Semantics and Pracmatics

CONTENIDO

UNIT I.

 Topic 1. What is semantics and pragmatics?

 Topic 2. The expression of meaning

 Topic 3. Morphology

 Topic 4. Paradigmatic sense relations

 Topic 5. Pragmatics

o 5.1 linguistic underdeterminacy

o 5.2 Speaker’s meaning or content

o 5.3 Implicature

o 5.4 Speech acts

o 5.5 Indirect speech acts

UNIT I.

Topic 1.

What is semantics and pragmatics?

To start with, you will be motivated to focus on the nature and scope of semantics.
Hence, here in this unit, you will be introduced to

1. The concept and definition of semantics

2. Brief history of semantics
3. The concept and definition of pragmatics

The symbols employed in language must be patterned in a systematic way. You must
have been already informed that language is organized at four principal levels

- sounds (i.e. Phonetics/phonology),

- words (i.e. Morphology)

- sentences (i.e. syntax)

- meaning (i.e. semantics).

Phonology and syntax are concerned with the expressive power of language while
semantics studies the meaning of what has been expressed.

Knowledge of grammar is an aspect of the innate cognitive ability of human beings.

The power of interpretation complements that innate ability.

Interpretation is an aspect of semantics. Therefore, language acquisition or learning

includes not only the knowledge of the organization of sounds and structures, but
also how to associate meaning to the structures. Semantics can, therefore, be
characterized as the scientific study of meaning in language.
SEMANTICS

1. Semantics is the study of meaning. More precisely it is the study of the relation
between linguistic expressions and their meanings.

2. The term semantics simply means the study of meanings. The study explores how
meaning in language is produced or created. Semantics not only concentrates on how
words express meaning but also on how words, phrases and sentences come together
to make meaning in language.

3. Semantics means the meaning and interpretation of words, signs, and sentence
structure. Semantics largely determine our reading comprehension, how we
understand others, and even what decisions we make as a result of our
interpretations. Semantics can also refer to the branch of study within linguistics
that deals with language and how we understand meaning. This has been a
particularly interesting field for philosophers as they debate the essence of meaning,
how we build meaning, how we share meaning with others, and how meaning
changes over time.

Brief history

Semantics has been the subject of discourse for many years for philosophers
and other scholars but later was introduced formally in literature in the late 1800’s.
Hence, we have philosophical semantics and linguistic semantics among other
varieties of semantics. Earlier scholars in philosophical semantics were interested in
pointing out the relationship between linguistic expressions and identified
phenomena in the external world. In the contemporary world, especially in the
United States philosophical semantics has led to the development of semiotics. In
some other parts of the world, and especially, France, the term semiology has been
favored. The reliance on logical calculations in issues of meaning has led to the
development of logical semantics. However, for your purpose in this course,
emphasis is on linguistic semantics, with our interest on the properties of natural
languages. You shall see how this study relates to other disciplines. We shall also
examine the real issues in linguistic semantics. Semantics has been identified as a
component of linguistics. In its widest sense, linguistics is the scientific study of
language. As a field of study, semantics is related to other disciplines. In semantics,
we study the meaning of words and also how the meanings of words in a sentence
are put together to form sentential meaning. Linguistic semantics studies meaning
in a systematic and objective way. Since meaning as a concept is not static, a great
deal of the idea of meaning still depends on the context and participants in the act of
communication (discourse). There is a strong connection between meaning and
pragmatics. The exchange or relay of information, message, attitude, feelings or
values from one person to another contributes to the interpretation of meaning. This
is done mainly by the use of language. It is often expressed that language is a system
which uses a set of symbols agreed upon by a group to communicate their ideas or
message or information. These symbols can be spoken or written, expressed as
gestures or drawings. Depending upon the focus of study, semantics can be
compartmentalized as lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, logical semantics
and semantics in relation to pragmatics.

Examples of Semantics

One of the central issues with semantics is the distinction between literal
meaning and figurative meaning. With literal meaning, we take concepts at face
value. For example, if we said, 'Fall began with the turning of the leaves,' we would
mean that the season began to change when the leaves turned colors. Figurative
meaning utilizes similes and metaphors to represent meaning and convey greater
emotion. For example, 'I'm as hungry as a bear' would be a simile and a comparison
to show a great need for sustenance.
A GRAMMATICAL POINT OF VIEW

PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

A prescriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on how people

think language should be used. In a prescriptive grammar there is right and wrong
language. It can be compared with a descriptive grammar, which is a set of rules
based on how language is actually used.

Example: May I go to the bathroom?

DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

A descriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on how it is

actually used. In a descriptive grammar there is no right or wrong language. It can
be compared with a prescriptive grammar, which is a set of rules based on how
people think language should be used.

Example: Can I go to the bathroom?

CONTRASTING DESCRIPTIVE AND PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

Descriptive grammar is more a study in the "why and how" of language, while
prescriptive grammar deals with the strict rules of right and wrong required for
language to be considered grammatically correct. Prescriptive grammarians—such
as most editors of nonfiction and teachers—do their darndest to enforce the rules of
“correct” and “incorrect” usage.

Says author Donald G. Ellis, "All languages adhere to syntactical rules of one
sort or another, but the rigidity of these rules is greater in some languages. It is very
important to distinguish between the syntactical rules that govern a language and
the rules that a culture imposes on its language." He explains that this is the
distinction between descriptive and prescriptive grammar. "Descriptive grammars
are essentially scientific theories that attempt to explain how language works."

