Course in SemanticsDr. Đorđe Vidanović

Introductory Notions and Terms 1 The Term The term “semantics” is a new addition to the English language. It was first

used in its modern sense about one hundred years ago and appeared for the first time in print in 1900, in the book titled Semantics: studies in the science of meaning, by a French author, M. Breal (Michel Jules Alfred Breal). You have to learn the whole name for your exam J

Breal treated semantics in a modern fashion, claiming that it was the science of meaning found in practical everyday language.

The Study of Meaning Thus, semantics is the study of meaning, but “meaning” has many

meanings… What is the meaning of “meaning”? As an illustration, what is the meaning of: Hello Isn’t it hot in here? You are a bright spark, aren’t you? The lion is more dangerous than the unicorn. What’s the problem with… Hello Does it actually mean anything at all? Is the meaning a social gesture rather than a linguistic item? Isn’t it hot in here? What’s purpose of saying the above, is it merely asking a question? Or,

rather, saying actually “I want a window open” J What’s the problem with… You’re a bright spark, aren’t you? This is probably sarcastic, could this be part of meaning? The lion is more dangerous than the unicorn Could this be true? Unicorns don’t exist, but people tell and write stories

about them. So we can see that semantics cannot be only co-extensive with the real world in the literal sense.

“The study of meaning” is too general!

The first definition is way too general, because there are other aspects of meaning.

These other aspects of meaning are based on the types of knowledge related to semantics in language.

There are at least three types or forms of knowledge related to semantics: Types of knowledge and semantics Semantic knowledge: knowing what words mean and how these meanings

combine in sentences to form sentence meanings. Pragmatic knowledge: knowing how sentences are used in different

contexts and how contexts affect the interpretation of the sentence. (Remember “Isn’t it hot in here?”

Types of knowledge related to semantics… World knowledge: it’s the general knowledge about the structure of the

world that language users must have in order to maintain the conversation; this knowledge must include what each language user must know about the other user’s beliefs, goals and expectations.

Semantic knowledge Semantic knowledge deals with what words mean and how these meanings

combine in sentences to form sentence meanings. Sentence meanings: difficult to describe briefly, will be covered later on. Word meanings: words can have several distinct meanings for any

syntactic class (walk, go, buy). Semantic knowledge: examples Bank (noun) Bank of a river Financial institution Bank of lights, switches A flight maneuver Bank (verb) To deposit money To base one’s hopes on something To conduct the business of banking Semantic knowledge: complexities What else would semantic theory have to account for? Some elementary logical relations such as: Entailment: John is writing and drawing Entails => John is writing

* An issue: does No one is writing and drawing entail No one is writing? Semantic knowledge: complexities Synonymy = different sentences have the same meaning: John comes or Mary comes John or Mary comes Ambiguity: The bill is large. John was looking for the glasses Pragmatic knowledge Isn’t it hot in here? can be interpreted in several ways: A.I want a window open. B.I find your lecture very boring and would like to start a new topic. C.I’ve just arrived and haven’t anything more intresting to say J Pragmatic knowledge: more examples The city councillors refused the demonstrators a permit because they feared

violence. The city councillors refused the demonstrators a permit because they feared

violence. A Serbian example J: Vidimo se večeras u osam, kod Lepe Brene (pevačice) Vidimo se večeras u osam, kod Lepe Brene (zgrade poznate pod tim

nadimkom) World Knowledge World knowledge is very often interwoven with pragmatic

knowledge, because both refer to some items that are outside the language system.

The main difference lies in the scientific background of world knowledge, which is something that pragmatic knowledge is not based on. E.g. definition of salt is NaCl. Naturally, speakers/hearers needn’t be aware of world knowledge.

Semantics within Linguistics Semantics is often viewed as a component or level of linguistics on a par

with phonetics, syntax or morphology. Semantics is viewed as being at one ‘end’ and phonetics at the other, with

grammar (morpho-syntax) somewhere in the middle. Language is thus seen as a communication system that has a message on

one end and a set of signs on the other.

Signs and de Saussure Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign

as being composed of: a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents. The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with

the signified. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as 'signification’.

Signifier and Signified Sign was a psychological concept for de Saussure More on Sign A sign must have both a signifier and a signified . You cannot have a totally

meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified . A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified. The same signifier (the word 'open‘, for example) could stand for a different

signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button inside a lift ('push to open door'), instead of a sign on a shop-door (open for business).

The Value of a Sign The Value of a Sign II What Saussure refers to as the 'value' of a sign depends on its relations

with other signs within the system - a sign has no 'absolute' value independent of this context. Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess, noting that the value of each piece depends on its position on the chessboard.

The sign is more than the sum of its parts. Whilst signification - what is signified - clearly depends on the relationship between the two parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign and other signs within the system as a whole.

More on Sign Value As an example of the distinction between signification and value, Saussure

notes that 'The French word mouton may have the same meaning as the English word sheep; but it does not have the same value.

There are various reasons for this, but in particular the fact that the English word for the meat of this animal, as prepared and served for a meal, is not sheep but mutton.

The difference in value between sheep and mouton hinges on the fact that in English there is also another word mutton for the meat, whereas mouton in French covers both'

Charles S. Peirce on Sign Examples Examples from our language: Pozajmiti => lend / borrow (two values) Učiti => teach / learn (two values) which can be modified and corrected on

the morphological level. How do we make up for the lack of values in this particular case?

