Semantics and pragmatics
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Definitions: semantics and pragmatics
Sense and reference
Lexical semantics: Fundamental semantic
relations
Compositionality
Componential analysis
Thematic roles
Tense and Modality
Figurative uses of language
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Semantics – the study of meaning in language
Pragmatics – studies how speakers integrate
contextual and non-linguistic knowledge in
the communication of meaning
Semantics – concerned with language as a
system
Pragmatics – concerned with how speakers
use language
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Focuses on the literal meanings of words,
phrases and sentences;
concerned with how grammatical processes
build complex meanings out of simpler ones
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To understand semantic meaning, we have to
bring together 3 main components:
1) the context in which a sentence is used,
2) the meanings of the words in the
sentence,
3) the morphological and syntactic structure
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Sense – ‘meaning’ without reference to the
specific real object in the world (e.g. house
‘dwelling’)
Reference is ‘meaning’ tied to a specific
instance (e.g. ‘the red house’ and ‘the house
at the end of the block’ do not have the same
meaning in terms of sense, but they could
refer to the same house)
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Reference: the act of using language to
identify or pick out individuals
Sense: the linguistic knowledge which allows
the act of reference
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Sense: President of the USA
Reference (2017): Trump
Reference: I ate a banana for breakfast this
morning.
Sense: A banana is a type of fruit.
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Any banana is a kind of fruit – denotation; the
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I’m looking for a cat – either a particular cat
class of entities to which an expression may
apply is its extension.
or looking to select from a set of cats.
Listeners would have to infer which was
meant in a particular context.
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Denotation – the relationship between words
and the world that makes reference possible
The person or thing identified by uttering a
noun phrase or name is called the ‘referent’
The class of entities to which an expression
may be applied is called its ‘extension’
Sentences are abstractons from utterances
While sentences have meaning, their full
interpretation only emerges when they are
uttered in context
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Some argue that proper names have only
reference and no sense. Do you agree?
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It is possible that proper nouns have
reference but no sense, like Spain.
There are also noun phrases that have sense
but no reference, e.g. The present king of
France is bald.
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1. A seagull just stole my sandwich.
2. I don’t like living in a city.
3. No politician is completely honest.
4. The dugong doesn’t look anything like a
mermaid.
5. A police spokesman said they are looking
for a one-armed man.
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The study of word meaning
The basic aims:
1) to represent the meaning of each word in
the language
2) to show how the meanings of words in a
language are interrelated
Morphemes – the minimal units of meaning
which make up words and larger units
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Our lexicon – a collection of lexemes with
1) a representation of its meaning and
2) representation of its meaning relations
with other lexemes
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The most fundamental lexical relations
describe how words, phrases, and sentences
relate to each other and to the world
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Words which are pronounced ad possibly
spelled in the same way (homographs), but
with different meanings, e.g. to, too, two; bat
(animal), bat (stick)
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A) Different category, same pronunciation, same
spelling (bear) A and B: homonyms
B) same category, same pronunciation, different
spelling (pair and pear)
C) different category, same pronunciation,
different spelling, (to and two): homophones
D) same category, different pronunciation, same
spelling (row ‘line’ and row ‘quarrel):
homographs
E) different category, differet pronunciation,
same spelling (v. lead and noun lead (denoting
the metal)
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A word is polysemous if it has more than one
closely related meaning (e.g. wood ‘a piece of
a tree’, ‘a group of trees’)
In a dictionary, polysemous words are often
listed as one head word, with several different
senses (e.g. bear: 2 entries: 1.a ‘to move
while holding up and supporting’; 2. ‘to give
birth to’, 3. ‘to suport the weight of’; 1.b ‘to
hold in the mind’; bear n. ‘a big shaggy
animal’
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It is often difficult to distinguish vagueness
from polysemy
Polysemous words have multiple different,
but related, meanings; vagueness, in
contrast, describes a single general meaning
which becomes more specific in a particular
context of use
Since it involves more than one meaning,
polysemy is a kind of ambiguity, but
vagueness is not
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Synonymous words have (more or less) the
same meaning: (answer – reply)
Some linguists argue that no two words have
exactly the same meaning, as they may differ
in connotation (e.g. slender, slim, skinny) or
in their typical contexts of use (e.g. buy,
purchase)
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Note down the synonyms of your classmates.
