LEXICOLOGÍA

MARTA CRESPO IGLESIAS

2º
Tema 1. Introducción. La lexicología como teoría del componente léxico.

 Noam Chomsky
 The language faculty
 Competence/performance

Competence basically means the knowledge you have on your native language, and
performance is how you put that knowledge in use. In our brains we have the language
faculty, that knowledge that allows us to use language in situations.

Language is faculty, a type of knowledge a speaker has about his or her language. A mental
property: it lays in human brains even when it is not being used. Competence is implicit.
Therefore, the theory must distinguish between that permanent knowledge and use we make
of it in specific situations. The object of the knowledge shall be born from the knowledge itself,
not in the performance. The aim of the subject is the speaker’s lexical competence.

Lexicology = Lexical semantics or the study of lexical meaning

Lexical semantics is loosely defined as “the study of word meaning” (Murphy). For us,
Lexicology is the study of the speaker’s lexical competence (knowledge of lexis).

Within the linguistic faculty, the speaker has information from phonological, semantic and
syntactic nature. We have to combine to produce that info.

We need to distinguish between Lexicology and Lexicography; Lexicography is a practical,

applied discipline that deals with the compilation of dictionaries and its methodological
problems. Lexicography is descriptive, and Lexicology is an exploratory discipline.

Tema 2. La lexicología: visiones social, conceptualista e inmanetista del léxico.

Views of lexicology:

 Social viewpoint
 Conceptualist viewpoint
 Intrinsic viewpoint

Murphy contemplates two views: the lexicon is “out there”, in language community as a social
entity. (Page 4). And the lexicon is “in here”, in the mind of every language user, a
psychological entity. We include another view of a kind of in-between position: lexicon is also
in the language (a self-contained part of the linguistic system) → Language faculty of Chomsky.

We mean by the lexicon of a language a collection of meaningful expressions from which more
complex linguistic expressions are built. It is a collection of information about words and
similar linguistic expressions in language, a “repository” of information. A lexicon may refer to
a dictionary, the vocabulary of a language (lexis), or to a particular language user’s knowledge
or his/ her own vocabulary (mental lexicon).

“The lexicon is out there in the language community”: it is the collection of anything and
everything that is used (competence and performance) as a word or as a set expression of
language community. This social lexicon is a cultural artifact (an idealization). We all aim to
acquire such a lexicon of the community to be able to communicate successfully. It is not made
up of all of the individual lexicons of the speakers. It was a prescriptive/ normative function, it
tells you how language should be used in a proper correct way. It has the role of an “authority”
(academic professors, official communicators, etc.)

“The lexicon meaning is to be found within language itself”: it is NOT external to language,
we need to distinguish concepts we use and their meanings, lexical meaning in “sense”. We
create meanings, the focus is on the imagined ideal speaker of the language. A balance
between the language out there and the language in here.

Tema 3: El Léxico Público (lexis, diccionario), y el léxico individual (mental).

Standard desk dictionaries include different types of information in lexical entries: spelling
pronunciation, meanings, and word class. To a different extent and on the basis of their target
audience they might also include etymology, morphologically, related items, synonyms, and
antonyms and the usage/ pragmatic information.

It is simply impossible to include all the words of a language (lexis) in the dictionary.
Dictionaries are aimed of specific target audiences, therefore, they usually avoid technical
terms jargon, dialectal uses; they represent “standard language”. Most importantly, languages
are in a constant stage of change and new words enter the language all the time, neologisms.

Neologisms enter the language though different processes (16/18). Consequently, there is no
such thing as the lexicon of a language, individual lexicons are necessarily different.

Individual (mental) lexicon: speakers’ mental lexicon can vary according to at least the
following factors: age, education, work expertise, social status, geographical origin, personal
experience, etc. Speakers need pronunciations, meaning, word class and morphologically
related items to be competent in the use of a word; but not necessarily spelling, etymology, or
social varieties (usage). Although educated speakers may certainly have this knowledge for
some or many items. Moreover, the representation of crucial lexical information is different
from dictionaries. Dictionaries give just one phonetic transcription, but speakers may also be
familiar with different accents. Dictionaries usually give simple definitions so that they can be
understood by large audience. However, speakers may not know what a word (exactly) means
or be able to provide a more detailed definition (if they are experts in the relevant field.

Mental Lexicon is a mental entity, we rely on psycholinguistic data, slips of the tongue or
speech error, experiments, introspection; what Murphy calls semantic intuitions.
Lexicographers might use semantic intuitions, but most of them rely on experts or authorities,
the etymology to decide on an ambiguous word, and today computer corpora, the compilation
of the language that is computerized.

Tema 4: El concepto de lexema y criteiors para su identificación. (5-14/ 83-98)

The notion of word is ambiguous. Word→ as a word form or lexical unit, and word as lexeme.

Words can be identified with orthography, semantics, phonology and grammar; however, they
are often contradictory. That is the reason why in lexicology we prefer the notion of lexeme: a
linguistic form that is conventionally associated with a non-compositional meaning.

 Conventional: association of form and meaning, known to the entire linguistic

community.
  Non-compositional meaning: the meaning of a lexeme is not made up of the meaning
of its parts. For example, houses is a word, but not a lexeme.

Moreover, apart from simple words this definition of lexeme includes bound morphemes (e.g.
–er in driver), complex words with unpredictable meaning (greenhouse) and set phrases and
idioms (give up). The mental Lexicon may include compositional forms if they are frequently
used.

1. Two Distinct lexemes→ homonymy

2. One Lexeme with two senses→ polysemy.

We should identify discrete senses with relevant tests: definition test, contrast test and
Zeugma test. Each discrete sense would correspond to a lexeme.

ZEUGMA→ The ship arrived at the port and the captain took a glass of it. This sentence is
awkward because we have activated both senses of port at the same time, which is impossible.

