Ôn tập Semantics

Ngữ nghĩa học (Trường Đại học Sài Gòn)

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 Semantics- Final test revision.
1. Semantics: SEMANTICS is the study of MEANING in LANGUAGE.
Pragmatics The study of meaning in CONTEXT.
2.
SPEAKER MEANING: is what a speaker means (i.e intends to convey) when he uses a
piece of language.
SENTENCE MEANING (or WORD MEANING) is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e
what it counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned.
3. Referent/ Reference/ Sense:
- A referent is an object or an entity in the real world or in the world of your
imagination, that is talked about.
- The reference of a word or a linguistic expression is the relationship between
that word or expression and the thing, the action, the event, the quality, etc it
refers to.
- The SENSE of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other
expressions in the language.
* NOTE: A word’s referent changes each time the world is applied to a different object or
situation.
By contrast, a word’s sense does not change every time the word takes on a new
referent.
4. Variable reference, constant reference and co-reference:
- Variable reference: the same expression may refer to different
objects. Ex: The present Prime Minister of Vietnam: 2022? 2018?
2014?
+ Can be:
 Possesisive adjectives: my, your, the government’s. Exception: John’s
 Demonstrative adjectives and pronoun: this, that, these, those, mine…
 Personal pronouns: I, you, he, him,…
 Adverb of place/time: here, there, today, yesterday,…
 Article: the, a, an
- Co-Reference: different expressions refer to the same
object Ex: HCM and Saigon both refer to the same city
- Constant/ invariable reference: one expression always refers to the same object,
(regardless who is the speaker).
Ex:
 Proper names, especially geographical names: Angelina Jolie, Smith, David,
Vietnam, Laos…
 Unique things: the sun, the moon, the earth, the east, the west,…
5. Utterance, sentence, proposition
- An UTTERANCE is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is
silence on the part of that person.
- A SENTENCE is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived (partial)
abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A
sentence can be thought of as the IDEAL string of words behind various realizations in
utterances and inscriptions

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- A PROPOSITION is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative
sentence which describes some state of affairs.

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6. Referring expression
- A REFERRING EXPRESSION is any expression used in an utterance to refer to something
or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or people), i.e. used with a
particular referent in mind.
7. Equative sentence
- An EQUATIVE SENTENCE is one which is used to assert the identity of the referents of two
referring expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have the same referent.
8. Predicate, degree of predicate, predicator
- The PREDICATOR of a simple declarative sentence is the word (sometimes a group
of words) which does not belong to any of the referring expressions and which, of the
remainder, makes the most specific contribution to the meaning of the sentence.
- A PREDICATE is any word (or sequence of words) which (in a given single sense) can
function as the predicator of a sentence.
- Predicate and Predicator:
Identifies elements in the language system Identifies semantic roles

Independently of particular examples Played by a word (a group of words) in a

particular sentence
Can envisage a list of the predicates in Can’t list the predicators of English
English