For each decide whether they are exact
synonyms, i.e. whether they can easily be
substituted for each other
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Antonyms – words that are closely related;
they have properties in common, such as
grammatical class and lexical field, but they
oppose each other in one aspect of meaning
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1. complementary when the presence of one
implies the absence of the other, e.g.
alive/dead, present/absent
2. gradable: e.g. rich/poor, happy/sad,
short/long
3. relational opposites: the existence of one
implies the existence of its converse, e.g.
buyer/seller, husband/wife.
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A relation of inclusion between more specific
and less specific terms: poodle, boxer,
bulldog, schnauzer – hyponyms of dog
(hyperonym)
These relations can have several levels, so
dog is a hyponym of a mammal, which is a
hyponym of animal
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These networks – conceptual and cultural
rather than natural since words can be in
several networks (dog is a hyponym of pet,
where its co-hyponyms may be cat, turtle,
hamster, etc.)
These hierarchical networks in the lexicon of
a language – of great interest in anthropology
and psychology since they reflect the
conceptual classifications of the world
embedded in particular languages
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For each of the categories below, provide
examples:
1. synonymy
2. polysemy
3. homonymy
4. hyponymy
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Lexical semantics – the study of word
meaning and meaninng relations between
words in the vocabulary
The store of knowledge about a language’s
words – the ‘lexicon’
The semantic unit at word level – the ‘lexeme’
Meaning relations in the lexicon: homonymy,
polysemy, antonymy, hyponymy
The meaning of a word is usually equated
with a concept, with no common agreement
about how this is structured
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Grammar (morphology and syntax) generates
new words, phrases and sentences
This gives us a potentially infinite number of
words, phrases and sentences that can have
meaning
In order to explain how an infinite number of
pieces of language can be meaningful, and
how we, as language users, can figure out the
meanings of new ones, semanticists apply the
Principle of Compositionality
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The semantic meaning of any unit of
language is determined by the semantic
meanings of its parts along with the way they
are put together
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Mary liked you – the meaning is determined
by
(a) the meanings of the individual morphemes
that make it up (Mary, like, “past”, you)
B) the morphological and syntactic structures
of the sentence
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Compositional semantics (or formal
semantics) – concerned how the Principle of
Compositionality applies
Formal semanticists study the variety of
grammatical patterns which occur in
individual languages and across the
languages of the world
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The semantic information contained in the
lexicon is represented in terms of semantic
features, which are arrived at through
componential analysis
Breaks down the lexical item into its smaller
semantic components, which are then listed
through feature notation, which includes the
semantic and phonological features
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The entry for ‘boy’ has the syntactic features:
(+Noun), (+Count), (+Common) and it
consists of semantic features such as (+)
human, which subsumes other semantic
features such as (+Animate)
Boy +HUMAN –ADULT +MALE
Girl +HUMAN –ADULT –MALE
Man +HUMAN + ADULT +MALE
Woman +HUMAN +ADULT -MALE
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The categorial rules generate a string of slots
to be filled with items from the lexicon via
lexical insertion rules.
Each slot - associated with a set of features
which indicate which kind of item can be
filled in
By combining these features with those
features in the lexicon, the lexical insertion
rules generate such sentences as The boy
laughed, but not such sentences as The chalk
lauged.
