Semantics

1,What is semantics?

Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language.语义学可定义为对语言意义的研究。

Meaning is central to the study of communication.意义是交际的核心。

 

2,Some views concerning the study of meaning

The naming theory:命名论

One of the oldest notions concerning meaning, and also a very primitive one, was the naming theory. It was proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato.古希腊学者柏拉图

According to this theory, the linguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words used in a language are taken to be labels of the objects they atand for. So words are just names or labels for things.根据这种理论，语言形式或标记，或者说，语言中所用的词被看做是该词所指事物的名称或标记。词仅是事物的名称或标记。

The conceptualist view:意念论

The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to; but, in the interpretation of meaning, they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind.意念论认为语言形式，即词，与其所指事物之间的关系不是直接的，而是间接的，是以人脑中的概念为中介而联系起来。

Contextualism:语境论

Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized: the situcational context and the linguistic context.语境论建立在如下假设之上：意义源于语境，存在于语境。语境有两种：情景语境和上下文。

Behaviorism:行为主义论

The contextualist view was further strengthened by Bloomfield.布龙菲尔德进一步强化了语境论。

Behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a language form as “the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer.”行为主义者试图把词汇意义定义为“说话人说出话语并引起听话人做出反应的情景”。

 

3,Lexical meaning

Sense and reference

Sense: Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized.意义是词汇内在的，抽象的，游离于语境之外的意义，是词汇所有特征的集合。

Reference: Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.所指是词汇所指称的真实的物质世界中的事物，是词汇在特定语境中所指称的具体事物；所指讨论语言形式和非语言世界之间的关系。

 

4,Major sence relations

(1)Synonymy: Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that are close in meaning are called synonyms.同义关系指的是意义的相同或相似。意义相同的词叫做同义词。

Accordong to the way they differ, synonyms can be devided into the following five types:

dialectal synonyms: Dialectal synonyms are words which have more or less the same meaning and are used in different regional dialects方言同义词——意思大致相同，用在不同地域方言中的同义词;

stylistic synonyms: Stylistic synonyms are words which have the same meaning but differ in style,or degree of formality语体同义词——意义相同，语体不同或正式程度不同的同义词;

synonyms that differ in their emotive or uative meaning: Synonyms differing in their emotive or uative meaning are words that have the same meaning but express different emtions of the user. The emotions of the user indicate the attitude or bias of the user toword what he is talking about情感意义或评价意义不同的同义词

——意义相同，但所表现的说话人的情感不同，它们反映出说话人对其所谈之事的不同态度或偏见;

collocational synonyms: Some synonyms differ in their collocation. That is, they go together with different words. This is a matter of usage用于不同搭配的同义词——有些同义词在搭配上有所不同，这是个用法问题;

semantically different synonyms: Semantically different synonyms refer to the synonyms that differ slightly in what they mean语义上有一定差别的同义词——语义上存在细微差别的同义词.

(2)Polysemy: Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have more than one meaning. A word having more than one meaning is called a polysemic word.多义词指的是同一个词具有一个以上的意义。具有多义关系的词叫做多义词。

(3)Homonymy: 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. 同音/同形异义关系指的是不同意义的词具有相同的形式这样一种现象，即不同的词发音或者拼写相同，或者发音与拼写都相同。

Homophones: When two words are identical in sound ,they are called homophones. 发音相同的词称为同音异义词。

Homographs: When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. 拼写相同的词称为同形异义词。

Complete homonyms: When two words are indentical in both sound and spelling, they are called complete homonyms. 发音和拼写都一样的词叫做完全同音同形异义词。

(4)Hyponymy: Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general, more inclusive word and a more specfic word. 上下义关系指的是具有概括性、包含性的词和具体意义的词之间的意义关系。

Superordinate: The word which is more general in meaning is called the superordinate.具有概括意义的词叫做上义词。

Hyponyms: The words which are more specific in meaning are called its hyponyms.意义比较具体的词叫做下义词。

Cohyponyms: Hyponyms of the same superordinate are cohyponyms to each other.具有同一个上义词的下义词叫做并列下义词。

(5)Antonymy: Antonymy refers to the oppositeness of meaning. Words that are opposite in meaning are called antonyms.反义关系指的是词项间意义相反的关系。意义相反的词叫做反义词。

Gradable antonyms: Some antonyms are gradable because there are often intermediate forms between the two members of a pair. This is a matter of degree.可分等级的反义词——有些反义词是可分为等级的，因为在一对反义词之间还经常存在有中间形式，所以它属于级别问题。