- The DEGREE of a predicate is a number indicating the number of arguments it is

normally understood to have in simple sentences.
+ A verb that is understood most naturally with just two arguments, one as its subject, and
one as its object, is a two-place predicate.
+ There are a few three-place predicates; the verb give is the best example.
+ In the case of prepositions, nouns, and adjectives, we can also talk of one-, two-, or
three-place predicates.
+ In fact, the majority of adjectives are one-place predicates.
+ different, identical, similar  two-place predicate
+ Most nouns are one-place predicates. But a few nouns could be said to be ‘inherently
relational’.
These are nouns such as father, son, brother, mother, daughter, neighbour  two-place
predicate
9. A generic sentence:
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 A GENERIC SENTENCE is a sentence in which some statement is made about a whole
unrestricted class of individuals, as opposed to any particular individual.
10. Sense properties:
 Analytic Sentence: An ANALYTIC sentence is one that is necessarily TRUE, as a
result of the senses of the words in it. An analytic sentence, therefore, reflects a tacit
(unspoken) agreement by speakers of the language about the senses of the words in
it.
 Ex: All elephants are animals.
 Synthetic Sentence is one which is NOT analytic, but may be either true or false,
depending on the way the world is.
 Ex: Sam’s wife is German.
 Contradictory Sentence is a sentence that is necessarily FALSE, as a result of the
senses of the words in it. Thus a contradiction is in a way the opposite of an analytic
sentence.
 Ex: This animal is a vegetable is a contradiction.
11. Prototype, stereotype
 Prototype (điển dạng): A PROTOTYPE of a predicate is an object which is held to
be very TYPICAL of the kind of object which can be referred to by an expression
containing the predicate. In other words, the prototype of a predicate can be thought
of as the most typical member of the extension of a predicate.
 Ex: A man of medium height and average build, between 30 and 50 years old,
with brownish hair, with no particularly distinctive characteristics or defects,
could be a prototype of the predicate man in certain areas of the world.
 Stereotype (khuôn mẫu): The STEREOTYPE of a predicate is a list of the TYPICAL
characteristics or features of things to which the predicate may be applied.
 Ex: The stereotype of cat would be something like:
Quadruped, domesticated, either black, or white, or grey, or tortoise-shell, or marmalade in
colour, or some combination of these colours, adult specimens about 50 cm long from
nose to tip of tail, furry, with sharp retractable claws, etc., etc.
Prototype Stereotype
An object which is held to be very TYPICAL A list of characteristics which describes
of the kind of object. the prototype.
Necessarily take some particular place Specify a range of possibilities (e.g. the
within this range (e.g black). range of colours of typical cats).
A speaker can not actually be acquainted A speaker may well know a stereotype for
with any prototypes of it (direct some predicate, such as ghost,
experience). witchdoctor, flying saucer (learnt about at
second hand, through descriptions).
 Sense, Extension and Reference

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12. Sense relations: similarity, inclusiveness, oppositeness, ambiguity
 Similarity:
 SYNONYMY (Quan hệ đồng nghĩa) is the relationship between two predicates
that have the same sense.
 Ex: In most dialects of English, stubborn and obstinate are synonyms.
Synonymy is a relation between predicates, and not between words (i.e. word-forms).
Recall that a word may have many different senses; each distinct sense of a word (of the
kind we are dealing with) is a predicate. When necessary, we distinguish between
predicates by giving them subscript numbers.
 PARAPHRASE:
A paraphrase is a sentence which expresses the same proposition as another
sentence (assuming the same referents for any referring expressions involved).
Paraphrase is to SENTENCES (on individual interpretations) as SYNONYMY is to
PREDICATES (though some semanticists talk loosely of synonymy in the case of sentences
as well).
 Ex: Bachelors prefer redhaired girls is a paraphrase of Girls with red hair are
preferred by unmarried men.
 Inclusiveness:
 HYPONYMY (Quan hệ bao nghĩa) is a sense relation between predicates (or
sometimes longer phrases) such that the meaning of one predicate (or phrase) is
included in the meaning of the other.
 Ex:

flowe tulip, rose

r -
scarlet,
red -
crimson
anim -
Superordinate elephant, lion subordinate
(hypernym) (hyponym)
Hyponymy
- Superordinate (hypernym) is more abstract, general, or schematic than its
subordinate (hyponym).
- Hyponymy is a sense relation. Hyponymy is defined in terms of the inclusion of the
sense of one item in the sense of another.
Ex: The sense of animal is included in the sense of cow.
- We define HYPONYMY in such a way that SYNONYMY counts as a special case of
hyponymy (symmetrical hyponymy).
X is a hyponym of Y X and Y are
synonymous Y is also a hyponym of X
 ENTAILMENT:
- One-way entailment: A proposition X ENTAILS a proposition Y if the truth of Y
follows necessarily from the truth of X. We extend this basic definition in terms of
propositions. to cover SENTENCES in the following way. A sentence expressing
proposition X entails a sentence expressing proposition Y if the truth of Y follows
necessarily from the truth of X.