Semantics and Psychology Charles Morris (Signs, language, behavior 1946), one of the founders of

behaviourism Dog, buzzer, food. Food denoted by the buzzer… if no food, then it is not

denoted but signified. The measurement of meaning Osgood, Suci and Tannebaum (1957) attempted to ‘measure’ the meanings

of words in terms so called ‘semantic space’. This turned out to be nothing else but positive or negative emotional

content. “Father” => Is it happy or sad? Is it hard or soft? Is it slow or fast? The final results tell little about meaning L Semantics and Communication Theory The communication system carries information and the system can be

judged according to the efficiency with which it transmits the information. An efficient system will have minimum redundancy (surplus of information)

and minimum noise. Most languages have a redundancy level of about 50%!

Semantics of NamingVidanovic The Scope of SemanticsUnsatisfactory Views on SemanticsLanguage is a system that has the signifier on one hand and the signified on the other. What is the nature and the relationship of these two entities?

Plato (Cratylus): the signifier is a word and the signified is an object that it ‘stands for’, ‘refers to’ or ‘denotes’.Thus, words are ‘names’ or ‘labels’ for things.Naming is Attractive and ElegantThis is an attractive view.Children surely learn many words by naming.Ostensive definitions are particularly powerful in naming and are successfully retained in the child’s memory.Possible ObjectionsThis process appears to work mainly, if not only, with nouns.Names for nouns are obviously static and ‘solid’, as opposed to adjectives, verbs, prepositions, etc.Nouns are, simply put, ‘names of persons or things’.Only colour adjectival names seem possibleIt may be possible to include colour labels in the general theory of naming, just in the way it is done in colour charts.Thus the only adjectives that might fit perfectly in the theory are colour adjectives, as these could well be regarded as names.Other adjectives (such as ‘early’, ‘true’ or ‘difficult’) and verbs (‘run’) are simply impossible to identify as names.“The boy is running”… Which is which here?Verbs, prepositions and pronouns are ‘unnamable’ as thingsIn the previous sentence is it necessary to distinguish the boy and what he is doing?Does running involve only the feet or are the arms involved in the process too?Is speed relevant?What about abstract verbs such as ‘remember, like, see’?How about prepositions (up, under) or pronouns which may denote different things at different times?Can the theory of naming be applied to nouns only?Some objections:Some nouns, e.g. unicorn, goblin, fairy relate to entities that apparently do not existAs they do not exist they cannot denote objects in the world (however, remember Meinong 1904 ?).May be the way out is to introduce two kinds of world: the real world and the world of fairy tales?

This indicates that words probably cannot be simply names of objects of our experience.Further objectionsSome nouns needn’t refer to imaginary items, but still do not refer to physical objects: love, hate, inspiration, nonsense, freedom, death, envy. If nouns refer to things, and the reply is that ‘love’, ‘hate’ and such are ‘abstract things’, then the definition is faulty as nouns refer to things, not abstract things.An aside: How do we understand each other when talking about such abstract nouns? How do we understand each other’s connotations?More objectionsEven when there are physical objects that exist and which can be identified, the meaning need not be the same as its denotation (the object that the name refers to).The evening star; the morning star do not have the same meaning even though they have the same denotation!Tito = vrhovni komandant, predsednik, ljubičica plava, Josip Broz, maršal And more…Even a restrictive definition of objects which are visible in the world around us shows that these often denote a set of different objects.E.g. chairs. These come in different sizes, shapes and with different backs. What is it that makes a chair a chair, different from a stool or a settee?The dividing lines are often very vague and sometimes they overlap.Objections Galore…When is a hill a hill and not a mountain? When is a stream a ford and when is it a river? In our world objects are not clearly grouped.In contemporary logic such objects are said to belong to so-called fuzzy sets. As such they cannot be assigned a single label (name).This problem has bothered philosophers since Plato.Realism vs. Nominalism Realism: all things called by the same name have some common property – there is some kind of reality that determines what is a chair, a hill, a river, a house. (J bread, wine have the properties of paneity and vineity… hm!)Nominalism: things have nothing in common but the name. (This latter doctrine seems to be at odds with reality: we simply do not use the word ‘chair’ to refer to objects that are completely different…)Words often reflect the interests of the people who speak a language

Words need not reflect the reality of the world around as much as the interests of speakers.Different cultures have different sets of words for objects that have different uses in respective environments.Linguistic relativity or determinism (B.L. Whorf <= E. Sapir)Eskimos have several different words for snow; the Hopi have only one word for ‘flier’ (plane, pilot or insect); the Hopi time systemThe Sapir – Whorf HypothesisNatural ClassesNatural classes are typical products of scientific terminology, and they do exist.If we go to the zoo we’ll be able to see that each creature in the zoo has a particular name and that there can be no fuzzy sets or the realism / nominalism muddle.No creature there can be named in two different ways, not can there be any overlapping.More on natural classesThis holds true of the names of animals, insects, plants and chemical substances Bear in mind that such scientific classifications are not typical of everyday life and that most of the things we see do not fall strictly in one class or another! Ordinary, everyday languageThis type of language differs from scientific language precisely in the fact that its terms are not clearly defined. (Remember “pitfalls of definitions”, last year linguistics course)

Ordinary language does not establish rigorous distinctions between classes.Why couldn’t a ‘fish’ simply mean ‘a creature that swims in the water’ and a ‘bird’ as a ‘vertebrate that flies’?Object word vs. Dictionary wordProposal by Bertrand Russell: object words are learned ostensibly (by pointing at objects), while dictionary words have to be defined in terms of the object words. Thus object words have ostensive definitions. Still, no matter how sensible this is, it can’t be a solution.Ostensive Definitions…

A non-verbal pointing definition:What do you mean by “blackboard eraser”?That

thing there. (pointing)One problem: The action done or the object

pointed to may be misinterpreted.

