is full of typographical errors and has an unreadable font.
Cruse (1986:73) suggests that the description of sense-spectra is problematic since a full sensespectrum does not function as a single lexical unit. Yet he proposes to treat them as a lexical unit, with
recognition of the senses along the continuum as local senses.
A lexeme, corresponding to a lexical entry, is proposed by Cruse (1986:76) to be a family of lexical
units. This family can either correspond to a sense-spectrum, or to a set of senses which can be related
to one another via regular lexical semantic relationships (captured by lexical rules). Thus the structure
of the lexicon on Cruse's view essentially reflects only productive relationships and groups of senses
capturing different aspects of a single entity which cannot be consistently delineated. In proposing
this, Cruse focuses on the lexical unit as the primary semantic unit and on the distinction between
lexical units, de-emphasising the importance of the word. As such, he skirts the homonymy-polysemy
distinction issue, which involves the relationship between lexemes and lexical units. Although the
difference between contextual selection and contextual modulation points to phenomena affected by
the distinction, he does not propose clear criteria for establishing the distinction. So the computational
lexicographer is left with yet another reason for making the distinction but still no basis for making it.

Kilgarriff
Adam Kilgarriff (1992) devotes his thesis to a discussion of polysemy. The essential conclusion which
he draws, on the basis of considerations of the traditional distinction drawn between homonymy and
polysemy and of investigation of lexicographic techniques for delimiting dictionary senses, is that
``Polysemy does not form any kind of `natural kind''' (Kilgarriff 1992:4). Instead, polysemy describes

18
a ``crossroads'' between homonymy, alternations, collocations and analogy based on general
knowledge and reasoning. Polysemous words can be characterised by at least one of these four
methodologies, and Kilgarriff argues that all four must be allowed for in order to capture the full
variety of polysemy.
Kilgarriff observes, however, that collocations and analogy depend on frequency information and are
subject to contextual variation while description of homonymy and alternations relies on rules, and
that joining the two approaches involves augmenting formal lexical structure with frequency data. This
view is supported by the results of my investigation of logical metonymy (Chapter 5), wahich suggests
that conventionality plays an important role in predicting language use. The computational lexicon
must therefore both reflect linguistic generalisations and provide information on conventional
language usage.
The main implication of this work is that polysemy is not a term which can be applied to characterise
word senses in an entirely precise way. There cannot be clear-cut tests for identifying polysemy due to
its multi-faceted nature. Homonymy is not orthogonal to polysemy, but rather an endpoint of one of
the dimensions along which polysemy can be described (fully predictable sense variation -unpredictable sense variation). Furthermore, most words display some variation in the meaning they
express and the criteria for pinning down senses are often dependent on questions of frequency and
predictability rather than on clearly delineated distinctions. For the purposes of designing a lexicon for
an NLU/NLG system, that means distinguishing senses of a word when there are syntactic differences
in the way that word is used, and when there are variations in meaning which seem to follow from
general, productive relationships.
HYPONYMY - A paradigmatic relation of sense which holds between a more specific, or subordinate,
lexeme and a more general, or superordinate, lexeme, as exemplified by such pairs as:

19
Cow: animal
Rose: flower
Honesty: virtue
Buy: get
Crimson: red
There is no generally accepted term for this relation (or its converse). However, the term hyponymy
has been gaining currency; and it is more appropriate than such alternatives as inclusion or
subordination, which are also used in other senses in linguistics and logic.
Let us say that cow is a hyponym of animal, rose is a hyponym of flower, etc., and further, that
rose, tulip, daffodil, etc., since each is a hyponym of flower, are co-hyponyms of the same
lexeme.
Hyponymy is frequently discussed by logicians in terms of class- inclusion and up to a point, this is
satisfactory enough.
For example,
If X is the class of flowers and Y is the class of tulips, then it is in fact the case that X properly
includes Y (XY & Y X), but there are problems attaching to the definition of hyponymy in terms
of the logic of the subclasses. First of all, it is unclear whether we should say that a hyponym is
included in its superordinate or a superordinate in its hyponym(s). If we consider the extension of
lexemes, we would say that the superordinate lexeme is more inclusive; but as far as the intension of
lexemes is concerned the hyponym is more inclusive (tulips have all the defining properties of flowers,
and certain additional properties which distinguish them from roses, daffodils, etc.)
Hyponymy is definable in terms of unilateral implication.
For example, crimson is established as a hyponym of red and buy as a hyponym of get by virtue
of the implications
She was wearing a crimson dress She was wearing a red, dress
I bought it from a friend I got it from a friend
(That is, between the propositions expressed by the sentences She was wearing a crimson dress and
She was wearing a red, dress, etc., when these sentences are uttered to make an assertion). The
definition of hyponymy in terms of unilateral implication enables us to define synonymy as bilateral,
or symmetrical, hyponymy:
If x is a hyponym of y and y is a hyponym of x, then x and y are synonyms. If hyponymy is defined as
non-symmetrical (as it must be if synonymy is treated as symmetrical hyponymy), then proper
hyponymy may be distinguished from synonymy as being asymmetrical.
Hyponymy is a transitive relation. If x is a hyponym of y and y is a hyponym of z, then x is a
hyponym of z. For example, cow is a hyponym of mammal and mammal is a hyponym of
animal; therefore cow is a hyponym of animal.
When the relation of hyponymy holds between nouns, it is possible to insert syntactically appropriate
expressions containing then in place of x and y in the following formula x is a kind of y (where x is a
hyponym of y) and this will yield a sentence which expresses a metalinguistic or reflexive proposition
which is analytic. Thus, a proposition expressed by A cow is a kind of animal, A tulip is a kind of
flower, etc., may be taken to be analytic. Under more restricted conditions, sort and type may be
substituted for kind in colloquial English: A cow is a sort of animal, A tulip is a type of flower.
There are many other more specific lexemes which may be employed, for certain values of x and y:
e.g., shade in Crimson is a shade of red, make in Aston Martin is a make of car, and so on.
When a noun x is superordinate to more than one hyponym, y, z, etc., such expressions as the
following will be accepted as meaningful: cows and other (kinds of) animals, tulips and other (kinds
of) flowers, which may be contrasted with the semantically anomalous cows and other (kinds of)
flowers and tulips and other (kinds of) animals.
The concept of hyponymy can be expressed in ordinary language, as X is a type/kind/sort of Y. It is
interesting that some pairs of words that satisfy the logical definition of hyponymy collocate more
acceptably in this frame than others:
A horse is a type of animal.
? A kitten is a sort of cat. (A kitten is a young cat.)

20
? A stallion is a type of horse. (A stallion is a male horse.)
? A queen is a kid of woman. (A queen is a woman.)
In Cruse (1986) the relation exemplified by horse: animal but not stallion: horse was labeled
taxonymy, because of its relevance to classificatory systems. Taxonyms typically resist (genuine)
analysis in componential terms and do not have obvious definitions:
A stallion is a male horse.
A horse is a animal.
Verbs, adjectives and other parts of speech cannot be inserted into the formula x is a kind of y
without prior nominalization, and even the resultant sentence is generally rather unnatural, but not
absolutely unacceptable (Buying is a kind of getting).
The general principle: HYPONYMY IS A PARADIGMATIC RELATION OF SENSE, WHICH
RESTS UPON THE ENCAPSULATION IN THE HYPONYM OF SOME SYNTAGMATIC
MODIFICATION OF THE SENSE OF THE SUPERORDINATE LEXEME.
SYNONYMY
Synonymy, just like many other linguistic issues, has been viewed in a different way in the
different semantic theories. But what they have in common is the large task to collect together the
collect together, explain and systematize the properties of a language that a semantic theory should
explain, and linguists agree that in order to be adequate, a semantic theory must fulfill at least three
conditions: (i) it must capture for any language the nature of word and sentence meaning, and
explain the nature of the random relation between them; (ii) it must be able to predict the
ambiguities in the forms of a language, whether in words or sentences i.e. it must give some
explicit account of the relations of synonymy, logical inclusion, entailment, contradiction, etc.; (iii)
it must give these characterizations in the form of a finite set of rules capturing the regularities
contained in some specific infinite set of sentences.
We know that all languages have words with meanings associated to them, and these words
can be arranged in different semantic structures to form sentences. So, we have two levels of
generalisation in the form of two different components: (i) a syntactic component containing all the
general statements about the principle of sentence formation and (ii) a semantic component
containing a statement of word meanings and a set of rules predicting sentence meanings. And of
course, there is an interaction between syntactic and semantic properties of sentences. In English:
1. Never before had the opera house been closed
same meaning only the place
of the adverbs never
and before is
changed
The opera house had never been closed before
2. Cats chase dogs
;
&nb sp;
meaning

the subject and the object are interchanged big difference in

 ;&nb sp;  ;

Dogs chase cats

From this follows that sometimes re-ordering affects the meaning of the sentence and the
prediction of sameness or difference (a matter of semantics) depends on grammatical labels such as
adverb, subject and object (a matter of syntax).
John Lions makes a twofold distinction between sense and reference or meaning and
reference. Reference is often related with the relation between word and object. As for meaning,
two linguists Ogden and Richards proposed that meaning can actually be approached as : emotive
and referential. For example the words horse and steed have the same referential meaning, but
differ in emotive meaning, so the opposition between a more central, or stylistically neutral,
component of meaning and a more subjective or peripheral component of meaning is a commonplace

