(Words and their meaning)

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Representation of the meaning of (parts of) utterances

What does the (word/phrase/clause/sen-tence) mean?

To what extent can the meaning be derived? To what extent can the meaning be arrived at

compositionally? What components of linguistic processing

contribute to meaning?

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Characterization of meaning (lexical, phrasal, clausal, sentential, discourse)

Compositionality, ambiguity Non-literal use of language (metaphors,

exaggeration, irony, etc.) Representations Networks Models Scripts Schemas Logic(s)

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Word meaning Synomymy: youth/adolescent, filbert/hazelnut Antonymy: boy/girl, hot/cold

Word senses Polysemy: 2+ related meanings (bright, deposit) Homonymy: 2+ unrelated meanings (bat, file)

Connotation: set of ideas, emotions evoked Referentiality Denotation: determine meaning via reference Extension: actual referents in the real world Intension: inherent meaning, concepts

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Binary features that classify, distinguish, or identify Man vs. girl vs. filly Niece,daughter,sister vs. nun,woman,girl Hen,ewe,cow vs. rooster,ram,bull Table,chair,pencil vs. love,thought,idea Table,chair,pencil vs. water,dirt,cream

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Concepts: basic entities Inventories

Properties: attributes predicated of concepts Intensity Incommensurability

Events: actions, states, processes Internal structure

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Pike: Fish: The carp and pike, which were found

locally, were kitted out with lavish trimmings and served… Medieval weapon: Towards the close of the

twelfth century the pike was used to counter cavalry charges…

Run (v): 15 intransitive senses, 15 transitive senses

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Lexical I bought a pen. She bought me a fly.

Syntactic I saw old men and women. I saw her duck. Visiting relatives can be tedious.

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Semantic Everyone here speaks two languages. Three men carried a piano. You may not come to my party. Judy wants to marry a Norwegian. Every professor thinks she is busy. A flag was hanging from every balcony. Mary can’t sing.

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Everyone loves somebody.

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A Mary

B Fred

C Mark

D Pat

…

Fred A B C

E D

Paraphrase: re-express identical content The police chased the burglar. The burglar was

chased by the police. I gave the summons to Eric. I gave Eric the

summons. Paul bought a car from Sue. Sue sold a car to Paul. It is unfortunate that the team lost.

Unfortunately, the team lost. The class will begin at 4:00. At 4:00, the class will

begin.

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Contradiction: inconsistent, opposites John is a bachelor. John is married. I am happy. I am not happy. Today is Monday. Today is Tuesday.

Entailment: S1 necessarily implies S2 is true The park wardens killed the bear. The bear is

dead. Robin is a man. Robin is a human. Jill and Bill have just gotten married to each other. Jill and Bill are spouses.

David is a Republican. David is a human.

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The students are revolting. Flying planes can be dangerous. You would be very fortunate to get this

person to work for you. I can’t possibly describe how much good

work this person can do.

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This is yellow. This is a pencil. ?This is a yellow pencil.

This is big. This is a whale. ?This is a big whale.

Lee kissed Kim passionately. ?Lee kissed Kim. ?Kim was kissed. ?Lee touched Kim with her lips. ?Lee married Kim. ?Kim kissed Lee. ?Lee kissed Kim many times.

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Semantic constraints on arguments (the semantic counterpart to syntactic subcategorization)

Can be superseded (exaggeration, figurative language, etc.)

Close synonymy I have little/#small money.

This is Fred, my big/#large brother. Animacy My neighbor admires my garden.

#My car admires my garden. Bill frightened his dog/#hacksaw.

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Measuring how near words, collocations, words, phrases, sentences, documents are in meaning

Classes, domains, hierarchical arrangement play crucial role

Browsers exist, e.g. http://www.lexfn.com/ 16

Fuzziness (rich, tall, green, clean) Typicality, prototypes Bird: robin vs. penguin

Lexicalization (snow) (glint, glimmer, glitter, gleam, glisten, glow, glare)

Inventories

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Culture-specific concepts L1 concept not lexicalized in L2 L1 word is semantically complex Different L1/L2 meaning distinctions L1/L2 lacks a hypernym/hyponym

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Ecology (flora, fauna: ‘tundra’, ‘taiga’) Material culture (food, clothes,

transport) Social culture (work, leisure) Organizations, customs, concepts

(political, religious, artistic) Gestures and habits

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The way basic underlying concepts are lexically realized in a language

Wide variation crosslinguistically English: motion (V) + path (PP) vs. Romance

languages He swam across the river.

Il traversa la fleuve à la nage L1 verb L2 prepositional phrase

L1 preposition L2 verb

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I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool.

Fairer sex, female, broad Between jobs, out of work, on the dole

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Verb complement: infinitive -> noun I’m waiting for the postman to come. J’attends l’arrivée du facteur. A proposal to pay for the equipment Une proposition de paiement du matériel

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Non-compositional collocations Severe lexical constraints Vary crosslinguistically Off his rocker/*rocking chair Gnashing of teeth/*molars Shot herself in the foot/*toe

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