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Speakers combine words into phrases and
sentences, and sentences allow us to describe
the world in different ways
Construal - the particular view-point that a
speaker chooses when describing something
Every language offers its speakers a range of
ways to classify situations and events, and to
describe the roles of the people and objects
involved
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Situations: static and dynamic
Static situations – relating individuals to
locations, or attributing them qualities (The
book is in the library; She’s a doctor)
Dynamic situations – identification of change;
can be viewed as processes or events, or
actions
States – described by adjectives
Dynamic situations – described by verbs
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Distinctions of situation types involve
different ways of viewing time
The linguistic aspects: aspect and tense
Aspect allows different views of how a
situation is distributed over time, while tense
allows the positioning of situations in time
relative to some reference point
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Lexical and grammatical
Lexical apect: situation type (durative –
situations spread over time, and punctual,
which describes sth taking place
instantaneously
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When sentences are constructed, lexical
aspect combines with grammatical aspect
Grammatical aspect – marked by morphology
and the use of specific auxiliaries
(perfective/imperfective: a) John built a
house, b) John was building a house)
Aspect- inextricably linked to tense
Tense – anchored relative to the current act
of speaking or writing
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Epistemic modals involve reference to facts
that we know (I must have left my keys in the
car)
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Deontic modals (Guests should leave their
keys in the car);
Modals which are about rules, right and
wrong, obligations etc. are known as deontic
modals
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Possible worlds help explain the semantics of
modals because they provide a way of talking
about alternative possibilities
The ability to imagine alternative ways that
the world could be – alternative possible
worlds – an essential part of the human
capacity to use language
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Another range of semantic options allows the
speaker to characterize the roles of various
entities in a situation
There are certain semantic roles available to a
speaker, which can be associated with verbs
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Agent: initiator of action, capable of acting
with volition
Patient: entity undergoing the effect of some
action, typically undergoing a change of state
Theme: the entity which is moved by an
action, or whose location is described
Experiencer: an entity aware of the action or
state described by the predicate but not in
control of it
Beneficiary: the entity benefiting from an
action
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Instrument: the means by which an agent
causes sth to come about
Location: the place in which sth is situated or
takes place
Goal: the entity towards which sth moves
Source: the entity from which sth moves
Stimulus: the entity causing an effect in the
experiencer
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Semantic roles which noun phrases play in
relationship to the verb of the clause
Verb has the central role in the clause, and it
assigns roles to participants depending on
the type of the predicate (e.g.The boy kicked
the ball)
The boy – doer of the action: agent
The ball – the receiver of the action and is
changed by it: the theme
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A rock star (agent) threw the television
(theme) from the window (source)
The takeoff (stimulus) frightened the
passangers (experiencer)
The conspirators (agent) assasinated Julius
Caesar (patient) with daggers (instrument)
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Reason for identifying these roles – the
insight they provide into the lexical semantics
of verbs
Representing semantic roles can help capture
facts about verb classes and argument
structure possibilities
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A) Kill: agent, patient, instrument
Doctors killed the virus with a mystery drug.
A mystery drug killed the virus.
B) assasinate: agent, patient, instrument
The anarchist assassinated the emperor with
a bomb.
*The bomb assassinated the emperor.
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Kill: 2 argument structures: one with the
AGENT, the other with the INSTRUMENT
Assassinate only allows the first
This can be viewed both as a semantic
difference between the verbs and as a
difference in the viewpoints on a situation
that they allow to the speaker
Such differences can identify whole
subclasses of verbs
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Synonymy can be recognized at both lexical
and sentence levels
(The parrot is dead/The parrot is no longer
alive)
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Lexical antonymy is mirored at sentence level
by contradiction: ?The door is open and is
shut.
– forces hearers to look for non-literal
meanings
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Describes a relation between two sentences
where the second follows automatically from
the first, without any need for reasoning
(Jane is Patrick’s wife.
Patrick is Jane’s husband)
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Harold has bought a poodle.
Harold has bought a dog.
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Aspect allows speakers to characteize how
situations are profiled over time
Some aspectual distinctions are part of a verb’s
basic meaning (lexical aspect), while others are
marked by verb inflections and auxiliary verbs
(grammatical aspect)
Tense – a semantic system expressed in grammar
that allows speakers to locate situations in time,
relative to the act of utterance
Semantic roles reflect a semantic classification of
how entities in a situation relate to the verb
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Literal and non-literal meaning of utterances:
We’ve seen this movie millions of times.
They are in talks with Seoul again.
Your landlady is a dragon.
