ENG 122

Introduction to Linguistics
• Lexical semantics
• Sense, denotation and meaning
• Intension and extension
• Meaning relations

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 Lexical semantics

A lexeme is a semantic word

Lexemes are the units which are conventionally listed

in dictionaries as separate entries.

A lexeme is an abstract unit underlying sets of

grammatical variants such as walk, walks, walking,
walked for the lexeme ‘walk’ or big, bigger, biggest
for the lexeme ‘big’.

Lexical semantics concerns the meaning of and

relationships between the meaning of lexemes.

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 Denotation

The meaning of a word or phrase is equated with the entities to
which it denotes, also known as its denotation.

The denotation of the word dog corresponds to the class of dogs.

The denotation of the word winter corresponds the period of time

between autumn and summer.

As a consequence we can say that phrases like the dog in the dog
is barking can be said to refer to a particular dog, but denote the
class of dogs.

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 Denotation

However, winter means something very different to a Canadian
and a Brazilian.

Although a word’s denotation is connected to its meaning, they

cannot be one in the same, because of additional connotations of
a word.

A connotation is the set of associations that a word’s use can

invoke.

Connotations of winter might be...

It is cold.
It gets dark early.
People eat a lot more soup.

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 Denotation

Connotation alone cannot make up the
meaning because a word like winter can still
be used for the season stretching from
December to March, even if it isn't cold.

Furthermore, there are words such as unicorn

and phrases such as the present king of
France which have no referents in the real
world, but they do have meaning!

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 Denotation

Two expressions can have the same referent, even
though they mean different things.
฀

The Prime Minister of the India

The leader of the Congress party

At the moment, both refer to Manmohan Singh,

though this will not always be the case!

This led to the distinction between extension and

intension.

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 Extension and intension

An expression’s extension corresponds to the set of
entities that it picks out in the world - its referents
(extensional meaning is often called reference).

The extension of women is a set of real world women.

An expression’s intension corresponds to its inherent

sense - the concepts that it evokes.

The intension of women involves notions like ‘female’
and ‘human’.

Intensional meaning is often called sense.

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 Extension and intension

The Prime Minister of the UK

Extension: David Cameron

Intension: leader of the governing party

This doesn’t actually solve the problem of

defining meaning, it just asks about meaning
in a different way (i.e., what are intensions?).

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 Polysemy

Polysemy occurs when a word has two or more
related meanings.

bright ‘shining', 'intelligent’

to glare ‘to shine intensely’;, 'to stare angrily’

a deposit ‘mineral in the earth', 'money in the
bank’

Polysemous senses of the same word are listed

under the same lexical entry in a dictionary.

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 Homophony

Homophony occurs when a single form has two or
more entirely distinct meanings.

In such cases it is presumed there are two or more

separate words with the same pronunciation rather
than a single word with different meanings.

bat ‘winged mammal’ ‘a club used to strike the ball in

sports’

bank ‘financial institution’ ‘the side of a river, stream,
lake or canal’

pen ‘writing implement’ ‘a fenced area of land for
keeping animals in’
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 Homophony
• Lexicographers give homophonous senses
separate entries in a dictionary.

Together, polysemy and homophony create

lexical ambiguity in that a single form has two
or more meanings.

As we have seen before, ambiguities of this

kind are usually resolved in their relation to
their pragmatic context.

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 Synonyms

Synonyms are words or expressions that have
the same meaning in some or all contexts.

Plausible synonyms in English

youth - adolescent

begin - start

remember - recall

purchase - buy

vacation - holidays

big - large

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 Synonyms

Even those synonyms that appear to be very similar in meaning
get used in different ways

Christmas is a holiday, but not necessarily a vacation

Although youth and adolescent have similar meanings, only the
latter can be used to refer to someone who is immature 'he is
such an adolescent’

This is my big sister vs. this is my large sister

Many linguistics believe that it would be inefficient for a language

to have two words or phrases whose meanings are absolutely
identical in all contexts, and that complete synonym is rare or
non-existent.

