English 421 Semantics and Pragmatics Session Six Notes Goals
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English 421 Semantics and Pragmatics Session Six Notes Goals/Objectives: 1) To examine the difference between proper and common nouns 2) To examine the difference between count and mass nouns 3) To begin the examination of derivational processes, including affixation Nouns Questions/Main Ideas (Please write these down as Nouns can be also divided into several subcategories that, while semantically based, also you think of them) correspond to structural differences Proper vs. Common One preliminary distinction we can make among nouns is to classify them as either proper or common Nouns Proper nouns are names of unique, specific entities: President Roosevelt, Thursday, Los Angeles, Asia, Fred Common nouns, in contrast, to not refer to unique entities: cat, honesty, computers, mail The distinction between proper and common nouns is in one respect a semantic one Nouns However, it also corresponds to some differences in how the two subcategories behave Generally speaking, proper nouns do not co-occur with determiners For example, phrases such as: 1) *the President Roosevelt 2) *an Asia Nouns 3) *The Fred Are all ungrammatical Likewise, proper nouns cannot generally be inflected for plurality, a fact that stems from their reference to a unique (an therefore presumably one-of-a-kind) entity Nouns English being the complex language that it is, of course, not all proper nouns adhere to these generalizations For example, some geographical names and names of buildings can co-occur with determiners 4) The Alps 5) The Atlantic Nouns 6) The Smithsonian Institute 7) The Pentagon Count vs. Mass Nouns Common nouns may be further subdivided into count and mass (also known as non-count) nouns Nouns Like the distinction between proper and common nouns, we can discuss the distinction between count and mass nouns from both a semantic and a structural perspective Count nouns are those that can be pluralized and can co-occur with many, these, and those, all of which indicate plurality Nouns Count nouns denote distinguishable whole entities, like beans or people or shirts They can be counted For example: 8) those cats 9) these computers 10) many options Nouns On the other hand, mass nouns (also known as non-count nouns) cannot be pluralized and cannot co-occur with plural determiners such as many, these, and those Mass nouns denote undifferentiated substances, like dough or water or lava They resist being quantified Nouns For example: 11) *many informations 12) *these furnitures 13) *those coffees However, mass nouns can co-occur with much, little, and a great deal of Nouns However, while this distinction works in the main, the difference between count and mass nouns is partly a matter of how the speaker or the writer chooses to portray reality Consider the following: Nouns Count nouns: 14) This is a loaf 15) This is a coin 16) How many loaves are there? 17) How many coins are there? 18) A large number of loaves 19) A large number of coins Nouns 20) Six loaves 21) Six coins 22) *How much loaves are there? 23) *How much coins are there? Mass nouns 24) ?This is a bread 25) *This is a money Nouns 26) ?How many breads are there? 27) *How many monies are there? 28) ?A large number of breads 29) *A large number of monies 30) ?Six breads 31) *Six monies 32) How much bread is there? 33) How much money is there? Nouns What is out there in the world is pretty much the same whether you are referring to a loaf or to bread Likewise, the denotation of the words coins is pretty much the same as that of the word money Nouns However, count nouns portray what we are talking about as consisting of individually distinct wholes (loaves, coins, and so on) While talking about almost the same reality with mass nouns represents it as homogenous substance, undifferentiated “stuff” Nouns Another pair of words that represents this distinction is drinks (count) and booze (mass) When people use mass nouns to talk or write about clothing or bread or money or scenery, it is not because they have become incapable of making distinctions Nouns Such as between shirts and socks Or between the lakes, mountains, and seascapes that make up scenery They are merely treating scenery or money as if detailing “how much” just isn’t that important Nouns Let’s review: Prototypes A prototype of a proposition is an object that is held to be very typical of the kind of object which can be referred to by an expression containing the proposition Nouns Since we are not especially interested in the language of any one individual, but rather in English as a whole, we must talk in terms of shared prototypes That is, objects on which there would be general agreement that they were typical examples of the class of objects Nouns In a language community as wide as that of English, there are problems with this type of prototype, due to cultural differences between various English speaking communities For example: Nouns Would a double-decker bus be a prototype for the word bus