의미론
(Semantics)
영어학개론
4. The Meaning of Language(언어의 의미: 의미론)
-
What is semantics?
The study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences
Subfields of semantics:
1. lexical semantics: concerned with the meanings of words and the meaning relationships among words
2. phrasal or sentential semantics: concerned with the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word
3. pragmatics: the study of how context affects meaning, for example, how the sentence It’s cold in here
comes to be interpreted as ‘close the window’ in certain situations
- We use language to convey information to others(My new bike is pink),
ask questions(Who left the party early?),
give commands(Stop lying!), and
express wishes(May there be peace on Earth)
- What do you know about meaning when you know a language?
You know when a “word” is meaningful (flick) or meaningless (blick), and
you know when a “sentence” is meaningful (Jack swims) or meaningless(Swims metaphorical every).
- You know when a word has two meanings(bear) and
when a sentence has two meanings(Jack saw a man with a telescope).
You know when two words have the same meaning(sofa and couch), and
when two sentences have the same meaning(Jack put off the meeting, Jack put the meeting
off).
You know when words or sentences have opposite meanings (alive/dead; Jack swims/Jack doesn’t
swim).
# 단어나 문장의 의미가 서로 유사한지 다른지 또는 하나의 표현이 이중적 의미를 갖는지는
그 언어를 사용하는 모국어 화자들의 의미론적 직관에 따라 판단할 수 있으며 그 의미론적
판단은 진리조건적 이론에 근거할 수도 있고 화용론적 이론에 근거할 수도 있다
.
- 진리조건적 의미론: 참(truth)과 거짓(false)으로 문장의 의미를 판단
- 화용론적 의미론: 참과 거짓으로 판단할 수 없으며 대화의 맥락을 통해 문장 의미가 전달되는지를 판단.
1. What Speakers Know about Sentence Meaning
a. Linguistic Knowledge is by formulating semantic rules that build the meaning of a sentence from
the meanings of its words and the way the words combine syntactically. truth-conditional se-
mantics
e.g.) Circles are square. fasle
b. By the linguistic knowledge, we determine whether a sentence is true or false(truth-conditional se-
mantics),
when one sentence implies the truth or falseness of another(pragmatics), and
whether a sentence has multiple meanings(semantic ambiguity).
c. Truth-conditional semantics takes speaker’s knowledge of truth conditions, ‘true or false’
convention.
d. This is also called compositional semantics because it calculates the truth value of a sentence by
composing,
or putting together, the meanings of smaller units.
(각 단어들의 의미성분들의 합으로 문장의 의미를 도출)
e.g.) Jack swims. / Jack kissed Laura.
- tautology(항진명제): A restricted number of sentences are always true regardless of the circum-
stances.
e.g.) Circles are round.
A person who is single is not married.
- contradiction(모순명제): Some sentences are always false.
e.g.) Circles are square.
A bachelor is married.
5<3>
- Entailment(함의) and Related Notions
a. One sentence entails another if whenever the first sentence is true the second one is also true in all
conceivable circumstances:
If you know that the sentence Jack swims beautifully is true, then you also know that the sentence
Jack swims is true. This meaning relation is called entailment. We say that Jack swims beautifully
entails
Jack swims.
b. Generally, entailment goes only in one direction. While the sentence Jack swims beautifully entails
Jack swims, the reverse is not true. Knowing merely that Jack swims is true does not necessitate
the truth of Jack swims beautifully.
c. Mutual entailment:
Two sentences are synonymous(or paraphrases) if they are both true or both false with respect to the
same
situations. Sentences like Jack put off the meeting and Jack postponed the meeting are synonymous.
Two sentences are synonymous if they entail each other.
# Mutual entailment guarantees identical truth values in all situations; the sentences are
synonymous.
================
- Question: Does the first sentence entail the second?
a. Bob killed Charles. Bob murdered Charles.
b. My socks are bright red. My socks are red.
c. Bob killed Charles. Charles is not alive.
d. The bus is late. The bus is very late.
e Alan has planted marigolds. Alan has planted flowers.
f. Tom took a pig. Tom stole a pig.
g. My neighbour owns a pistol. My neighbour owns a firearm.
h. This pencil belongs to Roger. Roger owns this pencil.
i. I am wearing black boots. I am wearing black footwear.
j. All dogs have fleas. My dog has fleas.