21
of discussions of synonymy and this is also valid for the distinction between descriptive, social and
expressive meaning.
As far as semantic information and semantic fields in general are concerned, the possibility of
selecting one unit rather than another (and in most cases combining it, according to the rules to the
signaling-system, with other meaningful units) is a precondition of being able to transmit different
messages within the signaling-system in question. Paradigmatically related units are not necessarily
different in meaning, however, the selection of one lexeme rather than another may have no effect
upon the message that is transmitted. In this case, we can say that intersubstitutable lexemes are
completely synonymous. The selection of one rather than another may change the social or expressive
meaning of the utterance, but hold constant its descriptive meaning ( is any) in which case we can say
that the intersubstitutable lexemes are descriptively synonymous (i.e. having the same sense).
Freges classic example used in discussions of sense and reference is:
(i)

&n bsp;

The Morning Star is the Evening Star

As Frege pointed out, the two expressions the Morning Star and the Evening Star had the
same reference (Bedeutung), since they each referred to the same planet, but they could not be said to
have the same sense (Sinn), for if they did (i) would be tautologous and analytic, as is:
(ii)

&n bsp;

The Morning Star is the Morning Star

But (i) unlike (ii), is potentially informative: it can make the hearer aware of some fact of
which he was not previously aware and which he could not derive simply from his understanding of
the meaning of the sentence. So, it follows that the Morning Star & the evening Star are not
synonymous, that is they do not have the same sense, as runs the standard argument.
It may be observed in connection with (i) and (ii) that expressions such as the Morning Star
and the Evening Star might be regarded as falling somewhere between proper names and definite
descriptions. In so far as they approximate proper names we can question the assertion that they have
sense, for it is widely, though not universally, accepted that proper names do not have sense. On the
other hand, if the two expressions are treated like definite descriptions, which differ in sense in a way
obvious to any speaker of English by virtue his or her knowledge of the language, there is the problem
that:
(iii)
&n bsp; The Morning Star is not a star (but a planet)
This expression is not only contradictory, but also potentially informative. Of course, as a
matter of historical fact, it was known to the astronomers that neither the Morning Star nor the
Evening Star were actually fixed stars, but planets, long before it was discovered that the two were
identical. Nonetheless, the rather uncertain status of the two expressions makes them less than
identical for the purpose for which they were used by Frege. One might even argue that they differ not
only in sense, but also in reference, the conditions under which the planet Venus is visible from Earth,
rather than its spatiotemporal continuity, being in this case more relevant to the notion of referential
identity. But still Freges example has been introduced simply to illustrate in a general way the nature
of his distinction between sense and reference. Expressions may differ in sense, but have the same
reference; and synonymous means having the same sense, not having the same
reference. A rather better example than Freges is Husserls, the victor at Jena and the looser at
Waterloo, both of which expressions may be used to refer to Napoleon.
The criterion of sameness and difference is made more directly dependent upon the descriptive
meaning of utterances; two or more expressions will be defined to have the same sense (to be
synonymous) over a certain range of utterances if and only if they are substitutable in the
utterances without affecting their descriptive meaning. If the utterances are such that they have a
determinate truth- value, constancy of descriptive meaning will guarantee constancy of truth-value.
The converse, however, is not valid; for the substitution of one expression for another may change the
descriptive meaning of a statement without thereby altering the truth-value. For example, lets take the
sentences:

22

(a) John is a fool

(b) John is a linguist
If we take for granted that John is both a fool and a linguist, then the propositions expressed in
statements made by uttering these sentences have the same truth-value, but they do not have the
same descriptive meaning.
How do we know that they differ in descriptive meaning? Where the difference is as gross as
this, our intuitive or pre-theoretical response to the question Does (a) mean the same as (b)? is
reliable enough; and it should not be forgotten that part of what we are doing in descriptive semantics
is explaining such intuitive judgments. Linguists claim that two statements will be descriptively
equivalent (i.e. have the same descriptive meaning) if there is nothing that is entailed by the one that is
not entailed by the other. Quine says that: sentences are synonymous if and only if their
biconditional (formed by joining them by if and only if) is analytic. This formulation brings out,
as it is intended to do so, the interdefinability of synonymous and analytic. (The Saussurean
dichotomies)
The definition of synonymy can be drawn on the basis of contrast and opposition between two
features. For example, the term antonymy was coined in the XIXth century to describe a
phenomenon, oppositeness in meaning, which was itself conceived as being the opposite of synonymy
i.e. sameness, similarity in meaning.
Hyponymy is definable in terms of unilateral implication, For example, crimson is a
hyponym of red and buy is a hyponym of get (when the sentences are uttered to make an
assumption):
(i)

&n bsp;

(ii)

&n bsp;

She was wearing a crimson dress -> She was wearing a red

dress.
I bought the car from John -> I got the car from John.

The definition of hyponymy in terms of unilateral implication enables us to define synonymy

as bilateral or symmetrical hyponymy: if x is a hyponym of y and y is a hyponym of x, then x and y
are synonymous. If hyponymy is defined as non-symmetrical (as it must be if synonymy is treated as
symmetrical hyponymy), then proper hyponymy may be distinguished from synonymy as being
asymmetrical.
Cruise distinguishes between three basic types of synonymy: absolute, propositional and
near-synonymy. Cruise accepts the interpretation of synonymy as sameness in meaning, but rather,
he prefers to view synonyms as words whose semantic similarities are more salient than their
differences, which opens a potential area of interest.
(1) Absolute synonymy
Absolute synonymy refers to complete identity of meaning, and so for the notion to have any
content we must specify what is to count as meaning. Here a contextual approach is adopted,
according to which is anything which affects the contextual normality in grammatically well-formed
sentential contexts. On this basis, absolute synonyms can be defined as items, which are equinormal
in all contexts, that is to say, for two lexical items X and Y, if they are to be recognized as absolute
synonyms, in any context in which X is fully normal, Y is too; and in any context in which X is totally
anomalous, the same is true of Y. This is a very severe requirement and actually very few pairs qualify
(if any). The following examples illustrate the difficulty of finding uncontroversial pairs of absolute
synonyms (+ indicates relatively more normal and - indicates relatively less normal):
(i)

&n bsp;

brave v/s courageous

Little Billy was so brave at the dentists this morning. (+)

Little Billy was so courageous at the dentists this morning. (-)

23
(ii)

calm v/s placid

She was quite calm a few minutes ago. (+)

She was quite placid a few minutes ago.(-)
(iii)

big v/s large

Hes a big baby, isnt he?

(+)Hes a large baby, isnt he? (-)
(iv)
almost v/s nearly
die v/s kick the bucket
She looks almost Chinese. (+)
pain. (+)
She looks nearly Chinese. (-)
kicked the bucket(-)

&nb sp;

  ;&nb sp;(v)

Apparently he died in considerable
 

;&nb

sp;Apparently

he

Still, there are items that fit in the definition of absolute synonymy: sofa: settee, & pullover:
sweater. However, even for these items, in a typical class of students, a sizeable minority will find
contexts for them as discriminatory. One thing is clear, under this description absolute synonyms are
vanishingly rare, and do not form a significant feature of natural vocabularies. The usefulness of this
notion lies in its status as a reference point on a putative scale of synonymity.
(2) Propositional synonymy
Propositional synonymy can be defined, as its name suggests, in terms of entailment. If two
lexical items are propositional synonyms, then they can be substituted in any expression with truthconditional properties without effect on those properties. To put it in other words, two sentences which
differ only in that one has one member of a pair of propositional synonyms where the other has the
other member of the pair are mutually entailing: John bought a violin entails and is entailed by John
bought a fiddle; I heard him tuning his fiddle entails and is entailed by I heard him tuning his violin;
She is going to play a violin concerto entails and is entailed by She is going to play a fiddle concerto,
though fiddle is less normal in the last example.
Differences in meanings of propositional synonyms, by definition, involve one or more
aspects of non-propositional meaning, the most important being:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)

&n bsp;
Differences in expressive meaning
&n bsp; Differences on stylistic level
&n bsp; Differences of presupposed field of discourse

Usually, more than one of these comes to play at any one time. In the case of violin: fiddle the
difference depends on certain characteristics of the speaker. If the speaker is not a musician, or an
outsider to violinistic culture, then fiddle is more colloquial. If the speaker is a professional violinist
talking to a colleague of his, then fiddle will be the more neutral term while violin is used mainly to
outsiders. If we take the pair shin: fibula, the difference is almost one of field of discourse: shin is the
everyday term, with no special or expressive loading, while fibula is used in the field of medicine.
Propositional synonyms seem to be commonest in the areas of special emotive significance,
especially taboo areas, where a finely graded set of terms is often available occupying different points
on the euphemism dysphemism scale. They also seem to be prevalent in connection with concepts
that are applicable in distinct contexts, with differing significance and implication in those contexts.
(3) Near synonymy

24

There is a clear borderline between propositional and near synonymy, which is not the case
with the borderline between the near - synonymy and non-synonymy is much less straightforward and
it is not obvious what principle underlies the distinction. Two points should be made at the outset:
(i)
Language users do have intuitions as to which pairs of words
are synonyms and which are not.
(ii) It is not adequate to say simply that there is a scale of semantic distance, and that
synonyms
are words whose meanings are relatively close. (This would explain the somewhat
uncertain boundary of near-synonymy: people are typically vague as to what constitutes, say, an old
woman or a tall man.) The reason this is not adequate is that there is no simple correlation between
semantic closeness and degree of synonymy. The following items are semantically closer as we go
down the list, but they do not become more synonymous:
-> entity
-> living thing
-> animal
-> animal
-> dog
-> spaniel
etc.

