Frank Robert Palmer
Semantics
Palmer, Frank Robert;
Semantics
Cambridge University Press, 1981 2nd edn, 221 pages [gbook]
ISBN 0521283760, 9780521283762
topics: | linguistics | semantics
based on typed-up notes from first edition; later emended with other info from 2nd edn. pagenums : 1st ed
Contents
Preface Typographical conventions Ch. 1: Introduction : The term "semantics" The word "meaning" 3 1.2 Semantics and linguistics 5 Utterance vs Sentence 8 1.4 Historical semantics Irrelevance of etymology 12 Philosophy and other disciplines 15 Semantics and Logic 13 Ch. 2: Scope of Semantics - Naming meaning != denotation 20 possible cultural relevance russell:-object-word-vs-dictionary-word-22 Concepts 24 2.3 Sense and Reference 29 2.4 The word 32 Sentence meaning: Literal vs Pragmatic 38 Propositional semantics 42 Ch. 3: Context and Reference 44 Linguistic relativity 44 3.2 Excluding context 47 Katz and Fodor: Arguments against context Situational context 51 3.4 Behaviourism: It's all context Which Aspects of Context? Ch. 4: Lexical semantics: fields and collocation Ch. 5: Lexical semantics: sense relations Collocations - inapplicability of logic Ch. 6: Semantics and Grammar Generative Semantics 22 6.2 Grammatical categories 24 6.3 Grammar vs Lexicon 130 Semantically ill-formed sentences 6.4 Grammatical Relations 6.8: Interrogative / Imperative Ch. 7: Utterance meaning Ch. 8: Semantics and logic References Index.
Excerpts
1.1. The word "semantics"
semantics: relatively new term - French semantique is from 1893, coined from Greek by M. Breal's in 1893. The following year, the word was first used in English, in a paper read at the American Philological association in 1894. In both cases, the term was used to refer to the historical development of meaning rather than meaning per se.
M. Breal's 1897 (french) book, tr. 1900 as Semantics: studies in the science of meaning - is a superb little book (now neglected), which treated semantics as the 'science' of meaning, and was not primarily concerned with diachronic change. Yet the term did not catch on. The famous 1923 book by Ogden and Richards, The meaning of meaning, never uses the term, though it appears in an appendix by Malinowski. HG Wells used "significs" in The shape of things, others used semiotics or semiology.
At the same time, popular writing often uses semantics pejoratively - "Semantic manoeuvres at the Pentagon" refers to mobile manoeuvre being used to imply retreat. Similarly, "homelessness reduced to semantics" --> too narrow and interpretation of h.
A true story: An eminent US linguist [HL Mencken] was asked by a strip-tease dancer to find an alternative for the word strip-tease. "I hope that the science of semantics can help the verbally underprivileged members of my profession." He suggested ecdysiast. p.2[/cvr] [This has become a word - from etymonline: H.L. Mencken's invented proper word for "strip-tease artist," 1940, from Gk. ekdysis "a stripping or casting off" (used scientifically with ref. to serpents shedding skin or crustacea molting), from ekdyein "to put off" (contrasted with endyo "to put on"), from ex- + dyo "sink, plunge, enter."]
The word "meaning" 3
"meaning" has many senses.
- intend: I mean to be there tomorrow
- signifier of a sign: That cloud means thunder, or A red light means 'stop'.
- simpler paraphrase: what does calligraphy mean? it means 'beautiful writing'
words to define other words; usually simpler words in the explanation.
Thus, what does chat mean in French? cat, but the inverse is "what is
French for cat, maybe because answer is no longer "simpler". p.3
non-literal (pragmatic intent): "It wasn't what he said, but what he meant."
e.g. (p.4):
`Why is a raven like a writing-desk?' [said the Hatter]
`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've
begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
`Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said
the March Hare.
`Exactly so,' said Alice.
`Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least at least I mean what I say
that's the same thing, you know.'
`Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. `Why, you might just as
well say that `I see what I eat' is the same thing as `I eat what I
see'!' -- Lewis Carroll
often words have other than 'literal' meanings - suggested with intonation
or gestures. [or poetry?] e.g. the fall-rise tone in English - the
intonation falls and rises on the 'accented' word in a sentence - suggests
"but...". She's very clever - may be positive in plain intonation, but
with rise-fall it becomes pejorative - she's not very honest, or not very
attractive, etc. similarly I think so - may be that I don't know, but
with a diff intonation that I am pretty sure. That's very clever can
mean that's very stupid; and if I wink while saying that's mine - then it
probably isn't.
what we say often presupposes a lot - classic e.g.
When did you stop beating your wife?
1.2 Semantics and linguistics 5
Nearly all linguists have explicitly or implicitly assumed a model in which
semantics is at one 'end' and phonetics at the other, with grammar
somewhere in the middle...
de Saussure: signifiant (signifier) - for sounds of language, and
signfié (signified) for the meaning. he unfortunately used the
term SIGN for the association of these [today's "symbol"], but some
of his followers, more reasonably, used sign for the signifier
alone. 6
Lg does not always contain a 'message' or a piece of information - part of
its function is w social relationships. (even in animal communicn)
it has been convincingly argued that human lg differs in kind rather than in
degree from other 'languages' 6
[ messages can be described in terms of language, but how to describe
language itself? ]
we cannot define meaning (the "message") independently of language. p.6
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. One essential requirement
is that it should be empirical. What is meant by 'scientific' or
'empirical' is a matter of some debate. Must be possible to test and
verify statements within it.
