Tài liệu ngữ nghĩa part 1

Part 1: Introduction


Subject matter
of semantics








1. What does
Semantics do?


=> Semantics studies the meaning


OR: semantics is the study of meaning





=> Meaning:


-
Meaning as a property of expressions in a given
language, in abstraction from particular situations, speakers or hearers


-
Meaning in relation to speech situations





2. Theories of meaning


2.1. Referential approach: the meaning of an expression is
what it refers to or stand for.


2.2. Ideational or mentalistic theory


• Every word may evoke a general
idea without directly referring to any particular element of reality


• The meaning of an expression is
the idea or concept associated with it in the mind of anyone who knows and
understands the expression


2.3. Meaning-is-use theory: The meaning of an expression is
determined by its use in the language.


2.4. Truth-conditional theory: the meaning of an expression
is its contribution to the truth-conditions of the sentence containing it.


2.5. Behaviourist theory


2.6. Verificationist theory


2.7. Bloomfieldian linguistics


And others





3. Semantic properties


- Semantic properties (semantic features): Define the
meaning of a word


Woman human adult female


Man human adult male


Girl human young female


Baby human young


Bitch animal female


- Componential method: Involves the use of properties to
define words


Example:









4. Components of word-meaning


4.1. Denotation:


-
Conceptual meaning: based on two structural principles:
contrastiveness and constituent structure. These two principles represent the
way language is organized on what linguists have termed the Praradigmatic (selectional)
and Syntagmatic (combinatory) axes of linguistic structure.


E.g: woman: +human, -male, + adult
as distinct from boy: +human, +male, -adult


-
Referential meaning: the meaning of an expression is
what it refers to, or denotes, or stand for. E.g.: table: refers to either the general class of tables
or the essential property which they all share.


4.2. Connotation:


-
Stylistic: is the communicative value an expression has
by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.


E.g.: dialects: African English, Singlish,
baby language (da da, gee-gee)


Time: language
of the 18^th century, whilst, amidst, thee, thy, dieth


Province: the
language of law, poetry, etc


Status (polite,
casual, colloquial, slang): cop, loo (WC), kick the bucket


Modality
(language of lectures, jokes)


Individuality
(the language of Mr. X, of Mrs. Y) etc


-
Affective: What is communicated of the feelings and
attitudes of speaker/writer. It is often conveyed through conceptual or
connotative content of the words used. Factors such as intonation, voice, tone,
etc are also important.


E.g.: I’m terribly sorry to interrupt
but …/ Alas/ Hoorey/ Viva/


-
Evaluative: notorious (well known for bad things) vs.
celebrated (well known for good things)


-
Intensifying: terribly, deadly, extremely


4.3. Structural/associative meaning


-
Reflected meaning: what is communicated through association
with another sense of the same expression: intercourse, ejection (“tươi mát”)


-
Collocative meaning: what is communicated through
association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word.


E.g.: pretty boy/ girl/ woman/ flower/ garden/ color


Handsome
boy/ man/ car/ overcoat/ airliner/ typewriter


-
Associative meaning: is the meaning which arises
because of its association with other meaningL good vs. bad, buy vs. sell


-
Thematic meaning: is the meaning which is communicated
by the way in which a speaker or writer organizes the message in terms of
ordering, focus and emphasis


e.g.: The dog chased the cat # the
cat was chased by the dog.


4.4. Categorial meaning:
verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc





5. Lexical meaning and grammatical meaning:


- Lexical meaning: meaning of
lexicon


- Grammatical meaning: meaning
studied in grammar


- Grammar: a system of rules which says about how lexical
items are put together to form phrases, clauses, sentences… (tense, mood,
aspect, voice, number, person, comparison…)


E.g:


- Love, take, work, laugh: same
or different ?


different: lexical meaning


Same: grammatical meaning (verbs)


- Boy-boys ?


Same: lexical meaning


Different: grammatical meaning
(number)


- Empty words: syntactic function


- Full words: lexical meaning


- Grammar and lexicon
interrelated:


+ The grammar reflects the ways in
which the lexicon operates as means of communication and as instrument of
thoughts


+ Part of the meaning of the
lexicon is encoded in the grammatical structure of languages


Want – wanted tense


Nicer – nicer comparison


Coffee! – Coffee? mood


Know – known aspect


Man – men number





6. Sentence meaning and Utterance meaning:











•
Sentence
meaning: language side


-
Determined
partly by meanings of the words comprising it and partly by its grammatical
structure


-
Highly
context-independent


•
Utterance
meaning:


-
realization
of the sentence


-
What
speaker means when he makes an utterance in a certain situation


-> context-dependent


•
Speech
acts:


»
Locutionary act : actual form of
utterance


»
Illocutionary act : Communicative
force of the Utterance


»
Perlocutionary act: Communicative
effect of the utterance


Example: It’s hot in here.


»
Locution:
act of producing the utterance “it’s hot in here”


»
Illocution:
An indirect request “Open the door” or ‘Turn the A-C on”


»
Perlocution:
Effect: the hearer turned the electronic fan on





Exercises:


Fill
in the blanks, using the given words. Try to understand terms and their
relationship.













a.
affective


b.
connotation


c.
denotation


d.
stylistic


e.
reflected


f.
associative


g.
categorical


h.
referential





i.
conceptual


j.
collocative


k.
themantic


l.
intensifying


m.
evaluative


n.
structural


o.
grammatical


p.
lexical

• Comment
  on the meanings of “meaning” in the following cases
  

ü
Her promises mean nothing to me


ü
What do you mean by that?


ü
The warm weather means that spring is coming.


ü
The city is meant to be the most beautiful in this country


ü
She says she's resigning, and I think this time she means it


ü
For Sam, summer meant golf.


ü
I’ve been meaning to call you for weeks


ü
I don’t know what half these words mean

• Analyze
  the types of meanings that exists between the following items
  

§
Lungs/
air bags


§
Pissed
off/ angry


§
Many/ A
lot of


§
Child/
Infant


§
Letter
of credit/ multimedia/ phoneme


§
Father/
Dad


§
A/ The


§
The
Prime Minister disembarked from the plane and the journalists greeted her/ The
Prime Minister disembarked from the plane and was greeted by the journalists.


§
This
book I have read already/ I have already this book.

• Identify
  the grammatical meanings in the following pairs of word forms
  

§
Talk talked


§
Thin thinner


§
Do Did


§
Book Books


§
Sing is
singing


§
Child Children


§
Big Biggest


§
Good Best


§
Go Gone


§
Stay Stays