Semantics Notes

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in language and is a wide subject within the general study of language. Understanding semantics is essential for:

  • Studying language acquisition and how language users acquire a sense of meaning as speakers, writers, listeners, and readers.
  • Studying language change over time (e.g., how meanings change, like the word "gay").

Language in Context

Words do not exist in isolation, and neither does language. Meaning can change as we move up the hierarchy from speech sounds to full discourse. Semantics includes how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured, simplified, negotiated, and contradicted. The social context of understanding language is known as pragmatics.

Concepts in Semantics

Key concepts include:

  • Symbol and referent
  • Words and lexemes
  • Denotation, connotation, and implication
  • Pragmatics
  • Ambiguity
  • Metaphor, simile, and symbolism
  • Semantic fields

Etymology of Semantics

The word "semantics" comes from the Greek word "semantikos," meaning "significant/significance." In linguistics, semantics studies meaning derived from syntactic levels: words -> phrases -> sentences, and sometimes larger units of discourse.

What is Meaning?

Philosophers have pondered the meaning of meaning for thousands of years. All speakers/users of a language can understand what is said and produce meaningful words and messages.

What do we mean by meaning?

Semantics is the scientific study of the meaning of signs. Examples of "meaning" in linguistics:

  • a) Giving you these flowers means that I love you.
  • b) Those mountains ahead mean trouble.
  • c) He said that he would join us, but he didn't mean it.
  • d) When I say X, I mean Y.
  • e) Gatte means spouse.

Linguistic Meaning

Examples:

  • a) Smoke means fire.
  • b) Feuer means fire.

Linguistic meaning:

  • Relates linguistic signs to non-linguistic entities.
  • Is conventionalized.
  • Is arbitrary.

Sense

Sense is the meaning we attach to words or phrases – the idea that pops into our head when we hear or read a word. It's the "picture" a word paints in your mind. It's how we understand what a word means, even if we can’t point to the actual thing it refers to. Different words can give us different mental images, even if they're talking about the same thing. For example, "dog" might make you think of a furry animal that barks, while "canine" might make you think of something more scientific or formal, even though they both mean dog.

Reference

Reference is about pointing to something real in the world. It's when a word or phrase is used to identify a specific thing, person, or idea. It's like using a word as a finger to point at something, connecting language to actual stuff in the world. When we use a word to refer to something, we’re linking that word to a real object or concept. For example, "my car" refers to a specific vehicle that you own, "the President" refers to a particular person in that role, and "the Eiffel Tower" refers to that famous structure in Paris.

Referential Semantics

  • Lexeme - Object
    • Table: inanimate object, four legs, flat top, etc.
    • Jumping: action, springing off the ground
  • Word naming
  • Abstract - love (concept difficult to define)
  • Extinct - Relation to something that doesn't exist anymore (Dodo)
  • Opaque - Words like “know” or “have” which have a definite meaning but are different in different contexts

Defining Meaning

When we try to define the meaning of a word, we do so by using other words. For example, to explain "table," we use words like "four," "legs," and "wood," which can only be explained using other words. The word "mean" is used in different ways:

  • "I mean to do this" expresses intention.
  • "The red signal means stop" indicates what the red signal signifies.

Since all language consists of signs, every word is a sign indicating something, usually other signs.

Exemplar Theory

Exemplar theory is a proposal concerning the way humans categorize objects and ideas in psychology. It argues that individuals make category judgments by comparing new stimuli with instances already stored in memory (the "exemplar"). The new stimulus is assigned to a category based on the greatest number of similarities it holds with exemplars in that category.

Prototype Theory

Prototype theory is a theory of categorization in cognitive linguistics. There is a graded degree of belonging to a conceptual category, and some members are more central than others. Questions to consider include:

  • Are there essential characteristics of a bird?
  • Are there essential characteristics of a tree?
  • Are there any features that overlap?

Meaning of Meaning

Ogden and Richards list some definitions of "meaning."

Meaning can be any of the following:

  1. An intrinsic property of some thing.
  2. Other words related to that word in a dictionary.
  3. The connotations of a word.
  4. The thing to which the speaker of that word refers.
  5. The thing to which the speaker of that word should refer.
  6. The thing to which the speaker of that word believes himself to be referring.
  7. The thing to which the hearer of that word believes is being referred to.

Semiotic Triangle

The Semiotic Triangle illustrates the relationship between thought or reference, symbol, and referent.

  • THOUGHT or REFERENCE (CONCEPT)
  • SYMBOL (WORD)
  • REFERENT (THING)

The relationships include:

  • Symbolises (a causal relation)
  • Refers to (other causal relations)
  • Stands for (an imputed relation)

Dictionaries and Definitions

Points to consider:

  • How do we define words?
  • Different languages can have extra meanings.
  • Words can become narrower or wider over time.
  • Words can have several meanings.
  • Words can change meaning over time.
  • Euphemisms.

