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SEMANTICSSee also “Semantic Gaps and

Sources of New Words”

by Don L. F. Nilsenby Don L. F. Nilsenand Alleen Pace Nilsenand Alleen Pace Nilsen

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AMBIGUITIES

• I saw him walking by the bank.

• We laughed at the colorful ball.

• The police were urged to stop drinking by the fifth.

• I said I would file it on Thursday.

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• I cannot recommend visiting professors too highly.

• The license fee for pets owned by senior citizens who have not been altered is $1.50.

• What looks better on a handsome man than a tux? Nothing!

(Attributed to Mae West)

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 211)

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COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

• H. P. Grice said that we should be communicative, relevant, brief, and truthful.

• QUANTITY: Say neither more nor less than the discourse requires.

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• RELEVANCE: Be relevant.

• MANNER: Be brief and orderly; avoid ambiguity and obscurity.

• QUALITY: Do not lie; do not make unsupported claims.

• NOTE: The characters we remember both from literature and from real life are the ones who violate these principles.

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 205)

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DEIXIS

• Deictic words get their meanings from the time, the place, or the persons in the context:

• TIME: after, before, last week, next April, now, seven days ago, then, that time, this time, tomorrow, two weeks from now…

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• PLACE: back, before, behind, front, here, left, right, that place, there, these parks, this city, those towers over there, yonder mountains…

• PERSON: he, her, hers, him, his, I, it, me, mine, our, ours, she, their, they, them, us, we, you, your, yours…

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 203)

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FRAME SEMANTICS

• Using Predicate Calculus as a model, Charles Fillmore devised Case Grammar, in which verbs are classified in terms of their arguments.

• Here, the environment becomes the “case frame.”

• Each case frame is thought of as a small abstract scene or situation.

• To understand the semantic structure of the verb, it is necessary to understand the properties of such schematized scenes.

(Hobin 5, Fillmore 1982, 115)

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• A verb can be intransitive, linking, transitive or ditransitive. Although this is a syntactic notion, it has important semantic consequences.

• Syntactic transitivity involves Subjects, Subject Complements, Direct Objects, Indirect Objects and Object Complements.

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• Fillmore says that If we change from a syntactic to a semantic bias, we can say that the “case frame” of a verb involves the following “Deep Cases”: Agent, Instrument, Experiencer, Object, Source, Path, Goal, Time, Place, Manner, Extent, Reason, etc.

(Nilsen and Nilsen Semantic Theory, 104-105)

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• If we do this, we can say that the different types of verbs have different case frames, so that the following classifications are not only semantic, but syntactic as well:

• CHANGE VERBS: brighten, demolish• CONTACT VERBS: hit, touch• EXPERIENCE VERBS: see, enjoy• LOCATION VERBS: bottle, button• MOTION VERBS: walk, throw• SYMMETRICAL PREDICATES: resemble• The verbs in each of these categories tend to

have the same “Case Frames” as do the other verbs in the same category.

(Nilsen & Nilsen 1975, 104-105)

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• Lakoff seems to be cementing terminology that has previously been unstable.

• In 1985, Fillmore developed his frame semantics.

• Since that time various terms have been proposed—”Frame” by Minsky, Winograd and Charniak, “Schema” by Bartlett and Rulmelhart, “Scripts” by Schank and Abelson, “Global Pattern by de Beaugrande and Dressler, “Pseudo-text” by Wilks, “Cognitive Model” by Lakoff, “Experiential Gestalt” by Lakoff and Johnson, “Base” by Langacker, “Scenes” by Fillmore, etc.

(Hobin 4, Fillmore 1985, 223)

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Gamson & Lasch Frames

1. Metaphors

2. Exemplars such as Historical Examples

3. Catch Phrases

4. Depictions

5. Visual Images or Icons (1-37)

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HOMONOMY VS. POLYSEMY

• Two different words that sound or look alike are called “homonyms.”

• Two different senses of a single word are called “polysemes.”

• A “wedding ring,” a “boxing ring,” and a “bathtub ring” are polysemes, but what about a ring on a telephone?

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 192)

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HUMPTY DUMPTY LANGUAGE

• “There’s glory for you!”

• “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory.’” Alice said.

• Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.

• “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

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• “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,” Alice objected.

• “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

• “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 186)

(from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass)

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IDIOMSbite your tongue

cut it out

eat my hat

get a piece of my mind

hit the ceiling

hit it off

kick the bucket

let your hair down

put your foot in your mouth

rake someone over the coals

raining cats and dogs

sell someone down the river

snap out of it

throw your weight around(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 185)

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IRONY

• I’m not kidding.

• Literally…

• Some of my best friends are…black, gay, Mexican, women….

• To make a long story short.

(Mey 266)

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LEGAL LANGUAGE• Because it has to account for all possibilities,

legal language must be precise and sometimes a bit redundant. That’s why lawyers use such terms as “cease and desist,” or “give and bequeath.”

• A sign in the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park, however, takes this type of language a bit further:

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• “Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize, or ruffle the animals.

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 189)

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PRESUPPOSITION

• “Fats regretted that he had to pay alimony to Bessie” presupposes that “Fats had to pay alimony to Bessie.”

• “Fats did not regret that he had to pay alimony to Bessie” also presupposes that “Fats had to pay alimony to Bessie.”

(Mey 20)

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SPEECH ACTS

• Commissives (Affect Speaker, Subjective)– TYPES: Oath, Offer, Promise

• Declaratives (Change the Macrocosmic Social World)– TYPES: Baptism, Marriage

• Directives (Change the Microcosmic Social World)– TYPES: Command, Request

• Expressives (Feelings of Speaker)– TYPES: Apology, Thanks

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• Interrogatives (Hearer Knows Best)– TYPES: Closed (yes-no), Loaded, Open

• Imperatives (Directives) (Affect Hearer)– TYPES: Request, Requirement, Threat, Warning

• Performatives (Affect world)– TYPES: Agreement, Appointment, Baptism,

Declaration of Independence, Dedication, Marriage

• Representatives (Objective Descriptive Statements)– TYPES: Statement that is either True or False

(Mey 120, Searle 1977, 34)

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SYNTAX VS. SEMANTICS• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

• Chomsky points out that from a syntactic perspective, this sentence is perfect. But he says it is “meaningless” because “colorless” cancels out “green” etc.

• Chomsky, therefore, wants to exclude such sentences from discussion.

(Mey 20)

• “Haj Ross and George Lakoff were the first to protest against this syntactic straitjacket.”

(Mey 22)

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THEMATIC ROLES

• Subject, Direct Object and Indirect Object are syntactically determined. Deep Cases like Actor, Experiencer, Instrument, and Object (or Patient) are semantically determined.

• Actor = Animate Cause• Experiencer = Animate Effect• Instrument = Inanimate Cause• Object = Inaminate Effect

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• Normally, the most active deep case is selected as the subject of the sentence:

• The Actor if there is one

• If not, the Instrument if there is one

• If there is no Actor or Instrument, the Object becomes eligible. Therefore we have the following:

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• The boy opened the door with the key.

• The key opened the door.

• The door opened.

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Non Actors as Subjects• The cake smelled good.

• The cake tasted good.

• The painting looked great.

• The bell sounded loud.

• The fur felt soft.

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MORE TYPICAL SENTENCES

• Someone smelled the cake.

• Someone tasted the cake.

• Someone looked at the painting.

• Someone heard the bell.

• Someone felt the fur.

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• In an Active Sentence the most active Deep Case is eligible to become the Subject and the least active is eligible to become the Direct Object.

• In a Passive Sentence the least active Deep Case is eligible to become the Subject and the most active case becomes an Object of the Preposition “by.”

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• But what about converses like “buy” and “sell,” or “rent to” and “rent from”?

• “John bought the car from Mary” is true if and only if “Mary sold the car to John” is true.

• “John rented the house to Mary” is true if and only if “Mary rented the house from John.”

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TRUTH

• It’s cold outside. (empirical)

• A king is a ruler. (linguistic)

• Life is a box of chocolates (general metaphorical)

• Saphire Lake (specific metaphorical)

• Happy Birthday! (speech act: wish)

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• John Saw Mary. = Mary was seen by John.