================
d. Two sentences are contradictory if, whenever one is true, the other is false or, equivalently,
there is no
situation in which they are both true or both false.
e.g. ) The sentences Jack is alive and Jack is dead are contradictory because if the sentence Jack is alive
is true, then the sentence Jack is dead is false, and vice versa.
Jack is alive and Jack is dead have opposite truth values.
e. Two sentences are contradictory if one entails the negation of the other.
Jack is alive entails the negation of Jack is dead, namely Jack is not dead. Similarly, Jack is dead en-
tails
the negation of Jack is alive, namely Jack is not alive.
f. The notions of contradiction (always false) and contradictory (opposite in truth value) are related in that
if two sentences are contradictory, their conjunction with and is a contradiction.
Thus Jack is alive and Jack is dead is a contradiction; it cannot be true under any circumstances.
cf) contradiction: Circles are square.
A bachelor is married.
contradictory: Jack is alive. / Jack is dead. (in case Jack is the same person)
6<1>
- Ambiguity
When words or phrases(sentences) have more than one meaning, they are ambiguous.
(1) Lexical Ambiguity arises when at least one word in a phrase has more than one meaning:
This will make you smart is ambiguous because of the two meanings of the word smart:
‘clever’ and ‘feel a burning sensation’.
(2) Structural Ambiguity is showed in The boy saw the man with a telescope because it can mean that
➀ the boy saw the man by using a telescope or that
➁ the boy saw the man who was holding a telescope.
--- Refer to page 143 for their syntactic structures
e.g.) ➀’ The boy [V’ saw [the man]] [PP with the telescope]
➁’ The boy saw [NP the man [PP with the telescope]]
-> In ➀, the PP with a telescope modifies V’, the action of seeing the man, so the interpretation
is that the boy saw the man by using the telescope.
In ➁, the PP with the telescope modifies the N man, so the interpretation is that the man
has the telescope.
Our knowledge of lexical and structural ambiguities reveals that the meaning of a linguistic expression
is built both on the words it contains and on its syntactic structure.
2. Compositional Semantics
- The notion that the meaning of an expression is composed of the meaning of its parts and how they are
combined structurally is referred to as the principle of compositionality.
-
Semantic Rules
Semantic Rule I:
If the meaning of NP (an individual) is a member of the meaning of VP (a set of individuals),
then the sentence is TRUE; otherwise it is FALSE
TP
NP T’
T VP
-pst
“Jack swims” Word Meanings
Jack refers to (or means) the individual Jack
swims refers to (or means) the set of individual that swim
TP
NP T’
Jack T VP
-pst
swim
Semantic Rule II:
This is the set of individuals X such that X is the first member of any pair in the meaning of V whose
second member is the meaning of NP.
VP
V’
V NP
“Jack kissed Laura” Word Meanings
Jack refers to (or means) the individual Jack
Laura refers to (or means) the individual Laura
kissed refers to (or means) the set of pairs of individuals X and Y
such that X kissed Y
TP
NP T’
Jack T VP
+pst
V’
V NP
kiss Laura
6<2>
- Anomaly
- If one or more words in a sentence do not have a meaning, then obviously we will not be able to
compute a meaning for the entire sentence. Moreover, even when the individual words have meaning,
if they cannot be combined together as required by the syntactic structure and related semantic
rules
we will also not get to a meaning. We refer to situations of this sort as semantic anomaly(의미적 변이).
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Dark green leaves rustle furiously.
- The sentences obey all the syntactic rules of English. But there is obviously something semantically
wrong with the sentence: The meaning of colorless includes the semantic feature ‘without color’ but
it is combined with the adjective ‘green’. Other semantic violations occur in the sentence.
Such sentences are semantically anomalous.