Etymology is also a criterion to identify lexemes; it is frequently used by lexicographer, but it is

dangerous in lexicology. For example port wine originally means a Portuguese wine which got
its name from Oporto meaning the port, so etymology tells as that port is polysemy include
metaphors, metonymy, etc. However, it should not be confused with vagueness. A lexeme is
vague if it is general in its application. When lexemes vary also acquire different traits of
meaning in context, we call it contextual polysemy. Regular polysemy is systematic, count/
mass alterations, container/ containee alteration, product/ producer alterations.

Tema 5: relaciones paradigmáticas: sinonimia, antonimia, hiperonimia, (co)hiponimia.

Words in paradigmatic relations, belong to the same word class (category) and share some
characteristics. If two items belong for example to the category of nouns, they are particularly
related. However, we are interested in semantic paradigms which involve word senses that
share many semantic properties, but differ in some.

 Synonymy: words that mean the same as one another. It is very rare for two words to
have the same exact meaning. Substitutability test: words are substitutable if there is
no change in the meaning of a sentence when one word is substituted. Words are
absolute synonyms if they are substitutable in any possible context with no changes in
denotation or other aspects of meaning (including connotation). The perfect
candidates for perfect synonymy are mostly technical names for things like plants,
animals, or chemicals (=). For more common is for words’ senses to overlap and be
near synonyms (≈). Polysemy means having the same sense.

 Hyponymy/ hypernym: hyponymy is a type of relationship, a relation between two

lexical items based in “the type of”, there is a subordinate term and superordinate
term. Table→ furnishing / cheddar→ cheese. It is a logical relation, transitive relation,
cheddar is a type of cheese which is a type of food, and therefore, cheddar is food.

Functional hyponymy is used as→ a specimen cup is a type of cup and a cup is a type
of drinking vessel, but we cannot say a specimen cup is a kind of drinking vessel.
  Antonym is an incompatibility relationship involving two words (two co-hyponymies
that share the same superordinate term.
o Binarity: the only relation that is particularly binary.
o Morphological process: -an, -in, -un, etc.
o Minimal difference: antonym is a relation between two lexemes that share all
relevant properties except for one that causes them to be incompatible.
Types: contrary, complementary (gradate complementarians), and directional.
Antonym: both lexical and semantic relations.

Tema 6: Relaciones semánticas, campos, dominios semánticos.

Semantic fields are theories that treat the lexicon as thesaurus-like hold that lexical entries are
cross-referenced with or linked to other lexical entries. Same components of thesaurus models
favor large networks of words that constrain one another’s senses. Semantic field theory →
semantic space is the same as semantic field, the semantic box. Semantic fields are stablished
on the basis of hyponymy, co-hyponymy, contrast, synonymy and partial synonymy.

Lexical gaps are also found, sine not all languages have words for every box in the semantic
space. Minding too that different languages may cut up the semantic space in different boxes.
Thus the difficulty of translating certain words from any language to another.

Syntagmatic relations are relations between words that go together in syntactic phrases. They
are studied more and more these days of corpus research highlights the ways in which words
tend to occur with certain words rather than others.

 Colocations: Halliday (1966): tendencies of words to appear together: strong tea,

powerful car, etc. They just “sound rights” to native English speakers. On the other
hand, other combinations may be unnatural or just sound wrong. Individual words
may have restricted meanings.

Tema 7: Estructura y organización del léxico (mental).

Linguistic models of the lexicon “they assume that the lexicon is organized on the basis of the
lexical relationships, however, we are interested in the mental lexicon. Do those relations have
psychological validity? Could there be a different kind of organization on the mental lexicon?
How can we know?

In the study of the mental lexicon we assume that the words must be organized in some way.
It is believe that the average speaker storages about 40,000 words in their mental lexicon, we
maintain and use lexical items a rate of 2-3 per second. If words in the mental lexicon were
organized same way, but this would be impossible. One of the hypothesis claims that they are
listed alphabetically (naïve), but illiterate people use lexical items efficiently, and speaker of
languages without writing systems do as well. Using the following evidence: speech errors,
speech disorders, and psycholinguistic experiments; we can say that we psychologically
process language.
Speech errors or ships of the tongue show normal lexical behavior, they are made by bad
educated and uneducated speakers, there are semantic errors (word substitution) and sound
errors (malapropisms). E.g. he came tomorrow, there were lots of different orgasms
(organizations). There are also speech disorders such as aphasia.

When experiments are done, the strongest links are often co-hyponyms, hypernyms, and
antonyms; but also collocations. So this evidence tells us that words are related in the mental
lexicon, phonologically and semantically (through lexical relationships). Syntactically it is a
natural error. The mental lexicon is a very complex network of relations among lexical items,
the mental lexicon has two modules, the phonological module and the semantic module.

SEM 3
Consider the following expressions and decide on the number of words and lexemes they
contain. You should apply Murphy’s criteria as presented in the book (spelling, meaning,
phonology, grammar / conventiomnal, compositional) Is the number of lexemes different from
the number of words?

spelling meaning phonology grammar conventional Non-

comp.
homework ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Four- ✖ ❇ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✖
wheel-
drive
Couldn’t ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✖
Give up ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
ouch ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖
The apple ✖ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✔
of my eye
Fan-blood- ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✔ ✖
ytastic
The number of lexemes it is mostly the same in the non-compositional words, but in the
compositional ones they are not the same. Phonetics helps us to identify meaning,
phonologically one word has one stress.

SEM 4

The following lexical itwms are ambiguous between (at least)two different senses. On the
basis of the Murphy’s criteria (definition, contrast and especially zeugma), decid whther they
illustrate cases of homonymy of polysemy in the Mental Lexicon.

 Decline (reject, conjugate a grammatical word): I declined the invitation and Peter
(declined) a word.
 Mouth (river, mouth): the amazing view of mouth of the rover left mine open
 High (drugs, above): the plane was high and so was the pilot on drugs.
Tema 9: El cotenido del lexema 2: información sintáctica

This is the feature structure for the SYN box in the entries. It contains two main feature
structures:

 CAT, refers to the categorical values.