• John broke the window with a hammer. = The window broke.

• John bought a car from Mary. = Mary sold a car to John.

• John rented the house from Mary. = Mary rented the house to John.

• Half of the students in the class are boys. = Half of the students in the class are not boys.

(Mey 21)

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• John and Mary had a child = Mary and John had a child.

• Getting married and having a child is better than having a child and getting married. =/= Having a child and getting married is better than getting married and having a child.

(Mey 24)

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• I got drunk and crashed my car =/= I crashed my car and got drunk.

• Mary is a nice girl and she takes swimming lessons. ct. Mary is a nice girl but she is poor at tennis.

(Mey 24)

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!

• Jacob Mey says, “communication is not a matter of logic or truth, but of cooperation.”

(Mey 70)

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!!SNIGLETS

• Rich Hall invented the term “sniglet” for a word that should be in the dictionary, but isn’t.

• Elbonics (el bon’ iks) n. The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater

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• !!!Esso Asso (eso a’so): The person behind you in a right-hand turn lane who cuts through the Esso Station

• Pupkus (pup’kus) n. The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it

• Phonesia (fo nee’ zhuh) n. The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer

• (Nilsen & Nilsen 177)

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Web Site on Semantics:

The Turbo Encabulator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o

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References:References:

Aitchison, Jean. “Bad Birds and Better Birds: Prototype Aitchison, Jean. “Bad Birds and Better Birds: Prototype Theories” (Clark 225-239).Theories” (Clark 225-239).

Chomsky, Noam. Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic StructuresSyntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton, 1957.. The Hague: Mouton, 1957.

Clark, Virginia, Paul Eschholz, and Alfred Rosa. Clark, Virginia, Paul Eschholz, and Alfred Rosa. Language: Language: Readings in Language and Culture, 6th EditionReadings in Language and Culture, 6th Edition. New York, NY: . New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. Language Language Awareness: Readings for College Writers, Ninth EditionAwareness: Readings for College Writers, Ninth Edition. . Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.

Fillmore, Charles. “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding.” Fillmore, Charles. “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding.” Quaderni Di SemanticaQuaderni Di Semantica 6 (1985): 222-253. 6 (1985): 222-253.

Francis, W. Nelson. “Word-Making: Some Sources of New Words” Francis, W. Nelson. “Word-Making: Some Sources of New Words” (Clark 154-165).(Clark 154-165).

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Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. “Semantics: The Meaning of Language.” An Introduction to Language, 8th Edition. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007, 173-220; 9th Edition, 2011, 179-228.

Gamson, W. A., and K. Lasch. “The Political Culture of Social Welfare Policy.” in Evaluating the Welfare State Eds: S. E. Spiro and E. Yuchtman-Yaar. New York, NY: Academic Press, 1983, 397-415.

Hobin, Suzanne. “The Effect of Conceptual Metaphors on Political and Social Thought.” MA Thesis. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, 2005.

Jacobs, Roderick A., and Peter S. Rosenbaum. “What Do Native Speakers Know about Their Language?” (Clark, 183-188).

Lakoff, George. “Presupposition and Relative Well-Formedness.” In: Semantics: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Psychology. Eds. Danny Steinberg and Leon Jakobovits. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Unviversity Press, 1968, 329-340.

Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

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Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2nd Edition. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 2001.

Nilsen, Alleen Pace. “The Wonder of Words.” Living Language. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 45-88.

Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.

Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Vocabulary Plus: High School and Up: A Source-Based Approach. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2004.

Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Vocabulary Plus: K-8: A Source-Based Approach. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2004.

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Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Language Play. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1978.

Nilsen, Don L. F., and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Semantic Theory. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1975.

Pinker, Steven. “The Tower of Babel” (Clark 257-260).

Raskin, Victor. Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. New York, NY: Reidel/Kluwer, 1985.

Searle, John R. A Classification of Illocutionary Acts.” In Proceedings of the Texas Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions, and Implicatures. Eds. Andy Rogers, Bob Wall and John P. Murphy, Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1977, 27-45.

Strawson, Peter F. “On Referring.” Mind. 59 (1950): 320-344.