 -> process
 -> object
 -> plant
 -> bird
  ;-> cat
 -> poodle

This list may eventually continue indefinitely without ever producing synonyms. The point is
that these words function primarily to contrast with other words at the same hierarchical level. In other
words a major function of dog is to indicate not cat/mouse/camel/etc. , that is to signal a contrast.
Synonyms, on the other hand, do not function primarily to contrast with one another. Nevertheless,
they may contrast in certain contexts, and this is specially true of near synonyms: He was killed, but
I assure you that he was not murdered, madam.
Characterising the sorts of difference which do not destroy synonymy in no easy matter. As a
rough and ready, but still not very explicit, generalization it may be said that permissible differences
between near- synonyms must be either minor, or backgrounded, or both. Among minor differences
may be counted the following:
(i)
&n bsp;
Adjacent position on the scale of degree: fog : mist,
laugh: chuckle, hot; scorching, big: huge, disaster: catastrophe, pull: heave, weep:
sob, etc.
(ii)
&n bsp;
Certain adverbial specializations of verbs: amble:
stroll, chuckle: giggle, drink: quaff;
(iii)
&n bsp;
Aspectual distinctions: calm: placid (state v/s
disposition);
(iv)
&n bsp;
Difference of prototype center: brave (prototypically
physical): courageous (prototypically involves intellectual and moral factors).
An example of a background major distinction would be pretty (female presupposed) v/s
handsome (male presupposed), the propositional meaning of both of which may be glossed as good
looking. When the gender distinction is foregrounded, as in man: woman, the resulting terms are not
synonymous. Saying why we get near synonyms in a particular instance, rather than fully contrastive
terms, is also difficult. A possibility is that contrastive terms appear when the conceptual differences
have concrete behavioural consequences, as in technical and expert fields. Much research remains to
be done in the field of synonymy and sense relations.

Differences Between Synonyms

25
In contemporary linguistics it has become almost axiomatic that complete synonymy does not
exist. Words, D. Jones once remarked, are seldom exactly synonymous. Macaulay has expressed
the same idea in terms of which will commend themselves to the modern linguistics: Change the
structure of a sentence; substitute one synonym for another; and the whole effect is destroyed. In the
words of Bloomfield, each linguistic form has a constant and specific meaning. If the forms are
phonemically different we suppose that their meanings are also different we suppose in short that
there are no actual synonyms.
Nevertheless, there are cases when several synonyms arise around a new invention, technical
or medical, or scientific term, until they are eventually sorted out. Such synonymy persists for
indefinite period and there is no actual difference between the words but in terms of register. For
instance, in medicine cranium and scull are synonymous, in phonetics consonants like s and z are
known as spirants and as fricatives and so on. In ordinary language, one can rarely be so positive
about identity of meaning, since that matter is complicated by vagueness, ambiguities, emotive
overtones and evocative effects; but even there one can occasionally find words which are for all
intents and purposes interchangeable. For example almost and nearly are such integral synonyms.
Prof. W. E. Collinson has made an interesting attempt at tabulating the most typical
differences between synonyms. He distinguishes b/n nine possibilities:
1.
One term is more general than the other: refuse reject
2.
One term is more intense than another: repudiate refuse
3.
One term is more emotive than the other: reject decline
4.
One term may imply moral approbation or censure where another is neutral:
thrifty economical
5.
One term is more professional than the other: decease death
6.
One term is more literary (poetic, archaic, or other) than another: passing
death
7.
One term is more colloquial (familiar or slangy speech) than another: turn
down refuse
8.
One term is more local or dialectical than another: Scots: flesher butcher
9.
One of the synonyms belongs to child talk: daddy father
If we look more closely at these series well notice that all of them fall into several distinct
groups. For instance, (1) refers to objective differences b/n synonyms; (2) combines objective and
emotive factors; (3) & (4) are emotive, while (5), (6), & (7) involve evocative effects, which are a
special type of emotive meaning. (8) & (9) actually stand apart from the rest since dialect and child
talk are outside or at best on the fringes of Standard English.
The best method for the delimitation of synonyms is the substitution test of Macaulay. It
reveals to what extent are the synonyms interchangeable. If the difference is predominantly objective,
one will often find a certain overlap in meaning: the terms involved may be interchanged in some
contexts but not in others. Thus broad and wide are synonymous in some of their uses: the broadest
sense of a word = the widest sense. In other contexts only one of the two terms can be used: we say
five foot wide, notbroad, and a broad accent, not a wide one etc. If, on the other hand, the
difference is mainly emotive or stylistic, there may be no overlap at all, however close in objective
meaning, they may belong to totally different registers or levels of style and cannot normally be
interchanged. It is difficult to imagine any context, except a comical or ironical one, where mingy
could replace avaricious or where pop off will be substituted for pass away.
One can also distinguish between synonyms by finding their antonyms. For example, the verb
decline is more or less synonymous with reject when it means the opposite of accept, but not when it
is opposed to rise. Deep will overlap with profound in deep sympathy , where its antonym would be
superficial, but not in deep water where its antonym would be shallow.
Another way of differentiating b/n synonyms is to arrange them into series where their
distinctive meanings and overtones will stand out by contrast, as for instance the various adjectives
denoting swiftness: quick, swift, fast, nimble, fleet, rapid, speedy.

Synonymyc Patterns

26

The synonymyc resources of a language tend to form certain characteristic and fairly
consistent patterns. In English synonyms are organized according to two basic principles, one of them
involving a double, the other a triple scale.
The double scale, also called Saxon versus Latin, is well known. In English there are
countless pairs of synonyms where a native term is opposed to one borrowed from French, Latin or
Greek. In most cases, the native word is more spontaneous, more informal and unpretentious, whereas
the foreign one has a learned, abstract, or even abstruse air. There may also be emotive differences: the
Saxon term is apt to be warmer and homelier than its foreign counterpart. Phonetically too, the latter
will sometimes have an alien, unassimilated appearance; it will also tend to be longer than the native
word which has been subjected to the erosive effect of sound-change through time. There are many
exceptions to this pattern yet it occurs so persistently that it is obviously fundamental to the structure
of language. It may be noted that the term native in narrowly etymological sense because it may
include words of foreign origin that have become thoroughly Anglicized in form as well as in
meaning.
It will be sufficient to quote a few examples of this synonymyc pattern in which all major
parts of speech are involved in the process:

adjectives:
 >nouns:
bodily / corporeal

 
;

> verbs:

answer / reply

;
&nb sp;

fiddle /

violin
brotherly / fraternal

buy / purchase

 

help /

aid
heavenly / celestial
player / actor
sharp/ acute
;
universe

 
&nb sp;

read / peruse
tire(weary) / fatigue

;
;

world /

In a few cases, these synonymyc values are reversed and the native term is rarer or more
literary than the foreign: dale - valley; deed - action; foe enemy; meed - reward; to heed - to take
notice of.
;
&nb sp;
The pattern enables one to avoid native (or quasi- native) terms which for one or another
reason have become tainted and might call up undesirable associations: > bloody sanguinary;
blooming flourishing; devilish diabolical; hell inferno; popish papal.
Side by side this main pattern there exists in English a subsidiary one based on a triple scale
of synonyms: native, French, and Latin or Greek:
> native
begin
end
food
kingly
rise
time

> French

 > Latin / Greek

 commence
 initiate
 finish
  ;conclude
 nourishment
 nutrition
 royal
  ;regal
 mount
  ;ascend
 age
  ;epoch
  ;
In most of these combinations, the native synonym is the simplest and most ordinary of the
three terms, the Latin or Greek one is learned, abstract, with an air of cold and impersonal precision,
whereas the French one stands between the two extremes. It should be noted, however, that here too
there is an occasional reversal of values: in the series: kingly royal regal, for instance, the French
term is the ordinary one, while the native kingly is comparatively rare and most at home in literary
contexts like Mark Antonys I thrice present him with a kingly crown.

27
A third type of synonymyc pattern arises when two or more synonyms develop on parallel
lines. Since words with similar meanings are closely associated with each other, a change in one of
them may set off an analogous change in another or in several others. When, for example, in early
Modern English, the verb overlook acquired the meaning of deceive, its synonym oversee, soon
began to be used in the same transferred sense. Similarly, when cram began to mean deceive, its
synonym, stuff, underwent the same change of meaning.