Another: Limited applicability, since onecannot point to abstract objects such as ‘love’,‘happiness’ or ‘Gross Domestic Product’.

Pitfalls of Ostensive DefinitionsYou have to understand exactly what is being pointed at: if I point to a chair and say ‘this is a chair’ what is it exactly I am pointing at (leg, back, wood, whole object)?Pointing to an object involves the identification of the object, the specifications of the qualities that make it a chair or a stool, etc.This requires a sophisticated understanding and a complete categorisation of language.More on ostensive definitionsLudwig Wittgenstein: “I must already be the master of a language to understand an ostensive definition”.Thus a child is simply unable to handle all the complexities that we have outlined so far.So we come to a point at which we have to take into consideration not only meanings of words, but of sentences as well.In order to do that, we have to clarify the idea of a ‘concept’ first!Family Resemblances & WittgensteinHow do we recognize that two people we know are related to one another? We may see similar height, weight, eye color, hair, nose, mouth, patterns of speech, social or political views, mannerisms, body structure, last names, etc. If we see enough matches we say we've noticed a family resemblance. It is perhaps important to note that this is not always a conscious process ﾑ generally we don't catalog various similarities until we reach a certain threshold, we just intuitively see the resemblances. Wittgenstein suggests that the same is true of language. We are all familiar (i.e. socially) with enough things which are games and enough things which are not games that we can categorize new activities as either games or not. Language Games & WittgensteinLanguage-games Wittgenstein develops this discussion of games into the key notion of a language-game. He introduces the term using simple examples, but intends it to be used for the many ways in which we use language. In one language-game, a word might stand for things to be manipulated, but in another the same word might be used for asking questions or giving orders. "Water!", for example, can be an exclamation, an order, a request, or an answer to a question;

but, which meaning it has depends on the language-game in which it is being used. Thus, the word "water" has no meaning apart from its use within a language-game.The naming theory seems feeble…Relating words and things in a direct manner seems to be a futile attempt as there are so many objections.There is a more sophisticated and, probably, more plausible view.This view relates words and things via a mediator (concepts of the mind).This account is often called the Sign Theory (Saussure) or the Semiotic Triangle (Ogden & Richards)The Sign Theory of de SaussureAs we have seen the linguistic sign consists of a signifier and a signified. More strictly put, these are a sound image and a concept, linked by a psychological ‘associative’ bond.In this way, the noises that we make and the objects of the world we talk about are somehow mirrored by conceptual entities.Semiotic Triangle by Ogden and RichardsSemiotic Triangle ContinuedThe symbol is the linguistic element (word, sentence, etc.)The referent is the object in the world of experience

There is no direct link between the symbol and the referent (between language and the world); the link is via thought or concepts.This theory avoids many problems of naming.What is really the link between ‘symbol’ and ‘concept’?One answer is as follows: the link is psychological, so that when we think of a name we think of a concept and vice versa.However, the problem with this account is that we always have to have an ‘image’ when we talk about an object. However, we simply do not always visualise objects in our mind’s eye as this would hinder communication.Another explanationWe may also think about the link as some kind of ‘permanent association’ stored in the mind (brain).This is a circular definition, says Palmer, because whenever we have a word there will be a concept, and the concept will be the ‘meaning of the word’.The ghost-in-the-machine argument to account for the body that has a mindPalmer is against Mentalism

As Chomsky and Jackendoff (among others) are two of the mentalists that accept a conceptual view of meaning, we should emphasize that Frank Palmer is opposed to such an approach.Chomsky has introduced introspection (intuition) as one of the key terms in language investigation.Palmer criticizes mentalism for several reasons:Palmer’s CriticismThe ghost-in-the-machine objection: nothing is gained by moving meaning closer to the mind (brain).Concepts (if there were any) are inaccessible in principle to anyone but the individual, which is complete subjectivism.Introspection is a procedure that neglects empirical data, recordings and texts. It is only ‘fishing in our tank’ (Firth).Palmer seems to be a Behaviourist in DisguiseAs he is asking for empirical data and rejects any kind of intuitive evidence, it looks like he might easily embrace behaviourism.This is so as empirical data confirm or disconfirm (refute) our observations and sightings.They are all based on stimuli and responses (confirmation or refutation).Palmer: meaning is ‘elusive’Palmer insists that semantics ought to try to understand how it is that words and sentences can ‘mean’ at all, or how they can be meaningful.Words and sentences needn’t really have meaning, in the literal sense of ‘having’. It is something they are or aren’t (meaningful)Palmer uses Wittgenstein’s dictum: “Don’t look for the meaning of a word, look for its use”.Some Dictionary Tricks and Feats[ad. med.L. *paneitas, f. *pane-us of bread, f. pan-is bread.]The quality or condition of being bread, _breadness'._1687 S. Parker Reasons Abrogat. Test (1688) 22 They could not onely separate the Matter and Form, and Accidents of the Bread from one another, but the Paneity or Breadishness it self from them all.1782 Priestley Corrupt. Chr. II. vi. 42 Innocent_acknowledged that_there did remain a certain paneity and vineity.Sense and ReferenceReference deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements (words, sentences) and the non-linguistic world of experience.