for a British English speaker? Yes For an American? No Nouns Could a skyscraper be a prototype for the word building for a New Yorker? Yes For a kid from Forman, North Dakota? No! Nouns Nouns Nouns What might be a prototype tree for someone who has lived in Hawaii all their life? What about a bird for this person? How would you describe prototypical examples of the following: Nouns Furniture Dog Flower Chair What are some prototypical parts to the word tree? Nouns Hyponymy Hyponymy is a sense relation between words (or sometimes longer phrases) such that the meaning of one word (or phrase) is included in the meaning of the other Nouns The meaning of red is included in the meaning of scarlet Red is the superordinate term Scarlet is the hyponym of red (in other words, scarlet is a kind of red) Nouns The superordinate term, red, is more general or inclusive in meaning than its hyponym scarlet, which is much more specific about the color that it describes In general, sense relations involving hyponymy are usually structured this way Nouns The superordinate term is more abstract or general than its hyponym Look at the following superordinates and give some hyponyms for each: Pig _________ _________ _________ Nouns Tree _________ _________ _________ Virtue _________ _________ _________ Emotion _________ _________ _________ Nouns Strike (the verb) _________ _________ _________ Pleasant _________ _________ _________ Footwear _________ _________ _________ Nouns Let’s do some homework Derivations Here are some sentences with nonce-words (words coined on the spur of the moment), not found in a dictionary The nonce-words are capitalized Give a paraphrase of each nonce-word Derivations 1) We’ll need to HIGHER this shelf a bit 2) I find SCREWDRIVING with my left hand difficult 3) We don’t have a butcher; we have a BUTCHERESS 4) John was DECOBWEBBING the ceiling with a long-handled mop Derivations You are generally able to give a paraphrase for each of these nonce-words fairly easily, even though you have most likely never heard any of them before This is a fairly remarkable feat What does it tell us about how our mental dictionaries are structured? Derivations It is intuitively clear that people somehow create new words from old ones The dictionary writer has the difficult task of shooting at a moving target Derivations If she includes in her dictionary only words that have been attested until today, her dictionary will soon be out of date, as new words will have been coined and perhaps added to the everyday vocabulary of the language Here’s an example of how this can be done: Derivations Your job: invent new English words synonymous with the following expressions: (hint: base your new words on existing words and try to ensure that the meaning of the new word is transparent, i.e. easily guessed at) Derivations 5) Instrument for making things blunt A blunter 6) the property of being easy to please pleasability Derivations 7) the process of making something transparent Transparentization 8) having to do with giraffes (adjective) Giraffish, giraffy Derivations Although ordinary dictionary writers do not take the risk of actually predicting or anticipating new forms before they are attested, it is clear that there exist certain quite clear, regular, rule-governed processes by which new words are born from old ones Derivations These processes are often called processes of derivation and the rules that describe them may be referred to as derivational rules, word formation rules, or morphological rules Derivations In order to fully understand the process of word derivation and its rule-governed behavior, we need to define some terms so that we can be somewhat more precise about exactly what we are dealing with Derivations Derivation is the process of forming new words according to a (fairly) regular pattern on the basis of pre-existing words New words may be formed by combining existing words with meaningful units smaller than words, or with other existing words Derivations This will happen according to derivational patterns or rules that are part of every speaker’s mental knowledge of the language The special technical term used by linguists to describe the basic components that make up derived words is morpheme Derivations A morpheme is a minimal unit of word building that combines a minimal unit of meaning with a minimal linguistic form that carries this meaning Morphemes are the building blocks of word derivation in language Derivations It is important to note that, according to this definition, the class of morphemes in a language is not restricted to just the class of free-standing words The definition has to be general enough to include units smaller than actual words Derivations These would include prefixes and suffixes (an, in some languages, infixes) that also combine minimal forms with minimal units of meaning and can be used to construct new words An existing word such as dog is a morpheme Derivations It combines a minimal unit of meaning (whatever it is we understand the word dog to mean) with a minimal linguistic