Synonymy and Style

In his Rhetoric Aristotle made an interesting remark on the difference b/n synonymy and
ambiguity. Synonyms, according to him, are useful to the poet whereas words of ambiguous
meaning are chiefly useful to enable the sophist to mislead his hearers. Synonymy is indeed an
invaluable stylistic resource not only to the poet but also to any writer and it lends itself to a variety of
uses. We distinguish b/n 2 broad categories according to whether the speaker has to choose b/n
synonyms or prefers to combine them for some specific purpose: choice b/n synonyms (emotion,
emphasis); combinations of synonyms including variation (to avoid repetition) and collocation (to
provide an outlet of strong emotions; to make ones meaning clearer and more emphatic, help to
produce a contrast effect, etc.)
OPPOSITIONS
Oppositions are based on dichotomisation.
Binarity antonymy manifests Binarity.
Lexical oppositions: gradable v/s ungradable opposites.
1)
&n bsp;
Gradable oppositions we have some kind of comparison and
we compare and contrast b/n 2 things: hot: cold.
2)
&n bsp;
Ungradable oppositions: male: female -> X cannot be more
female than Y ->this results in different ungradable oppositions, when implied as 2
the predication of 1 of them implies the predication of the other.
X is female implies that X is not male;
X is not male X is female
The proposition/ predication of one of the opposite implies the negative implication of the other. The
reverse is also true.
With gradable oppositions there is difference the predication of one of the opposites implies the
predication of the negation of the other.
Ex: The coffee is hot the coffee is not cold.
The coffee is not hot does not mean that the coffee is cold.
There is a similar distinction b/n contradictories (ungradable oppositions) & contraries (gradable
oppositions). Lets take the two propositions P & Q they cannot be both true and false. We cannot
say this is neither a female nor a male cat. While with contraries they can be both false: The coffee is
neither hot nor cold. The distinction is equal to that of gradable and ungradable oppositions.
Tree -> dog -> not dichotomously opposed to each other.
Grading is made explicit in different ways. Comparison can be expressed by an adj in comparative
degree (more and less / same and different / differs equals) this type of grammaticalisation of
comparison is different in the different languages.
Ex: Our house is bigger than yours
Your house is smaller than mine/ ours.

28
In (1) we substitute one member for another and produce an equivalent sentence. The use of gradable
oppositions implies comparison.
Our house is big we do not state explicitly what we compare our house to. There should be a
generally stated norm to which to compare it a generally accepted norm. We compare the house with
the general norm. We think: Our house is bigger than the generally accepted norm.
The problem of Plato: how a single object can combine different oppositional qualities?
This is a small elephant it is a small elephant - the standard norm for comparison is not clearly
stated which misleads us.
Grading may also be semi explicit:
Our hope is bigger -> without explicitly including the standard f comparison modification is
needed.
Difference b/n morphologically related and morphologically unrelated opposites:
1)

&n bsp;
Morphologically unrelated: good bad; high low; old young;
->they are more frequent in language.

2)

&n bsp;
Morphologically related: friendly unfriendly -> we get these by
attaching to the base form the pre-fix un-, il-, im- and so we get the other opposite. The
base form is the (+ ).

The morphologically unrelated gradable

 ;&nb

sp; 

;  This is not always so.

The morphologically related ungradable
Ex.: married single / -unmarried unrelated ungradable;
>friendly 1) hostile gradable
 
2) unfriendly ungradable;
One and the same word can have different opposites in morphological terms.
Morphologically unrelated opposites good bad can be differentiated in terms of semantic and
syntactic polarity.
Malkiel: talks of he so-called irreversible binominals what we get when coordinating 2
opposites. He notices some hierarchy of semantic opposites: good bad; high low irreversible; (+)
ladies & gentlemen (-); (+) men & women (-). But if we ask how low or how bad is it it could only
be bad.
There is no logical necessity to have morphologically negative oppositions, we can substitute
bad with ungood but the fact that we have a good bad opposition leads us to the conclusion that
human beings need to characterize things in dichotomous contrast lexical polarity. We use different
words the lexical dispolarity not morphologically related enhances the difference b/n the different
words.
Ungradable oppositions can sometimes be explicitly graded: X is more of a bachelor than Y.
When we reject or deny to accept them as excluding each other: male: female -> X is more male
We grade explicitly opposites we do not question their ungradability but various secondary
connotations and implications..
Lions: contrast opposition antonymy complementarity.
1)
2)
3)
4)

Contrast: no implication as to the number of terms involved in the opposition.

Opposition: dichotomy or binary contrast.
Antonymy: opposition of gradable lexemes.
Complementarity: opposition of ungradable lexemes.

29
Trubetzkoi: privative and equipollent oppositions.
1)

&n bsp;
Privative opposition: we have two members and one of them is
characterized by a property and the second by the lack of this property: animate:
inanimate.
&n bsp;
Equipollent opposition: two equal members: male: female.

2)

Lions: lexical oppositions of converseness: X is Ys wife & Y is Xs husband -> converse to

each other. Lions talks about three types of oppositions: antonymy, complement, converseness. The
4th type he calls directional oppositions -> up down; come go; arrive depart. We have some
place and a movement away or towards it.
Orthogonal and antipodal oppositions:
  North
in antipodal opposition.

 ;&nb sp;north and south are

 ;&nb sp;  ;North, east, and west

in orthogonal.
East

 

West
The antipodal or diametrical opposition is
more frequent.

South
Non binary contrasts occur in sets with more than two opposing members. The sense
relations are ones of incompatibility.
X went on Sunday Sunday is opposed to any other day of the week as well as with any other
member of the opposition.
Serial and cyclic arrangement. With the serial arrangement we have two outermost members
scales and ranks, while with the cyclic arrangement there is no end of the cycle.
Serial arrangement:
i)
ii)

&n bsp; scale: excellent good fair poor bad atrocious -> we have a pair of
antonyms.
rank: consists of members incompatible and restricted ungradable terms: field marshal
general- corporal private. Ranks are more strict than scales.

The members in a set can be arranged serially and cyclically (arranged successively): winterspring summer autumn, Monday Tuesday - - Sunday; January - December.
Within one and the same lexical field we can have 2 arrangements- scale and cycle as with
colours.
SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS the truth based theories of the M of sentences have been particularly
influential in modern times. 2 of these are the verificationist and the truth conditional theory. Acc to
the 1st sentences are meaningful if and only if they have a determinate truth value.
Some utterances are both gram and meaningful, others are ungram &meaningful, and yet others,
though fully gram & perhaps also meaningful are unacceptable. To say that an utterance is
unacceptable is to imply that it is unutterable in all normal contexts other than those involving
metaling reference to them. A reason for unacceptability might be taboo. Some of the cultural
dependent dimensions of acceptability are encoded in the grammar and vocabulary of a particular L.
Acceptability also has to do with rationality & logical coherence. Ex. I believe it happened because it

30
is impossible. However even such utterances may be fully acceptable in certain contexts. The sem
acceptability, or interpretability of sentences is not sth that can be decided independently of the
context.
Sentences are, by definition, grammatically well formed. They can be either meaningful or
meaningless. There are many utterances whose unacceptability is definitely a matter of grammar,
rather than semantics. I want than he come [in contrast to] I want him to come . There are also
utterances which are gram but meaningless- Colourless green ideas sleep furiously, Thursday is in bed
with Friday. None of these is un-interpretable if it is appropriately contextualized. Sentences may have
several forms, including context dependent elliptical forms.
Sem. well-formedness is easily distinguishable from grammaticality. not every utterance that is judged
to be unacceptable on grounds that it does not make sense is properly regarded as ill-formed.
Both semantic well-formedness and gram well-formedness are included within acceptability as their
opposites are included with unacceptability. One of the criteria to decide whether an utterance is well
formed is corrigibility. The criterion of translatability can supplement but not supplant that of
corrigibility. The philos criterion of meaningfulness is verifiability.
The verifiability principle: A sent is factually significant to a given person if he knows how to verify
the proposition which it purports to express.
The nature of propositions is philosophically controversial: (1) prop are either true or false, (2) may be
known, believed, doubted, (3) may be asserted, denied or queried, (4) are held constant under
translation from one L to another. Props are defined to be the bearers of a determinate and unchanging
truth value while the same sentence can be used on one occasion to say what is true and on another to
say what is false.
Truth-condition theory to give an account of the M of a sent is to specify factual condition under
which it could be true or false of a situation, or state of the world, that it purports to describe.
Alternatively to know t he M of a sent is to know the condition under which it would be true or false.
Tautologies and contradictions. Taut are propositions that R necessarily true by virtue of their logical
form. contr. are propos. Which are necessarily false by virtue of their logical form.
THE WORD AS A LING UNIT.
A word belongs both to the lexical and morphol level. It is a meaningful combination of morphemes.
The word can appear independently as a free form. The morpheme is a bound form and cannot occur
alone as a free utterance. Unlike the phrase the word cannot be split without a residue into lesser freeforms. Acc to Bloomfield the word is the minimal free form of L. Compounds are exceptions to the
rule and Bloomfield defines them as a borderline b/n word and phrases.
Articles are not free forms, Bl calls it a quasi-word. Prepositions do not always seem as free
forms but in some contexts they may. The criterion provided by Bloomfield is purely formal, purely
grammatical. St Ullman also provides phonol. criteria for defining the word: 1. potential pause a
word is any segment of the sentence bounded by successive points at which pausing is possible In
the normal flow of speech we do not always pause b/n words. 2. word accent in some Ls there is a
fixed accent Finish, Hungarian, Cheque (1 st syll), Polish penultimate syll. In such Ls the stress is a
delimitative sign of the word 3. Initial sound and sound combinations // in E does not usu appear
word initially. Gn-, ps-, kn are not allowed as initial combinations in E. 4. Compensatory
lengthening the loss of a sound in a word is compensated by the lengthening of another sound in the
same word. 5. vowel harmony the vowel in the stem would determine the vowel in the affixes
( typical of the agglutinative Ls) ex. ev-house ev-ler-de = in the house.
Motivation of the word the natural connection b/n the signifier and the signified
(onomatompoia). The physey /the connection is natural/ and the thysey group /the connect is
arbitrary/. But there are words which ulike onomatopoeia, are completely unanalyzable. If there was a
nat conn the same sequence of sounds would denote the same thing in all Ls. But even within the same
L we have homonyms (meat, meet, mete same sound diff meaning) and synonyms (meat, flesh).