Sense relates to the complex system of relationships that exist between the linguistic elements themselves (mostly words). Sense is concerned only with intra-linguistic relations!Can Semantics Deal only with the World?It seems reasonable to think that semantics should deal only with the way we relate our language to our experience (the world).So, reference appears as the only essential element of semantics.But we have already seen problems with object-naming and we have also seen the power of concepts and conceptual thinking.Therefore we must include sense relationships in our account of semantics!Examples of Sense Relations in LanguageThink about the pattern in English that includes the following pairs:Ram / ewe; cow / bull; sow / boarDuck / duckling; pig / piglet; father / sonUncle / nephew; narrow / wide; male / femaleBuy / sellAll of these are related words that represent sense relations in English, and are a part of the semantic structure of the language.Two Kinds of SemanticsThus, using the previous distinction between Sense and Reference, we can say that we have two kinds of semantics:One that deals with semantic structure that is intra-linguistic (sense relations)And the other that deals with meaning in terms of our experience outside language.The Language Model has a Similar DichotomyThis dichotomy between intra-linguistic and extra-linguistic relations is inherent in the language model.Remember the distinction between phonetics (speech sounds) and phonology (sound system of a language)Or, the distinction between sentences and utterances, etc.J.J. Katz and J.A. Fodor’s Structure of Semantic TheoryKatz and Fodor tried to limit semantics and keep it only within the boundaries of sense relations:“The structure of a semantic theory”, Language 39, 1963.They discussed sentences and whether the word or the sentence should be the basic element of semantics.Katz and Fodor, cont’d.

Katz and Fodor thought that a semantic theory must account for the following semantic properties:AmbiguityAnomalyParaphraseManfred Bierwisch on Semantic PropertiesBierwisch argues that a semantic theory must account for a variety of sentences such as the following:A. His typewriter has bad intentions.B. My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.C. John was looking for the glasses.D. The needle is too short.E. The needle is not long enough.F. Many of the students were unable to answer your question.Bierwisch cont’d.G. Only a few students grasped your question.H. How long did Archibald remain in Monte Carlo?I. Archibald remained in Monte Carlo for some time.(A) is an example of anomalous sentence, (B) of a contradictory one, (C) of an ambiguous one, (D-E) illustrate paraphrase…Cont’d…(F-G) one follows from the other, whilst in (H-I) the former implies or presupposes the latter.Bierwisch insisted on defining semantics in terms of truth-relations between sentences, especially on those involving logical and analytical truth (All bachelors are unmarried, All bachelors are miserable, 6.4) Bierwisch: All meaning that does not belong to semantics should be called ‘pragmatics’.Reference Pushed to the Side, Sense Becomes Dominant in Semantics…This has happened because the relationship between words (sentences) and reality (outside world) appears to be almost impossible to grasp and define.What seemed essential in the beginning in our description of meaning – the relationship between language and the world – is ignored or given second place.Scholars have focused on sense because it is much easier to formulate and describe.Sense is Easy to Describe as it has StructureSense has structure and can be accurately and precisely determined.

Bear in mind, though, that sometimes it is not easy to distinguish clearly between sense and reference because categories of our language correspond to real world distinctions. E.g.: ram / ewe, bull / cowPro’s and Con’s for Both ApproachesIn order to deal with meanings in terms of the world, should Semantics try to include the Sum Total of human knowledge? Is it possible anyway?Another problem is the problem of deictics, i.e. indexical experessions such as pronouns, demonstratives, time markers, etc.Deictics present a problem for sense relations as they cannot be paraphrased in any successful way. Sense relations cannot handle deictics.An impasse?• Semantics, Sense and Reference, Part II• Vidanović • Kinds of Meaning• Sense relations appear to be concerned with factual information or with

the so-called ‘propositions’ that can be either true or false.• The old Aristotelian concept of a sentence was that:

S = (M) + Por, a sentence contains an optional modality plus a proposition

• Interlude: terms: utterances, sentences and propositions• Before we go on, yet another word of caution about the terms that will be

used in the course. An utterance is created by speaking (or, even, writing) a chunk of language. For example “If I say Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, this is one utterance. If another person in the same room also says [the same], then we would be dealing with two utterances.” (Saeed, 2003, p.13, Semantics, Blackwell).

• More on the terms…• “Sentences, on the other hand, are abstract grammatical elements

obtained from utterances. Sentences are abstract because if a third and fourth person in the room also say Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny with the same intonation, we will want to say that we have met four utterances of the same sentence. In other words, sentences are abstracted, or generalized, from actual language use.” (Saeed, ibidem, p. 13)

• And more…• Thus, we can understand sentences from the point of view of the speaker,

where they are abstract elements to be made real by uttering them; or

from the the hearer’s point of view, where they are abstract elements reached by filtering out certain kinds of information from utterances.

• Another term used for abstraction• In trying to establish rules of valid deduction in language, logicians

discovered that certain elements of grammatical information in sentences were irrelevant. For instance, the distinction between active and passive sentences is, logically viewed, irrelevant.

