Understanding Semantics

by Loebner; Sebastian

• ISBN13: 9780340731987
• ISBN10: 0340731982
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2002-05-03
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Understanding Semantics offers an up-to-date, broad and thorough introduction to linguistic semantics, the field of linguistic meaning central to the understanding of language. The book takes a step-by-step approach, starting with the basic concepts and moving through central questions to an examination of the methods and results of the science of linguistic meaning.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
PART 1 BASIC CONCEPTS AND PHENOMENA	1	(122)
Meaning and semantics	3	(16)
Levels of meaning	3	(8)
Expression meaning	4	(3)
Utterance meaning	7	(2)
Communicative meaning	9	(2)
Sentence meaning and compositionality	11	(8)
Grammatical meaning	12	(1)
Syntactic structure and combination rules	13	(1)
The principle of compositionality	14	(2)
Checklist	16	(1)
Further reading	17	(1)
Notes	17	(2)
Descriptive, social and expressive meaning	19	(20)
Meanings are concepts	19	(3)
The meaning of a word	19	(2)
The meaning of a sentence	21	(1)
Descriptive meaning	22	(5)
Descriptive meaning and reference	22	(3)
Denotations and truth conditions	25	(1)
Proposition and sentence type	26	(1)
Meaning and social interaction: social meaning	27	(4)
Expressions with social meaning	27	(3)
Social meaning in Japanese	30	(1)
Meaning and subjectivity: expressive meaning	31	(4)
Expressive meaning	32	(2)
Social versus expressive meaning	34	(1)
Connotations	35	(4)
Checklist	36	(1)
Exercises	37	(1)
Further reading	37	(1)
Notes	38	(1)
Meanings and readings	39	(18)
Lexemes	39	(3)
Homonymy, polysemy and vagueness	42	(4)
Homonymy	43	(1)
Polysemy	44	(1)
Vagueness	45	(1)
Synonymy	46	(1)
Sentence readings and meaning shifts	46	(6)
Syntactic ambiguity	46	(1)
Interpretation in context	47	(1)
Disambiguation and elimination	47	(1)
Metonymical shift	48	(1)
Metaphorical shift	49	(1)
Differentiation	50	(2)
The Principle of Consistent Interpretation	52	(1)
Meaning shifts and Polysemy	53	(4)
Checklist	54	(1)
Exercises	54	(1)
Further reading	55	(1)
Notes	55	(2)
Meaning and logic	57	(28)
Logical basics	57	(5)
Donald Duck and Aristotle	57	(3)
The Principle of Polarity	60	(1)
Negation	61	(1)
Logical properties of sentences	62	(2)
Logical relations between sentences	64	(9)
Logical entailment	64	(1)
Logical equivalence	64	(3)
Logical contrariety	67	(1)
Logical contradiction	67	(2)
Logical relations involving logically true or false sentences	69	(2)
Logical relations under the assumption of contingency	71	(2)
Sentential logic	73	(1)
Logical relations between words	74	(3)
Logic and meaning	77	(8)
The semantic status of logical equivalence	77	(3)
The semantic status of logical entailment	80	(1)
Logic and semantics	81	(1)
Checklist	82	(1)
Exercises	82	(1)
Further reading	83	(1)
Notes	84	(1)
Meaning relations	85	(14)
Hyponymy	85	(2)
The meaning relation	85	(1)
Regular compounds	86	(1)
Oppositions	87	(7)
Antonyms	88	(2)
Directional opposites	90	(1)
Complementaries	91	(1)
Heteronyms	91	(1)
Converses	92	(2)
Lexical fields	94	(5)
The notion of a lexical field	94	(1)
Small fields	94	(1)
Taxonomies	95	(1)
Meronymies	95	(2)
Checklist	97	(1)
Exercises	97	(1)
Further reading	98	(1)
Notes	98	(1)
Predication	99	(24)
Predications contained in a sentence	99	(2)
Predicates and arguments	101	(1)
Verbs	102	(4)
Major types of verbs	103	(1)
Referential verb arguments	104	(1)
Deciding on the number of arguments	105	(1)
Nouns and adjectives	106	(4)
Major types of nouns	106	(1)
Major types of adjectives	107	(2)
Arguments of nouns and adjectives in predicative use	109	(1)