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 Antonyms

Antonyms are 'opposites' that contrast in
respect to at least one component of meaning.

boy and girl are opposites with respect to

gender.

come and go are roughly speaking opposites

with respect to direction.

There are several different subtypes.

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 Simple antonyms

The pairs are sometimes called complementary pairs
or binary pairs.

This is a relationship between words such that the

negative of one implies the positive of the other.

The words involved form a two-term classification.

dead:alive (of, e.g. animals)

pass:fail (a test)

hit:miss (a target)

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 Gradable antonyms

This is a relationship between opposites where the positive of one
term does not necessarily imply the negative of the other.

There are usually intermediate terms between gradable

antonyms.

hot (warm, tepid, cool) cold

The terms are usually relative.

A small elephant is larger than a big mouse.

One term in the pair is usually basic/common in that it.

How long is it? vs. How short is it?

For other pairs there is no such pattern.

How hot is it? vs. How cold is it?
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 Reversives

Reversives denote movement (or more generally change) in opposite
directions, between two terminal states.

The best examples denote movement in opposite directions.

rise:fall

enter:leave

advance:retreat

More abstract examples involve a change in opposite directions between

two states.

tie:untie

dress:undress

roll:unroll

mount: dismount

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 Converses

These are terms which describe a relation between two entities
from alternative viewpoints.

own/belong to

above/below

employer/employee

If David owns a book, we can automatically say the book belongs

to David.

If Helen is David’s employer, we can automatically say that David

is Helen’s employee.

These relations are part of a speaker’s semantic knowledge.

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 Hyponyms

This term helps to define the relationship between:

apple and fruit

car and vehicle

slap and hit

apple is a hyponym of fruit

fruit is a superordinate (hyperonym) of apple

Hyponymy is often seen as a relation of inclusion.

However, this depends on whether we look at it from the perspective of

extensional meaning or intensional meaning.

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Hyponyms

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Hyponyms

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 Hyponyms

From the extensional point of view, the class denoted by a
superordinate term is includes the class denoted by the hyponym
as a subclass.

The class of fruit includes the class of apples as a subclass.

The class of acts of hitting includes as a subclass the class of acts

of slapping.

Looking at the meaning intensionally, we may say that the

meaning (i.e. sense) of apple is richer than that of fruit, as it
includes within it the meaning of fruit.

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 Taxonomic sisters

The term hyponym is sometimes used to describe
words which are at the same level in a taxonomy.

Taxonomies are classification systems with a

hierarchical structure.

Hyponomy is a vertical relation.

‘Sisterhood’ relations are horizontal relations.

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 Taxonomic sisters
fruit

orange mango banana grapes

alphonso malda fazli

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 Inclusion and ‘transitivity’

stallion = male horse

stallion includes within it the superordinate category horse plus
something else

murder = kill with intent and illegally

murder includes within it the superordinate category kill plus
something else

Transitive relations: If A is a hyponym of B, and B a hyponym of

C, then A is necessarily a hyponym of C.

Imagine A = spaniel, B= dog, C = animal

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 Inclusion and ‘transitivity’

This doesn’t always seem to work.

A hang-glider is a type of glider

A glider is a type of aeroplane

*A hang-glider is a type of aeroplane

Only seems to work with protoypical instances of a category, i.e.

a prototypical A is a type of B.

Hyponyms and superordinates can usually be put in sentences

formed on the pattern

A horse is an animal or A horse is a type/kind/sort of animal

An apple is a fruit or An apple is a type/kind/sort of fruit

*A finger is a hand or *A finger is a type of hand
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 Inclusion and ‘transitivity’
This term helps to define the relationship between...

hand and finger

teapot and spout

telescope and lens

finger is a meronym of hand

hand is a holonym of finger

Meronymy is also a relation of inclusion

It is the lexical reflex of the part-whole relation

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 Inclusion and ‘transitivity’

From the extensional point of view, the class denoted by a
holonym includes the individuals (i.e. not the class) denoted by
the meronym

The hand physically includes the fingers

A telescope physically includes the lens

Looking at the meaning intensionally, we may say that the

meaning (i.e. sense) of finger somehow incorporates the meaning
of hand

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 Fuzzy concepts

A noun is said to denote something because it is associated with
something in the speakers mind (not the real world)

The representation in the mind could not (only) be visual:

Dog: chihuahua dog vs. St. Bernhard

Food: pizza vs. icecream

Non-visual concepts: love, justice, democracy

This raises the question of what attributes an entity must have to

be considered a member of a class.