Difficult in semantics, for unlike phonetics, we cannot observe what is
being meant.
de saussure: langue (language) and parole ("speaking", indiv language w
errors); the distinction reappeared in Chomsky 1965:4 as COMPETENCE and
PERFORMANCE. (Chomsky differs greatly in what "competence" is, but the
distinction is the same). Both for Chomsky and de Saussure, langue or
competence excludes accidental individual variations - some kind of
idealized system without any clear empirical
basis. p.7-8 [see Bouquet, Simon, below]
can we make a similar distinction in semantics? We can't be concerned with
completely idiosyncratic usage, e.g.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,
`it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
There are variations - e.g. the poet's or the madman's - but neither would be
possible without the generalized "normal" patterns to make comparisons
with. 8
need to distinguish usual meaning of word w meaning in special
circumstances. --> distinction between semantics and PRAGMATICS. 8
Utterance vs Sentence 8
An UTTERANCE is an event in time - produced by some one under certain circumstances. A SENTENCE has no existence in time, but is part of the linguistic system of a language. The distinction is related to performance and competence. utterances as objects of study: may be ok if you use a voice recording, but becomes v difficult if transcribed - e.g. words are already sophisticated linguistic constructs and not the result of direct observation. Even if written in IPA it has already have acquired some of the characteristics of a sentence. It follows from this that semanticists will not be (and cannot really ever be) concerned w the meaning of utterances but only with the meaning of sentences. [AM: however, surely they can consider the social context in which the sentence was uttered!] However, a lot of meaning lost when we throw out the prosody and other paralinguistic aspects? ]
1.4 Historical semantics
Synchronic study of lg must precede diachronic - cannot study change unless we know what it was like that is changing. so too in semantics. 12 e.g. earlier meaning explanation narrowing: meat food widening: bitter biting metonymy jaw cheek [nearness in space or time] synecdoche town fence [whole for part or part / whole] stove heated room hyperbole astound strike with thunder [stronger to weaker meaning] litotes kill torment [weak to stronger meaning degeneration knave boy elevation knight boy
Irrelevance of etymology 12
The tanks of modern warfare are so called because of a decision in WW1 to deceive the Germans into thinking that water-tanks were being despatched. 9 [but historical linguistics is not relevant here] nice - once meant silly (Lat nescius, ignorant), and earlier it may have been related to ne 'not', and sc- probably meaning cut, as in scissors, but before that we do not know. So etymology is not directly relevant to semantics. 11 Synchronic study of lg must precede diachronic - cannot study change unless we know what it was like that is changing. so too in semantics. 12
Semantics and Logic 13
Logical systems are self-coherent and internally consistent models of an
idealized kind similar to those in mathematics and are not directly based
upon, and therefore cannot be invalidated by, observations of natural
language. Consequently, the linguist should be suspicious of talk about
the "logical basis of natural language", The logical systems of the
logician are far neater and consistent than anything to be found in
language. They do not form the basis of language, but are a highly
idealised form of a few of its characteristics. 13
Science vs the philosophy of science: The scientist may take for granted the
validity of his assumptions, his methods and his conclusions; the philosopher
of sci may question the whole basis on which he works. Such a distinction
ought to be valid in linguistics, if the subject is in any sense scientific.
14
[Unfortunately, too little agreement on aims and nature, esp. of "semantics"]
also anthropologists, e.g. Malinowski on the role of context and situation.
Also of interest in linguistics, names for kinship structures.
Philosophy and other disciplines 15
psychologists:
- Morris 1946: Signs, language and behaviour (Behaviourist)
- Osgood, Suci Tannenbaum: Measurement of meaning
semantic space = dimensions of meaning - binary
Palmer is dismissive of Osgood - "less relevant" - "a 20 qs like quiz"
"tells us little about meaning in general." 17
psychology: problems comprehending sentences with [MIDDLE RECURSION]
the boy the man the woman loved saw ran away
[the man whom the woman loved, saw the boy who ran away]
why is it simpler to analyze:
The question the girl the dog bit answered was complex.
No grammatical reason why one should be more difficult than the other,
[but possibly frequentist associations may reveal some of it.] 14-5 1st ed
Information theory - more promising.
Efficient system will have minimum redundancy.
Great deal of redundancy in lg - e.g. can read with the bottom half of
printed line covered.
But redundancy is needeed where there is noise. e.g. discrepancy between
speaker's and listener's understanding.
The human speaker does not merely transmit the message, he also creates it
- and we cannot even begin to talk about information in this sense
precisely because we cannot quantify or specify precisely what it is that
is being 'transmitted'. 18
Austin: performatives and speech acts
Strawson: presupposition
Grice: implicatures
--- BOUQUET, SIMON: Saussure's unfinished semantics
manuscripts discovered in the Saussure family home in Geneva, attacks the
notions of
the misunderstanding which initially dogged the school founded by
F. Bopp was to give languages, a body, an imaginary existence outside
speaking individuals. Abstraction, within langue, even when appropriately
applied, is in practice only of limited use - is a logical process... while
language (langage) is both the application and the constant generator of
the language system (langue), the act of language is to langue both its
application and its sole origin. ELG:129
This way of thinking highlights Saussure's distance from the
logical-grammatical paradigm in language science. [The last sentence in CGL
is more due to Bally and Sechehaye, than Saussure: ] The true and unique
object of linguistics is language studied in and for itself. This last
sentence of the Cours is not only apocryphal, it is also completely
contradictory. [this is a phrase not to be found in the Geneva lecture, but
from Bopp 1816]
In the ms ELG:
The individual remains to be dealt with, because only the common effort of
all individuals can create general phenomena. It is thus necessary to
take a look at the working of language in the individual. CLG/E 1.65.429.5
also:
Singh, Prem, 1992. Saussure and the Indic connection, In RN Srivastava,
ed. Language and Text: studies in honour of R. Kalkar, Delhi, Kalinga publ,
43-50.
