Exercise
- Match each of the following terms in column A with one of the appropriate definitions in column B:
Column A Column B
- structural analysis A. Syntax is the study of how sentences are constructed or in other
words.
- Performance B. The task of the phonological component is to convert each
surface structure into a phonetic representation.
- PS-rules C. He defined form classes in terms of some common ‘recognizable
phonetic or grammatical features’ shared by all the members.
- Syntactic components D. It refers to the ideal language user’s knowledge of the rules of
his language or a person’s internalized grammar of his language.
- Observational adequacy E. It is also called an applicability check, which states the structure
to which the rule can be applied.
- Competence F. The syntactic component is formed by two parts: the base, and
the transformational rules.
- syntax G. It refers to the instructions which will bring about changes in
the structure.
- Form classes H. They are also called rewrite rules. We can use these PS-rules to
generate the deep structure of sentences.
9. Phonological component I. A grammar must account for all and only the permitted
sentences of a language. This is called observational adequacy.
10. structural change J. It is the actual realization of this knowledge in utterance, or a
person’s actual use of his language.
- Explain each of the following terms in no more than 50 words:
1. discovering procedures 2. constituent structure 3. constituent
4. immediate constituent 5. ultimate constituent 6. construction
7. endocentric construction 8. exocentric construction 9. discontinuous constituent
10. descriptive adequacy 11. generative aspect 12. transformation
13. deep and surface structures 14. selectional restrictions 15. semantic component
III.Develop the each of the following topics into a 200-word essay:
1. Immediate Constituent Analysis
2. Transformational Generative Grammar.
V. Semantics
本章学习目的要求
本章是对语义的研究，近代语言学家对语义研究有多种途径，通过对本章的学习要求对几种主要的途径有所了解。对语言意义的研究包括对词义和句义两个方面，通过学习要求了解词汇之间和句子之间的主要语义关系。本章还介绍了近代语言学中对词义研究的一种方法---成分分析法，以及对句子抽象意义的分析方法。
语义学基本知识点
1. Semantics 语义学
1.1 What is semantics? 什么是语义学
Semantics is generally considered to be the study of meaning in language.
2. Some Views on Semantics 一些有关语义学的观点
2.1 Naming 命名观
One of the oldest notions concerning meaning is the naming theory. According to this theory, the form is a word in a language and the meaning is the object in the world that it ‘stands for’ or ‘refers to’. Words are ‘names’ or ‘labels’ for things. In other words, the semantic relationship holding between words and ‘things’ is the relationship of naming.
2.2 Conceptualism 概念观
The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between words and things; rather they are linked through the mediation of concepts of the mind.
Ogden and Richards saw the relationship between words and things as a semantic triangle. In the diagram, the ‘symbol’ refers to the linguistic element (the word, sentence), the ‘referent’ refers to the object in the world of experience, and ‘thought or ‘reference’ refers to concept.
2.3 Contextualism 语境观
Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from observable context: the situational context and the linguistic context.
- Behaviourism 行为观
The contextualist view was further strengthened by Bloomfield. He argued that the meaning of a linguistic form should be viewed as ‘the situation in which the speaker utters it, and the response which it calls forth in the hearer.’ This view is illustrated by his story about Jack and Jill. Bloomfield argued that the meaning consists in the relation between speech (which is shown by r……s) and the practical events S and R that precede and follow it.
- Mentalism 心灵观
The mentalists view the primary function of language as the communication of ideas and have adopted the assumption that the data needed about language can be supplies by direct resort to intuition. The task of semantics is to explain those data by direct resort to intuition by constructing theories and descriptive rules and categories from which they can be deduced.
III. Lexical Meaning 词汇意义
Sense and Reference 词义和指称
Sense and reference are two terms refer to two very different, though related, aspects of meaning.
Sense relates to the complex system of relationships that hold between the linguistic elements themselves; it is concerned only with intra-linguistic relations. Sense relationships have formed an important part of the study of language. For example, Duck and ducking form a pattern indicating a relationship between adult and young. This shows that sense relations are in fact a part of the semantic structure.
Reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements (words, sentences) and the non-linguistic world of experience. Linguists hold the view that reference is essential element of semantics, for semantics concerned largely with the way we relate our language to our experience. Knowledge of semantic structure in a language alone is not sufficient to handle a number of kinds of meaning.
Some linguists suggest that we have two kinds of semantics, one that deals with semantic structure and the other that deals with meaning in terms of our experience outside language. In other words, one is intra-linguistic, which we call sense or sense relations; the other relates to non-linguistic entities, which we call reference.
Synonymy 同义现象
Synonymy is used to mean ‘sameness of meaning’. Strictly speaking, there are no real synonyms and no two words have exactly the same meaning.
- Dialectal Synonyms 方言同义词
Synonyms belong to different dialects of the language (e.g. Autumn and fall).