• A. Caesar invaded Gaul.• B. Gaul was invaded by Caesar.• More on propositions• Thus A. and B. are simply the same (equivalent) because whenever A is true

so is B. In the valid chain of reasoning their grammatical differences will never be relevant or significant. In a similar vein the following information(al) structure will also be insignificant for for a logician:

• More…• C. It was Gaul that Caesar invaded.• D. It was Caesar that invaded Gaul.• E. What Caesar invaded was Gaul.• F. The one who invaded Gaul was Caesar.

Why would a logician look at them in such a way? Because these sentences share a description of the same state of affairs. Once again, if one is true all are true, and if one is false, all are false…• Cont’d• This aspect of meaning has to be considered and it has been called

‘cognitive’, ‘ideational’, ‘denotational’ or ‘propositional’.• Palmer claims that it is not at all clear either that the study of sense

relations is the most important kind of meaning.• He also claims that providing information or presenting ‘facts’ cannot be

the prime or only function of language.• Cont’d• Palmer: “A great deal of our meaning is not ‘ideational’ at all, but is ‘inter-

personal’ or ‘social’, relating ourselves to others”. • Some arguments supporting the idea that language is not simply a matter

of providing factual information:• First , we do not merely make statements; we also ask questions and give

orders. • Cont’d

Secondly , there are a variety of what today are called ‘speech acts’: we persuade, we warn, we insinuate, we order, we use language to influence other people.

(Optional: the distinction between ‘constative’ and ‘performative’ – J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, Speech Act Theory)

• Cont’d• Thirdly , much of what we say is not a statement of fact but an evaluation. • Some semanticists have made a great play with the emotive difference

between politician and statesman, hide and conceal, liberty and freedom, each implying approval or disapproval. The function of such words is to influence attitudes.

• Cont’d• This emotive or evaluative function of language is not confined to pairs of

words such as these. • Simply put, there aren’t many words that the dictionary marks as ‘derog.’

But there are many other words for which part of the meaning is good or bad such as: palace, hovel, hero, villain, and, even ‘good’ and ‘bad’…

• Cont’d• Fourthly , language is often deeply concerned with a variety of social

relations. • We can be rude or polite, and our decision to be one or the other often

depends on the social relationship with the person to whom we are speaking (Shut up, Be quiet, Would you please be quiet?, Would you keep your voice down a little please? etc.)

• Cont’d• In his attack on the study of sense relations Palmer insists on the point that

some parts of language are wholly social and carry no information.• The best examples are, naturally, chunks of phatic communion (Good

morning, How are you? and / or all the Englishman’s remarks about the weather J

• Phatic Communion• The fact that human beings tend to talk when they meet, often leads to a

sense of discomfort, even hostility, when silence occurs in such a meeting. Because talk is often a first step in establishing a relationship it is characterised by a stock of conventional utterances which break such silences and help to establish the participants in a mutual situation in which awkwardness and tension gradually disappear.

• Social contact is, in turn, liable to generate speech between participants who have nothing to say. This kind of utterance was given the name phatic communion by Malinowski, the anthropologist who studied the speech and customs of the Trobriand Islanders. He described such talk as a means by which 'ties of union are created by the mere exchange of words.' Typically, in New Zealand, such phatic communion centres on comments about the weather, on personal appearance, enquiries about health, or affirmations about everyday things. It serves in an atmosphere-setting capacity.

• Phatic communion is the initial linguistic attempt to relate to another individual. If this relationship develops, then small talk will take over, and that in turn may lead to serious conversation. In any real situation all three types of talk may be intermingled according to the circumstances.

• Kinds of Meaning, Critique of Sense Semantics, Cont’d.• Fifthly , we need not ‘mean what we say’. • By the appropriate use of intonation we can be sarcastic for example so

that That’s very clever can mean That’s NOT very clever. (I don’t like *coffee* => I like tea; She’s very *clever* => She’s very ugly)

• Palmer: “Semantics can’t fully succeed without an investigation of the prosodic and paralinguistic features of language.”

• Cont’d• Sixthly , the type of meaning found in presuppositions such as When did you

stop beating your wife? simply can’t be subsumed under the heading of assertion (of facts).

• Neither can the other notorious example The King of France is bald which presupposes that there is a king of France, but a mere presupposition does NOT assert his existence.

• The Word as a Semantic Unit• Although the word is one of the basic units of semantics (dictionaries),

there are some difficulties.• First , not all words have the same kind of meaning (e.g.: full words vs. form

words = content/empty, lexical/grammatical, etc.)• *Palmer claims that form words have only a grammatical meaning that they

can’t be defined except in relation to the other words. • Cont’d• One possible objection to Palmer’s view is the semanticity (type of

meaning) of deictic elements such as pronouns and prepositions or determiners.

• We believe that deictic elements (that are classified as form words) have a very clearly non-grammatical reference to the real world extended in the space-time continuum.

• Cont’d• Secondly , it is not clear that the word is a clearly defined unit, except as a

conventional one.• Words are only written items with spaces between them that we have

learnt to place properly.• Compare (The) White House with greenhouse. Any reasons for saying that

the former is two words and the latter two? • Cont’d• One of the solutions to the problem of the definition of the word is

Bloomfield’s ‘minimum free form’, the smallest form that may be in isolation.

• E.g.: how about the, is, by, this in isolation? L Thus we have to be very precise about what we mean by isolation…

• Cont’d• Bloomfield defined the morpheme too, an element smaller than the word,

which is an element of meaning too.• Let’s take a look at the word loved that has two morphemes: love- and –d.