Ellis admits that human beings were using language in a variety of forms long
before there were linguists using descriptive grammar around to formulate any rules
about how or why they were speaking as they did. On the other hand, he likens
prescriptive grammarians to the stereotypical uptight high school English teachers
who "'prescribe,' like medicine for what ails you, how you 'ought' to speak."

EXAMPLES OF DESCRIPTIVE AND PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

To illustrate the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammar,

let's look at the sentence: "I ain't going nowhere." Now, to a descriptive
grammarian, there's nothing wrong with the sentence because it's being spoken by
someone who is using the language to construct a phrase that has meaning for
someone else who speaks the same language.

To a prescriptive grammarian, however, that sentence is a virtual house of

horrors. First, it contains the word "ain't," which strictly speaking (and we must be
strict if we're prescriptive) is slang. So, although you'll find "ain't" in the dictionary,
as the adage says, "Ain't ain't a word." The sentence also contains a double negative
(ain't and nowhere) which just compounds the atrocity.

Simply having the word "ain't" in the dictionary is a further illustration of the
difference between the two types of grammar. Descriptive grammar notes the word's
use in the language, pronunciation, meaning, and even etymology—without
judgment, but in prescriptive grammar, the use of "ain't" is just plain wrong—
especially in formal speaking or writing.

Would a descriptive grammarian ever say something was ungrammatical?

Yes. If someone utters a sentence using words or phrases or construction that as a
native speaker, they would never even think of putting together. For instance, a
native English speaker wouldn't start a sentence with two query words—as in, "Who
where are you going?"—because the result would be unintelligible as well as
ungrammatical

Semantics in Everyday Life

One part of studying language is understanding the many meanings of individual
words. Once you have a handle on the words themselves, context comes into play.
The same word can be said to two people and they can interpret them differently.
For example, imagine a man told a woman, "I care for you… a lot." Wouldn't that
made the woman's heart melt? Sure, if he just said that out of the blue, walking down
the beach one day. But, what if the woman told the man, "I love you," and, after a
long pause, all he said was, "I care for you… a lot." She'd be crushed. So, context (the
current situation) will always play a role in everyday semantics.
Here are some examples of everyday words that can have more than one meaning:
A water pill could be a pill with water in it but it is understood to be a diuretic that
causes a person to lose water from his body.
"Crash" can mean an auto accident, a drop in the Stock Market, to attend a party
without being invited, ocean waves hitting the shore, or the sound of cymbals being
struck together.
Depending on context, a flowering plant could be referred to as a weed or a flower.
A human can be referred to as a male, female, child, adult, baby, bachelor, father or
mother.
To call someone a lady means more than simply being female. Semantics tell us that,
if she's a lady, she possesses elegance and grace.
"Young" can allude to a colt, filly, piglet, baby, puppy, or kitten.
To say something was challenging leads us to believe it was not a good experience. It
wasn't just difficult; it was also unpleasant.
The verb "move" can mean change place, push, pull or carry, or stir emotion.
To call someone an angel doesn't mean they inhabit heaven. Semantics leads us to
believe they have a lovely disposition.
The word "create" can mean build, make, construct, erect, compose or imagine.
The simple word "on" can have many meanings, such as: on call, on the roof, on cloud
nine, on edge, on fire, on purpose, on demand, on top, or on the phone.
PRAGMATICS

Pragmatics is the study of context. More precisely it is the study of the way
context can influence our understanding of linguistic utterances.

Pragmatics is another branch of linguistics. Similar to semantics, pragmatics

also studies the meanings of words, but it pays emphasis on their context. In other
words, pragmatics is “the study of the use of linguistic signs, words, and sentences,
in actual situations.”
Thus, it looks beyond the literal meaning of an utterance or a sentence,
considering how the context impacts its meaning to be constructed as well the
implied meanings.
Therefore, unlike semantics, pragmatics concern the context of that particular
words and how that context impacts their meaning.
For example, think of a situation when you and your friends are planning to
give a surprise birthday party to one of your colleagues, and after everything is ready
you see the colleague is on the way to the classroom and suddenly one of your friends
shout “Candles?”. “Candles?” might indicate that you forgot to put candles on the
birthday cake. Therefore, here that single word ‘candles’ convey a lot of meaning to
you and your friends except for the colleague who has no idea that you have planned
a surprise birthday party for him/her.
This is what pragmatics is about. Unlike semantics, which only concerns the
meaning of the words, pragmatics goes a step further by looking at the same word in
relation to its context. Thus, pragmatics explains how language users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity since it explains the meaning relies on the manner,
time, place, etc. of an utterance.
As the Linguist Jenny Thomas points out, pragmatics considers three basic
principles:

 The negotiation of meaning between speaker and listener.

 The context of the utterance.
 The meaning potential of an utterance.

Even though semantics is concerned only with the exact, literal meaning of the words
and their interrelations, pragmatics focuses on the inferred meaning the speakers
and listeners perceive.
Similarities Between Semantics and Pragmatics
Both semantics and pragmatics are main branches of linguistics.
Semantics and pragmatics both basically focus on studying the meanings of
words in a language.

Difference Between Semantics and Pragmatics

Definition
Semantics is the study of words and their meanings in a language while
pragmatics is the study of words and their meaning in a language with concern to
their context.

Significance of Words
While semantics focuses mainly on the significance of the meaning of words
in a literal sense, pragmatics additionally focuses on the meaning of words according
to the context and their inferred meanings as well.