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 Problems with conditions

Some conditions for being a zebra:
It s an animal
It has four legs
It is striped
It is a herbivore, etc

Which are necessary? The first one definitely is, but what if...

...there is a heard of zebras and one of them is completely white

or completely black?

...a zebra has three legs as a result of a birth defect?

...a zebra gets bored of eating grass and starts eating insect?

We’ll come back to dealing with this problem shortly...

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 Problems with conditions

Speakers often use words to refer to things that they
know very little about.
beech vs. elm
gold vs. platinum

It seems unlikely that a word refers to a concept
composed of necessary and sufficient conditions.

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 Conditions

One way of dealing with this is to establish necessary
and sufficient conditions for member ship to a
particular class or category.

Necessary conditions are attributes that must be

present for an entity to belong to a particular
category/class.

Sufficient conditions are a set of conditions that once

met are enough to be able to define an entity as
belonging to a particular category/class.

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 Semantic features

This involves representing a words intension by breaking it down
into smaller semantic components

These semantic components are sometimes called semantic features

It is most useful for uncovering and representing similarities among
semantically related words

man [+human, +adult, + male] boy [+human, –adult, +male]

woman [+human, +adult, –male] girl [+human, –adult, –male]

Note that these need not be the features; e.g., we could use
±female, ±young…

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 Semantic features

Other types of nominal features: mass vs. count nouns

I have two dogs I have many dogs

*I have two rice(s) *I have many rice(s)

We could use ±count as a feature to account for these contrasts

Verb meanings:

John boiled the water = John CAUSE water to BOIL

The meaning of boil includes both CAUSE and BOIL

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 Fuzzy concepts

Some of the concepts expressed by words in our languages have
clear cut boundaries that distinguish them from other concepts.

Member of Parliament: one is a Member of Parliament if and only

if one is duly elected to a particular legislative body; no other
person can be truthfully called a Member of Parliament.

How much money do you need to be a rich person? Hundred

crores? Twenty lakhs? Ten thousand?

You can miss out on being a Member of Parliament by five votes,

but you can't conceivable miss out on being rich by five rupees.

The concept of richness does not have clear cut boundaries, it is a

fuzzy concept.

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 Gradability and prototypes

Members of concepts can be graded in terms of their typicality.

Everyone can provided good examples of the concept 'film star' but
what makes a typical film star?

More media attention

More fan adulation

Greater box office success

Greater financial rewards

Even concepts whose boundaries are scientifically defined exhibit

graded membership.

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Which is the best bird?

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 Central exemplars

Consider the concept bird: warm blooded, egg laying,
feathered vertebrates with forelimbs modified to form
wings they still feel that some creatures are more
birdlike than others.

Robins and magpies are intuitively better exemplars of

birds than ostriches and penguins.

This suggests that concepts have an internal structure

with the best or prototypical exemplars close to the core
and less typical members arranged in successively more
peripheral regions.

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Semantic features
ostriches

storks

pigeons

robins
magpies

hawks

hummingbirds

penguins

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 Lexicalisation in Inuktitut

Concepts and lexicon:

There is no reason to believe that human beings in different
linguistic communities have different conceptual systems, but there
is ample evidence to show that language can differ from each other
in terms of how they express concepts.