The two morphemes have clearly distinct meanings (‘like someone a lot’; ‘past’)

• How about took (both take and past) that can’t be divided?• Cont’d• Still, took does have two independent bits of meaning…• The best way to treat the problem is to avoid morphemes (he, he) but

introduce a new technical term, called LEXEME.• A lexeme encompasses both love and loved under the same heading in the

dictionary.• So in this way we could talk about the meaning of words (i.e. lexemes) and

about the meanings of grammatical elements, such as the past tense or plural.

• Cont’d• Instead of treating loved as the two morphemes love and d, we shall

analyse it in terms of the lexeme love and the grammatical category of tense.

• Still, the status of the grammatical bit is fairly difficult to define as it’s not clear that the plurality is always more than one… just think about wheat and oats…

• Cont’d• Thirdly , there’s a problem that arises with transparent and opaque words.• Transparent words are those whose meaning can be deduced from the

meaning of their parts (doorman, chopper).• Opaque words are those for which it is not possible to determine their

meaning from their parts (axe, porter). • Cont’d• If we compare the English language with, for example, German then we can

find that many words which are not transparent in English are such in German:

• Thimble, glove, linguistics => Fingerhut (finger-hat), Handschuch (hand-shoe), Sprachwissenschaft (language-science)

• The German transparency is mainly due to it’s being an agglutinative language.

• Cont’d• A note: if we decide that chopper is to be interpreted as chop and –er

(instrument), then what do we do with hammer? • Thus it appears that it is next to impossible to determine the semantic

elements within a word.• Fourthly , there are many words in English that are called phonaesthetic.• In such words the initial consonantal cluster indicates the meaning of a

rather special kind.• Cont’d • Examples in English are slippery, slimy, sluggish, sloppy, slithery, sleazy, and

so on. It seems that the initial sl- sound gives these words their unpleasant connotations.

• When Lewis Carroll coined the nonsense word slithy in the poem "Jabberwocky", English speakers associated it with something slippery and unpleasant. This word took on this particular meaning by association with the number of other words beginning with sl- that have similar connotations.

• However, there are other sl- words, like sleep, slave, slat, and slogan, that do not have those connotations.

• Cont’d

• The sk- words refer to surfaces or superficiality: skate, skimp, skid, skim, skin, etc.

• Other examples of phonaesthetic words are those with the final -sh / /, such as crash, smash, lash, splash, and crush; and those with a final -k, such as crack, whack, flick, and smack.

• Cont’dLook at the following:

glad glass glisten glow glare glaire glaze glint glitter gloom glory gleam glimmer glade gloss glum glabrous gloat

Common is visibility and luminosity … • Cont’d• Consider the following English words: • SLACK SLOUCH SLUDGE SLIME SLOSH SLASH SLOPPY SLUG SLUGGARD

SLATTERN SLUT SLANG SLY SLITHER SLOW SLOTH SLEEPY SLEET SLIP SLIPSHOD SLOPE SLIT SLAY SLEEK SLANT SLOVENLY SLAB SLAP SLOUGH SLUM SLUMP SLOBBER SLAVER SLUR SLOG SLATE ...

• “A group of words such as the above has a cumulative suggestive value that cannot be overlooked in any consideration of our habits of speech. All the above words are in varying degrees pejorative".(Firth 1964: 184)

• Cont’d• Fifthly , semantic division seems to ‘override’ word division. • ‘heavy smoker’ / ‘good singer’• Semantically they are not heavy + smoker and good + singer (debeo, težak

pušač – pevač sa dobrom dušom). Rather, they refer to someone who smokes heavily and who sings well.

• Cont’d• Sixthly , we simply miss adequate binary terms: ram/ewe; stallion/mare;

but no pairs for giraffe and elephant (male giraffe, female giraffe, elephant bull, elephant cow)

• Finally , there is the problem of treating idioms. An idiom is a sequence of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meanings of the words themselves.

• Cont’d• Familiar examples: kick the bucket, fly off the handle, spill the beans, red

herring.

• The point is clear if we contrast the above with kick the table, fly off the roof, spill the coffee, red fish.

• Semantically, idioms are single units, but not single grammatical units like words for there is no past tense like kick the bucketed*

• Cont’d• All these objections to the definition of the word as the natural unit for

semantics can lead us to abandon that idea…• But we have to be very cautious here because we can’t ignore the word and

look for some ‘modality independent’ meanings for semantic entities that are totally unrelated to words.

• The Finishing Touch• Thus we shall sometimes analyse semantic units that are larger than the

word and semantic units that are smaller, but never take up some ‘disembodied’ meanings J

• Just think about the meaning of the word bull… • The full meaning is inseparable from its sense relationships with cow and

calf, regardless of the lack of description for size, weight, colour, speed, fitness, etc…

Linguistic Context Vidanović, Semantics, Palmer, Ch. 5 Non-linguistic context vs.. linguistic context In chapter 3 we had something like this: “Time, gentlemen!” interpreted as…? Or, “I’ll get it, don’t bother” interpreted as…? Chapter 3 dealt with the possibility that meaning might be defined in terms

of certain non-linguistic contexts. Reminder J.R. Firth created some categories to determine the non-linguistic context,

such as: The relevant features of the participants: persons, personalities The relevant objects The effects of the verbal action Back to Linguistic Context The extreme linguistic view sees the meaning of the word as wholly

stateable in terms of the context. One of the reasons is that words are determined by the distribution of

linguistic elements (Zellig Harris)

That was structuralism at its peak, in the 1950’s Cont’d Structuralist thought that the task of the linguist is to: Provide rigorous empirical methods for the classification of linguistic

elements For example, in phonology (locus classicus) the distribution of the two “l”

phonemes (leaf, feel) shows that they are one and the same phoneme since they are in complementary distribution, one occurs only in those environments that the other does not.

