Chapter 6 Meaning 语义学

4.
He says his life has lost its meaning.
A. something conveyed or signified; sense or significance
B. something that one wishes to convey, esp. by language
traditional
lexical meaning structural meaning conceptual meaning (basic) connotative meaning (additional) social meaning (stylistic) affective meaning (emotional) reflected meaning (associative) collocative meaning (collocational) thematic meaning (organization) sentence meaning utterance meaning
What are the slight differences?
4.
5. 6.
bathroom; intercourse; TMD ; 炒鱿鱼; 洗手;女神 pretty lady vs. handsome man; 美女vs.帅哥 I have read this book. vs. This book I have read. 我从来不玩游戏。vs. 游戏我从来不玩。
What grammatical meaning do they have?
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
3. Types of Meaning
What are the slight differences?
1.
2.
3.
A child is not yet an adult. vs. Stop being a child. 跑马的汉子你威武雄壮,四爷vs.女汉子,范爷 kid vs. child; 老妈vs. 母亲 statesman vs. politician; 同伴vs.同伙
Word Meaning
SentenБайду номын сангаасe Meaning
1. Definition of Semantics
What is semantics ?
The subject concerning the study of meaning is called
semantics. More specifically, semantics is the study of meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular. (p93)
a. The man chased the dog. b. The dog chased the man.
a. The man wanted more expensive clothes. Hierarchy b. The man wanted more expensive clothes. a. I’ve already seen that film. b. That film I’ve already seen.
Chapter 6 Meaning
Things do not have meaning. We assign meaning to everything. Anthony Robbins
Review
一统天下 五虎上将 两汉江山 六出祁山 三足鼎立 七擒孟获 四分五裂 八方诸侯
1. What is syntax? 2. What is IC analysis? 3. How many noun categories? 4. According to what do verbs inflect? 5. What are 不定式, 分词and动名词 in English? 6. What are the two kinds of non-simple sentences?
C. an interpreted goal, intent, or end D. inner significance
2. Meaning of Meaning
Let’s see what linguists had to say?
1.
Plato: Words are just names or labels for things. (Nominalism) Ogden and Richards: Language and the real world are linked through the mediation of concepts (semantic triangle). (Conceptualism) Firth : Meaning can be derived from observable contexts (situational and linguistic). (Contextualism) Bloomfield: Meaning consists in the relation between speech and physical entities and events (S—r---s—R figure). (Behaviorism)
association of one sense with another different collocative uses different organizations in word order and emphasis
4.
5.
6.
3. Types of Meaning
What are the meanings? The glass is empty. (a sentence, decontextualized) It states the fact that a specific glass is empty. 2. “The glass is empty,” says Andy to a student. (an utterance, contextualized) Fetch me some water, please.
7. What are the 7 basic sentence patterns in English?
8. What are the other elements besides subject and object?
Warm-up
请解释下文中每个“意思”的意思
【情景】甲给乙送礼物时，两人的对话颇有意思。
1.
What are the possible meanings of the utterance? “Is that your car?” 1. Wow, 真拉风，你个土豪。 2. Get it out of the way. 3. May I borrow your car?
3. Types of Meaning
4. Word Meaning
synonymy Dialectal: autumn vs. fall Stylistic: start vs. commence Emotive: collaborator vs. accomplice Collocational: rotten vs. addled Semantic: amaze vs. surprise Gradable: old vs. young Absolute: alive vs. dead Relational: buy vs. sell superordinate, co-hyponym buy a book, book a ticket Homophones: night vs. knight Homographs: bow, tear, lead Homonyms: bear, right, down
甲：你这是什么意思？ 乙：没什么意思，意思意思。 甲：你这就不够意思了。 乙：小意思，小意思。 甲：你这人真有意思。 乙：其实也没有别的意思。 甲：那我就不好意思了。 乙：是我不好意思。
Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Definition of Semantics Meaning of Meaning Types of Meaning
2. Meaning of Meaning
What is the meaning of the following meanings?
1. 2. 3.
What is the meaning of desk? What is the meaning of his speech? What is the meaning of being silent?
2.
3.
4.
3. Types of Meaning
Divide the words into two groups?

Linguistics is useful. We all like it. linguistics, is, useful, like we, all, it linguistics: subject, nominative, singular, neutral is: predicator, simple, present, finite, singular, indicative useful: complement, positive we: subject, the speakers or writers all: determiner, for emphasis it: object, linguistics, accusative
Sense relations
antonymy hyponymy polysemy homonymy
5. Sentence Meaning
Examine the four sentences and decide what makes a sentence meaningful. a. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. b. Sincerity shook hands with the black apple. c. The child of old must to be under 7 years. d. The hostess live near my house smile to me.

Logicality and grammaticality
5. Sentence Meaning
What determine the meaning of a meaningful sentence? Word meaning a. The man chased the dog. b. The man chased the cat. Word order
1. the basic meaning vs. the additional meaning
2. informal vs. formal use of the similar concept
3. commendatory vs. derogative meanings
3. Types of Meaning
meaning
functional
pragmatic
4. Word Meaning
What are the sense relations between these pairs?
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
autumn & fall, start & commence old & young, teach & learn plant & flower, human & woman hand in & hands up, run away & state-run night & knight, pair & pear into tears & tear up, bow slightly & bow and arrow right answer & turn right; tree bark and dog barking