=> Semantic anomaly(의미적 변이)의 양상을 보이는 문장은 일반적인 해석으로는 이해되기 어려우며
창의력을 동원한 다른 의미의 해석을 끌어내야 한다
. 주어진 문장의 사전적 의미 해석이 아니라 내포된
다른 의미해석을 통해야만 의미가 전달될 수 있다
. 만약 창의력을 동원해서도 의미가 전달되지 않는다면
그것은 비문법적인 문장이거나 관용적 표현일 수 있다
.
- Semantic interpretation :
e.g.) Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky’ 1. He too his vorpal sword in hand.
2. He took his sword, which was vorpal, in hand.
3. It was in his hand that he took his vorpal sword.
The word ‘vorpal’ does not exist in the lexicon of the language, but you can decide that the sense
of the three sentences are identical, assuming what the semantic properties of ‘vorpal’ are.
- Semantic violations in poetry may form strange but interesting aesthetic images, as in Dylan Thomas’s
phrase ‘a grief ago’. When Thomas used the word grief with ago, he was adding a durational feature to
grief for poetic effect, so while the noun phrase is anomalous, it evokes certain emotion.
- Metaphor
- Semantic anomaly, alternatively, might require a lot of creativity and imagination to derive a meaning.
This is what happens in metaphors.
- Metaphors are anomalous, but the nature of the anomaly creates the salient meanings that metaphors
usually have. The anomalous A grief ago might come to be interpreted by speakers of English as
‘the unhappy time following a sad event’ and therefore become a metaphor.
- When the semantic rules are applied to Walls have ears, the literal meaning is so unlikely that listeners
use their imagination for another interpretation.
e.g.) Our doubts are traitors.
Time is money.
(save time, waste time, manage time, back in time, …)
I am a man whom Fortune(means a woman) hath cruelly scratched. (by Shakespeare)
There’s a bug in my program.
Freedom was at the helm of the ship of state
- Idioms
- Idioms have a fixed meaning: a meaning that is not compositional.
Appling compositional rules to idioms gives rise to funny or inappropriate meanings.
(Refer to page 151)
- idiomatic phrases: sell down the river
rake over the coals
drop the ball
let their hair down
put his foot in his mouth
throw her weight around
snap out of it
give a piece of your mind
=>이러한 표현들은 단어들 간의 의미의 합으로 해석해 내는 의미적 규칙이 적용되지 않는다.
================
- Question: Consider the meanings of these sentences with some idioms.
1. She put her foot in her mouth.
2. The FBI kept tabs on radicals.
3. He ate his hat.
4. Eat your heart out.
5. What did the doctor tell the vegetarian about his surgically implanted heart valve from a pig?
That it was okay as long as he didn’t “eat his heart out”.(humor)
================
6<3>
4. Lexical Semantics(Word Meanings)
- Theories of Word Meaning
- Reference: The meaning of a proper name like Jack is its reference: the link between the word Jack
and the person named Jack, which is its referent.
The reference of the NP is part of the meaning of the NP.
e.g.) NPs like the happy swimmer, my friend, and that guy can all be used to refer to Jack
in the situation in which you’ve observed Jack swimming.
- Superman and Clark Kent have the same reference—they are one and the same person.
But if we substitute Clark Kent for Superman in the sentence Lois Lane is in love with Super-
man,
we alter its truth value from true to false; there must be a dimension of meaning beyond
mere reference.
- Similarly, Barack Obama and the President have the same reference, but the meaning of the
NP
the President is additionally ‘the head of state of the United States of America’.
cf) No baby swims. (Not every NP refers to an individual.)
- Sense: The more additional elements of meaning than reference alone are termed sense.
Nonreal-world referents such as Unicorns, hobbits, and Harry Potter have sense but no reference.
The meaning of a word is the mental image. We may have clear image of these entities from
books,
movies, and so on.
- Lexical Relations
(1) Synonyms(유의어):
Synonyms are words or expressions that have the same meaning in some or all contexts.
There are many synonyms that contain many hundreds of entries:
apathetic / phlegmatic / passive / sluggish / indifferent (감정이 무딘, 수동적인)
pedigree / ancestry / genealogy / descent / lineage(족보, 혈통)
cf) There are no perfect synonyms: no two words ever have exactly the same meaning.
The following two sentences have very similar meanings:
He’s sitting on the sofa. / He’s sitting on the couch.