Vajpeyi, A. 1997. Contemporary linguistic theorizing and Sanskrit. Paper
presented at South Asian Language Analysis XVIII Roundtable, January
1997, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Ch 2: Scope of Semantics - Naming
Meaning as denotation - Plato Cratylus: words "stand for" something in the world. Words are labels for things. Child learns names by a process of naming. Meaning of larger constructs (expressions) [Lyons, Semantics, 1977 2vols:206-9] Denotation : the class of persons, things etc. generally represented by the expression Reference: the actual person, thing being referred to in a specific context This view appears to be limited to nouns. Maybe colours (adjectives). But not at all plausible even for adj like "attractive", useful, relevant difficult, plausible. 18 With a noun we can often draw a picture of the object denoted. But this is difficult, if not impossible, with verbs. even nouns like goblin, unicorn, fairy etc - for objects that don't exist Consider the verb "run", and an attempt to illustrate what it denotes with a picture of running (maybe a moving picture). Difficulty: picture has a boy, and has him running - hard to distinguish the boy and "what he is doing". 19
meaning != denotation 20
Morning star / evening star In Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, First Lord of the treasury Lord Chief Justice Commander in Chief Lord High admiral Master of the Buck Hounds are all names for Pooh-Bah. 20 [same holds for "His Holiness" and "the Pope" and "Benedict XVI"] even when names are limited to visible objects, they may represent a whole lot of rather different objects. [Hence - meaning must be based on function] "In the world of experience, objects are not clearly grouped together ready, so to speak, to be labelled with a single word. Realist view: all things called by the name have some common property Nominalist: nothing is common except for the name. [this radical view is of course false, chairs can't be called mountains]
possible cultural relevance-
Malinowski (1923, The Problem of meaning in primitive lgs, supplem to Ogden
and Richards 1923/1949:299-300)
was troubled by the fact that he was unable to produce satisfactory
translations for the Trobriand Islanders' speech (text) he had recorded.
e.g. boast by canoeist: "We-run front-wood ourselves... we-turn we-see
companion-ours he-runs rear-wood."
This, Malinowslki argued (:300-01), made sense only if
the utterance was seen in the context [--> Behaviourism].
lg is not a "mirror of reflected thought", or a "counteersign of thought",
but a "mode of action". Expressions such as "How do you do" or "Ah there you
are" - more to establish a common sentiment than any semantic substance.
Also talk about the weather or family 50-51
--> PHATIC COMMUNION - ony social, no semantics 52
Eskimo: have four words for "snow" (1911:20): "snow on the ground", "falling
snow", "drifting snow", and "snowdrift". (Boas 1911, Intro to Hbk of
Am Ind Lgs :20)
Hopi: only one word for "flier" - be it insect or aeroplane (Whorf 1956:210)
p.21
Bloomfield: Salt is "NaCl" - is wrong. It is what appears on our tables,
with pepper and mustard, and is no less salt if it is not exactly
NaCL [AM: e.g. composition may have other elements, Mg or Iodine]
Russell: Object word vs Dictionary word 22
Some words refer to objects and are learned as labels, while others are
learned as definitions based on them - OSTENSIVE DEFINITIONS.
(Russell 1940 An inq into meaning and truth:25,66 repr. 1962:23,63). p.22
Wittgenstein (1953:16): I must be a master of lg to understand an ostensive
definition."
The child does not simply learn labels - else he would not be able to handle
all these complexities.
We shall not solve problems of semantics by looking at a child learning
lg, for an understanding of what he does raises precisely the same
problems as those of understanding what adults do in their normal
speech. 23
Concepts 24
Ogden & Richards 1923/1949:11 : the concept (thought or reference) is in a
relation with the symbol, and also the actual referent;
Triangular relationship - but symbol and referent are connected by dashed
line. 24
What is precisely the "associative bond" of Saussure, or the link between
O&R's symbol and concept?
semantics as "association in the mind".
The difficulty w this view is that it really says nothing at all. 26
[becomes a circular definition, a tautology]
[AM: results from our inadequacy in understanding the mechanism in
the mind, until that's understood, philosophizing becomes only hot
air]
nothing is gained by moving meaning one step back to the brain - the ghost in
the machine / homunculus argument. 27
Dualism is encouraged by the term "meaning" itself.
Wittgenstein (1953:31):
for a large class of words... the meaning of a word is its use in lg.'
not a very helpful remark, since "use in lg" is just as unclear. But still,
has value; we can now investigate "use". 29
Sense and Reference
Reference: what the expr refers to in the non-linguistic world of experience
Sense: relationships that hold between the lg elements (mostly the words)
themselves
Would appear that reference is the key part of semantics.
But - sense relations are also common - e.g.
sex differences (older grammars in English)
- ewe / ram
- cow/bull; mare/stallion - were thought to be grammatical, and
not lexical (since related to gender). p.30
also father/son; duck/duckling; buy/sell;
Dictionary : concerned primarily w sense relations
there may be two kinds of semantics - one that relates to non-linguistic
entities, and the others (as in dictionaries, with their unsystematic
definitions) - intra-linguistic.
Bierwisch (1970:167) says that a semantic theory must explain sentences like:
1. His typewriter has bad intentions
2. My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor
3. John was looking for the glasses.
4a. The needle is too short
b. The needle is not long enough [is it a paraphrase?]
6a. How long was Archibald in Monte Carlo?
b. He was there for some time [presupposed by "a")
123 are : anomalous, contradictory, ambiguous
Katz and Fodor 1963:176
A semantic theory describes and explains the interpretive ability of
speakers; by accounting for their performance in determining the number of
readings of a sentence; by detecting semantic anomalies; by deciding upon
paraphrase relations between sentences; and by marking every other semantic
property or relation tha plays a role in this ability."