Complementary antonyms: Complementary antonyms are those that are complementary to each other. In a pair of complementary antonyms, the denial of one implies the assertion of the other.互补性反义词——成对的互补性反义词的特点在于，否定其中的一个成分，就意味着肯定了另一个成分。换句话说，它不是两个极端之间的级别问题，而是非此即彼的问题。

Relational opposites: Pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two terms are called relational opposites.关系反义词——成对反义词的词项间如果存在逆转关系，就可以叫做关系反义词。

注：例子

 

5,Sense relation between sentences

There are also certain relations between sentences, and so are there certain relations between constituents of the same sentence.

(1)X is synonymous with Y  x与y同义

X: The boy killed the dog.

Y: The dog was killed by the boy.

(2)X is inconsistent with Y  x与y语义上不一致

X: This is my first visit to your country.

Y: I have been to your country before.

(3)X entails Y  x蕴涵y或y是x的蕴涵

     X: He has been to France.

     Y: He has been to Europe.

Entailment is a relation of inclusion. If X entails Y, the meaning of X is included in Y.蕴涵是一种包含关系。若x蕴涵y，x的意义包含在y之中。

(4)X presupposes Y(Y is a persupposition of X)  x预设y，y是x的预设

     X: John’s bike needs repairing.

     Y: John has a bike.

(5)X is a contradiction  x自相矛盾

     My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.

(6)X is semantically anomalous  语义变异

     The table has bad intentions.

 

6,Analysis of meaning意义分析

Componential analysis——a way to analyze lexical meaning语义成分分析法——一种词义分析法

Componential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was proposed by structural semanticists. The approach is based on the belief that the meaning of a word can be divided into meaning components, which are called semantic features. These feature symbols are usually written in capitalized letters.语义分析是由结构语义学家所提出的词义分析法。这种方法所基于的观点是：词义可以分成不同的意义成分，叫做语义特征。这些语义特征的标记通常以大写字母写出。

Predication analysis——a way to analyze sentence meaning述谓结构分析——一种句义分析法

First, the meaning of a sentence is not the sum total of the meanings of all its components. It can not be worked out by adding up all the meanings of its constituent words.首先，句子意义不是所有句子成分意义的总和，也就是说，句子的意义并不是通过句子中每个词的意义的简单相加而得出的。

Second, there are two aspects to sentence meaning: grammatical meaning and semantic meaning.第二，句义包括两个方面：语法意义和语义意义。

The grammatical meaning of a sentence refers to its grammaticality, that is its grammatical well-formedness. The semantic meaning of a sentence is governed by rules called selectional restrictions.句子的语法意义指的是它的语法性，即语法合法性。句子在语义上是否有意义是受被称为选择限制的规则支配的。

Linguists have proposed different ways to analyze the meaning of sentences. One of them is the predication analysis. It is proposed by the British linguist G.Leech. In grammatical analysis, the sentence is regarded as the basic unit. It is analyzed into such grammatical components as subject, predicate, and sttribute. In semantic analysis of a sentence, the basic unit is called predication. The predication is the abstration of the meaning of a sentence.语言学家们提出了不同的句义分析方法，尽管他们的分析方法可能有所不同，但他们的目的都是要对句义加以初象化。其中一种是述谓结构分析，它是由英国语言学家G*利奇所提出的。在语法分析中，句子被看做基本单位并被分析成主语，谓语和修饰语这样的语法成分，而句子语义分析中的基本单位叫做述谓结构，即句子意义的出像化。

A predication consists of argument(s) and predicate. An argument is a logical participant in a predication. It is generally identical with the nominal element(s) in a sentence. A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.述谓结构由论元和谓词组成。论元指的是述谓结构中的逻辑参与者，基本上等同于句子中的名词部分。谓词谈及的是论元，或者说它说明的是句子中联系论元的逻辑关系。

According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, the predications may be classfied into two-place predication(containing two arguments), one-place argument(containing one argument), and no-place argument(containing no argument).

根据述谓结构中论元数量的多少，述谓结构可以分为双述谓结构（包括两个论元），一位述谓结构（包括一个论元）和空位述谓结构（不包含论元）。

The predicate can be regarded as the main element, for it includes tense, modality, etc. It may also be said to govern the arguments for it determines the number and nature of the arguments.谓词可以看作是主要部分，它包含了时态、情态等，也可以说它支配论元，因为它决定着论元的数量和性质。