- English contains many synonymous pairs consisting of a word with an English root, and
another with a Latin root:
English Latin
manly virile
heal recuperate
send transmit
go down descend
# Synonymous expressions reveal mutual entailment because they entail each other:
1. Jack put off the meeting. / Jack postponed the meeting.
2. I saw a human being. I saw a person.
3. ?Bob killed Charles. / Bob murdered Charles.
4. Evelyn won the race. / The race was won by Evelyn.
5. Greg has hit the ball too hard. / Greg has struck the ball too hard.
6. My dog is bigger than your dog. Your dog is smaller than my dog.
7. This pencil belongs to Roger. Roger owns this pencil.
8. Ken almost shot his foot. Ken nearly shot his foot.
9. ?Tom took a pig. Tom stole a pig
take kill
steal, rob, extort, … murder, slay, knock off, assassinate, …
7<1>
(2) Antonyms(반의어)
(a) complementary pairs of antonyms
: These are complementary in that alive=not dead, dead=not alive, and so on.
alive / dead present / absent awake / asleep fail / pass hit / miss
(b) gradable pairs of antonyms
: The words in gradable pairs do not provide an absolute scale.
big / small hot / cold fast / slow
rich / poor interesting / boring near / far
happy / sad tall / short clever / stupid beautiful / ugly
- We know that “a small elephant” is much bigger than “a large mouse”. Fast is faster when ap-
plied
to an airplane than to a car.
- hot – warm – tepid – cool - cold
# complementary antonym: John is not alive. / John is not dead.
(Both sentences cannot be true simultaneously.)
gradable antonym: The weather is not hot. / The weather is not cold.
(Both sentences can be true simultaneously.)
- Marked and Unmarked expression:
Unmarked Marked
How high is the mountain? How low is it?
Ten thousand feet high Ten thousand feet low
How tall is the building? How short is the building?
How fast is it? How slow is it?
(c) relational antonyms: These display symmetry in their meanings.
If X gives Y to Z, then Z receives Y from X. If X is Y’s teacher, then Y is X’s pupil.
Pairs of words ending in –er and –ee are usually relational opposites.
give / receive buy / sell teacher / pupil employer / employee
- Other antonyms with some affixes:
likely / unlikely able / unable fortunate / unfortunate
entity / nonentity conformist / nonconformist
tolerant / intolerant discreet / indiscreet decent / indecent
===============
- Question: Consider the some backfired examples. Are these the pairs of antonyms?
loosen / unloosen
flammable / inflammable
valuable / invaluable
parent / offspring
===============
(3) Homonyms(동음이의어): Homonyms are words that have different meanings but are pronounced
the same,
and may or may not be spelled the same.
(a) homophones: having the same sound but different meaning
sight/cite soul/sole bear/bare
(b) homographs: having the same spelling but different sound and meaning.
pussy/pussy (meaning ‘infected’ and ‘kitten’) , bank / bank
/ʌ/ /u/
7<2>
(4) Polysemy(다의어)
When a word has multiple meanings that are related conceptually or historically,
it is said to be polysemous.
e.g.) diamond (means a jewel or a baseball field)
red, white, blue (means color)
lion, tiger, leopard, lynx* (means felines) (lynx: 캐나다 야생고양이 스라소니)
column (means a pillar, marchers in narrow file, long thin section of news)
- Semantic Features
- Noun
In these examples, “female” is a semantic feature:
tigress hen aunt maiden
doe mare debutante* widow (debutante: 사교계에 갓 진출한 상류층여성)
ewe vixen girl woman
In the following examples, “human” is a semantic feature:
doctor dean professor teenager
bachelor parent baby child
Count nouns: a dog, dogs, many dogs, …
Mass nouns: rice, water, milk, hair, furniture, spaghetti, …
Note:
1. 성분분석(componential analysis):
- 한 단어의 의미는 그 단어를 구성하는 의미성분(semantic component)으로 규정할 수 있음.
