Semantics and pragmatics

SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS

PART 1

SenseUnicorn

ReferenceCat

Night/knight phonologically (/n/)Lift/lifted morphologically (roots)Write/paint syntactically (transitive)Pot/pan semantically (sister terms)

WORD RELATIONSHIPS

Dog & Poodle All poodles are dogs = X is always included as a part of Y Dog and poodle are hyponyms

Sister Term Two or more terms that are on the same level within a

hyponymous hierarchy

HYPONYMY & SISTER TERMS

BUILD YOUR OWN HYPONYM

SYNONYMS

Two words that share the exact same reference.

What is the antonym to emasculate? : to make (a man) feel less masculine : to deprive (a man)

of his male strength, role, etc. : to make (something) weaker or less effective

What’s the difference between a complementary pair and gradable pair? Discuss with your neighbor-

How _____ is he/it?

ANTONYMS

Semantics at the sentence levelEntailment

All dogs barkSally’s dog barks

Mutual Entailment Ian has a female sibling Ian has a sister

PROPOSITIONS

“The meaning of a sentence (or any other multi-word expression) is a function of the meanings of the words it contains, and how these words are syntactically combined.Sally loves Polly.Polly loves Sally.

PRINCIPLE OF COMPOSITIONALITY

Shramped flonked flo britter.Shramped flonked the britter.Shramped kicked the britter.Roberto kicked the britter. Roberto kicked the ball.Roberto kicked the bucket.

SEMANTICS AND SYNTAX

Think of 3 idiomatic expressions in English. Invent 1 new idiomatic expression in English.

Idioms in Spanish/other languages? Pan comido (piece of cake) Llevar leña al monte (to carry coals to Newcastle)

IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS

PART 2

Sentence: There is a platypus in the bathtub.

Utterance: The event that occurs when a sentence is spoken. The same sentence could have an infinite number of

utterances. Properties of utterances include: time, place, volume, the

speaker

SENTENCE VS. UTTERANCE

Deictic words Those things that hold the place of other things in a thing

when someone says it.

What does (can) this sentence mean? Can you take the trash out?

CONTEXT AND MEANING

Linguistic What precedes a particular utterance in a discourse. Do you like green beans?

Yes. Yes, I do.

Situational Nonlinguistic information that allows for an utterance to be

understood. It smells.

Social Relationships between interlocutors

KINDS OF CONTEXT

The difference is intuitive. Judgments of felicity may differ from one speaker to

another.

What do you do for a living? I’m a linguistic professor at Ohio State.

What do you do for a living? I have a job.

FELICITOUS & INFELICITOUS

Steven Pinker (The cooperative principle)

THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

1. Maxim of Quality2. Maxim of Relevance3. Maxim of Quantity4. Maxim of Manner

5. Violations

GRICE’S MAXIMS