Meaning
Semantics studies the literal meaning whereas pragmatics studies the
intended or the inferred meaning as well.
  Topic 2. The expression of meaning

Schools of Thought in Meaning

Both linguists and philosophers agree that meaning is central to semantics.

However, there is considerable disparity among different scholars on the exact
conception of meaning. Based on their understanding of the meaning of meaning
and procedures, there are different schools of thought in relation to meaning. These
are the naturalists, the conventionalists and the contextualists.

Types of Meaning

You all know now that semantics is concerned with meaning and that
morphemes, words, phrases and sentences have meaning. So semantics can be
defined as the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences.
While listening to a spoken text or reading a written text you may feel that there the
utterance conveys many types of information or meaning.

So you need to make certain distinctions in the meaning understood by you.

That means you may feel that there are different types of meaning. Now, you may
ask what are the types of meaning. Geoffrey Leech (1981) has an answer for you
question. Leech in his book, ‘Semantic- A Study of meaning’ (1981) breaks down
meaning into seven types. They are: conceptual or denotative meaning,
connotative meaning, social meaning, affective or emotive meaning,
reflected meaning, collocative meaning and thematic meaning. He gives
primacy to conceptual meaning.

There are three basic types of meaning and these are thematic, conceptual and
associative. Associative meaning can further be divided into connotative, collocative,
affective, reflected and stylistic meanings. We shall for this section concentrate on
thematic, conceptual, and associative meaning.
Thematic Meaning

You may organize or order words or phrases in an utterance to give them focus
or emphasis.

Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way in which a

speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus or emphasis
(Leech 1981). Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its
implications properly. The different parts of the sentence also can be used as subject,
object or complement to show prominence. It is done through focus, theme (topic)
or emotive emphasis. Thus a sentence in active voice is different from the sentence
in passive voice though its conceptual meaning is the same. For example, the
following statements in active and passive voice have same conceptual meaning but
different communicative values.

Mrs. Smith donated the first prize

The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith.

In the first sentence “who gave away the prize” is more important, but in
the second sentence “what did Mrs. Smith gave is important”. Thus the change
of focus changes the meaning also. The first suggests that we already know Mrs.
Smith (perhaps through earlier mention) its known/given information while it’s new
information.
Alternative grammatical construction also gives thematic meaning. For
example,

I like apples most.

Apples I like most.

It is the apples I like most.

The way we order our message also convey what is important and what is not.
This is basically thematic meaning

Thematic meaning derives from the organisation of the message presented in

a language. It is the arrangement of the components of communication that
determine the point of emphasis. This arrangement may take the form of
passivisation, topicalisation or focus. In the sentences that follow, different items
have been made more prominent by merely re-ordering them.

a. Jane bought the house – normal SVO order

b. It was Jane that bought the house – topicalised

c. The house was bought by Jane – passivised.

d. The house, Jane painted – focused

In sentence (a) the sentence is in the normal subject-verb-object order

without any special meaning. Sentences (b) and (d) tend to lay emphasis on Jane,
the doer of the action being referred to. In sentence (c), the emphasis is on the house
which was bought.
 Indeed, focused and tropicalised elements in a structure are given
prominence within an information structure. A component of the bit of information
can also be made more prominent by stressing it. Consider further the following:

She BOUGHT my newspaper (She did not STEAL it)

She bought my NEWSPAPER (not my textbook)

SHE bought my newspaper (not any other person)

Conceptual Meaning

In semantics, conceptual meaning is the literal or core sense of a word. There

is nothing read into the term, no subtext; it's just the straightforward, literal,
dictionary definition of the word. The term is also called denotation or cognitive
meaning. Contrast the word with connotation, affective meaning, and figurative
meaning, which go beyond the dictionary to add subtext to a word when it's used.

In writing and conversation, it's good to know the difference between the
literal, conceptual meaning of a word and all the connotations it has before you use
it, to dispel misunderstandings or any offense before you accidentally put it out
there—especially if a word is loaded with negatives or stereotypes about a group of
people.

"To understand a word fully," noted authors Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman,
"a student must know not only what it refers to, but also where the boundaries are
that separate it from words of related meaning."

Conceptual meaning (Leech 1981:9) is synonymous with primary, central,

logical, cognitive or denotative meaning of a word. It is the first ordinary meaning
listed in dictionaries which is not affected by the context or emotional overtones
associated with the act of communication. There is an assumed shared conceptual
meaning of every word of a language. There is a universal implication of the
conceptual meaning. It is widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic
communication. Conceptual meanings are the essential or core meaning while other
six types are the peripheral. They are peripheral in a sense that they are non-
essential. Conceptual meaning is also called as primary meaning. It is the meaning
suggested by the word when it used alone. It is the first meaning or usage which a
word will suggest to most people when the word is said in isolation. It is the meaning
learned early in life and likely to have reference to a physical situation. The
conceptual meaning of word is its agreed-upon sense - what it refers to, stands for,
or designates. The aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic
representation to a sentence or statement. A sentence is made of abstract symbols.
Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other
sentences. Thus, conceptual meaning is an essential part of language. A language
essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. The conceptual
meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.

An example of conceptual meaning would be the word "cat". When

you think of the word, images, words, thoughts, and memories immediately
become activated to provide you with the concept behind the three-letter
word c/a/t. Hence, these thoughts and memories are the concepts under
which you understand the meaning of the word.