- Words Differing in ‘Styles’ or ‘Registers’ 语体或语域差异的同义词
These words have the same cognitive meaning but different stylistic meanings. They often express different degrees of formality (e.g. gentleman, man, and chap).
- Words Differing in Emotive or Evaluative Meanings 感情或评价意义不一的同义词
These words have the same cognitive meaning but different emotive or evaluative meanings. (e.g. statesman and politician).
- Collocationally-restricted Synonyms 搭配限制同义词
These words can be considered as synonyms only when they occur in conjunction with certain words (e.g. beautiful and handsome).
- Near Synonyms 近义词
They are close in meaning or their meanings overlap.
Polysemy and Homonymy 多义现象和同音异义现象
- Polysemy
It refers to the phenomenon that the same word may have a set of different meanings.
- Homonymy
It refers to the case that two, or more meanings may be associated with the same linguistic form. When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones. When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs.
Hyponymy 上下义关系
It refers to a paradigmatic relation between a more specific, or subordinate, lexeme and a more general, or superordinate, lexeme. This relation indicates the notion of inclusion in the sense that cow is included in animal. The ‘upper’ term like animal is called superordinate and the ‘lower’ term like cow is called the hyponym. All the members that can be grouped under the same superordinate are called co-hyponyms.
Antonymy 反义现象
Antonymy refers to the ‘oppositeness of meaning’ between lexemes. There are several types of lexical opposites in language.
- Gradable Opposites 可分等级的反义词
Some antonyms are gradable because there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair. So it is a matter of degree.
- Complementary Antonyms 互补反义现象
A pair of complementary antonyms is characterized by the feature that the denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other.
- Relational Opposites 关系反义词
Pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items are called relational opposites.
4. Componential Analysis 成分分析法
Componential analysis refers to an approach adopted by semanticists in describing the meaning of words and phrases. This approach rests upon the thesis that the total meaning of a word can be analysed in terms of a number of distinct elements or components of meaning (semantic features).
4.1 Components of Meaning ( a way to analyse lexical meaning) 意义成分
Componential analysis is often seen as a process aiming at breaking down the meaning of a word into its minimal distinctive features, which are also called components by some linguists.
4.2 Meaning Relation in terms of Componential Analysis 成分分析法中的意义关系
According to Leech, there are in general four componential relationships, which can be separated into two pairs.
a) The Relations between Form and Meaning 形式与意义的关系
i) Synonymy --- more than one form having the same meaning.
ii) Polysemy --- the same form having more than one meaning.
b) The relations between Two Meanings 意义间的关系
- Hyponymy is the inclusion of one meaning in another.
ii) Incompatibility is the exclusion one meaning from another.
Of the four types, Leech concentrates on two types: hyponymy and incompatibility. Hyponymy refers to the relationship which exists between two meanings if one componential formula contains all the features present in the other formula. Incompatibility refers to the relationship which exists between two meanings if one componential formula contains at least one feature contrasting with a feature in the other.
5. Sentence Meaning 句子意义
5.1 How to define the meaning of a sentence? 什么是句子的意义？
The meaning of a sentence is the product of both lexical and grammatical meaning. In other words, it is the product of the meaning of the constituent lexemes and of the grammatical constructions that relate one lexeme, syntactically, to another.
5.2 Selectional restrictions 选择性限制
In discussing the meaning of a sentence, people often need to consider the question of meaningfulness and grammaticality.
Grammaticality means whether a sequence of lexical items constitute an utterance which is grammatically well-formed, or whether it is grammatically acceptable to native speakers according to their intuition.
Meaningfulness, on the other hand, refers to the semantic well-formedness of a sentence. Such a sentence is semantically acceptable to native speakers, or in other words, it is a sentence the native speakers can interpret and understand.
There are many constraints on what lexical items can combine with what others. Such constraints are called selectional restrictions because they govern the selection of lexical items for insertion into underlying structures.
5.3 Basic Statements about Meaning 意义的基本表述
There are certain relations between sentences and also between constituents of the same sentence.
- X is synonymous with Y.
e.g. X: He was a bachelor all his life.
Y: He never married all his life.
In terms of truth condition, if X is true, Y is true, and if X is false, Y is false.
(ii) X entails Y.
e.g. X: John married a blond heiress.
Y: John married a blond.
Entailment is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, the meaning of X is included in Y.
(iii) X is inconsistent with Y.
e.g. X: John is married.
Y: John is a bachelor.
In terms of truth condition, if X is true, Y is false, and if X is false, Y is true.
(iv) X is a tautology.
e.g. X: This bachelor is not married.
(v) X is a contradiction.
e.g. X: This bachelor is married.
(vi) X is presupposes Y.
e.g. X: The girl John married was an heiress.
Y: John married a girl.
(vii) X is semantically anomalous.
e.g. The table has bad intentions.
6. Predication Analysis (a way to analyze sentence meaning)