31
The descriptive argument: If there was nat connection the meaning and the sound sequence
would not be changed through time. But they change and they change independently. OE: mete (food),
MdE meat ( a specific kind of food) > both form and M changed and the relationship is not motivated.
The Comparative argument Ls have totally diff word for the same object: meat viande
carne. There are three types of motivation of the word: 1. onomatopoeia an example of phonetic
motivation primary onomatopoeia an imitation of sound by sound. The referent word is a sound
itself [an acoustic experience, ex. buzz, thud, plop] secondary onom the sounds are connected
with a movement or a physical or moral quality (ex. quiver, spitter, crash, gloomy, slimy, sloppy,
sluggish).2. morphological motivation derivatives ar ex of morph mot. The morph structure is
motivated ex. teach-er the agent of the action denoted by the stem; a pauser ,
. Compunds are examples of morph motivation. 3. semantic motivation the
motivation of a word is based on semantic factors ex. hood of a car, a coat of paint.
In the case of metaphor we usu have a similarity b/n the referents of the primary meaning and
the referent of the secondary meaning of the word. Metonymy a glass instead of a glass of water,
synechdochy
METHODS OF ANALYSIS
Component analysis => analysis of word Ms into semantic components through the use of
binary features. Semantic features are claimed to be primitive ( they cannot be broken down to other
features). Semantic components are theoretical construct. They are not equal to the words they
coincide with.Semantic components are abstract not directly observed in the flow of speech. Distinct
features and Semantic components are claimed to be universal in the sense that they are drawn form
fixed inventory components. Semantic components are not limited in number!
Types of semantic components:
I. Katz and Postal
(1)
Markers express very general semantic properties claimed to be valid for all
languages (e.g. human, male, animate). They are systematic for all Ls, as they are involved in
the statement of selectional restriction.
(2)
Semantic distinguishers represent what is idiosyncratic about the M of a
lexeme. (e.g. Bachelor of Arts [+human; male; having a specific degree]. They are not
systematic of all the Ls and they are not primitive.
II. Coserin 2 types of semantic components on the basis of their role in the structure of
semantic fields.
(1)
Classemes common to lexemes belonging to several different semantic
fields (e.g. animate, human, male).
(2)
Semes operative within a single lexical field. Semantic components are
claimed to be innate because theyre abstract and universal and so cannot be acquired.
Cognitive linguists claim that this isnt possible.
A weak point in the componential analysis is the use of the [] notation. It is not appropriate,
for example in man, woman, or in amoeba. It does not work in multiple sets.
Positive sides:
Helps to make economical and insightful statements about the structure of a L and to state
proportional relations in L
Helps analyze different semantic relations between words.
(E.g. hyponymy: cow contains all features of animal + some specific features
synonymy: synonyms contain almost the same set of semantic fields).
Useful in defining sentences.
Useful in the analysis of relations between sentences. (E.g. entailment => John is a
bachelor entails John is a man; mutual entailment => John is a bachelor entails: John is an
unmarried man).
Contradiction: John is a bachelor contradicts John is married.

32
Text: A dictionary definition is an informal componential analysis, in which each part of the
definition is a component.
Componential analysis, by looking for the semantic features of words, presupposes the
semantic field theory.
There is considerable overlap between many components and lexical items in a L since many
words in a L cannot be decomposed. If semantic components are not words but concepts, then a
semantic description is not circular.
Katz and P. => Semantic markers correspond to linguistic universals while distinguishers are
L-specific.
Bierswich argues against Katz and P. He says that distinguishers can be further decomposed
into components which are just like semantic markers.
In the original formulation of the theory Katz treated semantic markers as unanalyzable
primitives. He later modified this view to suggest that semantic distinguishers may have an internal
structure and can be components of other semantic markers. Selection restrictions constrain the words
that can be combined into higher syntactic units.
E.g.
Green ideas
sleep
Requires phys. Obj
requires animate
Contains neither of the two
=> anomalous
Katzs theory also contains projection rules operations that determine the reading(s) (Ms,
interpretations) of sentences on the basis of the components and selection restrictions of lexical items
and grammatical relationships. They also determine whether sentences are anomalous, analytic or
contradictory.
In 1972 Katz reduced them to one projection rule: Roughly it combines constituents which
bear certain grammatical relations to one another provided that the selection restrictions are met.
M. Pencheva:
.
()
, .
: - ,
, .
( ). ,
,
.
PSYCHOLINGUISTIC METHODS OF SEMANTIC ANALYSIS
First articles appeared in journals and described cases when patients
cannot understand or use language properly. Adult patients who can
describe certain notion but they cannot produce the name of the notion
suffer dyslexia - the patient cannot remember words - > problems with
the language center in the brain.
Other cases: patients cannot form sentences cannot connect words in normal sentences.
Aristotle in his Analytica says that obviously the words in a language are related to a genuine
meaning. These associations rely on various principles:
1.
Similarity - black = night, darkness;
2.
Contrast - black v/s white;
3.
Cause & Effect - all these preliminary studies prepared the appearance of psycholinguistic
analysis whose goals are:
i)
&n bsp; to discover the general principles of organizing words in vocabulary;
ii)
to check if there are social cultural and evolutional variants of this organization of meaning;
iii)
idiolect - the speech of one individual speaker of language each person has his own linguistic
physiognomy, specific parasite phrases (, , , for instance;)));

33
The first organized psycholinguistic study of vocabulary appeared in 1910 Kent & Rosanov and the
study is called Word Associations, which is still used today because of the interesting results and
methodology. K & R choose randomly 100 highly frequent words of English and experimented with
1000 informants. They wrote the words on separate sheets of paper, gave them to the informants and
asked them to give the first association that pops up within 3 sec. The results were very interesting and
K & R tried to systematize how the associations were produced. They divided the informants on
different groups: of age, sex, education and so on. After the study was published other languages were
also used for studying associations (Bulgarian included).
K & R tried to summarise the different types of associations in order to discover in what way people
remember and use words and the Aristotles association by similarity was approved. For 96% of the
informants given the stimulus dark the association was black. But when informants were given
the stimulus black 86% gave the answer white. Given the stimulus table the informants use
chair. The response is not furniture. The different answers represent the different types of
semantic relationships. This is an empirical prove that we use this type of relationship in our brains to
operate with the meaning of words.
The response to the word succeed was given by more than 95% of the informants the answer I
must -> there is no semantic relationship by which to describe it ME is in the center of everything.
Responses were explained by cultural differences. Russian associations to the stimulus genius were
Lenin- a perfect example of a cultural stereotype.
We can also divide associations by means of different linguistic principles but they are not so
interesting.
If we compare language studies we may check if there are some associations that completely coincide:
mothers, babies, money considered as always useful. For 70% alcohol gets negative connotation.
This approach was developed further -> measurement of meaning -> associations are not used in this
particular way but rather the informants were given evaluative values that they had to apply arranging
the values along the scale and U put the word where U think it should be: good useful pleasant
nice.
Psycholinguistics today is a popular discipline but sometimes there are some doubts in the results
human beings can cover their behaviour they can control their reactions.
Sociolinguistics deals with similar problems but the analysis is much more material u see how words
function in speech or in text -> the results are much more solid. When we say sociolinguistics we are
interested in the relation b/n language and society which relation can be of different types -> studying
dialects or regional variants is very important especially in other countries where one variant is chosen
to be the leading one. For example RP -> it gives immediately the status of a very educated person.
The variant gives U opportunities in life. RP is not the happiest term Received Pronunciation - we
refer only to the pronunciation part but we better use different term like BBCE. In Great Britain we
have one prestigious regional as well as social variant. In the British school system this is the variant,
which is recommended. In order to know what is BBCE we have to study other variants in order to
make contrast because this is socially important. In Br.E we have 1 unique phenomenon -> regional +
social variant = Cockney the speech of the socially low population in eastern London. We try to
imitate this style while in the USA with GA the situation is entirely different. In the US constitution
there is not a word about an official language. English is not the official language in the USA but
rather one of the languages spoken this is the so called linguistic liberalism. All sorts of languages
are studied and used, documents are valid in English and Spanish and no one is protesting. Probably
because of this we do not have an official variant. Speaking one particular variant does not presuppose
finding job.
Black English is a system within the system. It is not only a matter of pronunciation it is connected
with specific rituals, different behaviour, rational variants -> special nuances in pronunciation. This
sound of Black English comes from the so-called jiving it was practiced by the first black
entertainers in the US = . All American blacks try to preserve all the rules of
behaviour and speech at home and they use the mechanism of the code switching they switch
form AE to BlAE. Women rarely tell jokes at home this is a privilege of men.
Social, cultural, regional and rational variants are the matter of sociolinguistics. Slang and jargon are
not uneducated speech. Differences of sex in the use of language - the MALE v/s the FEMALE

