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Introduction to linguistics II

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND


LITERATURE

G. TOGIA

SECTION ΠΗ-Ω

10/14/2009
Reading material
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 1. Dirven, R. & M. Verspoor (1998). Cognitive


Exploration of Language and Linguistics.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
 Chapters 2, 7, and 8.

 2. Yule, G. (2006) (3rd edition). The Study of


Language. Cambridge: Cambridge Press.
 Chapters 10, 11, 12, 18 and 19.

 3. Handouts.

 4. Self-assessment tests.
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Aim of the course
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 To become familiar with issues relating to:

 the study of linguistic meaning, comprising semantic,


pragmatic and textual parameters in the production and
understanding of utterances in discourse.

 the study of language in its regional and social dimensions.

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Part 1: Semantics
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CONCEPTUAL AND ASSOCIATIVE MEANING

SEMANTIC FEATURES

SEMANTIC/THEMATIC ROLES

PROTOTYPES

LEXICAL RELATIONS

10/14/2009
Today’s topics
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 Conceptual and associative meaning


 Semantic features
 Semantic/thematic roles

 You can study these topics in:


 George Yule:
 Chapter 10.

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Semantics
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 Semantics is the study of the meaning of Natural


Language expressions:
 Expressions include words, phrases, and sentences.

 What is the goal of such study?


 Provide a definition of meaning.
 Explain semantic relations between expressions.

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What is meaning? an example
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 Mare – stallion

 Heavy – light

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What is meaning? Dictionary definitions?
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 How can we define meaning?

 Is it the dictionary definition of a word?

 Problem: circularity
 e.g.
 pride: the belief that you are better or more important than
other people .

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What is meaning? Mental images?
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 So, we need to find a way of viewing meaning


independent of language.

 Is meaning the mental image conjured up by a word


(e.g. Parthenon, Big Ben)?

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What is meaning? Reference?
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 Is meaning the thing a word points to in the world,


that is, its referent?

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What is meaning?
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 Meaning is something that speakers of a language


know.

 Linguistic vs. encyclopedic knowledge

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Conceptual and associative meaning
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 Words do not have single, simple meanings.

 Conceptual meaning:
 the basic elements conveyed by the literal meaning of a word.

 Associative meaning (or connotation):


 the associations (emotional or otherwise) a word evokes.

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Conceptual and associative meaning: example
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 Take the words apple or organic .

 Or, the words woman and chick.

 Or, the words innocent and genuine.

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Semantics
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SEMANTIC FEATURES

10/14/2009
Why is conceptual meaning helpful?
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 It allows us to account for the oddity of sentences


such as:

 ?The apple ate the hay.


 ?The dog read the newspaper.
 ?Definiteness melted in the sun.

 Syntactically good, but semantically odd. Why?

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Semantic features: definition
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 A procedure for analysing meaning into its crucial


elements or features.
 Helps us to differentiate the meaning of one word from
another.

 Words are composed of smaller meaning


components, which are combined to form different
words.

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Semantic features: examples
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 Woman:
 [+animate], [+human], [+female], [+adult]

 Boy:
 [+animate], [+human], [-female], [-adult]

 Horse:
 [+animate], [-human], [-female], [+adult], [+equine]

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Semantic features: examples
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 The same feature may be part of the meaning of


many words:
 “human” : helps us to define, bachelor, parent, child, etc.

 Woman, maiden in comparison with doctor, parent.


 Child in comparison with doctor, parent.

 Think of the words father and uncle.

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Semantic features: problem
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 There are many words in a language that cannot be


defined in terms of their semantic features.
 E.g. advice, threat, warning.

Exercises 1 - 4
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Semantics
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SEMANTIC/THEMATIC ROLES

10/14/2009
Semantic/thematic roles
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 Semantic features approach:


 Words are thought of as ‘containers’ of meaning.

 Semantic roles approach:


 Another way to analyse meaning:
 words can be thought of in terms of the ‘roles’ they fulfill in the
situation described in a sentence.

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Semantic/thematic roles
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 An example:

 The cat chased the mouse

 2 entities in specific roles:


 The entity which carries out the action

 The entity which is affected by the action

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The number of semantic roles
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 There is a small number of semantic roles:


 Agent and theme.

 Instrument and experiencer.

 Location, source and goal.

 Role assigners are mostly verbs and prepositions.

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Agent and theme 1
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 The boy kicked the ball.

 The boy:
 Agent

 The ball:
 Theme
 Theme can also be an entity described:
• My dress is red.

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Agent and theme 2
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 The wind opened the door.


 The earthquake destroyed the city.
 The dog bit the girl.
 The girl cut herself.

 Agents and themes can be human and non-human.

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Instrument and experiencer
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 The boy cut the rope with a knife.


 A knife:
 Instrument

 The girl feels sad.


 Did you hear that noise?
 The girl, you:
 Experiencer
 E.g. See, hear, enjoy, know.

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Location
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 The ball is under the bed.

 The bed:
 Location

 Examples: on the table, in the house, etc.

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Source, goal
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 She moved from Greece to England.


 Greece:
 Source

 England:
 Goal/recipient

 Examples:
 She borrowed a magazine from George. Source

 She handed the magazine back to George. Goal

Exercises 5 - 9
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Summary
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 Semantics is:
 the study of words, phrases and sentences.

 When discussing meaning some linguists are


interested mainly in conceptual meaning,
others in both conceptual and associative
meaning.
 In this course, we will focus on conceptual meaning.

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Summary
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 We can think of the conceptual meaning of


words as:

 The
crucial features that differentiate the
meaning of words.

 The roles words fulfil in the situation described


by a sentence.

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Next week...
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 Polysemy. Homonymy. Homophony.


 Prototypes.
 Metonymy and metaphor.

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