Notably, the list of abilities (in later work, Katz:1972 has fifteen such
relations), does not include the ability to relate the sentences to the world
of experience; and indeed K&F explicitly exclude from a semantic theory any
reference to the context.
2.4 The word 32
"Boys like to play" what is the meaning of "to"? Henry Sweet 1891, distinguished "full" words (tree, sing, blue, gently) from "form" words (the, of, and). The form words are not normal dictionary words and have only grammatical meaning. word may be defined in terms of stress - only one main stress - e.g. in spoken lg, can distinguish "blackbird" from "black bird" 33 (so does "shoe-horn" or "shoe polish") Bloomfield 1933: "word is the minimum free form" in isolation; the, is, by do not appear in isolation (but then, maybe, neither do any others). Bloomfield: morphemes as units of meaning, e.g. "-berry" in blackberry or "-y" in Johnny. Later linguists: "loved" = love + -d = adore + past. (but what of "took") LEXEME: love and loved are under the same dictionary heading; unit Bloomfield: status of "cran-" in cranberry - no indep meaning, and not occurring in any other words. (for that matter, straw- and goose- +berry) greenfinch bullfinch and chaffinch: green- is a colour, bull- is a word but not relate-able to bullfinch; and chaffinch no meaning at all). may be PHONAESTHETIC - initial cluster of consonants gives an indication of meaning of a speccial kind. e.g. many words with "sl-" are "slippery" in some sense - slide, slip, slither, slush, sluice, sludge etc. often pejorative - slatterns, slut, slang, sly, sloppy, slovenly. 35 ending in -ump often refers to roundish mass : plump, chump, rump hump lump bump stump, perhaps even dump and mumps. 35 Ullman 1962: transparent vs opaque words, "male giraffe" vs "stallion" doorman vs axe. But does a scredriver "drive" screws? spanner - obsolete sense of span. heavy smoker = "heavy smoke"+er, not heavy+smoker; similarly "good singer", "criminal lawyer" etc.
Sentence meaning: Literal vs Pragmatic 38
Sentence literal meaning - based on lexemes + grammatical structure (but whether "actual Surface structure" or " abstract Deep structure" is a matter of some debate) vs pragmatic meaning - e.g. "there's a bull in that field" - has a direct, literal, meaning, but it may also be a warning. Other kinds of meaning beyond lexemes + grammar: 1. prosody (intonation, stress, rhythm) + paralinguistic aspects: (gestures, facial expressions etc) 2. emphasis - i SAW john this morning; i saw JOHN this momrning; i saw john this MORNING 3. speech acts: warn, threaten, promise, "there's a bull in the field" 39 4. not saying the most relevant information may convey alternate meanings - e.g. "he's a nice man" may suggest that he's not a very good at his job. 5. presuppositions - e.g. "have you stopped beating your wife?" is much more than a question. "Stop lying" means lying (or any activity) was going on. similarly NPs imply the existence of the object. e.g. "King of france" 6. social relations - degree of politeness: Shut up, Be quiet, Would you pls be quiet, Would you keep yr voice down a little please? good morning, weather talk, much of "small talk". 39-40 Lyons 1977: distinguishes sentence meaning (lexemes+grammar) from utterance meaning. While problematic, will retain the sense of "utterance meaning" in ch.7.
Propositional semantics 42
basic unit of semantics is not the sentence but the proposition. but sentence semantics is conditional, whereas propositional semantics is either T or F. e.g. "I was there yesterday" depends on I, there, yesterday and has no fixed T/F value. Also, same grammatical structure - e.g. "every boy loves a girl", may have two propositions, with differing T/F consequences. There are, however, grave difficulties in restricting semantics to propositions. 42 Restricted to statements, even questions and commands are excluded. Also modal statements - "John may be in his office" are hard to handle. Also, indexicals (or deictics) may not be resolvable logically - i.e. without invoking semantics itself.
3 Context and Reference 44
REFERENCE: relation between lg and experience SENSE: meaning relations within language
Linguistic relativity 44
how we see the world depends to some extent on the lg we use. Malinowski: to the native the world appears mostly "undifferentiated". They have names for only those things that stand out - those that are relevant to them. 44 Sapir [1929/1940:160]: [the world we live in] is to a large extent unconsciously built up on te lg habits of the group. 45 expanded by Whorf : we are unaware of the bkgd character of our lg, just as we are unaware of the presence of air until we begin to choke. comparing lgs leads us to realize that we "dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages". This led him to a "new principle of relativity which holds that All observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or in some way can be calibrated." [1956:214, article "Science and linguistics"] Hopi lg does not have tenses, only what is subjective and objective, so Whorf claimed that the Hopi have no notion of time. ... It can be argued that English has only two tenses, pres & past, with everything else involving aux verbs - was loving, will love, etc. Also, "past" tense, defined this ay is not limited to past time, but also for unreality, as in "I wish I went there every day." Joos 1964 suggests that Engl doesn't really have a past tense, but only one "remote" tense, rather similar to the Hopi. Hence if Engl had been an Am Indian lg, it could have been used as an example of a lg in which time relations are not distinguished. 47 In spite of objections, the S-W hypothesis serves a useful reminder that the categories employ do not simply "exist" in experience. e.g. calf, heifer, cow, intermed stage terms : heiver, steer, colt, filly, teg (also, infant, toddler, child, teenager, adult, senior) It would be very diff to recognize the worldly counterparts of come/go, bring/take. 47
3.2 Excluding context 47
Main reason may be: great theoretical and practical difficulty Reasons argued: meaning indep of context must be known before using it in a context. But this begs the q. What does a meaning without context mean? presumably in another sentence of similar meaning. But if we can identify two sentences of similar meaning, it does not mean that we have identified some abstract entity called "meaning". to the contrary, it can be argued that knowing two sentences are similar in meaning --> they can be used in similar contexts. 48 Context may be infinite - so how can we definte semantics in terms of context? Bloomfield despaired about any satisfactory treatment of semantics. can avoid the problem by considering only "tight" lexical relations like "bachelor/unmarried" or "short/long" but this provides too narrow a sem theory. Bierwisch: My typewriter has bad intentions 50/51 - may have many meanings, e.g. astronomer's glasses
Katz and Fodor: Arguments against context
"The bill is large" is ambiguous, but can be disambiguated if followed by "...but need not be paid". This disambiguation, K&F argue, is proper for semantics. However, this example is not: Shall we take the junior back to the zoo? Shall we take the bus back to the zoo? Shall we take the lion back to the zoo? But the knowlege needed for these is no different than with "bill". p.50
Situational context 51
Malinowsky, Trobriand Islands, S Pacific: canoeist's boast: We-run front-wood ourselves... we-turn we-see companion-ours he-runs rear-wood.' 1923/1949:300-I This made sense only if the utterance was seen in context, that wood means paddle. Lg is a "mode of action".