 C-SELECTION, refers to the number and type of complement the lexeme selects.
o The water boils → 1 complement (subject)
o He likes music→ 2 complements (S, O)
o He gave me a book→ 3 complements (S, O1, O2)

In CAT:

 MAJOR: refers to the main word class, note that we include open and closed word
classes. Categorical features are linked to the MAJOR value. For example GENDER is
only applicable if MAJOR: N. in English, only pronouns have grammatical gender.
Pronominal system.
 AUX: is only applicable if MAJOR: V, only some verbs can function as auxiliaries
 COUNTABLE: is only applicable if MAJOR: V.
 NUMBER and PERSON: apply BOTH N and V.

e.g. [LEX: ORGANIZE]

[PHON: ôr′gə-nīz′]
[SEM: [DEF: arrange thing efficiently]]
SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: V]
[AUX: -]
But if we were to represent the item organizes, then PERSON and NUMBER would be
relevant.

SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: V]

[AUX: -]
[NUMBER: sing]
[PERSON: 3]

e.g. [LEX: he]

[PHON: hi:]
[SEM: [DEF: speech participant other than S and A]]
SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: N]
[AUX: -]
[NUMBER: sing]
[PERSON: 3]
[COUNT: -]
[GENDER: masculine]
C-SELECTION ATTRIBUTE, as said earlier, lexical items can take complements. Verbs take at
least one complement of the subject. Organize takes two complements. The president
organized the word summit. The subject is realized as a NP, the objects as a NP.

C-SELECTION: [COMPL (1): VP] → always the subject

[COMPL (2): NP]

Note that the same item may select different types of complements: John wants to come
(Object: infinitival clause). John wants that Peter comes (*that clause).
[COMPL (2): NP / Clause <to>]

Tema 10: El contenido del Lexema 3: información morfológica.

[M-TYPE: idiom, word, system, affix…]

Idioms are word phrases or expressions that cannot be taken literary. They are not
compositional; the meaning of an idiom is not derivable from the meaning of the containing
words in combination. E.g. break a leg➡it can be a free phrase (literal meanings or an idiom
meaning do your best.

A word is a morpheme that can stand its own, a free morpheme, for example. It is preceded
and followed by blank spaces in writing. It is a complex and controversial concept.

Root: is a form that underlies at least one paradigm or partial paradigm and is itself
morphologically simple. A stern is a form that underlies at least one paradigm, and is itself
morphologically complex. Eg: divert➡root (morph. Simple). Diversion➡ stern (complex). A
stern division underlies the singular and the plural forms of diversion and a root.

An affix is a bound morpheme (it needs to be attached to something, it cannot appear

independently, there are exceptions. Affixes can never stand on their own. An affix can be
joined by derivation or inflexion. Prefix/ suffix/ infix.

[M-CAT: V, N, (especial for affixes and roots]

Word classes can be divided into open classes and closed classes. The open ones are open to
N, Ad, Adv., etc. the closed ones are limited classes that rarely admit new words: PN, Det., Aux.
Congj., prep, etc. the affix selects:

-ness➡N
-ful➡A
-ize➡N
-wise➡Adv

[M-STR: [HEAD: [LEX:….]]

[COMPL: [LEX…]]

For example, in happiness, happi would be the complement and -ness. The head makes the
word a noun. COMPL: they are affixes that do not indicate the category of the word.
An Allomorph is an alternative morph for a given morpheme.
[PAST: -ed/ -t/ vowel change/ phonological change, etc.]
SEM 9

The following are examples of attested speech errors. Cassidy the as semantic and/or
phonological (malapropisms) and describe the cause of the error. What do they tell you
about the relation of items in the mental lexicon? What lexical relations have motivated the
errors?

 Irvine is quite clear (close/near): phonological error; pronunciation of the words, put
them together. Activated both words at the same time. The meaning is connected to
two possibilities. PROXIMITY.
 To determine watch (which/what): phonological mistake. ^^^
 At end of the today’s lection: phonological mistake, maybe translation. ^ lesson +
lecture➡ might be considered a type of blending.
 He’s a high grader (low): semantic, , antonym.
 Don’t burn your toes (fingers): semantic. mistaken words from the same semantic field
 You can cut rain in the trees: syntactic, semantic, changed the position of the words
 I have to smoke my coffee with a cigarette: semantic mistake
 However, they delineate, quotas, I think they vulcanize society: semantic, wrong word
 I might just fade into a Bolivian: oblivion

SEM 10

Transform the following dictionary entry into a lexical entry in the [A:V] format. Use the
general template provided.

Kiss

SYNTAX

CAT

[MAJOR: V]

[GENDER:-]

[NUMBER:-]

[PERSON:]-

[COUNT:]-

[AUX:]-

C-SELECTION

[COMPL (1): NP]

Derivatives go in morphology
SEM 11

Work in pairs. Construct the syntactic section of the lexical entries for the following items.
BELIEVE, HIM, HOUSES, INVENTION.

SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: V]

[AUX: - ]

C-CELECTION: COMPLEMENTS: [COMPL (1): NP]]

[COMPL (2): PP <in>/ clause <that>/ NP/ clause <to>]
Believe is a ditransitive verb, it has two complements.

SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: N]

[NUMBER: sing]
[PERSON: 3]
[GENDER: masc]
[CASE: ACC]

SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: N]

[NUMBER: PLURAL]
[COUNT: +]
[PERSON 3]

C-CELECTION: COMPLEMENTS: -

SYNTAX CAT: MAJOR: N

NUMBER: SING
COUNT: +
GENDER: -

C-CELECTION: COMPLEMENTS: [COMPL (1) PP]

BELIEVE
MORPH:
[MTYPE: ]
[M-CAT: V]
INFLECTION
[PAST: BELIEVED]
SEM 12

[LEX: will]

PHOLOGY: [[SEG: /wil/]]

SEM [[DEF: indicator of predisposition of future action]]

SYNTAX CAT: [MAJOR: V]

[AUX: +]

C-SELECTION: [COMPL (1): VP <bare infinitive>]

MORPH [M-TYPE: root]

[M-CAT: V]

[INFLEXTION: [PAST: would]

[DERIVATION LEX: will

LEX: willing

[LEX: -able]

PHONOLOGY: [[SEG: ab(a)l ]]

SEM [DEF: 1capable of, 2having a property X]

SYNTAX: -

MORPH [M-TYPE: affix]

[M-CAT: A]

[M-SELECTION: 1V, 2N]

[LEX: irresponsible]

PHONOLOGY [SEG: / irisponsabl/]

SYLL STR: syll(1): i

SYLL STR: syll(2): ri

SYLL STR: syll(3):spians

SYLL STR: syll(4): bl

[STRESS: syll(3)]

SEM [[DEF: characterized by a lack of sense of responsibility]]

SYNTAX [CAT: [[MAJOR: A]]

MORPH [M-TYPE: stem]

[DERIVATION: LEX: irresponsibility

LEX: irresponsibly

[M-STRUCTURE [HEAD: -able]

[COMP: respons]

[LEX: persuade]

PHONOLOGY [SEG: / pasweid/]

SYLL STR: syll(1): par

SYLL STR: syll(2): sweid

[STRESS: syll(2)]

SEM [DEF: to make someone do something by reasoning]

SYNTAX [CAT: [MAJOR: V]

[AUX: -]

C-SELECTION: COMPL (1): NP <humans>

COMPL (2): NP <animatess>

COMPL (3): CI <to>/ CI <that>/ PP <into>/ PP <out of>/ PP <of>

SEM 12

Think of dialectal varieties or simply equivalent items for the following English words. When
you have finished, translate them into Spanish and see if you can propose local alternative
words for them.

 Gym shoe: sneaker/ zapatilla

 Bread roll: bollo
 Sandwich: sammich/ bocata
 Attic: Attic: roof floor, loft/ atico
 Broom:Broom: brush/escoba
 Beautiful: cute/guapa
 Left-handed: leftie/zurdo
 Excellent: cool/guay
 Tired out:Tired out: exhausted / cansado

Give a neutral term for the following formal words.

 Hitherto: there
 Incumbent: necessary
 Inveracity: false
 Laudation: acclamation
 Lavation: wash
 Lubricious: greasy
 Manifold: complex
 Mariner: sailor
 Natation: swim
 Yesteryear: last year

In these term’s lexical entries we should include the aspect of formality. Being too formal or
too colloquial is part of the social knowledge, NOT of the scientific.

07/03/2016

Tema 12: Otra información: etimología, ortografía, multimodal

It is not clear that those pieces of information are necessary for the adequate use of lexical
items. We should remember that our basic aim is to characterize the speakers lexical
competence.

Etymological information: it refers to the historical origin of lexical items, which allow
speakers to deduce meanings and other kind of information. For example, the word polysemy
is of Greek origin: Poli: several / Sema: meaning. Similarly, many medical terms are
constructed with Greek morphemes.

Consider the word haematuria. You may not know what it means, but you know that there are
many words in English with the same initial morpheme. And all they share the blood meaning
component (haimatos : blood) You also see that the second morpheme means urine. So we
conclude that the word means “blood in urine”.
So etymology has helped to arrive at the meaning of the item. Speakers need not know the
etymology of a lexical item to use it competently though. Consequently, etymology will not
receive much attention here, however, that speakers may be unconsciously aware of
etymological information.It is well-known in morphological theory that some affixes typically
attach to Latinate bases only. It is not part of the competence.

Orthographic information: Educated speakers can also provide orthographic representations

of lexical items. Again, we have to remember that we study lexical competence as part of
linguistic competence. Writing systems are secondary in languages, and indeed many
languages in the world do not have writing systems. Yes, their speakers show the same degree
of fluency/ability in their linguistic behavior.

But of course, in our communities, orthographic conventions are important. Spelling mistakes
may reveal an inadequate education and may have social consequences. But it confirms that
orthographic conventions are related to performance and not competence. It is known that
orthographic knowledge may speed up word/retrieval and recognition.

Multimodal information: lexemes may evoke representations of different kinds: acoustic,

visual, olfactory, etc. A definition you can produce, but it would provably take you a while.
These facts have led some to propose a theory of senses as “images”. This is called the Image
Theory of Meaning (37). However, there are obvious problems with this theory. There can’t be
images for many lexemes of the language, such as abstract entities and speakers are unlikely
yo share similar visual representations for most items, which makes it difficult to explain how
we can communicate at all.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that visual representations exist in the mind and cognitive scientists
have proposed complex models to account for the relation between language and vision. That
is why we have included an [IMAGE] attribute in our entries. It is part of the lexical
competence.

09/03/2016

Tema 13: El problema de la naturaleza y localización del significado léxico. Léxico y

encyclopedia. (UNIT 4, RS)

Different kind of meaning that we distinguish are denotative as opposed to pragmatic,

connotative and social meaning. We are going to distinguish them with this example:

Think about shoe: in the context of Cinderella you might come to an interpretation for the use
of shoe, a shoe for women, a shoe she intends to wear to the ball, a dressy shoe and made of
glass. The first ones include information provided by the context, these are called inferences.
Inferences are part of the realm of pragmatics; which are the study of context-bound
meaning.

The rest of the linguistic material surrounding the word (co-text) and the background
knowledge (encyclopedic or world knowledge) is what counts as context. If for shoe the
context changes, the interpretation may be different.
However, semanticists are NOT interested in pragmatic inferences but in semantic
entailments.

Entailment is a relation between propositions: if A then B. Entailments identify necessary

properties of meaning. We get these NECESSARY pieces of meaning by a pattern. “IF…” We can
to identify the features that cannot be variable.