Cat:

 mammal
 covered in fur
 has whiskers
 sleek and fast
 have great flexibility
 not a dog, not a bird, not a cow, etc (contrastive)
 meows
  sleeps up to 18 hours a day
 is unfriendly/friendly
 scratches/has claws

And so on, you will add the facts that will create a concept map of the word. A
good way to understand conceptual meaning is through the application of the Frayer
Model, which is graphic organizer that classifies and categorizes the facts about a
word so that there can be a clear understanding of the concept behind it.

Associative Meaning

The meaning of a word is affected by the context, background, time and the cultural
realities of the users of language. This type of meaning is not static. It is variable and
open ended. Certain words, structures and styles are usually employed to arouse
some emotional reactions in the hearer. Certain attitudes and forms of behaviour are
elicited by the associative meaning of the words used in communication. These
different reactions are derived from the associations which the words cerate in the
minds of language users.

As a result of the great variation in associative meaning, it is not always easy to

express that form of meaning in terms of contrastive semantic features. Indeed,
associative meaning reflects individual differences. There are individualized
intentions and interpretations. There is therefore, the need for all participants in
communication to share common reference points, symbols and background for
there to be any meaningful interaction.

Most of the problems of communication arise when associative meaning is assumed

to be shared by all concerned. There must be a way of ensuring actual sharing of
background. For second language learners, this problem is profound. This explains
the enormous difficulty second language learners encounter with decoding the
meaning of idioms and figurative expressions. They also find it difficult to apply
appropriate idioms to diverse situations. Associative meaning can be any of the
following:

Connotative Meaning

Collocative Meaning

Reflected Meaning

Stylistic or Social Meaning

"A good example of a common noun with an almost universal associative meaning is
'nurse.' Most people automatically associate 'nurse' with 'woman.' This unconscious
association is so widespread that the term 'male nurse' has had to be coined to
counteract its effect."
Topic 3. Morphology

In English grammar and morphology, a morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit

consisting of a word such as dog, or a word element, such as the -s at the end
of dogs, that can't be divided into smaller meaningful parts.

The term morphology is generally attributed to the German poet, novelist,

playwright, and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), who coined
it early in the nineteenth century in a biological context. Its etymology is Greek:
morph- means ‘shape, form’, and morphology is the study of form or forms. In
biology morphology refers to the study of the form and structure of organisms, and
in geology it refers to the study of the configuration and evolution of land forms. In
linguistics morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to
the branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure, and how they
are formed.

Morphemes

A major way in which morphologists investigate words, their internal structure, and
how they are formed is through the identification and study of morphemes, often
defined as the smallest linguistic pieces with a grammatical function. This definition
is not meant to include all morphemes, but it is the usual one and a good starting
point. A morpheme may consist of a word, such as hand, or a meaningful piece of a
word, such as the -ed of looked, that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts.
Another way in which morphemes have been defined is as a pairing between sound
and meaning. We have purposely chosen not to use this definition. Some morphemes
have no concrete form or no continuous form, as we will see, and some do not have
meanings in the conventional sense of the term. You may also run across the term
morph. The term ‘morph’ is sometimes used to refer specifically to the phonological
realization of a morpheme. For example, the English past tense morpheme that we
spell -ed has various morphs. It is realized as [t] after the voiceless [p] of jump (cf.
jumped), as [d] after the voiced [l] of repel (cf. repelled), and as [@d] after the
voiceless [t] of root or the voiced [d] of wed (cf. rooted and wedded). We can also call
these morphs allomorphs or variants. The appearance of one morph over another in
this case is determined by voicing and the place of articulation of the final consonant
of the verb stem. Now consider the word reconsideration. We can break it into three
morphemes: re-, consider, and -ation. Consider is called the stem. A stem is a base
morpheme to which another morphological piece is attached. The stem can be
simple, made up of only one part, or complex, itself made up of more than one piece.
Here it is best to consider consider a simple stem. Although it consists historically of
more than one part, most present-day speakers would treat it as an unanalyzable
form. We could also call consider the root. A root is like a stem in constituting the
core of the word to which other pieces attach, but the term refers only to
morphologically simple units. For example, disagree is the stem of disagreement,
because it is the base to which -ment attaches, but agree is the root. Taking disagree
now, agree is both the stem to which dis- attaches and the root of the entire word.
Returning now to reconsideration, re- and -ation are both affixes, which means that
they are attached to the stem. Affixes like re- that go before the stem are prefixes,
and those like -ation that go after are suffixes.

Some readers may wonder why we have not broken -ation down further into two
pieces, -ate and -ion, which function independently elsewhere. In this particular
word they do not do so (cf. *reconsiderate), and hence we treat -ation as a single
morpheme. It is important to take very seriously the idea that the grammatical
function of a morpheme, which may include its meaning, must be constant. Consider
the English words lovely and quickly. They both end with the suffix -ly. But is it the
same in both words? No – when we add -ly to the adjective quick, we create an adverb
that describes how fast someone does something. But when we add -ly to the noun
love, we create an adjective. What on the surface appears to be a single morpheme
turns out to be two. One attaches to adjectives and creates adverbs; the other
attaches to nouns and creates adjectives
Allomorphs:

The analysis of words into morphemes begins with the isolation of morphs. A morph
is a physical form representing some morpheme in a language. It is a recurrent
distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence of sounds (phonemes). In short it is a
variation in a pronunciation of a morpheme.

