Summarized Chapters from Sebastian Löbners ´´Understanding semantics´´ Second edition (Chapter 1;2;3;5;7)
and Kate Kearns ´´Semantics´´ Second edition (Chapter 2 [p.24-32];3;4)
Löbner Ch.1 Meaning and semantics
Freitag, 28. April 2023 15:17
p.1 - 12: 14-16 ! In Folgekapiteln werden Farben zum Makieren benuzt
die in vorherigen Kapiteln schon benutzt wurden. Heißt nicht das es
Verbindungen gibt, just, irgendwann gehen coole Farben aus so I recycled
p.1; 14
Semantic:
- Part of linguistic concerned with the ´´meaning´´ but like what is the
meaning. Thing is, there are many different types of ´´meanings´´
yayy.
- Uncovering the knowledge (cognitive equipment) that
unconsciously enables us to understand/interpret the meanings of
words , sentences etc. like sherlock, is the goal of semantics.
➢ Knowledge/cognitive equipment is acquired during learning
native language
➢ Is mostly uniform in the speech community
Linguistic meaning:
Meanings of linguistic expressions like words, phrases, grammatical
forms and sentences
But not concerned with the meanings of actions or phenomena.
p.2
Expression meaning:
- Meaning of sentence
Meanings of the words (simple or complex expressions)
a sentence contains (taken in isolation)
! Can differ depending on the given
(1) I don´t need your bicycle
○ Content words:
(noun, verb, adjective)
Words that are the main carriers of information
In (1) = need; bicycle
Must be specific enough to be distinguishable and cover all
○ Function words:
Articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions & other ´´small
words´´
In (1) = I; don´t; your
▪ e.g. ´´I´´ functions like an instruction:
find out who produced this sentence
○ Reference:
Using an expression for something
In (1) the pers. Pronoun ´´I´´ is used for some dude or girly
gurl
! Pers. Pronouns often occur with a possessive pronoun
e.g. ´´I´´ occurring with ´´my´´
To link it to the addressee
-> finding out who the speaker & addressee are
p.3
Löbner and Kearns Page 1
, p.3
○ Contraction:
Negate something and turn it´s meaning into the opposite
In (1) = do -> don´t
○ Tense:
The time of when the action happened
In (1) = don´t is written in the present tense indicating the
time for us (crazy)
==> expression meaning:
Meanings of words, phrases and sentences taken out
of any particular context, constitute the level of
meaning
p.4
○ Expression meaning covers
▪ Word meaning and
▪ Sentence meaning
- Utterance (Äußerung) meaning
SCENARIO 1
1 August 2012, morning. Mary has been planning a trip to town that
afternoon. Two days before, she talked with her neighbour John
about the trip and asked him to lend her his bicycle. She had lent her
car to her daughter and did not know if she would get it back in
time. Meanwhile her daughter is back and has returned Mary’s car.
Mary is talking with John on her mobile, telling him:
(1) I don’t need your bicycle
○ When a sentence
▪ with its expression meaning
▪ is used in a specific context
▪ And all references are fixed
In (1) ´´I´´ refers to girlboss Mary
And your to John who owns the bicycle
○ Notion of truth
▪ Looking at if depending on the scenario the sentence is
true
(1) is true, because in the given Scenario 1 we can see
that Mary doesn´t need the bicycle of a man to drive,
because she got her hot as car back
▪ Important especially for declarative- (Aussagesätze) and
interrogative (Fragesätze) sentences
p.5
- Shift of the lexical meaning
If a word is used in another context (scenario) deictic elements:
e.g. a bicycle could refer to an actual bike or one could also say now, then,
´´bicycle´´ while pointing at just a picture of one and not an actual tomorrow,
fucking bicycle. How the tables turn wow. yesterday, here,
○ Context of utterance (CoU) there, this, that,
Circumstances that bear on reference and truth up stairs,
Include the following elements downstairs,
▪ Speaker - of the utterance (Äußerung) downtown
▪ Addressee(s) - of the utterance
▪ Time - at which the utterance is produced or received
▪ Place - where it is produced/received
▪ Facts - given in the utterance
Löbner and Kearns Page 2
, p.6
- Utterance meaning
○ Being used and interpreted in a given CoU
○ Resulting from fixing reference (expression meaning)
- Explicit and implicit meaning expressions
Implicit: Mary considering herself able to drive in (1) even thou it is
not explicitly said
- Pragmatics
Relation between what is being said
And what is inferred (gefolgert)
- Communicative meaning (=speech act)
- Final level of interpretation
the meaning of an utterance as a communicative act in a
given social setting
▪ What does the speaker intend?
▪ What does the speaker want from me? Like say it girly
ok
=> what is the communicational intention
- Speech act theory - several levels in an utterance during
verbal exchange
▪ Locutionary act:
Saying an expression
With a certain utterance meaning
In the given CoU
▪ Illocutionary act
Statement, question, promise, offer, refusal,
confirmation, warning etc.
➢ Perlocutionary act
Bringing a certaing change in the adresse -making
them believe something or carry out an order
p.7; 14; 16
- Sentence meaning and compositionality
- Lexical meanings
Stored meaning of words stored in a mental lexicon
➢ Individual lexical knowledge: meaning that different
people have different knowledge and understanding of
specific terms
➢ Definitions of words are created due to an agreement
within the speech community
➢ Process of generalisation => result: general
lexical meaning
- Compositional meaning
Process by which we calculate the meaning of the sentence =
composition
Compositional = highchair -> made up of high & chair
Lexical = blackboard -> not made up of black & board,
blackboards are usually green
p.8; 12
Löbner and Kearns Page 3
, p.8; 12
- Word formation
Produce complex words that have
a Form side & a meaning side
• Derivation: Modifing a word by adding an affix
Joggable = jog + -able
• Compounding: combining two words
Greenhouse: adjective + noun - green house
• Conversion: use a word in a different wordclass
drink (noun) <-> drink (verb)
➢ -> understandable due to lexical meanings of the
components
➢ -> irregular compounds just need to be learned
well sucks to suck
- Grammatical meaning
The meaning of grammatical forms
▪ (2) The dog ate the yellow socks
▪ Ate:
➢ Simple past tense
➢ Indicative mood
➢ Active
➢ Not negated
▪ Lexical meaning are
➢ For verbs: tenseless, aspectless, active
➢ For nouns: singular meaning
➢ For adjectives: positive meaning
p.9
▪ The form of a word carries grammatical meaning, if
(i) in the given construction alternative forms are
admissible
(ii) different forms yield different meanings
(iii) the form chosen does not have a neutral meaning.
p.10
- Syntactic structure
▪ In (2)
➢ NP: ´´the dog´ -> describes the eater
➢ VP: ´´ate´´
➢ NP: ´´the yellow socks´´´ -> describes what is
eaten
p.11
- The Principle of Compositionality/Frege´s Principle
▪ Basic expression:
Expression with lexical meaning
-> semantic composition changing with the three
sources
Löbner and Kearns Page 4
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