34
system of using language something like a stereotype members of society believe that men should
speak in this way and women in that way.
Sexual stereotypes -> social product concerning he upbringing, education, attitude to children,
professional realization and difference b/n good and bad If a small boy is naughty it is OK, but if a
little girl is naughty this is not considered to be normal. If we take a number of pairs of words and
follow their historical development -> king & queen theoretically must be equal in status
especially in England, and still the word king preserves the positive meaning while the word
queen develops secondary meanings which are very low: queen = Madame; in a homosexual pair
the person that played the she- part is the queen. Governor and Governess - the wife of the
governor high social status, but governess denotes low social status. Master and mistress
mistress denoted the wife of the master of the house, but not any more. Master is still a highly
positive word, while mistress - woman under the power of somebody. Gigolo - the personality is
preserved, he is a gigolo by himself. The mistress is always dependent never a personality but a
property.
Man - a human being; a male representative of the human race. Men can be used in neutral contexts
but there are many contexts in which it is still carrying the marker male.
Man carries positive connotation strength, social status. If a woman behaves like a man this is
good, but if a man behaves like a woman this is bad and anomalous.
The word woman unconsciously or consciously carries negative connotation and is thus replaced by
euphemisms Ladies Bowling Club, ladies poetry offensive for women that write poetry. Female
gems for gems of lower quality. we have cleaning lady, sales lady and bubble queen ()
the word woman is substituted, the profession is not replaced like in sanitation man for garbage
man.
The strategies of the two sexes: it is said that the strategy of men in a men-only group is competitive
every man wants to speak. In women only groups the strategy is cooperative in the sense that
women address the other members of the group with their personal names while men do not do so.
Lets indication of invitation not a command.
Hypercorrection women have the feeling of being low in all respects so they use higher register to
gain social prestige. The same is observed with people that feel socially lower the strategy of lame
ducks
Semantic Fields and Lexical Gaps
The theory of semantic fields is an attempt to describe how words in a language are organized
(the vocabulary included). They claim that the words are organized into semantic fields. But this
approach appeared long before the appearance of structural linguistics. Traditional definitions are not
very successful in explaining the meaning of words.
Ex.: erect eared, straight- tailed, harsh - furred, fawny grey, wild, gregarious, carnivorous,
quadruped, allied to dogs, preying on sheep, combining in packs to hunt large animals - the last two
are practical knowledge = wolf; the rest descriptions are useless -> the dictionary definition can be
very disturbing sometimes.
Linguists decided that there must be some other way to describe meaning. In the beginning of
the XXth century the idea of semantic fields appeared in Germany. It started with an article in which it
was said that it is very strange that we describe a word once in s dictionary while the word may have
two or more definitions. (Jost Trier)
Ex.: glass 1) belongs to the group of containers: cup, glass;
 
2) belongs to materials brick, concrete, plastic and so on;
Consistent Theory of Word Meanings in language we have different domains of meanings
which are called conceptual fields. There is a core item and additional words giving meaning. It
seems like a puzzle and each word covers one piece of meaning.

35

1)

J. Trier claimed a distinction b/n conceptual fields and words should be made we can
have concepts without words, but he claims that we can have conceptual fields without
words.

2)

There is no word that stands out of the semantic field. If we insist that language is a
structure true. But when it comes to practice it is different to say where the words belong
especially with words with clear function but with not very clear meanings.

3)

The fields are connected among themselves, like a mosaic, they join together in larger and
larger fields until the whole language is included. But language is not organized as it looks.
Some linguists reacted to Triers statement, it was suggested that the fields of animals and
artifacts are totally unrelated. The first is a natural field and the second is man made.

4)

Trier claimed that the fields are so well organized in a very rigid matrix in which each
position is occupied by a word and by looking at the matrix we can predict the position in the
matrix, or what will happen in this position.

The Navaho Indians classified a semantic field of food of things they eat. Trier
asked them to divide the sheets of paper with the picture of different food on into
small groups and give them names and so on.
He tried this on another village. The classification of the normal, rigid matrix is not true all
depends on the different situations.
There was a dispute how to classify things. After the first enthusiasm of the theory of the
semantic fields a strong criticism appeared. Linguists focused on the material gathered by
anthropologists and ethno linguistic studies. The beginning of the XXth century was the time when
many such investigations were published related to the way Navaho Indians classified words and they
were different form Triers theory. Folk taxonomy a classification this type of classification is a
strange one based on experience, geography, life one and the same thing can be classified in different
ways:
(1) Animal /scientific classification/
Feline
Cat, lion, tiger

Canine
Dog / wolf

Bovine
cow

(2) animal folk taxonomy:

Pet
Beast
Livestock
Snake, bear, lion
Horse, cow, sheep
In (2) Cat / dog
we
have strange man-centered terms and the three possible relationships b/n man and animals: the nice
ones (pets), the dangerous ones and the useful ones.
In (1) the number is finite all that science has described.
In (2) we have infinite number valid for all speakers, and it differs from culture to culture. In
some cultures, for instance, the bear may be a pet;). Words can change culturally and historically
they can move from one group to another.
Linguists are interested in the 2 nd class what connotations do different languages attach to
these animals, what feature do we attach to them, because if we do not we cant produce fables and
tales for animals; fairy tales would disappear because the scientific classification does not attach
features. Folk taxonomies are charged with evaluation in the animate and attribute.
In the middle of the XXth century appeared the idea to collect words belonging to different
spheres, see how they are organized and connected among themselves in the field and after a long
research linguists claim that there is 1 general term which gives a nuance to the field itself
superordinate or the archilexeme. It it will give a name standing on the top of the
classification.

36

1st level > animal< - the archilexeme

2nd level > pet
beast
livestock
3rd level: > dog/cat
snake/bear
pig/cow/chicken
4th level:> different breeds dogs..
This is expected to be the normal scheme of the field several levels, the archilexeme is the
upper one and so on. The relations among the items are transitive.
Ex.: the German shepherd is a dog a pet an animal -> we can drop some of the features and
connect the lowest with the highest i.e. the German shepherd is an animal.
Sometimes the informants do not know the superordinate, but know the other levels.
If we ask the ordinary informant to give description of dogs he would give a perfect one, but it is
very difficult to give meanings to superordinates because they are more abstract and not so widely
used in ordinary life. We have mental image of what a dog is, but anything can be included in
animal.
Linguists suggest that the taxonomy may have 5 levels and the scientific class much more.
We have words central to the field and ones peripheral to the field. The central words are always
short no derivation terms. They are all known to the speakers of language and are statistically very
common. On the contrary, the peripheral terms are rarely used and often not known to the speakers
like the case with colours. If there is a foreign word in the field it is always a peripheral. The basic
words are freely used in all types of contexts and peripheral only in restricted fields. A peripheral
word may become a central one. There are words used only in one or 2 concepts: rancid crme or
rancid butter.
There are empty positions in the fields, which are called lexical gaps. The word gap in
linguistics is used not only for vocabulary but for other fields as well. We dont have in English a word
for a round square but this is not a gap. We speak of gaps when the meaning is there but the word is
missing. On the phonological level we have phonological gaps. Chomsky says that pilk is a
possible combination, but there is no such morpheme morphemic gap. On the other hand plki is
impossible no meaning no gap;)
It is against the phonological rules to begin the word with shn-. But we have many foreign
words beginning with such a combination: schmack, schmaltz.and they form groups of words
with negative connotation for human qualities we have a new element that did not exist before, but
the words are there and they are used schmirk.
On the level of morphology we have a number of morphological gaps. With number we have:
book books; but we have trousers, binoculars, pliers - the so called pluralia tantum all the
nouns are examples of morphological gaps the matrix is not interested why the words just do not
have a singular.
We have the word chaos but we do not have a plural form singularia tantum.
With verbs we have the verb must but there is no past tense paradigmatic gap- the
speakers of English know that all verbs have forms for the present and past but here is no past tense
form.
Derivational gaps - some words looking very regular are impossible.
Ex: ungood possible but useless since we have bad;
In the field of vocabulary we dont simply notice when a word is missing. We have special
words for a dead body of a human corpse, of an animal carcass, but we do not have word for the
dead body of a plant. For example with carcass buildings / animals/ cars - dead.
We have very good names for hybrids but we dont have simple names that are there: mule
from a female horse and a donkey; zebrule zebra + mule; liger = lion + tiger; tangemon = tangerine
+ lemon.
When we make everyday classification we make mistakes.

37
If you collect all the words in a field and when you compare them and make oppositions and
thus describe the meaning of a word. It is claimed that everybody can do that. But this is not perfectly
true.
Ex: bachelor adult/ unmarried / male / human; spinster: adult / unmarried / female/ human
If we use oppositions -> the only difference is sex. But this is not really true
since the words cannot be described in this way because our idea of a bachelor
and a spinster is different there is a cultural area around those words that
makes them different.
Charles Osgood: Measurement of Meaning- he offered several scales and you have to
classify a word into different scales. According to this method bachelor young / quite swinging /
impure; spinster slightly bad / pure / old / happy;)
A man that is not married remains a bachelor never mind his age, while the spinsters are
always old no hope to get married.

FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
L. is an instrument of communication. This is considered to be the primary and defining f of L.
Communic. Has been defined as the intentional transmission of info by means of an established &
shared signs system. Ling.signs are both simultaneously communicative and informative. By
communicative we mean the intentionality on the part of the sender while by informative the
receivers perception of meaning and its decoding thereafter. Usu only texts are attributed in
independent com f while the units of the lower levels have only partial role in the act of comm..
Recently, this descip of L as the basic means of comm. Has been dismissed as simplistic, and to a large
degree misleading. L is a classifying tool (acc to contemporary linguists). That is, the major f of L is
the categorizing one, or, making assessment to our conscious awareness the categories with which one
mental conceptualizing systems operate. This conception is pretty recent, but the more trad view is the
basic instrument of comm.
Each of the factors involved in a comm. Act has been attributed a specific f to make its fruitful
contribution to the exchange. Eg. The f directed toward the subject-matter of a comm. Act is the
INFORMATIONAL f of L. The EXPRESSIVE f of L is directed towards the sender. The DIRECTIVE
towards the receiver; the PHATIC the channel of comm.; the AESTHETIC towards the shape of
the message. These fs were postulated by R. Jacobson, they still form the basis for distinguishing the
various types of meaning.
INFORMATIONAL is the f whereby announcements are made, statements formulated & opinions
expressed. This is the f that allows people to talk about entirely novel things and experiences. It is
considered as the most important one, since the major f of L is to expand knowledge & to pass info.
EXPRESSIVE- is also called emotive. This is the f which allows the sender of the message to
inscribe in the verbal component his own attitudes, feelings & dispositions. The most obvious
instances of expressive elements in L are swear words &exclamations. It is oriented towards the sender
of the message.
DIRECTIVE /vocative/. This is the f whereby L can exert immediate influence upon the receiver. The
reaction of the receiver whether verbal or actional gives evidence to the successful achievement &
realization of this f. The elements of L for this f are vocatives, imperatives & questions.
PHATIC its related to the term phatic comm coined by B. Malinowski and is the f of keeping
comm. Lines open & social relationships in good repair. It is not so much as what one says by the fact
that one says it at all is what matters. [in Br.culture talking about the weather]. In all Ls greetings,
farewells [How do U do] are examples of this f of L. These serve to establish social contact or to
avoid embarrassing silence. The phatic f has its parallel in public affairs. V often statesmen/politicians
make statements which are elaborate ways of saying nothing

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AESTHETIC/poetic f of L which we use for the sake of artistic artifact itself. The L of poetry & lit
is an illustiration of this f. All types of meanings are open to use.
MAGIC f of L (B. Malinowski) The use of L to exert real influence upon its referents via spells,
encantation, prayers and sorcery. The Magic f of L designates the possibility to do things with words.
Many linguists believe that L is a surrogate for action & hence they consider this to be the basic f of
L.
A school of pragmatics is dealing with this f of L. It is comprised of the proponents of the
PERFORMATIVE f of L. They have a performative hypothesis which claims that every sentence has
its highest clause in its deep synt.structure, a clause in the form I (hereby) V [performative] you (that)
S, where Vp is a performative verb promise. S is a complement sentence whose content is restricted
by the lexical meaning of the particular performative verb.
COGNITIVE f of L. It consists in the ability of the l.system to store in its plain of content knowledge
about objects external to itself. This term describes the fact that the semantic subsystem of any L
contains in a codified form of the general knowledge of the world of its respective speakers. The
cogn.f takes care of storing the ethno-specific picture of the world governing the meaning
distinguishing principles operating in its system.
NOMINATIVE f of L. The f of words/phrases. Consists in the ability to name objects. There is a
science Onomastics, dealing with this particular f of L and its realization.
REPRESENTATIONAL f of L. This is the f of L to represent sth else, i.e denoted object and it is a
natural expression of the displacement feature of L (the property of L that makes it possible for people
to refer to objects/events which are remote from the immediate situation of utterance/.
REFERRENTIAL f of L. The f whereby a communicative act gets anchored and individual entities
form the universe of discourse get picked out and focused on.
SOCIAL the f via which people express their individual social identities. Their social status, age,
education.
METALINGUISTIC - The use of L for analytical purposes and the best way to form metaling.
devices for methodological investigation is by terminologically narrowing the scope or specifying the
sense of common words.
SYNTACTIC L maintains its totality as a structured system despite the random changes in nature
and society. L changes in a systematic way to outwit the random and sometimes hazardous ways in
physical and communal environment. L survives as one of the fittest ways of human interaction by
constantly adapting itself to new events & adapting itself L predisposes its speakers towards
reshuffling in the conceptualizing processes and systems.
PRAGMATIC The f of L which permits conscious & purposeful interference of man in the
realization of the syst of L PAROLE, i.e. in a concrete context of utterance, man refines meaning and
adjusts the necessary choices that L imposes him to make to his own immediate purposes.

Phraseology
The first to introduce the term 'phraseology' was Ch. Bally, in 1905. He views phraseology as
a domain of stylistics. Polivanov and Vinogradov were the ones to give phraseology the
priority of being a linguistic discipline.
Characteristic features of phraseological unit: 1 it is a qualitatively new unit both structuraly
and semantically. 2 the PU have no paradigm of their own. 3 although different in nature the
words and PU's correlate since they have similar syntactic funtion.
The most important structural aspect of the PU is the dependency b/n its various components.
There are two groups of phraseological dependencies: 1 non-transformational dependency - a
constant one b/n the components of the PU, best on their virtual non-substitutability. The
dependancy is constant in the sense that the compositions presuppose each other in order to
render a particular meaning. Types: a) PU having no variants eg. To kick the bucket. b) PU
having variants, two sub-types: (i) morphological variants, eg. In deep water. (ii) positional,
eg. Off and on. c) with a constant variant dependency of the components. d) constant variant changeable dependence b/n the components, for ex. the substitution of a pronoun. 2

39
transformational - interplay of lexico-phraseological and morpho-syntactic dependencies: a)
mared - unmarked - active vs passive.
I. Stability of the PU's: according to Jasperson somethings in language have the character of a
formula - no one can change anything in them. Such a treatment of stability does not reflect
the specific nature of the PU neither structuraly nor semantically.
1 Structural - semantic stability: a) stability of meaning - connected with the stability of their
lexical components, although some normative lexical changes are possible, the meaning of the
PU remains unvariant. b) morphological stability - some components have zero paradigm:
sing. Chase the wild goose; pl. To be on pins and needles. One of the components is genetive:
Bachelor's wife. The verb (possive voice): to be gathered. Some components have a paradigm
that is not full. c) syntactic stability - stable fixed word order although some types of stylistic
inversion are possible. PU are stable not because they are reproduced in a ready-made form
but v.v. - they are reproduced in a ready-made form because they are stable. 2 Thresholds of
stability: a) PU with a low thresholds of stability - to cast (shed, draw, turn) light (on, upon
you or s.th.). Frist degree - verbal PU with a constant - variant - changeable dependency of the
component - cast. Second degree: constant - variant - changeable and transeformational
dependency of the component: Get/ put s.th. out of one's head. Third degree: constantchangeable dependecy of the component. Either only morphological changes or insertion of
various components is allowed, or not allowing for morphological changes: 1 type - allow
morph. changes: To poke one's nose into s.o.'s affairs. 2 type - morph. changes + insertion:
Cut ice - insertion of any/little/ much. 3 type - not alloing morph. changes: One's own flesh
and blood. Fourth degree: constant-variant dependency of the component, having one type of
variation and morph. changes: (i) morph variants: Get into deep water/ waters. (ii) morphosyntactical variants: A Herculian labour = A labour of Herculies. (iii) lexical variants: Hit
(strike) below the belt. b) intermediate thresholds of stability: either variants or morph. or
syntactical changes: 1 degree: const-changeable dependency of the component, not allowing
morph changes but only substitutions of the pronoun 'one's': one's better half (his/ her). 2
degree: const-variant dep. of the comp. which have only variants and allow no other changes:
(i) morph changes - Shelley's bed = Shellian bed. (ii) lexical variants - Hand over fish - hand.
3 degree - const dep. of the comp. allowing morph changes: kick the bucket. c) high
thresholds - const dep of the comp not allowing any normative changes they come close to the
compound word: Part and parcel.
Discretence of the PU: 1 Smirnitski - the comp of a PU - specifically used words. 2
Vinogradov - not words but lexemes, potential words, since as a comp of the PU they lose
their denotative function, can not collocate with or relate to other members of the sentence
with which the PU as a whole collocates or is related to. Due to the analythical character of
the English, PU are easily transeformed into comp forms: Forget-me-not. Criteria of
discritence - two groups:1 regular parametres: a) morph - He showed (shows) the white
feather. b) morpho-syntactic discritence - the ability of the verbal comp to appear in active or
passive voice. c) syntactic discritence - To bear a cross. - A cross I have leard to bear. 2
Occasional criteria - do not present a language norm, but may be transformed into one: a)
insertion: Like clockwork - Like oiled clockwork. b) deformation
Clasification of the PU: 1 Vinogradov: a) phraseological mergers; b) phraseological unities; c)
phraseological compinations. According to the degree of idiomaticity are a) and b). According
to the limited combinability of the given word - c). this classification is not sufficient because
it is based on semantic features only. 2 Smirnitski divides the PU into two groups: stylistically
neutral - expressive. 3 Fries provides a structural semantic classification.
Classes of PU on the basis of their function in the process of communication: a) nominative;
b) nominative-communicative; c) neither a nor b: d) communicative.

