a semantics presentation

1. ENGLISH SEMANTICS

2. ASSESSMENT
Test 1: 25%
Test 2: 25%
Final assignment: 50%
A piece of individual writing on an aspect of semantics in around 2,000 words

3. CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Word meaning
III. Sentence meaning
IV. Utterance meaning

4. I. INTRODUCTION
1.1. What is semantics?
- A branch of linguistics which deals with meaning.
- Semantic meaning # Pragmatic meaning
Example:

5. 1.2. Semantics and its aspects
- Word meaning
- Sentence meaning
- Utterance meaning

6. II. WORD MEANING
2.1. Semantic features
a. Definition: “the smallest units of meaning in a word” (Richards et al, 1987:
254)
Example: father = [+human], [+mature], [+parental], [+paternal]
hen = [+animate], [+bird], [+fully grown], [+female]
b. Characteristics
- Some semantic features need not be specifically mentioned.
A redundancy rule: A word that is [+human] is [+animate].
Some redundancy rules infer negative semantic features.

7. - Different words may share the same semantic feature.
Example: doctor, engineer, teacher, physicist, chemist, etc. share the same feature
[+professional].
Mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, etc. = kinship
- The same semantic feature can occur in words of different parts of speech.
Example: [+female] is part of meaning of the noun mother, the verb breast-feed
and the adjective pregnant.
- The semantic properties of words determine what other words they can be
combined with.
Example: My brother is an only child.
The bachelor is pregnant.
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

8. 2.2. Componential analysis
- An approach to the study of meaning which analyses a word into a set of
meaning components or semantic features.
Boy # man ?
2.3. Semantic fields
- “A semantic field is a set of words with identifiable semantic affinities.”
(Finegan, 1994: 164)

9. - There are various ways according to which semantically similar items are
related to one another.
+ Items related by topics
+ Items similar in meaning

10. + Terms describing people whose weight is below normal: thin, bony,
skinny, scrawny, underweight, slender, slim, etc.
+ Items which form pairs of antonyms: long/ short, light/ heavy, alive/
dead, love/ hate, etc.
+ Items which form pairs or trios of synonyms: smart/ bright/
intelligent, conserve/ preserve/ safeguard, fix/ repair/ mend, etc.

11. + Items grouped as an activity or a process:

12. + Items classified according to:

13. 2.4. Lexical gaps

15. 2.5. Referent, reference and sense
- A referent is an object or an entity in the real world or in the world of your
imagination.
Example: your school, your classmates, your teacher, etc.
- The reference of a word or a linguistic expression is the relationship
between that word or expression and the thing (book), the action (read),
the event (graduate from university), the quality (sincerity), etc. it refers to.
Example:

16. - The sense of a word or a linguistic expression shows the internal
relationship between that word or expression and others in the vocabulary
of a language.

18. 2.6. Variable reference, constant reference and co-reference
- When the same linguistic expression refers to different referents, it has
variable reference.
Example:

19. - When one linguistic expression refers to one and the same referent, it has
constant reference: the sun, the moon, the United Nations, etc.
- When two or more linguistic expressions share the same referent, they
have co-reference.

20. 2.7. Denotation and connotation
- Denotation: central or referential meaning of the word found in the
dictionary.
- Connotation: additional meaning that the word has beyond its denotative
meaning. It shows people’s emotions and or attitudes towards what the word
refers to.
- Synonyms, words that have the same basic meaning, do not always have
the same emotional meaning.
Example: skinny and slender; frugal and stingy

23. 2.8. Multiple senses of lexical items
- Primary meaning and secondary meaning
+ Primary meaning: first meaning or usage
+ Secondary meaning: the meanings besides its primary meaning
- Literal meaning and figurative meaning
+ Literal meaning: basic or usual meaning of a word
+ Figurative meaning: meaning creates vivid mental images to readers.

