Chapter5-2Semantics（II）

Chapter Five Semantics (II)

Sense relations between sentences ?(1) X is synonymous with Y

(2) X is inconsistent with Y (3) X entails Y (4) X presupposes Y (5) X is a contradiction

(6) X is semantically anomalous More examples

X: He was a bachelor all his life. Y: He never got married all his life. X: The boy killed the cat. Y: The cat was killed by the boy. (2) X is inconsistent with Y X: He is single. Y: He has a wife.

X: This is my first visit to Beijing. Y: I have been to Beijing twice.

In terms of truth condition, if X is true, Y is necessarily true; if X is false, Y may be true or false. If Y is true, X may be true or false; If Y is false, X is false.

More examples

X: John married a blond heiress. Y: John married a blond. X: Mary has been to Beijing. Y: Mary has been to China.

Entailment is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, then the meaning of X is included in Y.

If X is true, Y is necessarily true; if X is false, Y may be true or false.

(4) X presupposes Y X: His bike needs repairing. Y: He has a bike.

Paul has given up smoking. Paul once smoked. Examples

*My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor. *The orphan’s parents are pretty well-off.

(6) X is semantically anomalous ?Please look at the following examples:

*The man is pregnant. *The table has bad intentions.

*Sincerity shakes hands with the black apple. 5.5 Analysis of meaning 5.5.1 Componential analysis 5.5.2 Predication analysis

The approach is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. ?For example,

Man: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE] Boy: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, +MALE] Woman: [+HUMAN, +ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE] Girl: [+HUMAN, -ADULT, +ANIMATE, -MALE]

This way is similar to the analysis of ________ in terms of __________ in chapter two.

Discussion

What feature distinguishes U-boat from submarine ? Open Questions

In what way is componential analysis similar to the analysis of phonemes into distinctive features?

What are the possible applications of componential analysis? 1) a. similar belief: the meaning of a word consists of a number of distinctive meaning features while a phoneme is a collection of distinctive sound features;

b. similar practice: breaking down the word meaning/ phoneme into different features, which are considered to distinguish word meanings or sounds.

c. similar method: plus and minus signs are used to indicate the presence or absence of a certain feature;

d. similar function: reveal the relationships between different yet related words or phonemes

Summary:

1) The meaning of a sentence is not to be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its component words, e.g “The dog bites the man” is semantically different from “The man bites the dog” though their components are exactly the same.

2) There are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning, e.g.

*Green clouds are sleeping furiously. *Sincerity shook hands with the black apple.

Whether a sentence is semantically meaningful is governed by rules called selectional restrictions.

1) Predication: definition

A sentence, composed of a subject and predicate, is a basic unit for grammatical relation. The basic unit for meaning analysis is called predication, which is the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.

Predication—the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.

A predication consists of argument(s) and predicate.

An argument is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the nominal elements in a

sentence.

A predicate is something said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.

Leaving aside differences of tense and pronouns, these sentences have a common content which can be expressed in a kind of Pidgin English:” Children eat dinner”. It is this type of structure which are called predication.

3) Types of Predication

According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, we may classify the predications into the following types:

One-place predication Two-place predication Three-place predication No-place predication: It is hot. Examples

I gave him a book. (three-place predication): I, HIM, BOOK (GIVE)

Children like sweets.( two-place predication)：CHILDREN, SWEET(LIKE)

John is ill. (one-place predication)：JOHN(BE ILL) It is hot. (no-place predication)：(BE HOT) Difficult points No-place predication? Exercises:

Try to analyze the following sentences in terms of predication analysis

Tom smokes. The tree grows well. The kids like apples. I sent him a letter. Key

Tom smokes.→ TOM (SMOKE) The tree grows well.→ TREE (GROW)

The kids like apples.→ KIDS, APPLE (LIKE) I sent him a letter.→ I , HIM, LETTER (SEND)

Different opinions concerning types of predications Different people hold different opinions about the existence of third-place predications.

Discussion

In what way arguments and predicates are comparable? And of these two, which is the major elements?

Revision Exercises

I. Decide whether the following statements true or false: ?Among the approaches to the study of meaning, the naming theory is better than others.

“Kid” and “child” are stylistic synonyms.?“Furniture” is the superordinate of “bed”.

4. Antonyms contrast each other only on a single dimension, such as “live” and “die”.

5. “Cold” and “hot” are complementary antonyms. 6. In English, there is no argument in some sentences. 7. The sentence “Tom, smoke!” and “Tom smokes” have the

same semantic predication.

8. The sentences that contain the same words are same in meaning.

9. The meaning of a word is the combination of all its elements, and so is the sentence.

10. The meaning of the word we often used is the primary meaning.

Revision Exercises

II. Fill in each blank with one word beginning with the letter given:

Autumn and fall are two d_____ synonyms.

The words of English are classified into n_____ and l_____ words.

“Father” and “son” are r______ o______. Revision Exercises

4. In the sentences of entailment, if X is true, Y is ______. 5. S_____ is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.

6. R_____ means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world.

Revision Exercises

7. The same one word may have more than one meaning, this is what we call p_____, and such a word is called

p______ word.

8. H_____ refers to the sense relation between a more general, more conclusive word an a more specific word. 9. In semantic analysis of a sentence, the basic unit is called p_____.

Revision Exercises III. Multiple choice:

1.”Lorry”and “truck” are _____. dialectal synonyms B. stylistic synonyms

C. synonyms that differ in their emotive meaning