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  Ex:
+ John was killed entails John died.
(John died could not be true any time before it was true that John was killed.)
- The Basic Rule of Sense Inclusion: Given two sentences A and B, identical in every
way except that A contains a word X where B contains a different word Y, and X is a
hyponym of Y, then sentence A entails sentence B.
Ex: (A) Henry was chewing a tulip
(B) Henry was chewing a flower
“tulip” is hyponym of the word “flower’’
 The sentence A entails the sentence B.
- The Basic Rule of Sense Inclusion for negative sentence (not):
Given two negative sentences A and B, identical in every way except that A contains a
word X where B contains a different word Y, and X is a hyponym of Y  sentence B
entails sentence A.
 Ex:
(A)Henry was not chewing a tulip
(B) Henry was not chewing a flower
 The sentence B entails the sentence A.
- B entails A when the set of things referred to by B including all the things in
A.
- Sentence with gradable words (big, tall, small, expensive,...)  there was no
entailment
(depending upon the kind of noun they modify).

 Oppositeness
1. BINARY ANTONYMS (Từ trái nghĩa lưỡng phân)
- BINARY ANTONYMS are predicates which come in pairs and between them exhaust
all the relevant possibilities. If the one predicate is applicable, then the other cannot
be, and vice versa. Another way to view this is to say that a predicate is a binary
antonym of another predicate if it entails the negative of the other predicate.
- Test: A=negative of B
- Ex: true-false, alive-dead, married-unmarried, same-different, deciduous-evergreen,
pass-fail,…
2. CONVERSE (RELATIONAL ANTONYM)
- If a predicate describes a relationship between two things (or people) and some other
predicate describes the same relationship when the two things (or people) are
mentioned in the opposite order, then the two predicates are CONVERSES of each
other.

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- Test: if A is…of B, B is…of A
- Ex: parent-child, below-above, grandparent-grandchild, greater than-less than,
own-belong to, buy-sell, better than-worse than

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- NOTE: Relational antonyms belong to various word classes:
+ Verb: buy-sell, lend-borrow, own-belong to,…
+ Nouns: employer-employee, husband-wife…
+ Comparative adjectives: thinner-fatter, cheaper-more expensive…
+ Comparative adverbs: more efficently-less efficiently, faster-more slowly,…
+ Prepositions: above-below, in front of-behind, before-after,…top-bottom.
3. GRADABLE ANTONYMS
- Two predicates are GRADABLE antonyms if they are at opposite ends of a
continuous scale of values (a scale which typically varies according to the context of
use).
- Test: very/how + adj/adv
- Ex: love-hate, clever-stupid, tall-short, long-short, hot-cold,…
4. MULTIPLE INCOMPATIBILITY (Tính bất tương thích đa trị)
- All the terms in a given system are mutually incompatible
Ex: a playing card cannot belong to both the hearts suit and the spades suit.
- Together, the members of a system cover all the relevant area
Ex: hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades, there are no other suits,…
5. CONTRADICTIORY
- A proposition is a CONTRADICTORY of another proposition if it is impossible for
them both to be true at the same time and of the same circumstances. The
definition can naturally be extended to sentences thus: a sentence expressing one
proposition is a contradictory of a sentence expressing another proposition if it is
impossible for both propositions to be true at the same time and of the same
circumstances. Alternatively (and equivalently) a sentence contradicts
another sentence if it entails the negation of the other sentence.
- Ex: This beetle is alive is a contradictory of This beetle is dead.
- Given two sentences, both identical except that: (a) one contains a word X where
the other contains a word Y, and (b) X is an antonym of Y (or X is incompatible with
Y), then the two sentences are contradictories of each other (i.e. contradict each
other)
 Ambiguity
- A word or sentence is AMBIGUOUS when it has more than one sense. A sentence
is ambiguous if it has two (or more) paraphrases which are not themselves
paraphrases of each other.
- In the case of words and phrases, a word or phrase is AMBIGUOUS if it has two
(or more) SYNONYMS that are not themselves synonyms of each other.
- A case of HOMONYMY is one of an ambiguous word whose different senses are far
apart from each other and not obviously related to each other in any way with respect
to a native speaker’s intuition. Cases of homonymy seem very definitely to be matters
of mere accident or coincidence.
+ Ex:
Mug (drinking vessel vs gullible person) would be a clear case of homonymy.
Bank (financial institution vs the side of a river or stream) is another clear case of
homonymy.
- A case of POLYSEMY is one where a word has several very closely related senses.
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In other words, a native speaker of the language has clear intuitions that the different
senses are related to each other in some way.