24. 2.9. Figures of speech
- Definition: a word or phrase which is used for special effect, and which
doea not have its usual or literal meaning. (Richards et al, 1987: 105)
- Simile and metaphor
- Personification
- Metonymy
- Synecdoche
- Hyperbole
- Litotes
- Irony
- Euphemism

25. - Onomatopoeia
- Hyponymy
- Synonymy
- Antonymy
- Homonymy
- Polysemy

26. III. SENTENCE MEANING
1. Definition of sentence meaning
- Sentence meaning is what a sentence means, regardless of the context and
situation in which it may be used.
2. Proposition, utterance and sentence
- A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative
sentence which describes some state of affairs.

29. - Distinction between a proposition and a sentence
- Distinction between an utterance and a sentence
- Distinction between a proposition, a sentence and an utterance

30. 3. Sentence types (classified according to truth value)
- An analytical sentence is one that is necessarily TRUE, as a result of the
senses of the words in it.
- A contradictory sentence is a sentence that is necessarily FALSE, as a result
of the senses of the words in it.

31. - A synthetic sentence is one which is NOT analytic, but may be either
true or false, depending on the way the world is.

33. 4. Paraphrase
- A paraphrase is the relationship between a word and a combination
of other words with the same meaning.

34. - Possible ways to paraphrase a sentence:
+ Change individual words by using synonyms or relational antonyms

35. + Change sentence structure
+ Change both individual words and sentence structure

36. 5. Entailment
- Entailment is a relationship that applies between two sentences when
the truth of one implies the truth of the other because of the meaning
of the words involved.

37. - Characteristics:
+ Entailment applies cumulatively. If X entails Y and Y entails Z, then X
entails Z.

38. + Hyponymy involves entailment.
Example: To say This is a tulip. Entails This is a flower.
This is scarlet. Entails This is red.
- Types of entailment:
+ One- way entailment: hyponymic relations between words

39. + Two- way entailment
Mutual since the truth of either sentence guarantees the truth of the other.

40. UTTERANCE MEANING

41. 1. Presupposition
- Definition: Presupposition is “what a speaker or writer assumes that
the receiver of the message already knows” (Richards et al, 1987).
Example: John doesn’t write poems anymore.
Would you like another beer?
Presuppositions are inferences about what is assumed to be true in the
utterance rather than directly asserted to be true.
Example: Faye has looked for the keys.
Don’t sit on Annie’s sofa presupposes Annie has a sofa.

42. - Presuppositions can be used to communicate information indirectly.
Example: My brother is rich.
2. Characteristics
- The presupposition of an utterance remains the same under its NEGATION.
(1) a-b both presuppose that John once smoked cigarettes.

44. - The presupposition of an utterance remains the same under its
INTERROGATION.

45. - The presupposition of an utterance may be cancelled under its
EXTENSION.

46. 3. Classification
- The existential presupposition

50. - The factive presuppostion

51. - The non- factive presupposition

52. - The lexical presupposition

53. - The structural presupposition

55. - The counter- factual presupposition

58. 2. Conversational implicature
- Definition: conversational implicature promises to bridge “the gap between
what is literally said and what is conveyed”.

59. - Characteristics:
+ People may draw somewhat different conversational implicature from a
certain utterance.

60. - Conversational implicature can be suspended or denied.

61. - Grice’s theory of conversational implicature
Based on the cooperative principle and its four maxims of quality, quantity,
relevance, and manner.

64. Classification
 The observation of conversational maxims:

66.  Violation of conversational maxims:

69. - Distinction between presupposition and conversational implicature

74. Conventional implicature

76. Speech act

77. Characteristics

80. • Classification

89. Distinction between direct and indirect speech acts

92. Distinction between locution, illocution and perlocution

94. Felicity conditions

95. Performatives and Contrastives

97. Politeness, co- operation and indirectness
- The principle of politeness

98. Politeness and co- operation

99. Politeness and indirectness

100. Deixis