- 성분분석에 의해 주어진 단어의 의미성분들은 그 단어의 상위어들 이며 이것은 단어의 의미를
구성하는 의미장
(semantic field)을 형성한다.
animal
human nonhuman
male female
adult child adult child
| | | |
man boy woman girl
2. 의미자질(semantic feature)
man: [HUMAN], [ADULT], [MALE]...
mare: [NONHUMAN], [ADULT], [FEMALE], [HORSE]...
변별자질
(distinctive feature)
man: [+HUMAN], [+ADULT], [+MALE]
mare: [-HUMAN], [+ADULT], [-MALE]
⇓
각 단어의 의미를 나타내는 의미적 구성성분
- Verbs
Verbs have semantic features as part of their meaning.
(a) “Cause” is a feature of verbs such as
darken cause to become dark
kill cause to die
uglify cause to become ugly
(b) “Go” is a feature of verbs that mean a change in location or possession, such as
swim, crawl, throw, fly, give or buy:
Jack swims.
The baby crawled under the table.
The baby threw the ball over the fence.
John gave Mary a beautiful engagement ring.
- Verbal features may have syntactic consequences:
Verbs can either describe events such as John kissed Mary/John ate oysters,
or states such as John knows Mary/John likes oysters.
Eventives Statives
Mary was kissed by John ?Mary is known by John
John is kissing Mary ?John is knowing Mary
Kiss Mary! ?Know Mary!
7<3>
- Negative Polarity Items:
- Expressions such as ever, anymore, have a red cent, and many more are ungrammatical in cer-
tain simple
affirmative sentence, but grammatical is corresponding negative ones.
e.g.) *Mary will ever smile. / Mary will not ever smile.
*I can visit you anymore. / I cannot visit you anymore.
*It’s worth a red cent. / It’s not worth a red cent.
Such expressions are called negative polarity items because they require a negative element
such as
“not” elsewhere in the sentence.
- Verbs such as doubt and refuse, but not think and hope, have “negative” as a component of
their meaning:
e.g.) *John thinks that he’ll ever fly a plane again.
*John hopes to ever fly a plane again.
John doubts that he’ll ever fly a plane again.
John refuses to ever fly a plane again.
- Argument Structure
- Thematic Roles(의미역)
The NP arguments in the VP are semantically related in various ways to the verb.
The relations depend on the meaning of the particular verb.
1. The boy rolled a red ball.
agent theme
The agent is the “doer” of the rolling action. The NP a red ball is the theme or the “undergoer”
of the rolling action. Relations such as agent and theme are called thematic roles.
Thematic roles express the kind of relation that holds between the arguments of the verb and
the type of situation that the verb describe.
2. The boy threw the red ball to the girl.
agent theme goal
The girl bears the thematic role of goal; the endpoint of a change in location or possession.
3. Professor Snape awakened Harry Potter with his wand.
source experiencer instrument
Source is the action originates, instrument is the means used to accomplish the action, and
experiencer is the one receiving sensory input.
4. Verbs such as throw, buy, and fly contain a feature “go” expressing a change in location or pos-
session.
The feature “go” is thus linked to the presence of the thematic roles of theme, source, and goal.
5. Verbs like awaken or frighten have a feature “affects mental state” so that one of its arguments
takes on the thematic role of experiencer.
6. A verb sell is linked to the presence of a goal(the recipient or endpoint of the transfer),
and buy to the presence of a source (the initiator of the transfer)
e.g.) (a) John sold the book to Mary.
agent theme goal
(b) Mary bought the book from John.
agent theme source
=================
- Question: Consider the thematic roles of the underlined expressions.
1. The dog bit the stick. / The stick was bitten by the dog.
2. The trainer gave the dog a treat. / The trainer gave a treat to the dog.
3. The boy opened the door with the key.
4. The key opened the door.
5. The door opened.
================= Refer to pages 164-165
8<1>
5. Pragmatics
Pragmatics: The study of extra-truth-conditional meaning which comes about as a result of
how a speaker uses the literal meaning in conversation, or as a part of a discourse.
(1) Implicature(함축)
a. Dad: Very nice girl. What do you think, Hon?
Mom: The turkey sure was moist.
The literal meaning is that Dad asked Mom whether she thinks the girl is nice and
Mom asserts that the turkey was moist. But this includes some extra-truth-conditional meaning.