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+ Ex: Mouth (of a river vs of an animal) is a case of polysemy.
+ Note: Run is another more complicated case of polysemy in which the word has more
than one related sense. Polysemy is not restricted to just one part of speech.
- A sentence which is ambiguous because its words relate to each other in
different ways, even though none of the individual words are ambiguous, is
STRUCTURALLY (or GRAMMATICALLY) AMBIGUOUS.
+ Any ambiguity resulting from the ambiguity of a word is a LEXICAL AMBIGUITY.
 Ex: The captain corrected the list is lexically ambiguous.
 The captain corrected the tilt.
 The captain corrected the inventory.
 A notation for simple propositions
- Every SIMPLE proposition is representable by a single PREDICATOR, drawn from
the predicates in the language, and a number of ARGUMENTS, drawn from the names
in the language. This implies, among other things, that no formula for a simple
proposition can have TWO (or more) predicators, and it cannot have anything
which is neither a predicate nor a name.
 Ex: Ted loves Alice by t LOVE a
+ Note:
 The reasons for eliminating elements such as forms of the verb be, articles (a, the),
tense markers (past, present), and certain prepositions (e.g. to in Phil introduced
Mary to Jack) are partly a matter of serious principle and partly a matter of
convenience. The most serious principle involved is the traditional concentration
of logic on truth.
 Articles, a and the, do not affect the truth of the propositions expressed by simple
sentences. Accordingly, they are simply omitted from the relatively basic logical
formulae we are dealing with here. This is an example of the omission of material
from logical formulae on principled grounds. In the case of some, but not all,
prepositions, e.g. at, in, on, under, there are similar principled reasons for
not including them in logical formulae.
 Some prepositions contribute substantially to the sense of the sentence they
occur in, e.g. Sidney put his hat ON the table
 Prepositions seem merely to be required by the grammar of the language when
certain verbs and adjectives are used, e.g. present someone WITH something, or
be envious OF someone.
 Besides its use as a ‘carrier’ of tense, the verb be sometimes expresses the
identity predicate (i.e. the predicate relating the referents of two referring
expressions in an equative sentence), and sometimes makes no contribution to the
sense of a sentence at all that is relevant for determining the truth value of the
proposition expressed by the sentence.
 In our logical formulae, we will represent the identity predicate with an
‘equals’ sign =,
and we will simply omit anything corresponding to any other use of the verb be.
 Ex: Clark Kent is Superman  ck = s
 Idioms, Metaphors and Metonymy
1. Idioms:
- Idioms are multi-word phrases whose overall meanings are idiosyncratic and
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largely unpredictable, not making sense literally according to the regular
semantic rules of the language, but we understand what the speaker means.

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 2. Metaphors (so sánh ngầm- ẩn dụ):
- Metaphors are conceptual (mental) operations reflected in human language that
enable speakers to structure and construe abstract areas of knowledge and experience in
more concrete experiential terms.
 Ex: Jack is a streak of lightning, The man is a demon for work.
+ Structural metaphors
+ Orientational metaphors
+ Ontological metaphors
3. Metonymy (Hoán dụ) is a kind of non-literal language in which one entity is used to
refer to another entity that is associated with it in some way. In other words,
metonymic concepts ‘allow us to conceptualize one thing by means of its relation to
something else’
 Ex: The following example of metonymy is frequently cited in the literature to
illustrate this concept:
The ham sandwich in the next booth is waiting for his bill

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