 If it is a shoe, then it is made to be worn on a foot. (YES)

 If it is a shoe, then it is made for humans to wear. (NO)

So, if something is a shoe, it is necessarily footwear, but it may also have other properties that
are incidental, rather than necessary (entailed) properties of shoe/ness. Incidental properties
are defeasible. Dictionaries distinguish those necessary features from the ones that are not.

 Denotative (conceptual or cognitive meaning): the relation between a word and the
things/ properties/ actions / concepts that it refers to. A word’s denotative meaning is
its literal meaning (dictionary meaning)
 Connotative meaning: Semantic associations that a word, which are not strictly (?RS)

There are words that can denote the same things, yet they are different in their connotations.

Home: denotative: residence/ connotative: privacy, coziness…

 Social meaning: information about the person who is using a given word. A particular
subtype of social meaning is affect, which indicates the speaker-s feelings or attitude
toward the thing they are talking about. Drunk shows disapproval, whereas alcoholic
is more neutral

14/03/2016

Tema 14: Frege: sentido y referencia. Intensión y extensión.

We are interested in denotative meaning. But what is denotative meaning made of?

1. Meanings are the referents of linguistic expressions. This is the Referential Theory of
meaning. But what is a referent?; consider a proper noun like David Beckham, what is
its meaning? It does not really mean anything in the traditional sense of it. David
Beckham is just a linguistic label we apply to an individual. We say that individual is
the referent of the expression. Attach labels to entities. But not all nouns are proper
nouns. What about common nouns like table, chair, teacher, etc.? They cannot have
just one referent as the proper noun David Beckham.

Common nouns refer to sets of things/ individuals. Table refers to all those entities which can
be felicitously called like that. This set of referents is called extension.

Referential Theory is a theory of meaning which stablishes the relationship between language
and the world it designates. It is a simple theory, which is nice, but has problems. Function
words (of, the) do not refer to anything; but as they do not denote, they fall outside the
interest of lexical semantics. What about abstract words (love, peace, etc.)? If we assume that
they exist in any relevant sense.
 Referential Theory does account for them. But language can name things which do
not exist for sure. Tooth fairy, happy cucumber, etc. The extension of all these is an empty or
null set: { }; but of course we feel they mean something.

But the biggest problem is that two expressions may have the same referent but mean
different things. 1) Player number 8 in Barcelona FC. / 2) Player who scored in the World Cup
final. Both of them have the same referent. But it is possible for a speaker to know one
expression but not be familiar with the other. Referential Theory cannot explain this.

The solution was proposed by German philosopher Gottlob Frege. He introduced abstract
notion, the sense; an abstract representation of the qualities that referent needs to have so
that we can apply a label to it. In other words, the sense defines the information we need to
refer. It is difficult to identify an entity if you do not know what properties it has.

Law of Denotation: the more conditions the sense contains, the smaller the extension. Poodle
contains all the features of dog plus at least another. T-s sense is “bigger”, so its extension is
smaller (there are fewer poodles than dogs).

The separation of senses and referents explains why two expressions with the same referent
can exist. It opens the possibility that languages have:

1) Expressions with sense but no referent

2) Expressions with no sense but referent
3) Expressions with sense and referent
4) Expressions with no sense and no referent

Senses are what we are interested in Lexical Semantics. They correspond to the folk view on
meaning. But what are senses in the Mental Lexicon actually made of? But concepts are part of
our world knowledge. Only a few concepts are lexicalized, that is, are named with a lexeme. A
sense is whatever it is that connects the word form to a concept (39).

Sense is a linguistic entity (part of lexical competence competence and lexical entries) Concept
is an extra linguistic notion (part of general knowledge). In contemporary linguistics some
believe that senses and concepts are the same thing (cognitivists). Some believe that senses
and concepts are different entities; and other take the second option but believe that we also
need concepts to construct meaning.

Tema 15: Análisis clásico: rasgos necesarios y suficientes

Since classical times the meanings of words are considered to consist of smaller parts. E.g.

Girl: human, female, child

These sublexical elements are called semantic components (or features/ primitives). A
Compositional analysis: lexical theories which make use of components are also called
decompositional, The basic idea behind them is that senses can be defined in such a way that
they can be distinguished from other denoting units.
Consider the following definition for actress: a woman or girl who acts in plays, movies or
television. This definition contains two conditions which determine reference:

1) An actress is a woman or a girl.

2) An actress acts in plays, movies, or television.

These are necessary and sufficient conditions. They are necessary because neither can be left
out. They are sufficient because they are all that are needed to distinguish actresses from
non-actresses. Note that the definition does not list incidental features: famous, beautiful, etc.
So Classical Theory makes a clear distinction between definitional properties and
encyclopedic information.

Definitional features contribute to the word’s sense. They are linguistic, part of the mental
lexicon; they may activate information about a concept, but it does not belong to world
knowledge/ encyclopedia. However, the problem is where to draw the boundary between
lexical and non-lexical meaning.

We make use of metalanguages to describe word senses in a componential analysis, a

language-independent systems. They are language-independent because, we don’t want to
use English to describe English and because we want them to be universal, therefore, valid for
all languages.

A metalanguage has a vocabulary and a grammar; the vocabulary is the semantic components
which cannot be further decomposed and which are called primitives, and at the same time,
are building blocks of meaning. The set of primitives should be:

 Restrictive: as few as possible

 Versatile: primitives should help construct a significant range of meanings.

The grammar of metalanguages restricts the way components can be combined determines
the relation between components. E.g.