form, consisting of three speech sounds represented by the letters used to spell the word Derivations This form is minimal because it is not possible to convey the meaning of dog by any smaller set of sounds than the three sounds that make up the word as we know it For example, we can’t suddenly start referring to a dog as an *og Derivations Similarly, the meaning is minimal because it is also not possible to somehow divide the meaning of the word form dog into smaller parts which would have anything to do with dogs as we know them Derivations A unit smaller than an actual word, such as the suffix –er in the word builder, is also a morpheme, because it combines a minimal meaning (something like ‘an entity that engages in the activity described by the verb that it attaches to’) with a minimal linguistic form (two speech sounds) Derivations Another unit smaller than an actual word, such as the prefix re- in the word replay, is also a morpheme, because it combines a minimal meaning (‘repeat the activity described by the verb it is attached to’) with a minimal linguistic form (two speech sounds/letters) Derivations Linguists would say that the derived word builder is formed by attaching the suffix –er after the root word build and the derived word replay is formed by attaching a prefix re- before the root word play Derivations The root words in each case clearly convey the core, fundamental meaning of the derived words Prefixes attached before the root word while suffixes attach after the root Derivations A derived word formed by combining two pre-existing words in a language is called a compound word Derived words such as bluebird, spaceship, babysit, and bittersweet are compounds Derivations They consist of two pre-existing root words in the language rather than a root together with a prefix or suffix Let’s practice Divide each of the following words into its constituent morphemes Derivations Some words may contain only one morpheme, while others may contain two or more morphemes Identify whether each morpheme is a root, a prefix, or a suffix Also identify any derived word that is a compound Derivations Hint: focus on how the words are pronounced rather than on how they are spelled Morphemes, especially root morphemes, may sometimes be spelled differently when they occur as a component of a derived word as opposed to when they occur by themselves Derivations 9) greatness 10) homework 11) unpopular 12) windy 13) intolerant 14) friendships 15) childishly 16) widen Derivations 17) sincerity 18) revitalize 19) father 20) inalienable 21) unthoughtful 22)sleepwalk 23) clearance 24) sunrise Derivations In actuality, a derivation is usually actually not one process, but three simultaneous processes, namely: A morphological process – changing the shape of an existing word by adding a prefix or suffix morpheme to an existing root morpheme Derivations A syntactic process – changing the part of speech of a word, e.g. from a verb to a noun A semantic process – producing a new sense IOW, morphology and syntax can come together to produce semantic change Derivations Some derivation involves no morphological processes at all, however This is sometimes called zero-derivation In such cases a root morpheme is converted from one part of speech to another without the addition of either a prefix or a suffix Derivations For example, cook (noun) is derived from cook (verb) just as painter (noun) is derived from paint (verb) We just happen to not have a word cooker, meaning a person who cooks, in English Derivations The lack of such a word form which would otherwise be derivable according to regular word formation patterns is sometimes referred to as a lexical gap The capitalized words in the following sentences are examples of zero-derivation Derivations 25) A window cannot OPEN by itself 26) We’re going to PAPER the wall at the far end of the room 27) I’m going for a SWIM 28) The children are building a PRETEND house in the garden Derivations Such examples show that the process of derivation can often be ‘invisible,’ because no morphological process is involved When what is apparently the ‘same’ word is used in two different part of speech, there is usually a semantic process involved as well, that is, a change of sense of some sort Derivations Thus, for example, open (adjective) denotes a state, whereas open (verb) denotes an action The difference between states and actions is a difference in meaning, a semantic difference It is simply a change that is not reflected in a morphological change in the root word Derivations Just as derivation can sometimes involve both semantic and syntactic processes, but no morphological process, cases also occur on morphological and semantic processes without an accompanying syntactic process, that is, without a change in part of speech Derivations For example, a comparative adjective, such as larger is derived, by adding a suffix, from the adjective large Even though both the source word and the derived form are adjectives, they have clearly distinct semantic properties Summary/Minute Paper:
