Meaning and Lexical Semantics

• linguistic study of the meaning of individual words 
  • syntax-semantics interface
  • lexical semantics (word level meaning)
• Ferdinand de Saussure
  • sign: complex understanding of the physical form of a word in relationship to what the word means
  • signified ➝ concept / meaning component of a word
  • signifier ➝ phonetic / physical component of a word
  • clarifies that concepts (cognition) are distinct from labels (words)
    • relationship between words and meaning is significant but arbitrary
• there’s a relationship between a word’s sense and its reference to something in the outside world
  • semiotic triangle
• reference is the language by which language hooks onto the world
  • the speaker can estimate what the speaker knows and assumes that they share a common world of discourse
• sense: one meaning of a sign in a particular context
• languages are a series of interrelated signs but every language is different
• Lexical Semantics: meaning of words in isolation
  • languages organize meanings systematically
  • lexicon / network / semantic map
  • when a word is activated, similar words are also activated
  • prototype theory: when speakers of a language acquire vocabulary for the first time, they adopt a mental prototype
  • prototype is best bird. farthest from prototype is bad bird
  • accounts for overgeneralization with children’s acquisition. prototypes sharpen with time
  • prototypes play an important role in default reasoning
  • assumptions will replace specific actual info in speech
• Meaning Relationships
  • some of the lexical fields are closed sets
  • days of the week / months ➝ also has associated cyclical order
  • lexical fields can be small or large
  • thick and thin
  • girl and boy, child and adult, adult and man/woman
  • partial synonyms: meaning components are shared between lexical items, but they’re not the same 
  • have different registers
  • antonyms: two expressions with opposing meanings
  • complementary: states of being
    • married/single, dead/alive, hit/miss
  • gradable: non-directional continuum of meaning 
    • wet~dry (soaking, wet, damp, dry)
    • hot~cold
  • reverse: directional movement along the continuum
    • ascend ~ descend. either going up or going down. have to stop going up to start going down
  • converse: opposite meaning relationships based on the pov of the speaker / listener
    • i’m worker, you're boss (employee ~ employer
    • X lends Z to Y - Y borrows Z from X
  • directional opposites: matter of perspective from a single person’s perspective
    • my right or your right?
  • taxonomic levels: speakers prefer to categorize reality at a basic level
    • hyponymy: relationship of an item and its subsets. 
    • dog. hyponyms: weiner, pug, doodle
    • weiner. hypernym: dog
    • hypernym is the basic word for the subsets
    • taxonomic sisterhood: relationship of words at the same level (weiner, pug, doodle, golden = sisters)
• Other Relations
  • meronymic relations: conditioned by experience
  • ex: birds: feathers, beak, talon, wings
  • gender: lion ~ lioness, goose ~ gander
  • age: dog ~ puppy, kid ~ toddler ~ baby
  • derivation

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