Woman :[FEMALE, HUMAN, ADULT]

Girl :[FEMALE, HUMAN, CHILD]

But we want to make the features more versatile, we can make them binary: +/-

Girl :[+FEMALE, +HUMAN, -ADULT]

Although we describe components with English word forms in capital letters they are NOT
English features or concepts. You should understand them as universal meaning components.
Note that we can also use the [A:V] format to state lexical meanings:

Woman: SPECIES: human

SEX: female

ADULT: +

They are based upon hierarchical relations as taxonomies. A given semantic component entails
or inherits other features. This simplifies representations since another property of the
componential theories is the use of redundancy rules.
Complex meanings are reduced to a finite set of features, components that can be applied to
any language and define denotational meaning. They can also create a infinite number of
meanings, and express semantic relations among the senses. But have redundancy rules to
express entailment relations.

KATZ

An early componential approach was developed by linguists Katz, Fodor and Postal in the 60’s.
It is outdated, but it was the first serious attempt to integrate semantics in TGG. The
definitions can be divided in two parts:

 Genus: semantic markers

 Differentiae: distinguishers

Only semantic markers are responsible for the semantic relations among words:

Actress: (a woman or girl)= HUMAN, FEMALE

So, an actress belongs into the category of HUMAN, FEMALE entities and therefore holds a
relation with lady, policewoman, etc. BUT they cannot refer to the same entity as man, for
example, because they do not share all the markers.

An important contribution of Katz’s approach is the notion of selectional restrictions. These

serve to explain which combinations of lexical items are reasonable from a semantic point of
view. We put selection restrictions in out lexical entries within angle brackets < >.

Although Katz’s theory has been very influential, it’s been proved that some distinguishers are
needed to explain word use; the distinction definitional/ encyclopedic features is difficult.

SEM 13

1.Which of the following statements express entailment relations? Treat X and Y as

placeholders for any noun phrase. Where is the border line between linguistic information
and pragmatic/ word knowledge

a) If X kills Y, then Y dies ✔

b) If X assassinates Y, then Y dies ✔
c) If X shoots Y, then Y dies✖
d) If X shoots Y, then Y is hit by a bullet✖ (near miss)
e) If X drowns, then X dies ✔
f) If X drowns, then X is submerged in water✖ (suffocating is another thing)

2.Determine whether the following statements express entailments. If so, what do they tell
us about denotative meaning of teacher? If not, discuss whether they express pragmatic
inferences and whether they reflect any connotations of social meaning for teacher.

a) If X is a teacher, then X is paid to teach ✖

b) If X is a teacher, then X is female✖
c) If X is a teacher, then people learn from X✖
d) If X is a teacher, has taught ✖
 e) If X is a teacher, then teaches✔

SEM 14

1.The distinction sense and referent opens the possibility that languages have:

1.expressions with sense and referent

2.expressions with no sense but referent
3.expressions with sense but no referent
4.expressions with no sense and no referent.

Has a sense Has no sense

Has at least 1 referent The king of Spain Fátima
Has no referent The democratic president of Superperccaklorfksrt
NK Abra cadabra
against

2.For each of the following explain why it is necessary to distinguish the sense and referent
of the expressions.

a) The chair I’m sitting on /R✔however, different references, S✔

b) People who have been to Mars /R✖ S✔
c) William Shakespeare /R✖he died S✖
d) The most famous English playwright /R several✔.. S✔
e) The author of Rome and Juliet /R maybe several✔S✔

Tema 16: Categor’ias difusas. Rusch y la teoria de los prototipos.

When an item is difficult to categorize, the can be categorized in different contexts;

depending on the context then, it can mean one thing or another. E.g.

a) With coffee: a cup

b) With ice-cream: a bowl.

If a had ice-cream in it, you might very well call it a cup with ice-cream in it, demonstrating that
both the shape of something and its function determine whether it is a cup or a bowl.
This goes against the classical theory of meaning; the fact that the ice-cream usually goes in
bowls is the considered encyclopedic information that has nothing to do with the meaning of
bowl. Labov’s experiment hints that such encyclopedic information cannot be dismissed as
irrelevant to denotation.

Prototype Theory

Prototype theory provides an explanation for the way word meanings are organized in the
mind. It is argued that words are categorized on the basis of a whole range of typical features.
Prototype theory has its philosophical roots in Wittgenstein’s famous remark that the things
covered by a term often share a family resemblance… (book)

Rosch suggested that, when people categorize items, they match them against the prototype,
or the ideal exemplar, which contains the most representative features inside the category.
Objects do not share all the characteristics of the prototype are still members of the category,
but not prototypical ones. She argued that prototypes represent a basic level of categorization.
E.g. chair, as opposed to a superordinate, e.g. furniture and a subordinate level, e.g. kitchen
chair. Evidence finally came from experiments involving response times, priority in lists, and
frequency.

Experiment 1: what is the best example of furniture?: 1.chair, 2.sofa, 3.couch, 4.table, etc. All
the elements that are defined as prototypical are always the best examples. Prototypicality has
a clear cultural component.

 Core features: necessary conditions for belonging to a category.

 Peripheral features: other features that some members of the category show.

Prototype theory has shown that definitional (linguistic semantic) and encyclopedic (word
knowledge) aspects of meaning cannot be easily separated. However, not all meanings have
fuzzy boundaries and not all prototype experiments have proved to be reliable. E.g. we don’t
have a prototypical representation of odd numbers, since they are a very precise thing.

04/04/2016

Tema 17: Análisis componenciales del significado del léxico I. La Semántica Conceptual de
Jackendoff.

Prtototype theory has shown that the relation between lexical meaning and cognition is
gradual. We will now look at the current componential theories of lexical meaning which are
concerned with the relation between language and cognition. We will begin with Ray
Jackendoff’s Conceptual Semantics.

For Jackendoff, semantic components are conceptual, lexical concepts constitute a subset of
all concepts, that is, those which are lexicalized. For Jackendoff, lexical semantics is the study
of how lexical concepts are structured and how they interact with other language components
(phonology, syntax).
The lexicon in Jackendoff’s theory is the interface of three structures: Phonological, Syntactic,
Semantic.

