LIN1310-2008-Semantics Notes 1
Semantics is the study of meaning in language
Meaning can be studies in terms of:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Semantic relations between words and sentences
The conceptual system or how we organize words into categories
The way that syntactic structure helps us to understand meaning
Factors outside language (extralinguistic factors) that affect our understanding
These include pragmatics, and rules of discourse and conversation.
In this section of the course we will focus on 1 and 3. If time permits, we will also examine
4.
1. Word Meaning
One way to approach the study of word meaning is by looking at how words relate to one
another semantically.
For example, some words have opposite meanings (antonyms) and others (synonyms) have very
similar meanings.
But, when you think about it, if two words have opposite meanings, they actually have most of
the components of their meaning in common, but differ with respect to a single component.
Thus the antonyms ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ both refer to immature humans, with the only difference
being the sex component of their meaning.
Antonym pairs are often mutually exclusive with one another.
You are either a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’. You are either ‘alive’ or ‘dead’.
See page 175 of O&A for more examples.
Also, when two words are considered to be synonyms, such as ‘holiday’ and ‘vacation’, they
aren’t entirely identical in meaning.
Consider that we use the word ‘holiday’ (but not ‘vacation’) to refer to statutory holidays such
as Canada Day and New Year’s Day.
Even though they are synonyms, these words do not share all the components of their meanings,
as ‘holiday’ can refer to time off which does not count against an employee’s allotted vacation
time.
See page 175 of O&A for more examples.
Another relationship between words is polysemy. This refers to a single word that has two or
more related meanings.
The word ‘bright’ meaning ‘shining’ and ‘intelligent’ is one example of several shown on page
176 of O&A.
‘Bear’ meaning ‘to carry a load’ or ‘to put up with’ or ‘to give birth to children’ is another
example.
Note that one of the polysemous meanings of a word may be synonymous with another word.
For example ‘bear’ meaning ‘to put up with’ is synonymous with ‘to stand’ as in:
I can’t ‘stand’ that kind of talk.
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Homophony occurs when two words sound identical, but do not have related meanings. Thus
they are considered to be entirely separate words.
Homophonous words can be spelled identically or differently.
Thus the word ‘bear’ meaning ‘a four-legged creature of the family Ursidae’ is homophonous
with the word ‘bear’ defined variously above.
Hence ‘deer’ and ‘dear’ are homophones that are spelled differently.
Sometimes it’s a little hard to decide if a word should be considered as polysemous or as two
separate words.
For example, the word ‘dear’ meaning ‘expensive’ may be considered polysemous with ‘dear’
as in ‘someone who is kind’.
Or the two versions of ‘dear’ may be considered homophones of one another.
Polysemy and homophony can lead to lexical ambiguity as in:
“She can’t bear children.” (polysemy)
“Bambi is a deer.” Or did the speaker mean ‘dear’?
(homophony)
Sometimes the context makes the meaning clear, as in the following examples with homophones
illustrate:
She drove to the bank to withdraw some money.
She drove to the bank to launch her boat.
She asked for a pen to sign her name.
She asked for a pen to keep her guinea pig in.
Even prepositions can be polysemous. Consider that ‘on’ in the following sentence could mean
‘location’ or ‘topic’. Thus one meaning of ‘on’ is synonymous with ‘about’.
The girl found a book on Main Street.
Features of word meaning
Consideration of homophones, synonyms, antonyms supports the notion that the meanings of
words could be considered in terms of sets of binary semantic features.
This is called componential analysis.
Where words share a lot of features except one, they might be antonyms, although this is not a
foregone conclusion. Consider the following example from O&A, page 180:
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Although ‘man’ and ‘woman’ differ by one feature value, as do ‘man’ and ‘boy’, ‘woman’ and
‘girl’ and ‘boy’ and ‘girl’, not all the pairs are considered antonyms. This suggests that defining
the meanings of these words requires the identification of a lot more semantic features.
However, even the identification of more features may not be sufficient to clarify the elements
that form the meanings of words. This is because not all semantic features can be coded purely in
terms of + or – values. Some features have fuzzy definitions and degrees of attribution. For
example, how rich is ‘rich’? Pursuing these kinds of questions would take us into the realm of
the conceptual system, which we are not going to cover in this course.