We have a similar situation with LEXEME and WORD-FORM.

Lexeme and morpheme are abstract units, while word-form and morph are their
physical (phonological) realisations.

One and the same morpheme may take phonetically different shapes. (it may be
represented by different morphs). Different forms of the same morpheme are called
allomorphs (which means other forms). This general property of allomorphic
variation is called allomorphy.

Recognizing different allomorphs of the same morpheme is one of the surest ways to
extend one’s vocabulary and to identify relationships between words.

Any speaker of English will identify the nouns cares, caps, classes as sharing the
plural morpheme –s, though both the spelling and the pronunciation of the
morpheme vary in the three words, i.e. the morpheme has three allomorphs.

These are the four essential properties of all morphemes:

1) they are packaged with a meaning,

2) they can be recycled,

3) they may be represented by any number of syllables,

4) morphemes may have phonetically different shapes.

Activity (duration time: 2 minutes) Partial Recapitulation:

Divide the following words into morphemes.

(a) untrue

(b) owner
(c) incompletely

(d) government

(e) development

(f) rewrite

(g) fewest

Types of morphemes:

There are two kinds of morpheme.

1) Free morpheme

2) Bound morpheme

Free Morphemes – a simple word consists of a single morpheme, and so is a free

morpheme, a morpheme with the potential for independent occurrence.

In “The farmer kills the duckling”, the free morphemes are the, farm, kill
and duck.

Two kinds of free morphemes:

1. lexical morpheme (open classs): has lexical meaning; new examples can be
freely added

examples: N, Verb, Adj, Adv (content words)

2. functional morpheme (closed class)

new examples are rarely added (but not impossible to add)

examples: Pro, Prep, Conj, Art. (function words)

Bound Morphemes – by contrast, require the presence of another morpheme
to make up a word; they can’t occur independently. The morphs –er, -s and –ling
in the given example are bound morphemes.

Activity (duration time: 3 minutes) Partial Recapitulation:

Mention the free and bound morphemes in the following words,

1) Undo

2) Disagreement

3) Beautiful

4) Internationalization

5) Meaningless

Affixation: Prefixes, suffixes and infixes:

Prefixes occur before the morpheme, as in un-happy.

Suffixes occur after a morpheme, as in friend-ly.

Infix, that goes inside another morpheme, as in 'mother-in-law' (some languages

make more use of this than English).

Collectively, suffixes, prefixes and infixes are called affixes.

Common prefixes

 Co+occur ‘occur together’

 Mid+night ‘middle of the night’
 Mis+treat ‘treat badly’
 Re+turn ‘turn back’
 Un+filled ‘not filled’
 Peri+meter ‘measure around’
 Common suffixes

 Act+ion ‘state of acting’

 Act+or ‘person who acts’
 Act+ive ‘pertaining to being in action’
 Child+ish ‘like a child’
 Child+hood ‘state of being a child’
 Child+less ‘without a child’

Activity (duration time: 2 minutes) Partial Recapitulation:

Identify the prefixes and suffixes in the following words.

(a) untrue

(b) owner

(c) incompletely

(d) government

(e) development

(f) rewrite

(g) fewest

Root, stem, and base:

Root: A root is the irreducible core of a word, with absolutely nothing else attached
to it. E.g. jump- jumps, jumping, jumped. Here, jump is the root.

Stem: the stem is that part of a word that exists before the addition of any
inflectional morpheme. E.g. worker workers, shift shifted

Base: Base is any unit of a word where any kind of affixes can be added. It could be
both inflectional or derivational. E.g. boy  boys, boy  boyish, boy  boyhood
The bottom-line: All roots are bases; bases are called stem in context of inflectional
morphology

Types of bound morphemes:

There are two types of bound morphemes:

1) Inflectional morphemes

An inflectional morpheme is used to create a variant form of a word in order to signal

grammatical information. For example, the suffix [-ed] signals that a verb is past
tense: walk-ed.

English has only eight inflectional affixes:

 noun plural {-s} – “He has three desserts.”

 noun possessive {-s} – “This is Betty’s dessert.”
 verb present tense {-s} – “Bill usually eats dessert.”
 verb past tense {-ed} – “He baked the dessert yesterday.”
 verb past participle {-en} – “He has always eaten dessert.
 verb present participle {-ing} – “He is eating the dessert now.”
 adjective comparative {-er} – “His dessert is larger than mine.”
 adjective superlative {-est} – “Her dessert is the largest.”

2) Derivational morphemes

these are affixes that attach to a lexical root and result in a new word, a
complex lexeme called stem. The suffix – er / / in English is a derivational suffix.
Adding it to a lexical root gives a stem with related meaning.

Ex. bake – baker, boil – boiler.

These suffixes do not only change the meaning of the morpheme they are
attached to, they also change its part-of-speech.
Examples:

Noun –Adjective / boy + ish

Verb – Noun / sing + er

Adjective – Adverb / exact + ly

Noun – Verb / vapor + ize

Adjective – Noun / free + dom

Verb – Adjective / read + able

Some derivational suffixes do not cause change in grammatical class.

Example

Noun – Noun / Friend + ship

Verb – Verb / un + do

Adjective – Adjective pink + ish

Activity Quick recap:

What is the basic difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes?