Cont’d Another example: -en of oxen can be proved to be the same as the plural

ending –s in cats, (in terms of distribution, of course and without referring to their meaning!)

This is exactly in the spirit of structuralism where combinations and formal structures need not rely on semantic criteria as was thought in the heyday of the movement.

Harris on Meaning Harris: “It may be presumed that any two morphemes having different

meanings also differ in their distribution” However, the true origin of such linguistic elements is that the difference in

meaning brought about the difference in distribution. Simply put dog is unlikely to occur in the same linguistic contexts as apple

J Distribution criteria Some linguists have suggested that the meaning of a word or morpheme is

determined by the linguistic environment in which it occurs Two words can be considered synonymous if and only if they are totally

interchangeable in all environments Conditional probabilities and meaning Martin Joos, the famous structuralist from the 1950’s, suggests that the

meaning of a linguistic unit is “the set of conditional probabilities” and the practical meaning of a unit is left to the analysis of sociologists.

This shows the total dissociation of structural units and reality that was the hallmark of the whole structuralist movement.

Syntagmatic vs. Paradigmatic Structuralists actually insisted on the so-called syntagmatic relations in their

treatment of meaning = relations within a stretch of language

This meaning could also be termed as the meaning in presented, as opposed to the meaning of in absentia, or the paradigmatic meaning.

Paradigmatic meaning is on an axis that enables substitution or replacement of lexical items

Examples The dog is on the mat = syntagmatic The cat is on the mat = syntagmatic between cat and mat, but paradigmatic

between dog and cat Palmer criticises this approach by stressing that nothing is actually gained

by the analysis of meaning in terms of distribution when compared with the sense relations that we studied in the previous chapters.

Distribution need NOT, in essence, have anything to do with meaning (just think about phonemes which have no meaning at all!)

Meaning and Distribution Sameness and difference of meaning are NOT related to sameness and

difference of distribution E.g. antonyms will usually be found with almost identical distribution, if you

think about them… right? J Wide, narrow…… road, hem, trouser-leg, band, interests Interesting metaphor by Palmer Palmer: “…[most importantly]…, it is surely obvious that to define meaning

in terms of distribution is very largely to put the cart before the horse.” (Palmer, p. 94)

He goes on to say that “words have different distribution because they have different meanings”.

Thus, structuralism is a vacuous approach, Palmer seems to suggest. Firth and Collocation J.R. Firth was much less extreme than the staunch structuralists in his

definition of distribution. He was famous for the following argument: “ You shall know a word by the

company it keeps”. This keeping company was for Firth the concept of collocation that

contributed to meaning only to a certain extent. It was only part of a word. He was more interested in lexical probability or ‘the mutual expectancy of words’

What is a collocation

A COLLOCATION is an expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things.

The words together can mean more than their sum of parts (The Times of India, disk drive)

Previous examples: hot dog, mother in law Examples of collocations

noun phrases like strong tea and weapons of mass destruction phrasal verbs like to make up, and other phrases like the rich and

powerful. Valid or invalid?

a stiff breeze but not a stiff wind (while either a strong breeze or a strong wind is okay).

broad daylight (but not bright daylight or narrow darkness). Criteria for collocations Typical criteria for collocations:

non-compositionality non-substitutability non-modifiability.

Collocations usually cannot be translated into other languages word by word.

A phrase can be a collocation even if it is not consecutive (as in the example knock . . . door).

Non-compositionality A phrase is compositional if the meaning can predicted from the meaning

of the parts. E.g. new companies

A phrase is non-compositional if the meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of the parts

E.g. hot dog Collocations are not necessarily fully compositional in that there is

usually an element of meaning added to the combination. Eg. strong tea.

Idioms are the most extreme examples of non-compositionality. Egg. to hear it through the grapevine.

Non-Substitutability We cannot substitute near-synonyms for the components of a collocation. For example

We can’t say yellow wine instead of white wine even though yellow is as good a description of the color of white wine as white is (it is kind of a yellowish white).

Many collocations cannot be freely modified with additional lexical material or through grammatical transformations (Non-modifiability).

E.g. white wine, but not whiter wine mother in law, but not mother in laws

Linguistic Subclasses of Collocations Light verbs:

Verbs with little semantic content like make, take and do. E.g. make lunch, take easy,

Verb particle constructions E.g. to go down

Proper nouns E.g. George W. Busch

Terminological expressions refer to concepts and objects in technical domains.