3.4 Behaviourism: It's all context
Malinowski and Firth : descr of lg cannot be complete w.o some reference to the cultural context Behaviourism: meaning is totally accounted for by context - Bloomfield. Bloomfield: the only useful generalizations abt language are the 'inductive' generalizations. meaning of a linguistic form: "the situation iin which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer." e.g. Jill is hungry, and asks Jack to get an apple that's visible. If there was no Jack, the sight of the apple would have induced Jill to get it (S-->R). But since Jack is there, the R is linguistic and not action, so that we now have S-->R'(lang)...[Jack hears]S' --> R. Thus meaning, for Bloomfield, consists of the relation between speech (shown as R'...S') and the events S and R which bracket it. Bloomfield took great pains to contrast this mechanistic, observable theory to "mentalistic" theories that posited thoughts, concepts, images, feelings, etc. While he despised mentalists, his own argument involved "predisposing factors" which depended on the entire life histories of the agents (is Jack well-disposed towards Jill?) - which is just as circular an argument. Bloomfield's faith in scientific definition: e.g. Salt = NaCl. This is in no way related to human lg. 58 Skinner 1957 attempted to clear up the problem of the "predisposing factors". 1) Lg behaviour is in principle no diff from rats in a lab; 2) this behav can be explained in terms of observable events, without reference to internal structure. Stimulus, response and REINFORCEMENT are key. part of Chomsky's argument against this is to consider looking at a picture and saying "Dutch". This could be explained by the long history of the participants, but that cannot constitute an explanation. The responses are not predictable from the stimuli. early learning has behaviourist elements - baby makes noise, milk comes. But the child rapidly outgrows this explanation for language.
Which Aspects of Context?
deictics - participants (I, we, you etc. - spatial (here, there etc. In Malagasy the terms ety and aty may be glossed as 'here' and 'there': Ety/Aty ny tranony: His house is here/there. But the distinction depends on whether or not the house is visible to the speaker [Keenan:1971:45] Come and Go [Fillmore:1960]: direction towards speaker / hearer - Come to me; I'll come to you. He came to see me in London habitual locus of speaker/hearer: Come to my office (though I shan't be there); I went to your house [Here "go" is also possible. ] 61 - temporal: now, then, yesterday, tense power relations in language - politeness. In French, the tu / vous distinction is not there in father-son relations [What do they say, then? tu, or vous?]
Collocations - inapplicability of logic
(chapter 6 added in second edition: Meaning and the Sentence) English has many terms for rotten and bad rancid occurs with bacon and butter and addled with brains and eggs; milk is never rancid but only sour. 95 "pretty child" and "buxom neighbour" normally refer to females. exceptional weather = abnormal weather, but exceptional child != abnormal child -> both have special connotations It is, or should be, clear that the study of semantics is not advanced by being 'reduced' to logic. 113
Ch.6: Semantics and Grammar
(ch. 7 in new edition)
Grammar and semantics are often thought of as separate levels of
linguistics. [But] grammatical categories often have meaning...
Most of the traditional grammarians assumed that gramm categories are
essentially semantic. Nouns = names of thing, gender is concerned with sex,
while plural simply meant 'more than one'
On the other hand, many linguists have argued that grammar must be kept
distinct from semantics and that grammatical categories must be wholly
defined in terms of the FORM of the language, the actually observable
features. One of the earliest statements is Sapir 1921. Bloomfield 1933: We
must be 'scientific' and study of meaning was a weak point in linguistic
theory; hence formal features, not meaning, shd be the starting point of a
linguistic discussion. - 118
Two good arguments for FORMAL GRAMMAR, i.e., excluding meaning from grammar.
First argument: meaning is often very favue and meaning categories are not
easily delineated. What might seem to be obv semantic categories are
often in fact definable only in terms of formal features of a lg (to this
extent Whorf may have been right). If then, gramm categories are given
semantic definitions, the definitions are circular. An excellent example:
Noun = word used for naming anything. What is anything? The things that
can be named, incl., in English, fire, speed, place, intelligence,
suffering, etc. Why is "redness" a name of a thing, whereas "red" is not?
Similarly, why does "rain" refer to a thing, while "It's raining" does
not? It is reported that there are lgs in which words for 'river',
'spring' etc are essentially verbs, so a literal transl wd be "It's
rivering" rather than "There's a river". So the painfully simple answer
is that 'things' are what are designated by Ns.
