Introduction to the Study of Language 2

Semantics 2

Evelien Keizer, SS17

Semantics sessions

Semantics 1: Word meaning

Semantics 2: Meaning relations between words
Semantics 3: Sentence meaning and meaning in
context

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Semantics 1 - Summary

Linguistic meaning is conventional

Linguistic (conceptual, denotational) meaning vs.
encyclopaedic (associative, connotational) meaning
Meaning is not the same as reference
Meaning is linked to things via concepts
(semiotic triangle)
Denotation & sense

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Todays programme

1. Paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic relations

2. Paradigmatic relations:
synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy
3. Syntagmatic relations
collocation
4. Complications in meaning representation
idioms, metaphorical extension, lexical creativity,
homonymy/polysemy

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Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic relations

(1) a. Is this an expensive book?

b. No, it's a cheap book.
Paradigmatic

(2) a. I met a very handsome _______

b. Mick scored a beautiful _______
Syntagmatic

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Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic relations

paradigmatic relation:
'vertical' relationship of linguistic forms which can replace
each other in a structure.

syntagmatic relation:
'horizontal' relationship holding between linguistic forms
which co-occur in the same structure.

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Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic relations

syntagmatic relations

paradigmatic
Julia loves strong tea.
Mary hates weak coffee.
Fred adores mild whisky.

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Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic relations

syntagmatic relations

paradigmatic
Julia loves strong tea.
Mary hates weak coffee.
Fred adores mild whisky.

Nanimate V Adj N
[NP NProp] [VP V [NP A N] ]
Subject Predicate Direct Object

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Paradigmatic lexical relations

Synonymy
Antonymy
Hyponymy

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Paradigmatic relations: synonymy

(1) Whats her job / occupation?

I did a good job / *occupation.
Watching TV is his favourite occupation / *job

(2) The baby began / started to cry.

I couldn't start / *begin my car. The battery was flat.

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Paradigmatic relations: synonymy

begin start: near synonyms

truck lorry: regional
car automobile: stylistic
mum mother: stylistic + emotional

My mum bought a new car.

My mother purchased a new automobile.

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Paradigmatic relations: synonymy

Euphemism
the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression for one that
may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener; typically
used to avoid taboo words or politically sensitive expressions (political
correctness), but also used for fun

dustman refuse collector, sanitation engineer; die pass away; accidental

deaths collateral damage; toilet bathroom, rest room (U.S.); lie
disinformation; illegal alien undocumented immigrant
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6c6t0_monty-python-dead-parrot-sketch_shortfilms

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Paradigmatic relations: synonymy

The dead parrot sketch:

dead, stone dead, deceased, demised, passed on, is no
more, ceased to be, expired, gone to meet its maker, a late
parrot, a stiff, bereft of life, it rests in peace, pushing up the
daisies, rung down the curtain, joined the choir invisible, an
ex-parrot.
Resting, stunned, tired, shagged out, pining
See also: idioms

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

Antonymy = oppositeness of meaning

big - small, clean - dirty
dead - alive, true - false
tie - untie, enter - exit
husband - wife, buy - sell

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

Types of antonymy:
Gradable
Non-gradable
Reversives
Converses

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

Gradable antonyms
big-small, old-young, clean-dirty
a) Your dog is bigger than mine.
b) My dog is not big My dog is small

Non-gradable antonyms
alive-dead, true-false, male-female
a) *This story is rather true.
b) That is not true = That is false.

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

Reversives (change of state, reversed action)

enter-exit, comego, dress-undress
a) dead = not alive, but:
b) exit not enter exit = reverse of enter

Converses (mutual implication)

buy-sell, borrow-lend, teacher-pupil, wife-husband
a) John is Mary's husband.
b) Mary is John's wife.

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

big/small alive/dead enter/exit buy/sell

clean/dirty true/false come/go teacher/pupil
old/young male/female dress/undress husband/wife

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

big/small alive/dead enter/exit buy/sell

clean/dirty true/false come/go teacher/pupil
old/young male/female dress/undress husband/wife
gradable non-gradable reversives converses
antonyms antonyms

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

light - ???
Words may have different opposites in different
contexts/senses.
light bag
light wind
light colours
light fingers
light conversation

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

light - ???
Words may have different opposites in different
contexts/senses.
light bag heavy bag
light wind
light colours
light fingers
light conversation

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

light - ???
Words may have different opposites in different
contexts/senses.
light bag heavy bag
light wind strong wind
light colours
light fingers
light conversation

