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Part OnePart One

Review Exercises

Question

What are the major views concerning the study of meaning?

Part TwoPart Two

New Content

5.35.3

Lexical Meaning

5.3.15.3.1

Sense and Reference

1. Sense

Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form, abstract and de-contextualized.

意思、涵义、意义、或： 系统意义：指与语境无关、仅涉及语言

内部成分之间关系的意义，它是意义的中心，相当于的概念意义。（王寅 2001 ： 67 ）

Question

What’s the sense of “dog”? A common 4-legged flesh-eating

animal, esp. any of the many varieties used by man as a companion or for hunting, working, guarding, etc. (Longman 1978: 323)

Sense = Sense Relation + Sense Properties

2. Reference

Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.

指称意义、照应关系、所指意义、参照、或：外指意义：即表明词语跟语言外部世界的关系的意义。（ ibid. ）

Question

Look at the picture. In it, Mary is saying, “Oh! I love this dog very much!” What does the “dog” refer to?

The dog in front of Mary! The study of the meaning of expressions such

as “this dog” in the above sentence falls within the scope of PRAGMATICS, where the phenomenon is called DEIXIS （指示） that the understanding of what participants exactly refer to should take context into consideration.（何兆熊等 2000 ： 56 ）

3. Reference Vs. Context

1. Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations.

2. Linguistics forms with the same reference might differ in sense.

Meaning = sense + reference

Semantics Vs. Pragmatics

4. differences

1. 系统意义具有相对的稳定性、明确性；而外指意义回因人、时、地而异，具有变化性、模糊性。

2. 一般说来，系统意义是抽象化了的定义，多具有非物质化特征；而外指意义会具有物质化的特征。

3. 有意义的词语都有系统意义，但不一定有外指意义。（ ibid.: 69-70 ）

5.3.25.3.2

Major Sense Relations

5.3.2.15.3.2.1

Synonymy

1. Definition

Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.

Lorry Vs. Truck

2. Historical Reasons

1. The Beaker Folk (about 2000 BC) from Holland and the Rhineland

2. The Celts (about 700 BC) from France, Belgium and southern Germany

3. The Iberians (about 3000 BC) from the Iberian Peninsula

4. Roman Britain (55BC-410 AD) from Italy

5. The Jutes, Anglo-Saxons (446-871) from southern Denmark and northern Germany

6. The Viking and Danish Invasions (from the end of the 8th century)

Historical Reasons

7. The Norman Conquest (1066) from France 8. Colonial Expansion A. Newfoundland (1583) B. Jamestown, Virginia (1607) C. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (late

18th century) D. Asia and Africa (19th century) By 1900 Britain had built up a big empire, “on which

the sun never set”, including 25% of the world’s population and area.

3. Types of Synonyms

1. Dialectal 2. Stylistic 3. Differing in emotive or evaluative

meaning (e.g. Commendatory Vs. derogatory)

4. Collocational 5. Semantically different

5.3.2.25.3.2.2

Polysemy

Definition

Polysemy is the phenomenon where the same one word may have more than one meaning. Such a word is called a polysemous word.

table

5.3.2.35.3.2.3

Homonymy

1. Definition

Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. Such words are called homonyms.

2. Types of homonymy 1. Homophones: When two or more words are

identical in sound but different in both spelling and meaning, they are called homophones, e.g. rain/reign.

2. Homographs: When two or more words are identical in spelling but different in both sound and meaning, they are called homographs, e.g. bow/bow

3. Complete homonyms: When two or more words are identical in both sound and spelling but different in meaning, they are called complete homonyms, e.g. fast/fast.

3. Monosemy Vs. Polysemy Vs. Homonymy

同一音形 A

A1 A2 A3

多个相

关词义

多个相

关词义

单一词 义

其中 A 为异义词， A1 、 A2 为多义词， A3为单义词， A1 、 A2 、 A3 之间为同音同形异义关系

5.5.2.45.5.2.4

Hyponymy

1. Definition

Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms. Hyponyms of the dame superordinate are co-hyponyms to each other.

2. Illustration

superordinate

Hyponym 1 Hyponym 2 Hyponym 3

Co-hyponyms

3. Question

Tell the sense relations between the following words:

bed, table, furniture, desk

5.3.2.55.3.2.5

Antonymy

1. Definition

Antonymy means oppositeness of meaning; word that are opposite in meaning are antonyms.

2. Types of antonyms

1. Gradable antonyms hot Vs. cold 2. Complementary antonyms male Vs. female 3. Relational opposites teacher Vs. pupil

3. Question

To which category does each of the following pairs of antonyms belong?

1. North/south 2. Vacant/occupied 3. Literate/illiterate 4. Above/below 5. Doctor/patient 6. Wide/narrow 7. Poor/rich 8. Father/daughter

Homework

1. Review 2. Qs 2-4, Pp82.

(oral) 3. Prepare 5.4:

Sense relations between sentences