Second argument: Even where we can define sem and gramm categories indep,
they often do not coincide. One of the best known examples is that of
wheat and oats, where there is a clear lack of corresp between
grammatical number with quantity. In terms of 'one' and 'more than one'
these can't be distinguished, but "wheat is in the barn" "oats are on the
table" --> grammatical. Similarly, hair is singular in English, but
French (cheveux) and Italian have plural nouns. Similarly, gender and sex
are indep in German [also Hindi], German for young woman, M\"adchen and
Fraulein are neuter, while the feminine la sentinelle in French may
refer to a strapping male. In English, tense is not directly related to
time since past tense is used for future e.g. If he came tomorrow...
Hence the basic gramm categs of a lg have to be establ indep of their
meaning. However, once we hv defined the formal categs of grammar, we find
that there is some correlation between gender and sex, tense and time, gramm
number and enumeration, though this correln will never be exact. In French,
Ns referring to fem are always fem, though some fem Ns may refer to males,
and in English ONE of the functions of tense is to refer to time. Indeed it
is only because of these correlations that the labels 'gender', 'tense', etc
have any usefulness at all...
But hard to draw a distinguishing line between grammar and semantics ... the
more detail we consider grammar, the closer the correlation w semantics.
e.g.
* John is seeming happy
we could say this is ungramm on the grounds that the v seem does not occur
in the progressive (continuous) form is seeming. But is this in fact a
gramm rule or is it the case that for semantic reasons J cannot be in a
continuous state of seeming? No clear answer. Similarly,
* John is having gone there
* John continued having gone there
Little doubt that the first is ruled out grammatically by a simple rule that
puts aux have before aux be and so allows only _John has been going
there_. But it is not clear whether we ought to say that there is a gramm
rule that prevents continue from being followed by auxiliary have, or
whether we shd say it makes little sense semantically.
Hence,
1. Though we can, and must, set up formal categories, they will be found to
have some correlation, but not one-to-one with semantics.
2. Difficult borderline area.
also:
3. Some of the categs seem to be found in all languages; as far as we know,
there is no lg that does not distinguish in some way between N and V, even
though some may not have diff word-classes (parts of speech). Some of the
more imp semantic categs, e.g. relating to sex, quantity, time, are found
in many gramm systems. Sim between lgs support some kind of universalist
view.
The controversy abt semantics and formal grammar was revived between in terms
of 'interpretive' and 'generative' semantics within
tranformnational-generative-grammar. Chomsky 1965p.16 had argued that there
is a syntactic [deep structure] and that it is at this level we can relate
active and passive sentences, or Question forms. The diff in the order of
the words (as well as other differences) is a matter of their [surface
structure].
deep structure also distinguishes John is eager to please from
John is easy to please : John is the 'deep subject' of please in 1 and
the object of please in 2; also while J is the subject of is in 1, the
subj of is in 2 is "please John"
Part of the syntax is concerned w tranformation rules that convert deep
structures into surface structures. Essential that given the DS, these rules
automatically generate the correct SS. The DS is generated by the BASE which
consists of two components: CATEGORIAL COMPONENT (the entire grammatical
apparatus) and the LEXICON (inventory of lexical items).
DS: - enables generation of surface structure, e.g. To oversimplify,
[Passive] marker will generate Piano played by J while its absence
generates J played the piano, all else being same. same DS with Q
will generate Was piano played by J?
- can generate the semantics
Generative Semantics 122
However, others argued that if there is a deep structure, it must be much
deeper, so deep in fact that it is essentially semantic and not syntactic.
In this sense semantics is not interpretive, but generative.
One of the many complex arguments: the active/passive relationship seems to
break down with
Many men read few books vs
Few books are read by many men
which are clearly diff in meaning. To anal such sentences as having same DS
except the [Passive] marker, is clearly not satisfactory. Lakoff 1971
p.238-45 argues that the DS must be the sem structures, which specify the
meanings. A rather diff argument [Lakoff 1968] suggests that
Seymour sliced the salami with a knife
shd be related to
Seymour used a knife to slice the salami
and that they have essentially the same DSs. Fillmore's case theory is also
within generative semantics. 123
Gen Semantics was doomed to failure, because of the impossibility of using
semantics as a basis for grammar. But Chomsky is still maintains that syntax
is AUTONOMOUS - i.e. indep of semantics [Chomsky 1977 p. 36-9]. 124
6.2 Grammatical categories 124
GENDER: Fr and German may have historical reasons for some idiosyncracies
that were conventionalized... English has no gender except he,
she, it. Latter can be applied to a dog of unknown gender, but
not to indeterminate-sex humans. they, them, their can be used
- e.g. has anyone lost their hat? If anyone comes tell them to go away._
This is frowned upon by some grammarians. For babies,
sometimes it is used, but not politically wise.
Swahili: animates, small things, and big things, each marked by
appropriate prefix and requiring agreement with adjs and verbs.
(etymologyically, gender is not related to sex, but merely means
'kind'; as sex took on erotic qualities in 20th c. English,
gender came to be used, often in feminist writing, for biol
qualities etc., 1963+) `
But of course, semantic distinctions are impure for all such classes
- e.g. Bloomfield: Algonquin lg have animate/inanim distinction, but
"kettle" and "raspberry" are animate, though "strawberry" is
inanimate.
NUMBER: Many lgs have number system, but many in SE Asia or Africa do not.
Similarly for number. What is the semantic importance of "one" vs
"more than one" not clear. Also classic Sanskrit, Greek Arabic had
also "dual". Fijian and Tigre (Ethiopia) also distinguish little
plurals and big plurrals.
No "natural" numerical classes to be found that may be expected to
crop up in most languages.
COUNT/MASS NOUNS: English clearly makes this distinction, though grammar
books often ignore it.
count nouns: cat, book; take "a __" in singular
mass nouns: butter, petrol. "*a butter"; "some butter" " butter is"
cake, fish --> belong to both classes.
no good justification why butter is a mass noun but jelly can be
count as well as mass. Why can we refer to a single mass of jelly as
a jelly but not to a mass of butter as a butter?