Predicate logic notation	110	(1)
Thematic roles	111	(3)
Selectional restrictions	114	(5)
Selectional restrictions of verbs	114	(2)
The process of fusion	116	(1)
Selectional restrictions and meaning shifts	117	(1)
Semantic irregularity	118	(1)
Summary	119	(4)
Checklist	120	(1)
Exercises	120	(1)
Further reading	121	(1)
Notes	121	(2)
PART II THEORETICAL APPROACHES	123	(128)
Meaning components	125	(28)
The structuralist approach	127	(3)
Language as a system of signs	127	(2)
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations	129	(1)
Applying the structuralist approach to meaning	130	(2)
Semantic units: morphemes and lexemes	130	(1)
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic semantic relations	131	(1)
Semantic features	132	(8)
Binary semantic features	132	(2)
Application to paradigmatic relations	134	(1)
Application to combinatorial meaning properties	134	(1)
Ideal properties of semantic features	135	(3)
Evaluation of the binary feature approach	138	(2)
Semantic formulae	140	(5)
Dowty's decompositional semantics	141	(1)
Jackendoff's Conceptual Semantics	142	(3)
Semantic primes: Wierzbicka's Natural Semantic Metalanguage	145	(3)
Summary and evaluation of the approaches to decomposition	148	(5)
Checklist	150	(1)
Exercises	150	(1)
Further reading	151	(1)
Notes	151	(2)
Meaning and language comparison	153	(18)
Translation problems	153	(3)
Headache, international	156	(5)
Relativism and universalism	161	(2)
Berlin and Kay's investigation of colour terms	163	(4)
Consequences	167	(4)
Checklist	168	(1)
Exercises	168	(1)
Further reading	169	(1)
Notes	169	(2)
Meaning and cognition	171	(40)
Categories and concepts	172	(2)
Prototype Theory	174	(9)
The traditional model of categorization	174	(1)
Prototypes	175	(1)
Fuzzy boundaries	176	(1)
Family resemblance	177	(1)
Degrees of membership	178	(1)
The prototype model of categorization	178	(2)
What kinds of entities are prototypes?	180	(1)
Which features make up the prototype?	181	(1)
Similarity	182	(1)
The hierarchical organization of categories	183	(3)
The basic level	183	(2)
Properties of the basic level	185	(1)
Challenges to Prototype Theory	186	(5)
Graded membership vs graded structure	186	(2)
Fuzzy boundaries	188	(3)
Summary	191	(1)
Semantics and Prototype Theory	191	(9)
Cognitive semantics	191	(1)
Polarization	192	(2)
Flexible concepts: vagueness	194	(2)
Means of differentiation	196	(3)
Summary	199	(1)
Semantic knowledge	200	(6)
Personal knowledge vs cultural knowledge	200	(1)
The apple juice question	201	(2)
Cultural knowledge vs semantic knowledge	203	(3)
Summary	206	(5)
Checklist	208	(1)
Exercises	208	(1)
Further reading	209	(1)
Notes	209	(2)
Sentence meaning and formal semantics	211	(40)
Japanese numerals: a simple example of a compositional analysis	211	(4)
The system of numerals	211	(1)
Formal description	212	(2)
The general scheme	214	(1)
A small fragment of English	215	(12)
The grammar of the fragment	216	(3)
The predicate logic language PL-F: its grammar	219	(3)
Translating the fragment into predicate logic	222	(5)
Model-theoretic semantics	227	(9)
A model for PL-F	227	(4)
Interpretation rules for PL-F	231	(3)
Application to the translations of fragment sentences	234	(1)
Model-theoretic semantics	235	(1)
Possible-world semantics	236	(7)
Possible worlds	236	(2)
Intensions	238	(2)
Intensional models	240	(1)
Logical properties and relations	241	(2)
The scope and limits of possible-world semantics	243	(8)
Scope and potential	243	(1)
Limits	244	(1)
Possible-world semantics vs mentalistic semantics	245	(1)
The development of possible-world semantics	246	(1)
Checklist	247	(1)
Exercises	248	(1)
Further reading	249	(1)
Notes	249	(2)
References	251	(4)
Index	255