The assertion “The turkey sure was moist” implies “I do not like the girl”:
The meaning of this conversation can be interpreted by an implicature.
b. Sue: Does Mary have a boyfriend?
Bill: She’s been driving to Santa Barbara every weekend. -> implies Mary has a boyfriend.
c. John: Do you know how to change a tire?
Jane: I know how to call a tow truck. -> implies Jane doesn’t know how to change a tire.
d. Dana: Do these slacks make my butt look big?
Jamie: You look great in Chartreuse. -> implies Dana’s butt looks big.
(Chartreuse: 샤르트뢰즈 수도원)
(2) Maxims of Conversation(대화격률)
- Grice concluded that language users can calculate implicatures because they are all following some
implicit principles. He called these principles “maxims” of discourse, and used them to serve as
the
foundation of pragmatics, the study of extra-truth-conditional meaning.
- The principles of maxims of conversation can be referred as cooperative principle.
a. Maxim of Quality: Truth
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
b. Maxim of Quantity: Information
Make you contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
c. Maxim of Relation: Relevance
Be relevant.
d. Maxim of Manner: Clarity
Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Avoid unnecessary wordiness.
Be orderly.
a. John has two PhDs. (I believe he has, and have adequate evidence that he has).
b. Nigel has only fourteen children.
c. A: Can you tell me the time?
B: Well, the milkman has come.
d. Open the door.
Floutings of Maxims:
Implicatures can also arise when maxims are flouted.
1. Dad: Very nice girl. What do you think, Hon?
Mom: The turkey sure was moist.
violating the maxim of Relation
2. Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
violating the maxim of Quantity
3. Queen Victoria was made of iron.
violating the maxim of Quality
4. Miss Singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to the score
of an aria from Rigoletto.
violating the maxim of Manner
8<2>
(3) Presupposition(전제)
Situations that must exist for utterances to be appropriate are called presuppositions.
a. Have you stopped hugging your border collie?
presupposes that you hugged your border collie.
b. The river Avon runs through Stratford.
presupposes the existence of the river and the town.
c. Take some more tea. / Have another beer.
presuppose that one has already had some.
d. I am/am not sorry that the team lost.
presupposes that the team lost.
e. John realized/didn't realize that he was in debt.
presupposes that he was in debt.
f. Frankenstein was/wasn't aware that Dracula was there
presupposes that Dracula was there.
=> Presuppositions are different from implicatures or entailments.
Presuppositions prevent violations of the Maxims of Conversation.
(4) Speech Acts(화행)
1. You can use language to make promises, lay bets, issue warnings, christen boats,
place names in nomination, offer congratulations, or swear testimony.
The description of how this is done is the theory of speech acts.
2. Promising, betting, warning, naming, testimony and so on cannot be explained by truth-condi-
tional
semantics because they are not determined by the concept of truth or false.
3. By saying I warn you that there is a sheepdog in the closet, you not only say something,
you warn someone.
4. Verbs like bet, promise, warn, swear, and so on are performative verbs.
5. The following sentences show Speech Acts involving performative verbs.
I bet you five dollars the Yankees win.
I challenge you to a match.
I dare you to step over this line.
I fine you $100 for possession of oregano.
I move that we adjourn.
I nominate Batman for mayor of Gotham City.
I promise to improve.
I resign!
I pronounce you husband and wife.
- Condition for Speech Acts:
(a) The speaker is the subject as the first person, I .
(b) By uttering, the sentence accomplishes some additional action, such as
daring, nominating, or resigning.
(c) All these sentences are affirmative, declarative, and in the present tense.
(d) They form typical performative sentences.
화행
(speech acts)이론은 1인칭 화자가 말을 함과 동시에 행동을 한다는 것을 뜻하며
문장을 참이나 거짓의 진의로 설명할 수 없다
. 이러한 화행은 수행동사를 동반하며
현재시제의 긍정서술문에서만 나타난다
.
- Performative verbs also contain hereby in the place where the speaker I is followed by:
I hereby ….
In all of the examples given, insertion of hereby would be acceptable.
I hereby apologize to you.
* I hereby know you.
8<3>