Words for snow in Inuktitut:

Sometimes estimated to be hundreds by unknowledgeable
commentators, Inuktitut has at least four.

aput 'snow on the ground'

qana 'falling snow'

piqsirpoq 'drifting snow'

qimuqsuq 'snow drift'

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 Lexicalisation in English

English also has several words that are similar in
meaning to ‘snow’.

slush

blizzard

sleet

These are processes of lexicalisation, whereby concepts

are encoded in the words of a language. In Inuktitut, the
concepts of 'falling' and 'snow' are lexicalised in a single
word qana

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 Motion verbs in English

English verbs can simultaneously express the concept of
motion and the manner in which the motion occurs.

The rock rolled down the hill

The skate slid across the ice

She limped through the house

The smoke swirled through the opening

In Spanish, motion and manner must be expressed

separately…

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 Motion verbs in Spanish
*La botella rodó en la cueva.
Intended: ‘the bottle rolled into the cave’

La botella entró en la cueva, rodando

‘The bottle entered the cave, rolling.’

However, there are a number of verbs that encode motion and

path.

El globo bajó por la chimenea

The balloon moved-down through the chimney

El globo subió por la chimenea

The balloon moved-up through the chimney

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 Motion verbs in Atsugewi

In Atsugewi, a Palaihnihan language of California, verbs can express
both motion and the type of thing that moves.

lup for movement of a small, shiny, spherical object (a hailstone)

t for movement of a smallish, flat object that can be attached to
another (as stamp, a clothing patch, a shingle)

caq for movement of slimy lumpish object (a toad, a cow dropping)

swal for movement of a limp linear object, suspended by one end (a
shirt on a clothesline, a hanging dead rabbit)

qput for movement of loose, dry dirt

staq for movement of runny, unpleasant material (manure, guts,
chewed gum, rotten tomatoes)

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Meaning relations and gender
Superordinate Hyponym
Instrument (n) Guitarre (f) ‘guitar’,
‘musical Trompete (f) ‘trumpet’
instrument’
Obst (n) ‘fruit’ Apfel (m) ‘apple’,
Pflaume (f) ‘plum’
Land (n) ‘land’ Wald (m) ‘woods’, Sumpf
(m) ‘swamp’

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Assamese numeral classifiers
Semantic class Numeral classifier

Human males of normal zǤn

rank (respectful)
Female animals; human zǤni
females (disrespectful)
High status humans of zǤna
any sex
Humans of either sex gǤraki
(respectful)
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 Nivkh numeral classifiers
Semantic class one two
Thin flat objects n’rah merah
Small round objects n’ik mik

People n’en men

Animals n’Ǹn mor
Objects of different forms n'aqp meqp

Sledges n'irš mirš

Bundles of firewood n'ar mer
Fishes strung on twigs n'ŋgak mengaq

Families n'izču mizču

Fishnets n'vor mevor

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 Thematic Roles

Thematic roles refer to the relationship of a verb to the NPs
it selects. Consider:
The boy found a red brick
 It is not possible to understand this sentence without
understanding the relationship between the NPs the boy and
a red brick to the verb find
the boy = the performer of the act of finding
a red brick = the object that undergoes the act of
finding

• There are a number of different thematic roles (also called

theta roles or θ-roles) that a verb can select (note: you
might find different terms in the literature)

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 Thematic Roles
Thematic Description Example
role
Agent The entity that performs the John kicked the
action table
Theme/Patie The entity undergoing an action John kicked the
nt table
Location The place where an action John kicked the table
occurs in the kitchen
Source The place where the action John rolled the ball
originates from the house to
the fence
Goal The place to which an action is John rolled the ball
directed from the house to
the fence
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Instrument The means by which an action John locked the door
is performed with a key
 Thematic Roles
Thematic Description Example
role
Experiencer The entity that perceived John heard Mary
something sing

Causer A natural force that causes The wind knocked

change the tree down

Possessor The entity is possession of John’s dog is small

something

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 Thematic Roles
Think back to what we have listed for each word in the lexicon:

find [ __ NP ]

• We can also incorporate thematic roles into subcategorization

frames:

find < agent, theme >

 Note: Thematic roles are different from grammatical

roles:

John kicked the table

The table was kicked by John

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