As a componential theory, CS has a set of primitives and grammar. The primitives include a
number of ontological categories: that is, types of entities that exist in the world and which
we can designate though language:

EVENT, STATE, PLACE, AMOUNT, THING, PROPERTY, PATH, etc. The are universal
semantic primitives.

 Ontology[]: the philosophical field that attempts to organize everything that exists into
a limited number of general categories. (138)

Words denote ontological categories. There seems to be a correspondence between semantic

categories and word classes: Nouns typically denote THINGS, as verbs EVENTS, ESTATES, or
adjectives PROPERTIES. However, this correspondence is not perfects, e.g. war, destruction,
beauty, intelligence, etc.

A semantic analysis in CS starts from one of these categories, which is elaborated with more
metalanguage. Consider the analysis of the following motion EVENTS:

Pewee goes into the clubhouse/ Pewee enters the clubhouse

In each sentence we have a verb and two semantic participants which complete the EVENT’s
meaning. We call these participants arguments (). These arguments are semantically (and
usually syntactically too) obligatory.

Motion EVENTS are represented in CS with a semantic component GO. GO has two arguments,
a THING and a PATH. The whole structure is represented as an EVENT.

[EVENTGO ([THING],[PATH])]

Note that GO is a semantic (conceptual) component, NOT the English word go. It is part of the
meaning of many motion verbs: enter, walk, run, cross… So this is thus the general template of
motion verbs. But then we can elaborate the substructure to distinguish the different verbs.
We can go further (PAGE 63). We can now represent senses in bracketing notation:

Enter: [EVENTGO ([THING], [PATHTO([PLACEIN([THING])])])]

Go: [EVENT GO([THING], [PATH])]

Into: [PATHTO([PLACEIN([THING])])]

We can now use that representation in the attribute: EVENT STR: Event1 (x,y). This indicates
that the sense of the verb enter is made up of one Event which takes two arguments.
07/04/2016

SEM 17👿👿👿

Consider the following dictionary entries and classify their meaning components into
necessary, sufficient and incidental or encyclopedic. Remember that necessary and sufficient
features are those that determine reference and distinguish the lexeme from others.

a) Kill: to cause the death of (a person or animal)

b) Tiger: a large carnivorous feline mammal of Asia, having a tawny coat with transverse
black stripes.
c) Doctor: A person, especially a physician, dentist, or veterinarian, trained in the healing
arts and licensed to practice.
d) Jog: to run or ride at a steady slow trot for sport exercise

Necessary Sufficient Incidental Encyclopedic

Kill To cause the

death of

Tiger carnivorous A large/ Asia /

feline mammal having a tawny
coat with
tranverse black
stripes

Doctor especially a trained in the

physician, healing arts and
dentist, or licensed to
veterinarian practice.

Jog to run at a for sport or

steady slow trot exercise

SEM 21 (Tree in book)

Amelia deplaned / Amelia went out the plane / Amelia exited the plane

a) Determine which part of the three corresponds to the bold words in the sentences
and rewrite the representation in bracketed notation.

Deplaned: [EVENTGO ([THING], [PATHFROM([PLACEIN([THINGPLANE])])])]

LEX: exited
SEM: [DEF: GO ([THING], FROM([IN([THING])])]
 [EVENT STR: Event1 (x1, x2)]
[TH(1): agent]
[TH(2): locative]

SEM: [DEF: GO ([THING], FROM([IN([PLANE])])]

[EVENT STR: Event1 (x1)]
[TH(1): agent]

You have only one participant, the location is already included in the verb

b) Deplane can be both an intransitive and a transitive verb as in The troops were
deplaned an hour later. It can be paraphrased as ‘cause to leave an aircraft’. How
would you modify the CS to account for this transitive verb?

SEM: [DEF: CAUSE ([THING]) GO ([THING, FROM([IN([PLANE])])])])

[EVENT STR: Event1 (x1), Event2 (x2)
[TH(1): agent]
[TH(2): theme]

13/04/2016

Tema 19: El contenido SEM en las entradas léxicas

We concluded that visual representations that for practical reasons we will not include images
in the lexical entries. The same applies to the notion of extension, the set of all the potation
references to which the lexeme can be applied to. Therefore, we only have to provide the
sense/intension, the event structure and the roles of arguments:

SEM: [DEF:intension]
[EVENT STR:]
[TH(1): agent, isntumeny…]
[TH(2): patient, theme, etc]

For senses, we shall be making use of Jackendoff’s representations. But since they are visually
complex, we will separate the semantic component Structure. What about the attribute
Theta/role? As we said, this refers to the type of arguments that the lexeme takes. (HANDOUT)
Enter: GO ([THING], TO ([IN ([THING])])

SEM: [DEF: ([THING], TO ([IN ([THING])]) ]

[EVENT STR: Event1 (x1, x2)]
[TH(1): agent]
[TH(2): locative]

SEM 22

🐼🐼🐼Provide the qualia structures for the following words. Discuss the problems you
have encountered. (Constitutive, formal, telic, and agentive) pag 78

Lunch
QUALIA [constitutive: food (x)]
[formal: meal (x)]
[telic: eat (y, x)]
[agent: cook (z, x)]
Dictionary
QUALIA [constitutive: lexical entries (x)]
[formal: book (x)]
[telic: consult(x, y)]
[agent: compile (z, x)]
Sandwich
QUALIA [constitutive: food (x) bread (y)]
[formal: snack (x)]
[telic: eat (x, y)]
[agent: make (z, x)]

Poem
QUALIA [constitutive: verses (x)]
[formal: text/writing (x)]
[telic: read/recite (y, x)]
[agent: write/compose (z, x)]

Tema 20. Estructura semántica de los lexemas que denotan situaciones (eventos y estados) I.

Argumet/Predicate

Sentences represent SITUATIOSN (either STATES or EVENTS). The verb interacts semantically
with other parts of the sentence, their arguments, to represent complete SITUATIONS.