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

light - ???
Words may have different opposites in different
contexts/senses.
light bag heavy bag
light wind strong wind
light colours dark colours
light fingers
light conversation

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

light - ???
Words may have different opposites in different
contexts/senses.
light bag heavy bag
light wind strong wind
light colours dark colours
light fingers clumsy fingers
light conversation

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Paradigmatic relations: antonymy

light - ???
Words may have different opposites in different
contexts/senses.
light bag heavy bag
light wind strong wind
light colours dark colours
light fingers clumsy fingers
light conversation serious conversation

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Paradigmatic relations: hyponymy

Hyponomy = inclusion of meaning: an X is a kind of Y

a rose is a kind of flower
a dog is a kind of animal

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Paradigmatic relations: hyponymy

hypernym flower
(superordinate)

hyponyms tulip rose violet

co-hyponyms

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 Paradigmatic relations: hyponymy

walk

stroll amble trudge plod stride swagger

bummeln schlendern stapfen trotten schreiten stolzieren

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Paradigmatic relations: hyponymy

Stroll: to walk somewhere in a slow relaxed way (We were strolling along,
laughing and joking);
Amble (+ Adv/Prep): to walk slowly in a relaxed way (= saunter) (An old
man came out and ambled over for a chat);
Trudge (+ Adv/Prep): to walk with slow heavy steps, especially because you
are tired or it is difficult to walk (We trudged home through the snow)
Plod (+ Adv/Prep): to walk slowly, especially when this is difficult (The horse
plodded up the hill, Jack kept plodding on)
Stride (+ Adv/Prep): to walk quickly with long steps (He strode towards her)
Swagger (+ Adv/Prep): to walk proudly swinging your shoulders in a way
that shows you are very confident (used to show disapproval: He
swaggered over towards me)
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2003)

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Paradigmatic relations: hyponymy

horse cat

mare stallion foal cat tomcat kitten

filly colt ?? ??

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Semantic features & sense relations

Synonymy: identical set of features

MOTHER MUM
+ human + human
+ female + female
+ adult + adult
+ parent + parent

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Semantic features & sense relations

Antonymy: contrast in one feature

MOTHER FATHER
+ human + human
+ female - female
+ adult + adult
+ parent + parent

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Semantic features & sense relations

TRUE FALSE
+ true - true
??? ???

Antonymy: contrast in one feature

Not always clear what other features are

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Semantic features & sense relations

Hyponymy: hyponyms contain all features of the

superordinate term plus extra feature(s)

CHILD GIRL BOY

+ human + human + human
- adult - adult - adult
+ female - female
Superordinate

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Paradigmatic relations: summary

synonymy 'identity' of meaning

antonymy oppositeness of meaning
hyponymy... relationship of inclusion

= sense relations, lexical relations

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Syntagmatic relations

'You shall know a word by the company it keeps'

J.R. Firth (1890-1960)

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Syntagmatic relations

lexemes combine in predictable ways

there are patterns of co-occurrence

Collocation:
co-occurrence of lexical items in text
the idiom principle (Sinclair 1987) (vs. open-choice
principle)

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Syntagmatic relations

She has a beige dress. *She has beige hair.

*She has a blond dress. She has blond hair.

beige collocates with dress, sofa, car, but not with hair.
blond collocates with hair (only)
brown collocates with .

Collocation forms an important organizing principle in the

vocabulary of any language.

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Syntagmatic relations

Totally predictable collocations:

addled eggs, rancid butter, blond hair
Less predictable collocations:
candle burn, blow out, birthday, Christmas
brown hair, eyes, car, bread, shirt
No predictable collocates:
have, be, the

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Syntagmatic relations

law
royal
house
the

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Syntagmatic relations

law and order

royal
house
the

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Syntagmatic relations

law and order

royal family/wedding
house
the

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Syntagmatic relations

law and order

royal family/wedding
house door, number, rent, build, etc.
the ????