Again, while cake can be both mass and count, bread is only
mass. [in olden times, no sliced bread?]
can interchange:
a butter, a petrol = a type of butter or petrol;
a coffee, a beer = cup of coffee; glass of beer
chicken is white meat; The chinese eat dog : mass N
PLURAL: mass Ns are closer to plurals, e.g. in Bilin, the word for water is a
plural.
English: scissors, trousers, tongs etc - formally plural, but
countable.
pronouns - I, we, 2P you, 3P he she it they: combination of deictic
categ, gender, and 1,2, or 3P = speaker, hearer, non-participant.
problematic: 1st person plural: (We in English)
rare for there to be several speakers. - more often refers to both
speaker and hearer, or speaker + non-participant
Similarly, 2P pl - you - may refer to hearer pl or to
hearer+non-participant.
rule for the pron plural: determined by the highest ranking person
involved, and 1p > 2p > 3p
some lgs: distinctive forms for "I and you" or "I and he/she"
sometimes pl forms used for politeness [German sie?]
ARTICLE: (mainly for English)
definite article the: single identifiable item in either lg or
non-lg context; or the most familiar ("the govt" = of our country),
"the garden" = our garden. But in context, may refer to other govts
or gardens or moons.
if item becomes uniquely identifiable, article may be dropped.
E.g. Parliament not the parliament; similarly bank rate.
idiosyncracies: rivers take articles, but cities do not.
Fries 1952: proposes grammar w four parts of speech: N V Adj Adv (though he
doesn't use these terms) - along with 145 sets of "function words".
The Fn words are exemplified by :
the, may, not, very, and, at, do, there, why, although, oh,
yes, listen! please, let's
The Engl conjunctions after, when, while, if, if translated into
Bilin (Ethiopian Cushitic lg) will be inflected on the verb.
Finnish has complex case system; not only nom, acc, ablative etc, but also
elative (out of), illative (into), adessive (on), essive (as).
6.3 Grammar vs Lexicon 130
GRAMMAR vs LEXICON : often posed in terms of whether deviant sentences are ruled out because of grammar or lexicon. e.g. * The boys is in the garden - violates only one grammar rule * Been a when I tomato - violates what? In contrast: * The water is fragile : semantic violation
Semantically ill-formed sentences
arguments for separation: some sentences can be clearly grammatical, but lexically meaningless (e.g. Chomskys C G I S F). Incidentally, Carnap had made a similar point using Engl syntax but nonsense words: Pirots karulize elastically (1937:p.2). Grammar must also argue for illegitimacy of sentences like C G I S F. Some linguists believe that a formal grammar can rule out such COLLOCATIONAL possibilities also; [Joos 1950, 1958:356] argues that all the collocationjal possibilities of a word would be suff to characterize it linguistically. 132 Even Chomsky (1965:95ff) attempts to handle collocational possibilities within grammar, ruling out sentences like *The idea cut the tree, *I drank the bread, etc. These are diff from other invalid Ss like *He elapsed the man (elapse is intransitive, takes no object). Chomsky proposes that a SELECTIONAL RESTRICTION mechanism similar to the latter class can be used for the former - cut would require a 'concrete' subject, and drink a 'liquid' object. But this argument is unsatisfactory. 1. limitless num of components needed - all relevant information must be included in the classes --> infinite 2. fails to account for legimtimate uses where selectional restrictions are violated - e.g. hypothetical : John thought we could drink bread, or with negation: You can't drink bread. Questions the justification for attempting this even, by introspection "as native speakers", our reactions to these classes of errors is different. But there are Ss which are illegit, but the violation cannot be clearly marked as gramm or lexical. e.g. The dog scattered : scatter normally occurs w plurals or collective Ns: (The dogs/herd scattered). So the violation appears grammatical. However, imagine a dog that can break itself up magically and scatter over an area? This would be permitted, but this time on lexical grounds. But should we not say The dog scattered itself even in this situation?
6.4 Grammatical Relations
"sleep in" functions as a unit - The bed's not been slept in. Is the [deep subject] the 'doer' or 'actor and the deep object the 'sufferer' (or patient)? problem w verbs that are not of action but of state: I like ice cream or I saw the boys. More so, e.g. from Halliday 1970:147 General Leathwell won the battle but what did GL do? fire guns, kill enemy, etc? Or did he quietly sit in HQ and let the troops do the work? Was he an 'actor' or 'supervisor'? RELATIONAL GRAMMAR: linguists have argued for such structures (not using the term DS/SS) as universal. Passive transformation: Some lgs do not move the NPs at all - e.g. Hindi [Johnson 1974:271) rAm ne moTer chAlAi (Ram drove the car) rAm se moTar chAlAi gai (The car was driven by Ram) It is only in terms of Subj and Obj that we can make any general, universal statement about passive and active; in all cases, the obj in the active voice becomes the subj in the passive So notions such as subj and obj appear to be useful in many lgs. Problem: Ergative lgs like Basque or Eskimo. 'Subj' of intransitive and 'object' of transitive are in the same (nominative or absolutive) case, while 'subj' of transitive is ergative. (Subj and obj in quotes because they may not be approp to these lgs). example from Basque Transitive as CAUSATIVE: marked in some lgs like Tigrinya (Ethiopia) Engl trans and intrans cook are handled by cuire and faire cuire. Engl has some historical causatives - e.g. He felled the tree --> caused it to fall. Some linguists have argued for the transitive distinction being looked at in terms of causativity. John rang the bell = 'J caused the bell to ring'. 1. But diff between semantic analysis of Engl and formal features in Tigrinya or French 2. Lgs have causatives for transitive vs as well - e.g. Tigrinya: sabbare he broke (something) and asbare he cause (someone) to break (sthing). Both Fr and Ti [and Hindi, but not Beng] wd translate Engl show as 'caused (someone) to see'. also - what can be a causative analysis for John hit Bill? (John caused Bill to be hit) 139
6.5 Components and the sentence
DERIVING SEMANTICS (Katz/Fodor) 140
worth looking at because no one else has made such a clear and detailed
proposal [pre-Montague]
set of PROJECTION RULES that combine (AMALGAMATE) meanings (PATHS)
example of K/F:
the man hit the colorful ball
"colorful ball":
colorful has paths for marking an actual colour, or for the colourful
nature of an aesthetic object (evaluative)
ball has three paths - one as the social activity [dance?], the other with
as (phys object) but distinguished by [having globular shape) and
[solid missile for projection by engine of war] (cannon ball).