Importance of studying morphology:

Decoding – Readers who recognize morphemes read more quickly and accurately.
Vocabulary - Knowledge of meaning of word parts expands reader’s vocabulary.
Comprehension - Knowledge of morphemes helps makes meaning from text.
Spelling - Morphemes are units that can be predictably spelled.

Some other process of word formation

 Coinage
 Blending
 Compounding
 Zero derivation
 Onamatopeia
 Clipping
 Acronyms
 Loan
Topic 4. Paradigmatic sense relations

Paradigmatic refers a relationship among linguistic elements that can

substitute for each other in a given context, as the relationship of sun in “The sun
is shining” to other nouns, as moon, star, or light, that could substitute for it in
that sentence, or of is shining to was shining, shone, will shine, etc., as well as
to is rising, is setting, etc.

Paradigmatic sense relations The term "paradigmatic" relation was first

introduced by Louis Hjelmslev. de-Saussure, who establishes the opposition
between the two types of relations in structural linguistics, uses the term
"associative" relations for what Hjelmslev calls paradigmatic relations.

Paradigmatic relations reflect the semantic choices available for a particular

structure point in a sentence:

I will have a glass of ____________ beer / water / lemonade

Typically, paradigmatic relations involve words that belong to the same

syntactic category, although not always as in the following example:

We bought some _____________ dishes / forks / spoons / cutlery

Here, cutlery is a mass noun, whereas all the other in the list are count nouns.
In principle paradigmatic relations may hold between members of any of the major
syntactic categories. The following are examples involving verbs:

John __________ across the field. Ran / walked / crawled

Notice that the pairs dishes / forks, dishes / cutlery exemplify different
paradigmatic sense relations. (Cruse, 2000: 147-8)

Aitchison (1999: 89) believes that the advantage of looking at these different
relations is that they enable us to understand the multiple links of logical notation
so allowing us to be explicit in our description. Indeed, some words can be expressed
in terms of their logical relationships with other words.
 The two principles of contrastiveness and constituent structure represent the
way language is organized respectively on what linguists have termed paradigmatic
or selectional, and syntagmatic or combinatory axes of linguistic structure. (Leech,
1974:12)

The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships

with other expressions in the language. (Harford Heasley and Smith, 2007: 29)

What it has been referred to previously as the sense of an expression is the

whole set of sense relations contrasts with other expressions in the language. (ibid:
105)

Nida (1964 :125) adds that relations such as paradigmatic ones are of primary
importance in determining relations between contiguous, overlapping and included
meanings.

Hyponymy

One of the most important structuring relations in the vocabulary of a

language is hyponymy.

Lyons (1968:453) explains that the term hyponymy is a recent creation by

analogy with synonymy and antonymy. Although, the term maybe new, the notion
of hyponymy is traditional enough, and it has been for a long time recognized as one
of the constituent principles in the organization of all languages. It is frequently
referred to as "inclusion".

Nida (1964: 15) also provides examples for this meaning of "inclusion", by
showing that the meaning of scarlet is said to be included in the meaning of red;
the meaning of tulip is included in the meaning of flower, and so on.

No less important than opposition and contrast as a paradigmatic relation of

sense, is the relation that holds between a more specific, or subordinate lexeme with
a more general, or super ordinate lexicon as exemplified by such pairs as the above.
(Lyons 1968:291)
 Some scholars use the term hyponymy for logical subordination, but here the
term is reserved for the meaning relationship that holds between A and B, if the
meaning of A is fully contained in the meaning of B.

In addition to the meaning of B, the meaning of A must contain further

specification, rendering the meaning of A; the hyponym is more specific than the
meaning of B. If A is a hyponymy of B, B is called a hyponymy of A. In other words,
hyponymy is a relation between words that result from a relation between their
meanings and leads to a relation between their denotation. The denotation of the
hyponymy is a subcategory of the denotation of the hyper noun. (Lobner, 2002:87 -
88). This relation is shown in the following figure:

Hyponymy holds if two expressions have the same meaning except for an
additional feature [+ a] or [- a] for one of them, e.g. child and boy

Lyons (1963: 70-1), observes that in classical Greek there is a super ordinate
term to cover a variety of professions and crafts such as: carpenter, doctor, flute
player, shoe maker, etc.., but none in English. The nearest possible term is " crafts
man ", but that would not include doctor or flute man. Also rather strangely, there is
no super ordinate term for color words: red, blue, green, white, etc …., the term "
colored " usually excludes black and white and grey too, or else means " non – white".

Lyons (1968:292) argues that hyponymy is a transitive relation. If X is a

hyponymy of Y and Y is a hyponymy of Z, then X is a hyponymy of Z. For example,
cow is a hyponymy of mammal and mammal is a type of animal, therefore, cow
is a hyponymy of animal. Hyponymy is a sense relation. Another term for sense,
preferred by logicians, is intension, a term deliberately chosen for its implicit
contrast with extension. Hyponymy is defined in terms of inclusion of the sense of
an item in the sense of another. We say for an example that the sense of animal is
included in the sense of cow. This inclusion can be shown roughly by a figure:

Since the synonymy of truth value of two assertions is a special case of

entailment e.g. john is a grown up entails john is an adult. It is simplest to define
hyponymy to include identity of componential meaning. Then there is a precise
correspondence between entailment and hyponymy, and just as every assertion
entails itself, so every componential concept is a hyponymy itself. (Leech,1974:105)
Synonymy

Palmer (1976: 88) states that synonymy is used to mean " sameness of
meaning ". It is obvious that for the dictionary maker, many sets of words have the
same meaning, they are synonymous, or synonyms of one another.