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Syntagmatic relations

Highly fixed collocations/differences between languages:

Kartoffeln kochen cook potatoes
Wasser kochen boil water
Kaffee kochen make / brew coffee
Schwarzbrot brown bread
knowledge of the collocational range and limitations of
words forms a substantial part of language knowledge

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Syntagmatic relations

Collocational bonds
hold between words that are not necessarily immediately
next to each other
bridge word classes and syntactic structure

argument - strong:
a strong argument
his argument was strengthened
the strength of his argument
he argued strongly for

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Syntagmatic relations

Highly fixed collocations

formulaic phrases, "chunks":
Patterns learned and used as wholes
Meaning is more than the sum of the component parts
Cannot (or hardly) be modified

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Syntagmatic relations

to see the light #to see the lamp

sick and tired #sick and exhausted

to shoot your mouth off = talk carelessly

to be in hot water = to be in trouble
to kick the bucket = to die

Idiom:
Expression whose meaning cannot be derived from the
meaning of its component parts

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Complications

Complications in meaning representation:

Idioms
Metaphor
Lexical creativity
Homonymy/polysemy

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Complications: idioms

kick the bucket = hit the pail with one's foot (literal)
= to die (idiomatic)

English German
kick the bucket den Lffel abgeben

push up the daisies ins Gras beien

go to meet one's maker sich die Radieschen von

unten ansehen

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Complications: idioms

Strong syntactic restrictions:

Uncle Tony finally kicked the bucket.
*The bucket was finally kicked by uncle Tony.
*Uncle Tonys kicking of the bucket was really sad.

Asuch opaque idioms

have their own lexical entry
represented as a whole.

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

Waitress: Which of you is the tuna salad?

Nurse: The appendix in room 9 is driving

me mad.

????

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

Metonymy
New use of a word based on a close connection in everyday
experience
content-container (crisps - bag):
He ate the whole bag (of crisps).
function-symbol (President - White House)
The White House announced...
whole-part (body - head)
The group counted 63 heads.

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

Inventing new words:

Please do a Napoleon for the camera.
Britain is more Thatcherite now than in the 1980s
He houdinied his way out of the cage.
He beckhamed the ball into the goal.
He toothached all our proposals.

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

Metaphorical extension as an everyday process

head: topmost part of human body
becomes: topmost part of a nail, a company, an institution
Result: polysemy

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

LOVE IS MADNESS
I'm crazy about you.
He's gone all ga-ga since he met her.
She constantly raves about him.
I'm just wild about Harry.

LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE

I was magnetically drawn to her.
They gravitated to each other immediately.
His whole life revolves around her.

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

He bombarded me with objections.

He made a vicious attack on my position.
She fought for her view of things.
Your claims are indefensible.
Ive never won an argument with him.
His criticisms were right on target.
He shot down all of my arguments.

ARGUMENT IS WAR

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Complications: metonymy and metaphor

Metaphor is
seeing one thing in terms of another
a cognitive strategy to make sense of the world
not only a literary phenomenon
all-pervasive in language
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980)

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Transcription exercise (1)

1. Using the symbols you have learned, make a broad transcription of

the following passage, including weak forms and marking rhythmically
stressed syllables:

Talking to a young bilingual child can be both entertaining and eye-

opening. Even at the tender age of two, the bilingual child is capable
of expressing complex ideas, having two languages at his disposal, as
seen in the above exchange between Timmy and his mother. Timmy
refers to his father as English person, his mother as Chinese person,
and to himself as bilingual.

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Transcription exercise (1): key

t:k t j balwl ald kn b b

entten nd apn | i:vn t tendr e v
tu: balwl ald z kepbl v kspres
kmpleks adz | hv tu: lwz t z
dspzel | z si:n n bv ksen btwi:n tmi
nd z m | tmi rf:z t z f:r z l p:sn |
(h)z mr z ani:z p:sn | nd t mself z
balwl |

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Transcription exercise (2)

2. Using the symbols you have learned, transcribe the following excerpt
from the passage above in greater phonetic detail, showing syllabic
consonants, dark /l/ and aspiration:

the bilingual child is capable of expressing complex ideas, having

two languages at his disposal.

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Transcription exercise (2): key

balw ad z kepb v kspres

kmpleks adz | hv tu: lwz t z
dspz

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Transcription exercise (3)

1. Using the symbols you have learned, make a broad transcription of

the following passage, including weak forms and marking rhythmically
stressed syllables:

Since we moved here a year ago I have been very frustrated by my

inability to communicate fluently. I have much, some would say too
much, to say on any subject. I have always been known as someone
who is willing, even eager, to express an opinion on almost any topic,
and suddenly have found myself with this curious new disability that
prevents me from doing so.

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Transcription exercise (4)

a. Transcribe the following utterance as it might be pronounced in slow

careful speech.

There isnt a place for that kind of sixth sense.

b. Rewrite it so that your transcription shows the three different kinds of

connected speech processes present. (not including weak forms).

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Readings

Yule, ch. 9, "semantic roles"

Plag et al, ch. 5.3

Review: both chapters in full

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