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Types of meaning: a) full - idioms - the meaning of the comp is fully transferred; also
phraseological intensifiers; b) separating-full - lack structure stability: Hand over fist - both
const and variable comp have a transferred meaning; c) partially-transferd meaning - As blind
as a bat; d) separated meaning - To talk through one's heat. The transferred character of the
meaning either full or partial is an obligatory feature of the PU.
Classes - closed (fixed phrases capable of expansion) and open (const dependency of the
comp): 1 Nominative: a) close-nominative with full meaning; idioms; b) non-closed
nominative PU with a separating full meaning: Close/ near at hand. c) closed-nominative PU
with a partially transfered meaning: As cunning/ sly as a fox. d) non-closed nominative PU
with a const-variant dep of the comp one of which is an adj both with a literal and transferred
meaning: As blind as a bat. 2 Nominative commmunicative PU with a separate full meaning:
To break the ice - The ice is broken. 3 Intrejectional PU with a full meaning of the comp: a)
Jesus Christ! - idioms b) non-closed-interjectional PU's: A fine/nice kettle or fish. 4
Communicative: a) closed-communicative - idioms, sayings, proverbs: Birds of a feather
flock together. b) non-closed with a separate full meaning - Rats desert/ leave a sinking ship;
c) closed with a partially transferred meaning: Necessity is the mother of invention. d) nonclosed with one literal meaning: Words cut/ hurt more than swords.
PH RAS E O LO G Y
(lecture from 16.01.2002)
Phraseological expressions resemble word combinations beyond the syntactic level. As to
meaning -> words -> lexical level.
This strangeness creates the necessary effect of the idiom idiomaticity.
The idiomaticity (meaning) is produced with the discrepancy b/n the nature of the word and
the one of meaning a very special, not dialect meaning is produced.
The words/ structures of language have a function of nomination naming things but there
are different types of nomination. We can have a global form and a global meaning -> one
unified global form expressing one unified global meaning -> lexeme. One word = one
meaning -> names one object.
Sentences: discrete forms & discrete meaning -> combination of the meanings of the
components.
Phraseological units: discrete form -> global meaning.
How do we understand that a given combination has idiomatic and not literal meaning? How
do we interpret idioms as such? Do we have some mechanisms in our linguistic competence,
which allow us to identify idioms in speech and writing?
Linguists: we do not remember idioms but identify or interpret them by special mental
mechanisms: associations with experience, bodily functions, knowledge of the world and so
on.
The phraseological unit is a unit of language, which has a special status b/n the syntactic and
the lexical level, it has a very specific meaning and resembles much more the word than the

41
sentence because the phraseological units have more similar semantic features with the word:
synonyms, oppositions, elevation/degradation of the meaning and so on. It behaves more like
a lexical unit.
Different structural and semantic aspect: the internal structure of an idiom. On the structural
level they resemble free word combinations syntactically perfect. The meaning of the
components is not so important. The important thing is that reading a phraseological unit we
recognize it as an English structure but we always find it in specific situations.
The literal meaning will not correspond to the given situation and then we look for a
figurative meaning.
Idiomaticity is present in all languages - Language Universal we can compare languages on
their idiomatic phrases. Not structure but a specific way of thinking about the world. They are
very often language specific in terms of meaning and structure or culture specific.
Comparisons - special group of idioms: as white as ivory,
- - as cold as a cucumber
Comparisons based on absurdity: especially in English the two parts of the idiom are in
conflict: as cold as charity
Development in language: the mechanisms are almost the same for all languages:
1. Generalization of sentences or free combinations: - hold the baby
-> from a purely physical situation -> a generalized idiom.
2. Generalisation of professional or specialized phrases from various professions: to be in the
same boat; to trim the sails to the wind; to hit the mark; to trump ones acres
; to hit s.o. bellow the belt; cards on the table; to back the wrong horse
3. Generalization of special quotations and phrases that are culturally determined = shared
knowledge: , ...; ... ; Am.E. Joe Miller a flat joke ( Joe Miller
used to be a black entertainer whose flat jokes no one liked.
4. When an impossible situation is constructed: like a bull in a China shop =
; ] to turn a blind eye = to disregard, not to
pay attention; like anything - . In English we have idioms based on play of
homonyms: as cross as two sticks very angry; as tight as a drum - very drunk.
5. To have an idiom based on semantic oppositeness: , ;
, ; = penny wise, pound
foolish; to go through the rough and the smooth of life; the bitter and the sweet of life;
.
6. Idioms based on synonyms one of which is usually dialectal:
; , ; kith and kin = all the relatives (kith is actually an archaic
word for kin)

42
7. Using words belonging to one and the same semantic field: by hook or by crook = in all
possible ways; babies and sucklings = people who do not understand; ;
, ; syntactically parallel phrases.
8. Idioms based on rhyming, euphonyms and homonyms: as snug as a bug id a rug; the wear
and tear of life; a hard row to hoe; , ; ;
.
9. When the idiom contains a non- existent lexemes colloquial speech or slang:
- o = to go on foot; (- );
Comparison phrases demonstrating common values:
as good as gold
as poor as church mouse / Job
as rich as Creases
as cold as a cucumber
as good as a pie
as like as two peace
as dead as a door nail
as clear as mud
as pleased as punch
as right as rain
10. Idioms based on euphemisms and interjections based on euphemisms: Oh my Goodness!
(.com); God! By George / Jove/ Gosh! ; hold your horses; draw it mild! Dont sweat = Easy!
Ill be a Dutchman if it happens! = , ! (
); great shakes; Say Queen Ann is dead =
!; carry coal to Newcastle;)
11. Idioms belonging to different registers slang large synonymyc nest of idioms. The
most marked or prominent spheres are: to die, to steal, to be angry, to be drunk. These are by
definition typical of slang.
DIE: - to give up the ghost;
- to kick the bucket;
- to join the majority;

43
- to go the way of all flesh;
- to face the daises;
- to turn you head to the flowers;
- to do ones last account;
- to pay ones last bill;
- to take the ferry;
- to go off the hook;
To CRITICISE / SCOLD smb.: - to wrap smb. over the knuckles
- to comb smb.s hair;
- to have smb. on the carpet
- to give smb what for;
- to be in trouble;
- to be in d fix/ corner/jam/stew;
- to be in deep shit;
- as mad as a Hatter / as a March hare;
- to be light in the upper storey;
- to be off ones roper;
- to have bads in ones belfry;
- to have a screw loose;
- to be off ones onion;
> DRUNK: - as drunk as a lord/ fiddler/ piper;
- as tight as a drum;
- to be stewed to the gills;
- to be plastered;

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There can be some variations which do not destroy the idiom: ;
/ / ; to drive s.o. out of his mind / senses /
wits.
Saussure: everything that is in language is in speech, but the reverse is not true.
Varieties of the Language
The English language as a term is abstact and unreal: 1 national - Br.Engl., Am. Engl., Can.
Engl., Austr. Engl.; 2 Cultural; 3 Functional - both operatate within one national variant.
Standard and substandard variant language - difficult to define, no grammatical rules. The
standard English is practically the socially accepted variant - it can change historically, it is
taught at schools, but it is not the language of literature. Slang also has no valid definition but
it is recognizable. Cultural variants: standard, substandard - dialects, slang, jargon,
proffesional language. Each cultural variant has its functional: standard English - formal and
colloquial.
In Britain R.P. is the standard prononciation. BBC English is the standard Br. English today including R.P. and the use of grammar, syntax, and intonation. All others are concidered
deviations. Speech is not a marker of education or social status. 3 groups of variations of Am
speech: 1 along the East coast - 'r' less variants, 'r' at the end of the word is not prononced,
resembles the Br. English. 2 along the West coast; 3 Southern - 'r' is prononced strongly, / a:/
becomes / ?/, / o/ becomes /?/ eg. God. Major differences b/n Am. and Br. English, the British
say Am English is a dialect to British English, Americans - Am English is a separate language.
All these are variants of the so-called common English which is an abstaction.
Differences: 1 prononciation - have different intonation patterns; British too fast, high pitch of
intonation; Am. - much slower, flat intonation. Reasons - difference in the stress patterns words with a single stress in Br. Engl. are pronounced (with one main and one secondary 'dictio'nary).Some vowels of Br. Engl become diphthongs.In Am. English as a result of the
rolling 'r': /t/ - /d/; /wh/ - /h/; /t+ju/ - /t?/.American English tries to simplify spelling so that it
resembles the pronounciation and v.v. to achieve phonetic pronounciation (colour - color). 2
grammar: no difference b/n P.S. with Pr. P. T.; high frequeny of 'got' passive. 3 vocabulary pair words - derivational affixes are productive, eg. -wise - weatherwise.
Briticisms - used only in Britain (woolsack), Americanisms - in the USA (boxing day).
Typical Americanisms used in Britain: to smoke the pipe of peace, to bury the hatchet.
Slang - British: employs existing words with new meanings; American: use borrowed words
from Spanish, German...
American English is similar to Scotish - change of diphthongs.