Lexical Semantics

Lexical relations are the ways in which words are related to each other in a language and are used to analyze the meanings of words based on their relationships with one another. Key relations include:

  • Synonymy: relatedness of meaning – two words which are similar but different extensions.
  • Antonymy: graded differences or ungraded differences (opposites).
  • Hyponymy: categories within categories (superordinate term and subordinate term).

Putting them together

How would we define some of these words?

  • Exceptions?
  • Edge cases?
  • Prototypes?
  • What do we think of?
    • Phone
    • Scotsman
    • Train
  • What about function words?
    • Does this work for “is”, “the”, “and”?

Predicate Calculus

Formal Semantics

  • Quantifies meaning in sentences.
  • By finding the true value.
  • Syllogisms - using quantifiers.
  • Existential and Universal quantifiers.

Example: All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is Mortal.

Other Conceptual Theories

  1. Word Fields: words acquire their meaning through their relationships to other words within the same word-field (e.g., sports words).
  2. Componential Analysis: The analysis of words through structured sets of semantic features, given as "present", "absent", or "indifferent" with reference to feature (e.g., man = [+ MALE], [+ MATURE]; woman = [– MALE], [+ MATURE]; boy = [+ MALE], [– MATURE]; girl = [– MALE] [– MATURE]; child = [+/- MALE] [– MATURE]).
  3. Semantic Networks: a knowledge structure that depicts how concepts are related to one another and illustrates how they interconnect.
  4. Prototype Theory: Find the exemplar of the group of objects.
  5. Meaning Postulates: a way of stipulating a relationship between the meanings of two or more words (e.g., paraphrase = "if and only if", entailment = "if", binary antonymy = "not" (Boolean operators)).

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of language in social context. It considers:

  • What can the phrase "it's cold in here" imply if the window is open?
  • What about "oh that's great!" said using different prosody?
  • How about "are you sure?"

Do we always take meaning from the words, or are there other factors involved? The relationship between language and the humans who use it, and specifically how their beliefs and intentions affect both the form and the interpretation of their utterances.

Key Ideas in Pragmatics

  • Contextual Meaning: Pragmatics explores how context, such as the physical setting, cultural norms, and preceding dialogue, affects the interpretation of language.

    • e.g., "Can you pass the salt?" is understood pragmatically as a polite request rather than a literal question about ability.

  • Implied Meaning: It investigates conversational implicatures, where speakers imply meanings that listeners infer based on shared knowledge and assumptions.

    • e.g., if someone says, "I had football practice" in response to "Did you do your homework?", pragmatics helps infer that practice prevented homework completion.

Key Ideas in Pragmatics

  • Speech Acts: Pragmatics studies how language performs actions, such as making promises, giving orders, or apologizing.

    • For example, saying "I promise to help" commits the speaker to a future action.

  • Negotiation of Meaning: It considers how speakers and listeners collaboratively construct meaning during interactions, often going beyond literal interpretations to understand intentions and presuppositions.

Pragmatics

  • Maxims of Conversation: Grice's maxims for conversation are conventions of speech such as the maxim of quantity that states a speaker should be as informative as is required and neither more nor less.
  • Performative Sentences: In these types of sentences, the speaker is the subject who, by uttering the sentence, is accomplishing some additional action, such as daring, resigning, or nominating.
  • Presuppositions: These are implicit assumptions required to make a sentence meaningful. However, these can be misleading (e.g., do you still beat your wife?).
  • Speech Acts: A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal.

Speech Acts

  • Locutionary Acts: These involve the basic act of saying something. It refers to the actual utterance and its literal meaning, including the words, grammar, and reference.

    • E.g., saying "It's raining" is a locutionary act that conveys the statement about rain.

  • Illocutionary Acts: These are about the speaker's intention behind the utterance. It involves what the speaker aims to achieve by saying something, such as making a request, giving a command, or making a promise.

    • E.g., saying "It's raining" could be intended as a warning to take an umbrella.

Speech Acts

  • Perlocutionary Acts: These focus on the effect of the utterance on the listener. It refers to how the listener reacts or is influenced by what is said.

    • E.g., feeling persuaded, scared, or motivated to act. If "It's raining" causes someone to close a window, that reaction is a perlocutionary act.

  • Metalocutionary Acts: These address the structure and function of discourse itself rather than advancing its content. They include acts like quoting someone else's speech or commenting on how something was said (e.g., emphasizing certain words for clarification). These acts focus on how language is used within communication rather than its substantive meaning.

Example

  • Speech acts where something is achieved pragmatically, but it is not in the sentence semantics.
  • What speech acts could these imply?
    • "You alright?"
    • "How's it going?"
    • "Is anyone going to eat that biscuit?"
    • "I'm very busy at the moment?"