SEMANTICS
See also “Semantic Gaps and
Sources of New Words”
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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AMBIGUITIES
I saw him walking by the bank.
We laughed at the colorful ball.
The police were urged to stop drinking by
the fifth.
I said I would file it on Thursday.
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I cannot recommend visiting professors too
highly.
The license fee for pets owned by senior citizens
who have not been altered is $1.50.
What looks better on a handsome man than a
tux? Nothing!
(Attributed to Mae West)
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 149-151)
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COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE
H. P. Grice said that we should be
communicative, relevant, brief, and
truthful.
QUANTITY: Say neither more nor less
than the discourse requires.
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RELEVANCE: Be relevant.
MANNER: Be brief and orderly; avoid ambiguity
and obscurity.
QUALITY: Do not lie; do not make unsupported
claims.
NOTE: The characters we remember both from
literature and from real life are the ones who
violate these principles.
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 213)
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DEIXIS
Deictic words get their meanings from
the time, the place, or the persons in
the context:
TIME: after, before, last week, next April,
now, seven days ago, then, that time,
this time, tomorrow, two weeks from
now…
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PLACE: back, before, behind, front, here, left,
right, that place, there, these parks, this city,
those towers over there, yonder mountains…
PERSON: he, her, hers, him, his, I, it, me, mine,
our, ours, she, their, they, them, us, we, you,
your, yours…
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 210-212)
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FRAME SEMANTICS
Using Predicate Calculus as a model, Charles Fillmore
devised Case Grammar, in which verbs are classified in
terms of their arguments.
Here, the environment becomes the “case frame.”
Each case frame is thought of as a small abstract scene or
situation.
To understand the semantic structure of the verb, it is
necessary to understand the properties of such
schematized scenes.
(Hobin 5, Fillmore 1982, 115)
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A verb can be intransitive, linking,
transitive or ditransitive. Although
this is a syntactic notion, it has
important semantic consequences.
Syntactic transitivity involves
Subjects, Subject Complements,
Direct Objects, Indirect Objects
and Object Complements.
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Fillmore says that If we change from
a syntactic to a semantic bias, we
can say that the “case frame” of a
verb involves the following “Deep
Cases”: Agent, Instrument,
Experiencer, Object, Source, Path,
Goal, Time, Place, Manner, Extent,
Reason, etc.
(Nilsen and Nilsen Semantic Theory, 104-105)
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If we do this, we can say that the different types
of verbs have different case frames, so that
the following classifications are not only
semantic, but syntactic as well:
CHANGE VERBS: brighten, demolish
CONTACT VERBS: hit, touch
EXPERIENCE VERBS: see, enjoy
LOCATION VERBS: bottle, button
MOTION VERBS: walk, throw
SYMMETRICAL PREDICATES: resemble
The verbs in each of these categories tend to
have the same “Case Frames” as do the other
verbs in the same category.
(Nilsen & Nilsen 1975, 104-105)
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Lakoff seems to be cementing terminology that has
previously been unstable.
In 1985, Fillmore developed his frame semantics.
Since that time various terms have been proposed—
”Frame” by Minsky, Winograd and Charniak,
“Schema” by Bartlett and Rulmelhart, “Scripts” by
Schank and Abelson, “Global Pattern by de
Beaugrande and Dressler, “Pseudo-text” by Wilks,
“Cognitive Model” by Lakoff, “Experiential
Gestalt” by Lakoff and Johnson, “Base” by
Langacker, “Scenes” by Fillmore, etc.
(Hobin 4, Fillmore 1985, 223)
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Gamson & Lasch Frames
1. Metaphors
2. Exemplars such as Historical Examples
3. Catch Phrases
4. Depictions
5. Visual Images or Icons (1-37)
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HOMONOMY VS. POLYSEMY
Two different words that sound or look alike
are called “homonyms.”
Two different senses of a single word are
called “polysemes.”