But all amalgamations wd not work, e.g. aesth object marker would not bind w
phys object (Palmer washes his hands off with the factual accuracy of this
argument, saying let's go with the argument). So there are only four
combinations - social dance is colourful, or has a colour, or phys ballx2 has
a colour.
hit two paths: colliding with, or striking phys object.
Again this rules out the dance, so we are left w four readings:
[colliding / striking] a [ball / cannonball] that has colour
Problems w such rules. E.g. pregnant would be marked [-male] but how to
permit pregnant horse where the latter is not marked for gender?
Similarly, pretty child, buxom neighbour, etc.
can resolve with what [Weinrich 1966:429-32] calls "transfer feature" -
transferring a feature to another word. But not simple.
6.6 Predicates and arguments
In a S the V is often best seen as a relational feature - active/passive can be treated as relational opposites [5.5]. Analysis in relational terms seems to offer a far more satisf solution to the problem of sentence meaning than componential analysis. In essence such analysis will have much in common w predicate calculus. walk: W(x) love: L(x,y) give: G(x,y,z) Then can define relations e.g. father (x,y) as 'parent of' and +male, as father (x,y) := parent(x,y) ^ male (x) Predicate calculus permits SUBORDINATION - where a whole phrase acts as an argument - e.g. Fred thinks that John loves Mary where J l M is acting as a phrasal argument to [think]: [think] (x, [love](y,z)) causal interpretation of transitives: Killed (J,M) --> [cause](x, [become] (y, [~alive](y))) These can be mapped to trees. Generative semanticists argued that such trees were in fact its deep structure. e.g. I almost killed him - almost can qualify cause (shot at, but missed) become (recovered) or ~alive (shot him, and he was near dead). (last two: distinguishes "nearly became dead" from "became near dead") However, John killed Mary is not identical w _J caused M to become not alive_.
6.7 Case Grammar
Case grammar was proposed by Fillmore as one of the arguments in favour of
generative semantics, but is best understood as a version of an analysis in
terms of predicates and arguments, w emphasis on the function of the
arguments.
three Ss with open:
J opened the door with a key :
The key opened the door
The door opened
J = [agentive]; key = [instrumental] and door = [objective]
[Fillmore 1968] suggests six cases:
- AGENTIVE ('typically animate perceived instigator')
- INSTRUMENTAL ('inanimate force or object causally involved')
- DATIVE ('animate being affected') EXPERIENCER (Fillmore [1971a])
- FACTITIVE ('object or being resulting from the action or state') RESULT
- LOCATIVE ('location or spatial orientation')
- OBJECTIVE ('the semantically most neutral case')
Later, Fillmore 1971a uses EXPERIENCER for dative and RESULT for factitive,
and adds:
- COUNTER-AGENT added as 'the force or resistance against which the
action is carried out
- SOURCE ('the place from which something moves')
- GOAL
and talks of AGENTS and OBJECTS instead of agentive and objective.
Case grammar can capture the inverse relation of teach and learn; and also
account for the difference between J ruined the table and J built the table.
hierarchical ordering of cases: Agent > Experiencer > instrument > object;
i.e. if agent is present, it will be subj, else ...
can't say: * John and the key opened the door or
* The key opened the door by John
* The door opened w a key [can't see why not]
Only if the object is alone can it be the subject
The door opened
In later work [Fillmore 1977] suggests that J smeared the wall w paint or
J smeared paint on the wall; or J sold a book to H or H bought a book from
J; these are changes in PERSPECTIVE and not case.
strange cases:
I saw Helen and a football match
(both are objects, but diff kinds; ?ZUEGMA?)
The smoke rose (smoke is object)
The smoke rose and blotted out the sun (smoke = both object and agent)
What is agency?
The wind blew and opened the door
(is the wind an agent or an instrument?)
agents must be animate and also deliberative? What of
the virus destroyed the cabbages vs
the slugs destroyed the cabbages
AMBIGUITY in case assignments, particularly difficult example:
My ear is twitching
ear could be the agent (since it is doing the twitching) or the experiencer
or even the locative? 149
--6.8: Interrogative / Imperative
Declarative: J shut the door.
Interrogative: Did J shut the door?
Imperative: Shut the door.
But forms can be deceptive:
1. I want to know where you have been
I insist you stay the night
2. Have you heard the news that we won?
Haven't I told you not to do that?
3. Understand that I can't do that
Tell me what you have done.
Instead of Decl, Intr, and Imp, maybe we should use statement, question
and command for these functions. (1) are decl but not statements etc.
(cf [Bar-Hillel 1970:365]).
intonation as a formal mark of the question. e.g. John's coming? (with
rising tone). Trying to incorporate intonational features into grammar is
attractive but problematic.
review:
"I do not know of any better introduction to semantics...it is clearly and forcefully written; and it contains a wealth of examples..." John Lyons, Times Literary Supplement on the first edition.
amitabha mukerjee (mukerjee [at-symbol] gmail) 2011 Sep 03