BLL 116: Semantics Sources of Meaning Appearance Experience Function/Context Reality

Kinds of Meaning Descriptive Emotive Evocative: evoking ideas/implications Compositionality Meaning is a product of different levels of meaning If you know a language, you know approximately a thousand words (lexicon) Word meaning: denotation, lexical meaning=LIMITED Sentence meaning: generative grammar=RECURSIVE Must be assessed against comparable/dissimilar values Getting meaning out of the sequence of words All the words in a sentence must have a connection between them Getting meaning by subtraction Claims: 1. Meanings of complex expressions are completely determined by the constituents meanings 2. Meaning is completely predictable by general rules governing the constituents meanings 3. Every grammatical constituent has a meaning which contributes to the meaning of the whole sentence

Literal vs. Figurative Meaning Figurative meanings are more rule governed -idioms -personification -metonymy -metaphor

Reference & Mental Representations Denote: relationship between a linguistic expression and the world: process Refer: choosing the word (picking out words): moment-to-moment Reference Referring expressions (nouns) Non-referring expressions (so, maybe, all, not, very, if) Constant reference Variable reference (pronouns) Referents (the things picked out) Extensions (set of things referred to)

Names: labels for peopleoften seem to have little or no meaning Descriptive Theory: names and referents are dependent on associating the names with the right descriptions Causal Theory: names are socially inherited and borrowed; meaning is not dependent on history Nouns and Noun Phrases Noun phrases can be used to describe the referent Sometimes there is no referent to fit Distributive vs. collective (group nouns) Nominals are sometimes trickier in their denotational behavior

Reference as Theory of Meaning Many words have no meaning (e.g. so, very, but)=no referent to the word Many words are abstract (e.g. unicorn, WWIII) There is no one-to-one correspondence Some expressions may refer to something but may be ignorant of other coexpressions (e.g. President=commander-in-chief of UAF)

Mental Representations Sense: level of mental representations between word and world Image Theory: mental entities=images and concepts (problematic to common nouns)

Concepts Utility causes some concepts to be lexicalized and others not Child Developmental Psychology: overextension & underextension Necessary & Sufficient Conditions If speakers share the same concept, theyll agree on the conditions Prototypes Prototypes allow borderline uncertainty Central prototype: abstraction which is a set of characters Incorrect grammar voids the existence of meaning Ostensive definition=meaning by example

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Language relativity: language determines consciousness Language determinism Epistemes=structuralized knowledge Context & Inference Pragmatics=semantic knowledge + other knowledge Deixis: elements that are contextually bound; not explained in grammar books; subjective knowledge 1. Spatial Deixis: discourse, demonstrative, localism 2. Person Deixis: pronouns (1st, 2nd, 3rd) 3. Social Deixis: social character (absolute=social rank [e.g. your Honor]; relational=relation [formal vs. familiar]) Reference and Context Synechdoche: part of a whole Metonymy: association Knowledge as context -computable from the physical context -available from what has already been said -available from background/common knowledge Discourse as context: discourse can be said/read in different ways Background knowledge: common sense, knowledge by membership communal vs. personal

 Mutual knowledge=I know you know that I know Focus & Topic Intonation Focus Syntactic constructions also marl intonation TOPIC: general idea of what the conversation is about Information structure and comprehension

Inference Coreference: both expressions refer to the same thing 1. Anaphora: I dropped the plate. It shattered loudly. 2. Nominal Reference: I dropped the plate. The plate shattered. 3. Independent Nominal Reference: I saw your brother. The old fool still didnt remember me. 4. Bridging inference: I walked into the room. The windows hung beautifully.