Lyons mentions that for instance, horse and mare are synonymous in:

This ________ has just given birth to a foal, but not in

I have just bought a ________.

The reason is that the substitution of horse for mare in the first sentential
frame makes no difference to the truth conditions of the resulting sentence, where
as it makes difference for the second.

However, according to the position adopted in the previous examples, there

is no synonymy between mare and horse in either of these frames. The first frame
does not select a particular discrete reading of horse, but adds the feature [female]
to the general meaning.

Fllmore (1977: 129) adds that words are synonymous if different lexical
choices are available for the same element in the same frame, for example eye doctor
and oculist are synonymous.

Two expressions A, B of a language are called synonymy if they mean the

same. This notion is typically applied to lexical items, including idioms, but it can be
used for larger expressions as well of course. (Cruse,1986:88)

All the examples so far have been for synonymy between predicates restricted
grammatically by a word of the same part of speech, for example between adjective
and adjective, noun and noun …etc. But the notion of synonymy can be extended to
hold between words of different parts of speech, for example between the verb
sleeping and asleep.

Examples like these are not the kind usually given of synonymy, but they help
to make the point that the sense of a word does not depend entirely on its part of
speech. Examples of perfect synonymy are hard to find, perhaps because there is
little point in a dialect having two predicates with exactly the same meaning.

Lyons (1968:441) believes that the question whether two lexical items have
the same meaning or not is normally interpreted as synonymy. This is a paradigmatic
relation: i.e., a relation which holds between items that occur in the same context
and in the same sentence type.

There are few true synonyms. The reason is obvious: a true synonym of an
expression would be superfluous. The best candidate for true synonyms, as
woodchuck and groundhog exist, because they are coined in different subgroups of
speech community, but are known to the larger community, so they represent
dialectal or idiolectical differences.

Most cases that are considered to be synonymous have identical or similar

truth conditions, but differ in other respects, such as stylistic level e.g. (baby, infant),
or (pass away. die, kick the bucket), or differ in the general field of discourse e.g.
(marriage, matrimony), or in certain connotations e.g. (police officer or cop),
(cleaning lady or maid)

Palmer (1976: 91) states that true or total synonymy are mutually
interchangeable in all their environments, but it is almost certainly the case that
there are no total or true synonymy in this sense; this indeed would seem to be a
corollary to the belief that that no two words have exactly the same meaning, and if
there are such words, they are interchangeable in every situation.
Topic 5.1: Linguistic Underdeterminacy

Saying and Meaning

It is widely observed that there is often a divergence between what a person
says and what she means, between the meaning of the linguistic expression she uses
and the meaning she seeks to communicate by using it. Some distinction or other of
this sort is made by virtually everyone working in pragmatics and its reality is
confirmed by our daily experience as speakers and hearers. I aim to do the following
in this chapter: first, to chart the extent of this gap between the meaning of the
linguistic forms we use and what we mean on occasions of our use of them; second,
to examine why there should be such a gap and whether it is a contingent or
necessary property of verbal communication; third, briefly to consider whether there
is any analogous discrepancy between thought representations and their content. Let
us start with some phenomena which are obviously part of what is meant by the
speaker but not part of what her linguistic string means, and move towards instances
where the distinction is not so clear. The textbook case is irony and its standard
characterization is that of saying one thing while meaning the opposite.

Though this is certainly an inadequate characterization, it is good enough for

the immediate point. So a speaker may utter (1), when what she intends to
communicate is that Joan has a very poor sense of direction, that she is bound to get
lost and that it is laughable to expect her to arrive on time:

(1) With her excellent spatial sense, Joan is sure to find a shortcut and
be the first to arrive.

Tropes, or figurative uses of language, in general, tend to exemplify clearly the

saying/meaning distinction. So metaphor, metonymy and hyperbole, for instance,
all involve saying one thing in order to communicate something else. All of these can
be, and standardly are, viewed as cases where what is said is not even a part of what
is meant, but is merely a vehicle for conveying what is meant. There is another class
of cases, where what is said is included in what is meant, but constitutes only a small
part of what is meant and is, at least in some instances, not the main point of the
utterance. Similes, understatements, and indirect answers provide such examples,
so the speaker of (2) or (3B) means what she says, but she means a great deal more
as well:

(2) Bill behaves like a three-year-old child whose teddy-bear has been
taken away.

(3) A: Did you enjoy the evening at Bob and Sue’s?

B: I’m not much of a party person.

The speaker in each case intends her utterance to be taken literally, but she
also intends her addressee to draw certain further implications from it: in (2),
implications regarding Bill’s behaviour and character, and, in (3B), a rather negative
answer to A’s question and other implications concerning her own preferences and
dispositions.

A property that both of these classes of saying/meaning divergences may

exhibit is a kind of open-endedness in what is meant, while what is said is usually
felt to be determinate and singular. So in (4), a metaphorical case, where the speaker
does not mean (at least part of) what she says, what she communicates is an
impression of the sort of behaviour, demeanour and psychological state typical of
Mary when she is crossed.

(4) When she doesn’t get her own way Mary becomes a raging inferno.
 It would be difficult to formulate this in terms of a small definitive set of
propositions and there is room for differences across hearers as to the specific
implications they entertain as part of their understanding of the utterance. A similar
point can be made about the more mundane example in (5), where the speaker does
mean what she says, but would also standardly communicate a range of implications
about her ability to function today, her readiness to get on with work, her improved
state of mind, etc.