A “wedding ring,” a “boxing ring,” and a
“bathtub ring” are polysemes, but what
about a ring on a telephone?
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 198)
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HUMPTY DUMPTY LANGUAGE
“There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory.’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.
“Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a
nice knock-down argument for you!’”
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“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down
argument,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said,
in rather a scornful tone, “it means just
what I choose it to mean—neither more nor
less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you
can make words mean so many different
things.”
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 192-193)
(from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass)
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IDIOMS
bite your tongue
cut it out
eat my hat
get a piece of my mind
hit the ceiling
hit it off
kick the bucket
let your hair down
put your foot in your mouth
rake someone over the coals
raining cats and dogs
sell someone down the river
snap out of it
throw your weight around
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 190-192)
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IRONY
I’m not kidding.
Literally…
Some of my best friends are…black, gay,
Mexican, women….
To make a long story short.
(Mey 266)
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LEGAL LANGUAGE
Because it has to account for all possibilities,
legal language must be precise and
sometimes a bit redundant. That’s why
lawyers use such terms as “cease and
desist,” or “give and bequeath.”
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2011] 415)
A sign in the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park,
however, takes this type of language a bit
further:
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“Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague,
molest, worry, badger, harry, harass, heckle,
persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate,
beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize, or ruffle
the animals.”
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PRESUPPOSITION
“Fats regretted that he had to pay alimony
to Bessie” presupposes that “Fats had to
pay alimony to Bessie.”
“Fats did not regret that he had to pay
alimony to Bessie” also presupposes that
“Fats had to pay alimony to Bessie.”
(Mey 20)
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SPEECH ACTS
Commissives (Affect Speaker, Subjective)
TYPES: Oath, Offer, Promise
Declaratives (Change the Macrocosmic Social World)
TYPES: Baptism, Marriage
Directives (Change the Microcosmic Social World)
TYPES: Command, Request
Expressives (Feelings of Speaker)
TYPES:
Apology, Thanks
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Interrogatives (Hearer Knows Best)
TYPES: Closed (yes-no), Loaded, Open
Imperatives (Directives) (Affect Hearer)
TYPES: Request, Requirement, Threat, Warning
Performatives (Affect world)
TYPES: Agreement, Appointment, Baptism,
Declaration of Independence, Dedication, Marriage
Representatives (Objective Descriptive Statements)
TYPES: Statement that is either True or False
(Mey 120, Searle 1977, 34)
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SYNTAX VS. SEMANTICS
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Chomsky points out that from a syntactic perspective, this
sentence is perfect. But he says it is “meaningless” because
“colorless” cancels out “green” etc.
Chomsky, therefore, wants to exclude such sentences from
discussion.
(Mey 20)
“Haj Ross and George Lakoff were the first to protest against this
syntactic straitjacket.”
(Mey 22)
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THEMATIC ROLES
Subject, Direct Object and Indirect Object are
syntactically determined. Deep Cases like
Actor, Experiencer, Instrument, and Object
(or Patient) are semantically determined.
Actor =
Animate
Cause
Experiencer = Animate
Effect
Instrument =
Inanimate
Cause
Object =
Inaminate
Effect
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 204-206)
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Normally, the most active deep case is
selected as the subject of the
sentence:
The Actor if there is one
If not, the Instrument if there is one
If there is no Actor or Instrument, the
Object becomes eligible. Therefore
we have the following:
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The boy opened the door
with the key.
The key opened the door.
The door opened.
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Non Actors as Subjects
The cake smelled good.
The cake tasted good.
The painting looked great.
The bell sounded loud.
The fur felt soft.
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MORE TYPICAL SENTENCES
Someone smelled the cake.
Someone tasted the cake.
Someone looked at the painting.
Someone heard the bell.
Someone felt the fur.
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In an Active Sentence the most
active Deep Case is eligible to
become the Subject and the least
active is eligible to become the
Direct Object.
