Semantics
UTTERANCE : is any stretch of talk, by one person, can be used in many situations as well as occasions, it doesn’t need to be right grammartically correct (phát ngôn)
Example : Hey, Oh, Hi, how you do ?,….
SENTENCE : is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It’s just a SENTENCE, can be grammatically
SENSE : is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expression in the language (ý nghĩa).
Example :
I almost/nearly fell over : same sense
I’ll see you on Wednesday/Thursday : different sense
PROPOSITION : a part of utterance (meaning of a sentence)
example :
Mary was given a book by John
John gave Mary a book
→ the same preposition
REFERENCE : indicate something OUTSIDE in the world
4ex : your left ear, your table, my heart,….
Types of references :
Variable referents : indicate many things
Invariable referent : just one thing
Constant referent : indicate the only thing in the world
example : the sun, the god,…
REFERRING EXPRESSIONS : any expression an utterance to refer to something or someone (chỉ định, nhắc đến ai hoặc điều gì)
4ex : He is my classmate
→ He : indicate a boy that speaker know
An OPAQUE CONTEXT : is the same references but different in situation
example : John = the person in the corner (same references)
put them into situations :
Dick believes that John killed Smith
Dick believes that the person in the corner killed Smith
(different meaning)
An EQUATIVE SENTENCE : the identity of the referents of two referring expessions
example : Nguyen Ai Quoc is Ho Chi Minh → Ho Chi Minh is Nguyen Ai Quoc : True
Cairo is a large city → A large city is Cairo : False
PREDICATE : vị ngữ
Predicator : vị ngữ chính, có thể là : noun, adj, verb, …
Agurment : The indicated object in a sentence
Inherently Relational (type of predicator) : relation predicator
example : he is the dean of the college
Predicator : the dean : trưởng khoa
Degree : the level of predicator
example : I love you → the predicator “love” need two agurments to be in used, we call it : a predicate of degree two
A GENERIC SENTENCE : is a sentence relatetive to class of individuals
example :
→ Gentlemen prefer blondes : Yes, because the word Gentlemen generally refer to gentlemen individual in the world
→ Jasper is a twit : No, because although it refers to all Jaspers, not every Jasper being like that
UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE : any utterance as the particular world, real or sort of things as speaker is talking at the time (thế giới diễn ngôn)
Example :
Mother to child “ Santa Claus might bring you a toy telephone” : Fictitious world because the Santa Claus is not real
Mother to child “Don’t touch those berries. They might be poisonous” : Real world
NOTE : Sometimes, it can be partly fictious and real world
DEICTIC : some element of its meaning from the context or situation (speaker, adressee, time, place) (nghĩa chỉ định)
Example :
‘Come here !’ : it means come to the speaker’s place, if the speaker stands at a corner, come to the corner, and the same with other places
‘The astronaut are going back to the earth’ : when speaker says that, Is speaker on the earth ?
NOTE : “go” means go away from speaker
“come” means go toward speaker
→ According to the note, when the speaker use “go”, the astronaut are far away from the speaker, it means the speaker isn’t on the earth, if the speaker is on the earth, he has to use “come”
‘Come over there’ (tới đó đi) : are speaker and the listener nearby or away ?
→ Nearby, at the time the speaker says that, the speaker and listener may stay away from the speaker, but after the utterance, they are going to meet at the same place, so it can be counted as "Nearby”
CONTEXT : is a small subpart of the universe of discourse shared by speaker and hearer (ngữ cảnh nói)
NOTE : Universe of discourse > Context of utterance > Immediate situation of utterance
Example :
There are two sentences, the first one is for telling with his wife, the second with doctor, choose which a or b suitable for the first or second
Gardener to his wife
Gardener to the doctor
a. ‘I’ve just stuck a fork through my foot’
b. ‘I’ve just stuck the fork through my foot’
when the gardener tell to his wife, he refer “the fork”, she would know which fork
when the gardener tell to the doctor, if he refer “the fork”, the doctor wouldn’t know which fork, so “a fork” is suitable in this case
Example 2 :
which of the following two utterances would be more appropriate ?
‘Shall we go into a house now ?’
‘Shall we go into the house now ?’
→ 2 : Example : I and you stand in my garden, it’ starts raining, so I and you would go into “my house”
DEFINITENESS : is a feature of a noun phrase selected by a speaker to convery his assumption
Example : That book : definite (you indicate a book around you)
The whale is the largest mammal : indefinite, because this indicates all the whale, not particular one
EXTENSION : indicate thing(s) in the past, present, future
Example : the extension of window is the set of all windows in the universe (past, present, future windows)
PROTOTYPE : is a typical member of its extension (đặc trưng)
Example : gymers : huấn luyện viên gym, but “gymer” is just used in Vietnamese English, it doesn’t occur in other languages, so gymer is a typical set of Vietnames set
SENSE PROPERTIES (nét nghĩa) : it’s not too fucking different compared to SENSE in UNIT 3, but it has 3 things needed to be considered, instead of using true false, we replace it by
Analytic = true (A)
Synthesis = partly true and false (S)
Contradiction = false (C)
STEREOTYPE : a predicate of a list of the typical characteristics of things (Miêu tả)
example : the stereotype of cat is something like : domesticated, white, or grey, black ,….
SYNONYMY : is the relationship between two predicates that have the same sense
example : conceal/hide
PARAPHRASE : is a sentence which expresses the same proposition as another sentence
HYPONYMY (nghĩa bao hàm) : is a sense relation between predicates : is included in the meaning of the other
Note : A lead to B, B lead to A => A paraphase B
NOTE :
synonymy is to paraphrase
hyponymy is to entailment
example : they give me an apple = I received an apple from them : paraphrase
they are growing a cat => they are growing an animal : entailment
BINARY ANTONYMS (trái nghĩa phủ định) : are predicates which com in pairs. If the one predicate is applicable, the other cannot be, there’s no opposite predicate else
Example : Alive >< death, married >< unmarried ( the opposite meaning of alive is death, not anything else)
CONVERSE (trái nghĩa quan hệ) : among a predicate can have some other opposite predicates which have a relationship
Example : Grandparent >< grandchild
GRADABLE (trái nghĩa có mức độ) : btw two opposite predicates can have some other predicates have stronger or lower level
example : good - not good - bad
STRUCTURALLY AMBIGUOUS (ngữ pháp mơ hô): words relate to each other in different ways, even one of the individual words are ambiguous
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY (nghĩa mơ hồ) : ambiguity of a word
REFERENTIALLY VERSATILE : a phrase refer to a wide range of different things or persons
AGENT : người tác động (tác nhân)
AFFECTED : người/vật (thường là vật) chịu sự tác động
INSTRUMENT : a thing or a person (rarely)
LOCATION : is place where the action described by a sentence takes place
BENEFICIARY : a person who benefits from something or someone
THEME : is a thing or person whose location is described
EXPERIENCER : is typically a person who is mentally aware of, perceives or experiences the action or state