(5) I’m feeling better today.

Utterances which employ a subsentential linguistic expression are another

sort of case again. The utterance in (6) employs just a prepositional phrase and the
one in (7) just an adjective, but what is meant by a speaker in both cases is something
sentence-shaped (propositional), presumably quite obvious in the context.

(6) On the top shelf.

(7) Higher.

When (6) is uttered by a speaker who realizes that the hearer, making his
breakfast, is looking for the marmalade, it communicates ‘the marmalade is on the
top shelf’. From there on, the example is just like those of the second set above in
that it may well have various further intended implications: the marmalade does not
belong on the bottom shelf, I have moved it to its proper place, I am not trying to
hide it from you, etc.

What these examples demonstrate is that, in addition to a speaker standardly

meaning more or other than she says, the ‘what is said’ of the utterance may itself
involve more than the meaning of the linguistic expressions used. So it looks as if we
have to distinguish two notions which, in these preliminary observations, have been
run together: there is linguistic meaning, the information encoded in the particular
lexical-syntactic form employed, and there is the thought or proposition which it is
being used to express, that is, what is said. While there is a fair amount of variation
in how the term ‘what is said’ is construed, it is generally agreed to be something
fully propositional, that is, semantically complete, and so truthevaluable.1 It is this
disparity, between linguistic meaning and the proposition expressed, that I want to
concentrate on in what follows in this chapter. That other major symptom of the
disparity between linguistic content and what a speaker means, the intended
implications (the implicatures or implicit import) of an utterance, will be taken up
again in chapter 2.

While subsentential utterances are typical of much ordinary conversation

among familiars, most of those linguistic productions that have the status of
discourses or texts are supersentential, that is, they generally consist of more than a
single sentence. There is a range of relations which may be understood to hold
between sequences of sentences uttered in a discourse and these too are frequently
not encoded by the linguistic expressions used:

(8) a. He mistook his wife for a hat-stand; he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

b. Her life was in a mess. Her lover had left her and her electric
toothbrush wasn’t working.

In an utterance of (8a), the second sentence would be understood as giving an

explanation for the state of affairs described in the first. In an utterance of (8b), the
second sentence would be understood as elaborating on or exemplifying the
statement in the first. An utterance of a single sentence which consists of more than
one clause may also be understood as communicating a stronger relationship
between the states of affairs described than is encoded by the element that connects
the clauses:
(9) a. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and he mistook his wife for a hat-
stand.

b. When she saw Mrs Simpson coming down the aisle she hid behind
the breakfast cereals.

In both of these cases, a cause–consequence relation is understood to hold

between the states of affairs described, though neither of the clausal connectives,
‘and’ and ‘when’, nor any other linguistic element in the utterances, encodes this.
Whether these communicated relationships are part of what the speaker has said
(the proposition she has expressed) or are merely implications of the utterance will
be considered in chapter 3.
Topic 5.2: Speaker’s meaning or content

Sentence meaning is different from speaker’s meaning.

Sentence is a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a

subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command,
and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.
Thompson (2004) describes the experiential functions of language as:

“We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the
worlds in our own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in
them.” (ibid: 30).

Sentence meaning is what a sentence means. There is often a divergence

between the meaning of the linguistic expression a speaker uses and the meaning he
intends to communicate by using it. What hearers are interested in is what the
speaker means, and that leads him to ignore the fact that the speaker's words mean
something.

There are some examples from newspapers headlines in which sentence

meaning is different from speaker’s meaning.

1) “Terry Smith collapsed face-down in a pool of his own vomit.” (Los Angeles
Times) In this headline we see that sentence meaning gives an idea that Terry smith
is fell down in a pool by slipping from his own vomit. But on the other hand speaker
meaning is that Terry Smith got died because his lungs are slowly filled with fluid
due to excessive use of wine. Six people died of drug overdoses within a span of 18
months.

2) “Repositioning Pakistan.” Shahid Javed Burki (DAWN NEWS) From

sentence meaning we get meaning that Pakistan is moving back or relocating its
previous position but the speaker Shahid Javed Burki who is the caretaker finance
minister and served as vice-president of World-Bank means that changes in the
international levels such as conflict
between America and China, Pakistan is taking loan from FBI as well as taking many
initiative of development with China how country like Pakistan is a factor in these
big changes in international affairs?

3) “Government to drop ‘White Bomb’ in the next budget.” (Tribune) In this

headline speaker meaning is that milk consumers will face a brunt of change in dairy
tax structure. They will have to pay 280 billion extra amount of money.

4) Pakistani victory. Huge losses on both sides. (The Australian Sep 11,1965)
When we analyze this sentence as a sentence meaning first we came to know that
Pakistan got victory but in the second sentence of headline we came to know that
both countries got defeated. On the other hand, when we analyze through speaker
meaning we came to know that ‘losses’ means the loss of lives of many people in the
battle.

5) “The cup comes to Pakistan.” (DAWN 1992) Speaker meaning is that the
cricket world cup is won by Pakistan so this time World-Cup will be awarded to
Pakistan.

6) “woman falls in hospital, told to call ambulance.” (Laura Stone and Theresa
Boyle) 82 years old Wallace, who was leaving with her son after visiting her dying
husband at greater Niagara General Hospital on Oct 8 was told by staff no one could
help her until an ambulance was called.