Fran picked flowers

(SITUATION/ EVENT/ ACTION)

Predicate: PICK
Arguments: two (the picker and something that is being picked; Agent and Patient)
Arguments have to be referring expressions (i.e., expressions that refer to thing). (page 174)

Predicate: Pick
Arguments: Fran (Ag), flowers (Pat)

Argument 1: must be a MATERIAL THING that moves. E.g. Eliza.

We indicate this with selection restrictions: Agent animate

Argument 2: must be a MATERIAL THING, which is acted upon by the moving THING. Patient
concrete (flechitas)

Semantic Structure

Always two arguments (Agent, Patient): eat, draw, shave, wash.

Even if these are transitive verbs, they can be used intransitively (leaving out one of the
arguments). This phenomenon is called unexpressed object alternation.
I’ve eaten a meal already
I’ve eaten – already

Jane drew a picture in her notebook

Jane drew – in her notebook.

TH(1): Agent <animate>

TH(2): Patient <food>
COMPL(1): NP
COMPL(2): (NP)

Even though semantically, they take two arguments, syntactically it might be possible for one
of the arguments to be optional.

SITUATIONS

STATES EVENTS

Stative verb Dynamic verb

More constant across time Less constant across time
unchanging Happening or changing

Test for EVENTS: What happened? The clock stood in the hall ✖/ The children stood
up➡EVENT

EVENT/ STATES
MOTION verbs/ LOCATION verbs

 Sheryl went into town on foot

 Wilma left
The monument stands beside the fountain➡ it denotes a locative states NO EVENT.
LOCATIVE.
However, some verbs can behave differently, for example to live.

Event MOTION verbs denote changes in location, they are dynamic verbs that contribute to an
EVENT description.
[EVENTGO )[THING], [PATH])]

State LOCATION verbs are stative verbs that locate something, not involving a change in
location.
[STATEBEloc ([THING], [PLACE])]
Something is in a given place, e.g. The book is on the shelf.

The MANNER component indicates the way the movement takes place.
[EVENTGO +on-foot ([THING Sheryl], [PATH TO ([PLACE IN ([THING town])])])]

27/04/2016
For example, if you have two paths in words such as from:

FROM ([THING)]
[PATH TO ([THINGTHERE])

28/04/2016
SEM 23

1.Provide CS representations in the bracketing notation for the following items. Then
construct their SEM boxes with the relevant attributes an values. (181-183)

A) Location verb stand.

SEM: [DEF: [BEstanding ([THING], [PLACE])] *

[EVENT STR: State (x, y)]
[C-SELECTION: [COMPL (1): NULL]*
[COMPL(2): locative]
*standing is compatible with tons of places so we put only PLACE
* the first complement is not specified

B) Motion verb cross.

SEM: [DEF: [GO* ([THING] ACROSS ([THING])]

[EVENT STR: Event (x, y)]
[C-SELECTION: [TH(1): Agent]
[TH(2): Location]
*Crossing would not go there since it won’t fit all the PATHs.
 2. Consider the following sentences:

a. The tulips died

b. John killed the tulips

Assuming that DEAD is a PROPERTY that a THING can have, construct the CS and SEM feature
structures for the items kill and die
A parte de para movimiento, también lo utilizamos para el paso de un estado a otro,
incluyendo estados psicológicos, como estar loco, o como en este caso pasar de VIVO a
MUERTO.

SEM: [DEF: [GO ([THING] TO (PLACEAT ([PROPERTYDEAD])])] *

[EVENT STR: Event (x)]
[C-SELECTION: [TH (1): patient]

SEM: [DEF: [CAUSE ([THING] ([GO ([THING] TO (PLACEAT ([PROPERTYDEAD])])]

[EVENT STR: Event (x, Event2 (y))]
[C-SELECTION: [TH (1): agent]
[TH (2): patient]
*You go from a state to the other, so you need a PATH and a PLACE

SEM 24

Many verbs in English have both a causative and non-causative reading (remember the cases
of deplane and roll). Determine which of these verbs are causative by adding an argument to
each sentence. Use roll as an example (184)

The ball rolled down the hill (non-causative)

Sally rolled the ball down the hill

1. Peter descended the staircase ✖

2. The boy crossed the street ✖
3. John waltzed into the room ✔
4. Petals are falling from the flowers✖
5. The note slipped out the book✔

➡➡Then provide the SEM boxes for those verbs which can have both readings

SEM: [DEF: GO slipping([THING], [FROM] ([IN ([THING])])])]

[EVENT STR: Event (x,y)]
[C-SELECTION: [TH (1): theme]
[TH (2): location]
SEM: [DEF: CAUSE ([THING] ([GO+slipping([THING] , [FROM] ([IN ([THING])])])]
[EVENT STR: Event1 (x1, (Event 2(y2, z3)]
[C-SELECTION: [TH (1): agent]
[TH (2): Theme]
[TH (3): Location]

*IT IS THE SAME WITH WALTZ, BUT ISTEAD THE +MODE.

LEXICAL ENTRIES

LEX: fly

PHONOLOGY: [SEGEMENTS: /flai/] ✔

SEMANTICS: [DEF: CAUSE ([THING] ([GO+fly([THING] , [PATH])] ✖ piensa que volar through ya
esta en el contenido semantico
[EVENT STR: Event1 (x1, (Event 2(y2, z3)] ✔
[C-SELECTION: [TH (1): agent]✔
[TH (2): Theme]✔
[TH (3): Location]✔

SYNTAX: CAT: [MAJOR: verb]✔

[AUX: -]✔

C-SELECTION: [COMPL (1): NP]✔

[COMPL (2): NP]✔
[COMPL (3): (PP)]✖✖ optativo

MORPHOLOGY: [M-TYPE: root]✔

[M-CAT: verb]✔
INFLECTION: [PAST: flew]✔
[PPT: flown]✔

DERIVATION: [LEX: flyer]✔

[LEX: flight]✔