Meaning relations

MEANING RELATIONS REFERENCE • An external meaning relation, the relationship between a word and the entity it refers to in the physical world, in our mental world, or in the world of our experience. • The refernece of tree is a particular plant with a trunk, branches, twigs and leaves. • The reference of love is a particular attitude displayed by humans and animals that signals affection and tendereness. Sense relations • An internal meaning relation hold between words within the vocabulary: sameness and oppositeness; hyararchical : • Synonymy • Antonymy • Hyponymy • Meronymy • • • • Love- affection, sympathy, attraction,… Love – hatred, hostility, disdain, ... Tree – plant (more general term) Tree – beech, birch, oak (more specific terms) Collocation • Sense relations are paradigmatic. They are about the choice between words, the substitution of one word for another in a particular contextual slot in a sentence. • Words also contract semantic relations syntagmatically, with words occupying other slots in a sentence. Collocation • The mutual expectancy of words, or the ability of a word to predict the likelyhood of another word occuring. • Peck a hole in a tree; • Birds pecked at crumbs on the grass. • Не has been pecking away at that project for some time now. • Give me a peck, sweety. • An occurence of peck in rice. • They picked a peck of wheat (a measure). • Most people make a peck of mistakes before they gain some experience. (a lot of) SEMANTIC FIELD • Meaning relations are relevant to the way we store words in our «mental lexicon». • Meaning relations are used to analyse and describe vocabulary structure. • The vocabulary is organized into a number of partially overlapping semantic fields. SEMANTIC / LEXICAL FIELD • Contains words that belong to a defined area of meaning: education, sport, art, medicine, etc. • The field becomes the context within which to establish meaning relations. • There are different methods of establising semantic fields: • Componential analysis (CA) – the words in the field share common semantic component. CA seeks to express the meaning of a word in terms of its semantic components. • Goldfinch – a small bird, common in Europe with yellow feathers on its wings. Componential analysis • Used to establish and confirm sense relations Approaches to the the relationships between words and concepts • General approach – semantic field approach • Formal approach – componential analysis • Cognitive approach – semantic networks and frame semantics. These approaches seek to solve two issues: • The description of the relationships between words and concepts anf formalizaion of sense relations. Synonymy • Having the same name • Refers to the relationship of sameness of meaning that may hold between two words. • Subtle differences between words closely related in meaning: • Beg – entreat, beseech, implore, supplicate, importune = appeal that is likely to be refused or demurred фею • There is however small diference in meaning, it follows there is no such thing as true synonymy. Strict / absolute and loose synonymy • In the strict sense , the synonyms have to be interchangeable in all their possible contexts of use. • The choice would have no effect on the meaning, style or connotation. Such strict synonymy does not exist. • Strict synonymy is uneconomical; it creates unnecessary redundancy in a language. Strict synonymy • Sky – heaven (context) • Spirit – ghost (Holy ghost/Holy Spirit) Strict and loose synonymy • Varing degrees of loose synonymy: there are some contexts when they cannot substitude for each other: find / discover; • Substitutable for each other: Jacky found a letter in her drawer. / We found it difficult to explain her te problem. Antonymy • Oppositeness is not such a pervasive meaning relation in English as synonymy; • In the adjective word class antonymous pairs: long-short, wide-narrow, new-old, rough- smooth, etc. OCCURRENCE OF ANTONYMS 1. Often antonyms occur together , within the same sentence or adjacent sentences: • A matter of life and death, from head to toe, from start to finish, the long and the short of it, neither friend nor foe, wanted dead or live. • 2.1. Antonyms may be used redundantly to emphasize a point: • it was a remark made in private, not in public. • 2.2.. to make a rhetorical flourish: is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning? • 3. reference is to the end of state: • the musseum opens at nine and closes at four. • Lighten our darkness we pray. – a verb and a noun Types of antonyms • Gradable • Contradictory/Complimentary • Converses • Express oppositeness in rather different ways: Gradable • • • • • • • • Beautiful Expensive Fast Hot Increase Long Rich • a more/less relation: the terms allow comparison: • I love a good book more than a good meal. • The adjectives can be modified by intensifying adverbs: very long, extraordinary beautiful. • • • How long is the street? • How short is the street? • Marked/unmarked • It’s 400 metres long. Contradictory/complimentary • • • • • • • • Asleep Dead Permit Remember Shut True Win Either/or relation of oppositeness Converse • • • • • • • • Above – below Before – after Behind – in front of Buy – sell Give Husband Margaret is Malcom’s wife. Malcom is Margaret’s husband.