In a Passive Sentence the least
active Deep Case is eligible to
become the Subject and the most
active case becomes an Object of
the Preposition “by.”
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But what about converses like “buy” and
“sell,” or “rent to” and “rent from”?
“John bought the car from Mary” is true if
and only if “Mary sold the car to John”
is true.
“John rented the house to Mary” is true if
and only if “Mary rented the house from
John.”
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TRUTH
It’s cold outside. (empirical)
A king is a ruler. (linguistic)
Life is a box of chocolates (general metaphorical)
Saphire Lake (specific metaphorical)
Happy Birthday! (speech act: wish)
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams [2011] 180-181)
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John Saw Mary. = Mary was seen by John.
John broke the window with a hammer. = The
window broke.
John bought a car from Mary. = Mary sold a car
to John.
John rented the house from Mary. = Mary rented
the house to John.
Half of the students in the class are boys. = Half
of the students in the class are not boys.
(Mey 21)
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John and Mary had a child = Mary
and John had a child.
Getting married and having a child is
better than having a child and
getting married. =/= Having a child
and getting married is better than
getting married and having a child.
(Mey 24)
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I got drunk and crashed my car =/= I
crashed my car and got drunk.
Mary is a nice girl and she takes
swimming lessons. ct. Mary is a
nice girl but she is poor at tennis.
(Mey 24)
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!
Jacob Mey says,
“communication is not a
matter of logic or truth, but
of cooperation.”
(Mey 70)
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!!SNIGLETS
Rich Hall invented the term “sniglet” for
a word that should be in the dictionary,
but isn’t.
Elbonics (el bon’ iks) n. The actions of
two people maneuvering for one
armrest in a movie theater
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• !!!Esso Asso (eso a’so): The person
behind you in a right-hand turn lane
who cuts through the Esso Station
• Pupkus (pup’kus) n. The moist residue
left on a window after a dog presses its
nose to it
• Phonesia (fo nee’ zhuh) n. The affliction
of dialing a phone number and
forgetting whom you were calling just
as they answer
• (Nilsen & Nilsen 177)
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Web Site on Semantics:
The Turbo Encabulator:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o
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References:
Aitchison, Jean. “Bad Birds and Better Birds: Prototype
Theories” (Clark 225-239).
Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton, 1957.
Clark, Virginia, Paul Eschholz, and Alfred Rosa. Language:
Readings in Language and Culture, 6th Edition. New York, NY:
St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. Language
Awareness: Readings for College Writers, Ninth Edition.
Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.
Fillmore, Charles. “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding.”
Quaderni Di Semantica 6 (1985): 222-253.
Francis, W. Nelson. “Word-Making: Some Sources of New Words”
(Clark 154-165).
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Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. “Semantics:
The Meaning of Language.” An Introduction to Language, 9th
Edition. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2011, 179-228.
Gamson, W. A., and K. Lasch. “The Political Culture of Social Welfare
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Yuchtman-Yaar. New York, NY: Academic Press, 1983, 397-415.
Hobin, Suzanne. “The Effect of Conceptual Metaphors on Political and
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Jacobs, Roderick A., and Peter S. Rosenbaum. “What Do Native
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Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories
Reveal about the Mind Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
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Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2nd Edition.
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Nilsen, Alleen Pace. “The Wonder of Words.” Living
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Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of
20th Century American Humor. Westport, CT:
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Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Vocabulary
Plus: High School and Up: A Source-Based Approach.
Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2004.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Vocabulary Plus: K-8: A
Source-Based Approach. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and
Bacon, 2004.
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Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Language Play. Rowley,
MA: Newbury House, 1978.
Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Semantic Theory. Rowley,
MA: Newbury House, 1975.
Pinker, Steven. “The Tower of Babel” (Clark 257-260).
Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. New York, NY:
Reidel/Kluwer, 1985.
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Linguistics, 1977, 27-45.
Strawson, Peter F. “On Referring.” Mind. 59 (1950): 320-344.
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