E.g. Hydraulic oil filter Example: heavy and groupings?

magnitude: dew, rainstorm, downpour, rain, rainfall, snowfall, fall, snow, shower: frost, spindrift: clouds, mist, fog: flow, flooding, bleeding, period, traffic: demands, reliance, workload, responsibility, emphasis, dependence: irony, sarcasm, criticism: infestation, soiling: loss, price, cost, expenditure, taxation, fine, penalty, damages, investment: punishment, sentence: fire, bombardment, casualties, defeat, fighting: burden, load, weight, pressure: crop: advertising: use, drinking:

Back to Firth Firth was thus only concerned with selecting the relevant features of the

linguistic or non-linguistic context, not with the totality of such contexts. The study of linguistic context is important for semantics because : By looking at the linguistic contexts of words we can distinguish between

different meanings (examples by Nida, chair, p. 95) Firth, cont’d Nida’s examples: 1. sat in a chair 2. the baby’s high chair 3. the chair of philosophy

4. has accepted a University chair 5. the chairman of the meeting 6. will chair the meeting 7. the electric chair 8. condemned to the chair Nida, cont’d Nida offered four different meaning of the word in context, based on

collocations. This kind of reference to context, present in dictionaries, does NOT

establish or define differences in meaning. It may only illustrate the differences.

Nida, cont’d Although the distribution of words may appear to depend on their meaning

(not the other way round), in reality this is not true in all cases. Note: rancid ---> bacon, butter Addled ---> brains, eggs This happens in spite of the fact that English has terms such as rotten, bad,

sour *Discuss later: How about ‘white elephant’?* Collocations in the collective words… Flock of sheep Herd of cows School of whales Pride of lions Chattering of magpies Exaltation of larks…

He, he, he… Types of collocations? An Attempt by Djordje Unique collocations (foot the bill, shrug your shoulders) Strong collocations (ulterior motives, rancid butter, trenchant criticism, to

be moved to tears) Weak collocations (white wine, red hair, a black mood, a blue movie) Medium-strength collocations (to hold a conversation, to make a mistake,

to be recovering from a major operation) Firth’s “formal scatter” : groups of related words Difficulties with collocations

E.g. There is no meaning distinction between herd and flock, except one is used with cows and the other with sheep… L

The difficulty arises from the fact that that a word will often collocate with a number of other words that have something in common semantically.

But: “The rhododendron died” is OK, whilst “The rhododendron passed away” is NOT…

Idioms and collocations… Idioms (semantically opaque collocations? Sufficient definition???):

…bring pressure to bear (bring pressure to bear on the student's parents… for example J

Semantically transparent collocations: …bring the meeting to an end

Non-collocations: ...bring a pencil to the meeting

Syntax, semantics and idioms. Integration? Two basic approaches

Integrate semantic analysis into the parser (assign meaning representations as constituents are completed)

Pipeline… assign meaning representations to complete trees only after they’re completed

Berkeley Restaurant Project (BeRP), testbed for speech related projects, 1300 words only

From BeRP I want to eat someplace near campus Somebody tell me the two meanings…

Pros and Cons If you integrate semantic analysis into the parser as its running…

You can use semantic constraints to cut off parses that make no sense

You assign meaning representations to constituents that don’t take part in the correct (most probable) parse

Non-Compositionality Unfortunately, there are lots of examples where the meaning (loosely

defined) can’t be derived from the meanings of the parts Idioms, jokes, irony, sarcasm, metaphor, metonymy, indirect

requests, etc English Idioms again... more formal approaches…

Kick the bucket, buy the farm, bite the bullet, run the show, bury the hatchet, etc…

Lots of these… constructions where the meaning of the whole is either Totally unrelated to the meanings of the parts (kick the bucket) Related in some opaque way (run the show)

Examples Enron is the tip of the iceberg.

NP -> “the tip of the iceberg” Not so good… attested examples…

the tip of Mrs. Ford’s iceberg the tip of a 1000-page iceberg the merest tip of the iceberg

How about That’s just the iceberg’s tip.

More… What we seem to need is something like NP ->

An initial NP with tip as its head followed bya subsequent PP with of as its head and that has iceberg as the head of its

NPAnd that allows modifiers like merest, Mrs. Ford, and 1000-page to modify the relevant semantic forms

The Tip of the Iceberg Describing this particular construction

1. A fixed phrase with a particular meaning2. A syntactically and lexically flexible phrase with a particular meaning3. A syntactically and lexically flexible phrase with a partially

compositional meaning Constructional Approach Syntax and semantics aren’t separable in the way that we’ve been

assuming Grammars contain form-meaning pairings that vary in the degree to which

the meaning of a constituent (and what constitutes a constituent) can be computed from the meanings of the parts.

Constructional Approach So we’ll allow both

VP → V NP {V.sem(NP.sem)}

andVP → Kick-Verb the bucket {λ x Die(x)}λ(ambda) = in computer programming an object extended by additional information

Semantic Grammars One problem with traditional grammars is that they don’t necessarily

reflect the semantics in a straightforward way You can deal with this by…

Fighting with the grammar Complex lambdas and complex terms, etc

Rewriting the grammar to reflect the semantics And in the process give up on some syntactic niceties

BeRP example BeRP Example How about a rule like the following…

Request → I want to go to eat FoodType Time{ some attachment }

Semantic Grammar The term semantic grammar refers to the motivation for the grammar rules The technology (plain CFG rules with a set of terminals) is the same as

we’ve been using The good thing about them is that you get exactly the semantic rules you

need The bad thing is that you need to develop a new grammar for each new

domain Semantic Grammars Typically used in conversational agents in constrained domains

Limited vocabulary Limited grammatical complexity Chart parsing (Earley) can often produce all that’s needed for

semantic interpretation even in the face of ungrammatical input.* The Earley parser is a type of chart parser mainly used for parsing in

computational linguistics, named after its inventor, Jay Earley (1970’s). Earley parsers are appealing because they can parse all context-free languages