Denotation and Connotation (more on word meaning)
Denotation
So far we have considered semantic features as providing defining characteristics of words. This
approach to meaning basically tries to equate the meaning of a word with its referent, which is
the entity that it stands for in the world.
This is what we mean by a word’s denotation.
But this can be problematic for three reasons.
First, not all words have real referents in the world. Some, like unicorns, have imaginary
referents. These can be handled by having a feature ‘imaginary’.
Second, some words refer to emotions or ideas which are difficult to define or picture, such as
‘anxiety’.
Third, some expressions refer to a class or category which can be filled by a set of quite different
entities.
Linguists call this set of entities the word’s extension.
Think of the different sizes and shapes of creatures that can be called ‘dog’.
In addition to a word’s extension, linguists talk about a word’s intension. Intension corresponds
to the general concepts a word evokes.
For example, the intension for ‘dog’ has to be general enough to include all the different breeds
you can think of, but still carry the essence of the word’s meaning.
Intension is conceived of as a mental image of the referent. In terms of ‘dog’, think of it as the
essence of ‘dogness’ or your concept of the archetypical dog.
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You can imagine the difficulties in coming up with a satisfactory definition of the intentional
meaning of ‘dog’, since it is not at all clear that everyone necessarily agrees on its essential
defining features.
Connotation
Another problem we face in coming up with word definitions is that some features of meaning
refer to the emotions and associations that a word evokes.
These associations or connotations are linked to the word’s meaning and yet independent of its
denotation.
Thus, every word carries with it both denotative and connotative meanings.
Think about the word ‘rain’.
From a denotational perspective, you can define it (denotation), you can talk about its intension
(the archetype of rain) and you can think about the scope of its extension (sleet, showers, drizzle,
deluge, etc.)
But ‘rain’ also has connotations for each of us. Sometimes these are cultural and sometimes they
are individual.
From a cultural perspective, people who live in very arid regions that receive little rain may
associate ‘rain’ with very happy thoughts.
For people who get plenty of rain, ‘rain’ may be associated with gloomy thoughts of restricted
outdoor fun and soggy shoes.
For people who experience seasonal flooding, ‘rain’ may be associated with fear and dread.
Meaning and subcategorization
Despite difficulties with analyzing the meanings of words, we can learn something about how
meanings interact with the syntactic subcategorization of words.
Recall that verbs can be divided into subcategories depending on the type of complement
structure they occur with.
For example, some verbs such as ‘consider’ and ‘give’ seem to demand a complement:
*He considered.
He considered [his options].
*He gave.
He gave [ten dollars] [to the beggar].
O&A (page 181) point out that some verbs of motion take two NP complements or an NP PP
complement, while others can only take an NP and a possible PP.
It may be possible to explain how this occurs with otherwise semantically quite similar verbs by
looking more closely at the features that make up their meanings to see if you can spot the key
difference.
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Semantic relations across sentences
The meanings of sentences can be analyzed in terms of their relations to other meanings.
Paraphrase
Sentences that have almost the same meanings are paraphrases of one another.
When two sentences have the same meaning, then if one is true, the other must be true.
Thus they are said to be subject to the same truth conditions.
That is, they are true under the same circumstances, even if the structures of the sentences (in
this case, active versus passive) place different emphasis on the events being depicted.
Compare:
The dog chased the cat.
The cat was chased by the dog.
The clown gave some candy to the children.
The clown gave the children some candy.
The children were given some candy by the clown.
Some candy was given to the children by the clown.
Entailment
The truth of one sentence may guarantee the truth of another. This type of relationship is
called entailment.
a) The car smashed into the side of the garage.
b) The side of the garage is badly damaged.
If (a) is true, then (b) is true.
However, entailment does not work both ways. The fact that the side of the garage is badly
damaged does not necessarily mean that the car smashed into it.
Contradiction
Sometimes the truth of one sentences guarantees that another sentence is false.
a) Rover is a dog.
b) Rover is a cat.
Both sentences cannot be true, because they contradict one
anther. If (a) is true, then (b) must be false and if (b) is true,
then (a) must be false.
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