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Hyperbole
Metonymy
Metaphor
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Scholars in cognitive semantics claim that
metaphor and metonymy are integral both to
thought and language
Metaphor – a strategy of coping with new or
difficult areas of knowledge by relating them
to existing and more accessible knowledge
Metaphor –the linguistic reflection of
analogical reasoning
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Love – journey
Co-travellers – lovers
The vehicle – the relationship
The journey – phases in the relationship
Physical obstacles – difficulties experienced
Distance covered – progress in relationship
Decisions on routes – choices about what to
do
Destination – goal of relationship
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A structural mapping between domains of
knowledge rather than a single comparison
LOVE IS A JOURNEY
Love – the target domain
Journey – the source domain
The source domain – more concrete and
familiar, allowing a cognitive control over the
target domain
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Time is money
Ideas are commodities
Arguments are buildings
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Important source for the creation of new
words
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A systematic referential strategy that relies on
bodies of knowledge
Speakers select contextually salient
associations to guide hearers to the intended
referent
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Estimation of contextual salience influenced
by some general principles, e.g.
1) a preference for identifying human agents
in description of actions (e.g. Why did George
Bush invade Iraq?)
2) preference for the concrete over the
abstract (e.g. The Minister volunteered to
lend her voice to the campaign)
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Part for whole:
They rely on air power not boots on the
ground.
Whole for part:
The police are at the door
Producer for product
He drives a Hyundai.
Place for institution
The Government has urged Beijing to…
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A means of adding new lexemes to the
lexicon:
1) things named after their materials: an iron
(for clothing), a glass (for drinking),
2) things named after their associated people
or places: diesel, guillotine, sandwich, bikini
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A traditional view of language distinguishes
between literal language, where speakers make
their meaning clear, and non-liteal or figurative
language, where special techniques are used to
appeal to the senses or emotons
Lists of non-literal uses of language, sometimes
called tropes, have been established (metaphor,
metonymy)
Cognitive semanticists reject the traditional
literal/non-literal distinction and view metaphor
and metonymy as linguistic reflections of general
cognitive processes
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Semantics can play a role in the interpretation of
legislation
Case (direct and indirect causation): Raymond
Moskal, who lived in Pennsylvania, would buy
used automobiles, set back the milometers, send
the inaccurate mileage readings to Virginia along
with other required information, and receive new
titles from Virginia with the incorrect mileage. He
would then sell the cars for inflated prices to
unsuspecting customers. He was prosecuted and
convicted for violating a statute that prohibits the
interstate transportation of ‘falsely made’
securities. In short, Moskal got real titles that
contained false information.
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Legislation:
Whoever, with unlawful or fraudulent intent,
transports in interstate or foreign commerce
any falsely made, forged, altered, or
counterfeited securities or tax stamps,
knowing the same to have been falsely made,
forged, altered, or counterfeited…Shall be
fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than ten years, or both. (18 USC &2314
(2001)
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The US Supreme Court agreed that Moskal
could be punished under this law, but Justice
Scalia dissented for two reasons based on the
meaning of the phrase falsely made.
One reason had to do with the historical
meaning of the phrase falsely made in legal
documents and the other had to do with its
ordinary meaning.
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Justice Scalia showed that in the 100 years up
to 1939, when the statute was written, legal
documents had used falsely made to mean
‘forged’ or ‘counterfeit’
Thus, it seems that the meaning of this
crucial phrase had changed, at least within
the world of law, between the time the law
was written and the time it was applied to
Moskal’
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Scalia’s other argument was that the phrase
falsely made, in its ordinary meaning,
includes only things that are counterfeit, not
real documents that are made to contain false
information
Solan concluded that Scalia’s ordinary
meaning argument is wrong
He shows that falsely made typically means
‘made to include false information’ as in
“(When falsely made, this accusation (child
abuse) can be enormously destructive”
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In other words, a falsely made accusation
means that the accusation contained false
information, and Solan assumes by analogy
that a falsely made car title would be a car
title containing false information
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Do you agree with Justice Scalia or the
majority?
How convincing do you find Scalia’s historical
argument?
Do you think that Solan is correct that falsely
made means the same thing when applied to
an accusation and when applied to a
document? Is a falsely made car title a
counterfeit car title or a car title containing
false information?
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What do you think of Solan’s strategy of
looking at a database of newspaper columns
to determine the ordinary meaning of a
controversial phrase?
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Two main branches: lexical semantics and
compositional semantics
Lexical semantics: Meaning of words
Compositional semantics focuses on the
process of building up more complex
meanings from simpler ones