6 Chapter 6 Semantics.ppt

Chapter 6 Semantics: the Analysis of Meaning 1 Defining semantics One difficulty in the study of meaning: Look at the following sentences When linguists analyse meanings in language, they look at meanings of different ranks of language and focus on word (lexical) or sentence meaning. 3 Two relationships of meaning: Reference and sense 3 Two relationships of meaning: Reference and sense 3.3 Classification of lexical meanings 3.3 Classification of lexical meanings Social meaning Affective meaning Reflected meaning Collocative meaning Awareness of the existence of these types of associative meaning is important in the correct use of words. 4 Lexical sense relations a colour fruit ? superordinate red green blue white apple pear grape orange ? hyponym co-hyponyms The network is composed of different levels: superordinate level, basic level and subordinate level. 富士 国光 123 … the subordinate level (Fuji) The basic level is identified as cognitively most important, as this level is used most frequently in daily life. There can be more than three levels in the conceptual network. Personally, there may not necessarily be only three levels, thus what is basic and what is superordinate/ subordinate are relative. 蔬菜 the superordinate level  黄瓜 豆角 茄子 白菜 the basic level 旱黄瓜 水黄瓜 the subordinate level … … … Sentences may be related in sense. S1 T F TvF F S2 T TvF T F S1. He managed to stop the car. S2. He tried to stop the car. If S1 is true, then B is true. If S1 is false, then S2 is still true. ? The truth of S2 does not depend on the truth of S1. Presupposition can occur in one sentence: John has stopped beat