CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background Of Study
Up to this point in these papers, the emphasis has been on the form of
utterances-their sound pattern, morphological structure, and syntactic
composition. In order for language to fulfill its communicative function, however,
utterances must also attempt to convey a meaning or message. This chapter is
concerned with semantics, the study of meaning in human language. We will
examine four major issues in this field: (1) the nature of meaning, (2) the
contribution of syntactic structure to the interpretation of sentences, (3) the role of
nongrammatical factors in the understanding of utterances, and (4) the possible
influence of language on thought.

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 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

A. Meaning
Long before linguistics existed as a discipline, thinkers were speculating
about the nature of meaning. For thousands of years, this question has been
considered central to philosophy. More recently, it has come to be important in
psychology as well. Contributions to semantics have come from a diverse group
of scholars, ranging from Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece to Bertrand
Russell in the twentieth century. Our goal in this section will be to consider in a
very general way what this research has revealed about the meanings of words and
sentences in human language.

1. Word Meaning
The basic repository of meaning within the grammar is the lexicon, which
provides the information about the meaning of individual words relevant to the
interpretation of sentences: We know very little about the nature of this type of
meaning or how it should be represented. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to review
briefly some of the better-known proposals and their attendant problems.
Referents One well-known approach to semantics attempts to equate a
word's meaning with the entities to which it refers-its referents. According to this
theory, the meaning of the word dog corresponds to the set of entities (dogs) that
it picks out in the real world. Although not inherently implausible, this idea
encounters certain serious difficulties. For one thing, there is a problem with
words such as unicorn and dragon, which have no referent in the real world even
though they are far from meaningless. A problem of a different sort arises with
expressions such as the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the leader of the
Conservative Party, both of which refer (in 1989 at least) to Margaret Thatcher.
Although these two expressions flay have the same referent, we would not say
that they mean the anything. No one would maintain that the phrase Prime
Minister of Great Britain could be defined as `the leader of the Conservative Party
or vice versa.

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 The impossibility of equating a word's meaning whit its referents has led
to a distinction between extension and intension. Whereas a word's extension
corresponds to the set of entities that it picks out in the world, its intension
corresponds to its inherent sense, the concepts that it evokes. Some examples are
given in Table. Thus, the extension of woman would be a set of real word entities
(women) while its intension would involve notions like `female' and 'human'.
Similarly, the phrase Prime Minister of Great Britain would have as its extension
an individual (Margaret Thatcher'), but its intension would involve the concept
'leader of tits majority party in Parliament'. The distinction between a word's
intension and its extension does not allow us to resolve the question of meaning. It
simply permits us to pose it in a new way: what is the nature of a word's inherent
sense or intension?

Table Extension and Intension

Phrase Extension Intension
Prime Minister Of Great Margaret Thatcher Leader of the majority
Britain party in parliament

World Series Champion L.A. Dodgers Winners of the baseball

(1988) championship

Capital Of California Sacramento City containing the state

legislature

One suggestion is that word meanings (intensions) correspond to mental

images. This is an obvious improvement over the referential theory since it is
conceivable that one might have a mental image of a unicorn or a dragon even if
there are no such entities in the real world. Unfortunately, this idea encounters
serious difficulties of another sort. For one thing, it is hard to conceive of a mental
image for words like nitrogen, 522,101, if, very, and so on. Moreover, there seems
to be no mental image for the meaning of the word dog that could be general
enough to include Chihuahuas and Irish wolfhounds, yet still exclude foxes and
wolves.

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 Semantic Features Still another approach to meaning tries to equate a
word's intension with an abstract concept consisting of smaller components called
semantic features. This componential analysis is especially effective when it
comes to representing similarities and differences among words with related
meanings. The feature analysis in Figure for the words man, woman, boy, and girl
illustrates this. An obvious advantage of this approach is that it allows us to group
entities into natural classes (much as we do in phonology). Hence, man and boy
could be grouped together as [+HUMAN, +MALE], while man and woman could
be put in a class defined by the features [+HUMAN, +ADULT].

man: boy:
+ HUMAN + HUMAN
+ MALE + MALE
+ ADULT - ADULT

woman: girl:
+ HUMAN +HUMAN
- MALE - MALE
+ ADULT -ADULT
Figure Semantic feature composition for man, woman, boy, girl

Componential analysis gives its most impressive results when applied to

sets of words referring to classes of entities with shared properties. As illustrated
above, a few simple features will allow us to distinguish among subclasses of
people-men, women, boys, and girls. Unlike phonological features, however,
semantic features do not seem to make up a small, well defined class, and it is
often very hard to reduce word meanings to smaller parts. Can we say, for
example, that the meaning of blue consists of the feature (+COLOR) and
something else? If so, what is that other thing? Isn't it blueness? If so, then we still
have not broken the meaning of blue into smaller features, and we are back where
we started.

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 In other cases, it is unclear whether semantic features really provide any
insights into the nature of the meaning they are supposed to represent. What value
is there, for instance, in characterizing the meaning of dog in terms of the feature
complex (+ANIMAL, +CANINE] so long as there is no further analysis of the
concept underlying the feature (CANINE]? A similar objection could be made to
the use of features like (HUMAN] and [MALE] to define man and woman.
2. Semantic Relations Among Words
Despite the difficulties associated with determining the precise nature of
meaning, it is possible to identify a number of important universal semantic
relations relevant to the analysis of word meaning. Foremost among these are the
relations of synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, and homophony.
Synonymy Words or expressions that have identical meanings are caller
synonyms. Although genuine synonymy is rare in human language, the pair. of
words in Table provide plausible examples of complete or neat synonymy.
Table I. Some English synonyms youth adolescent

Youth Adolescent
Automobile Car
Remember Recall
Purchase Buy
big large

Antonymy Words or phrases that have opposite meanings are called

antonimy. The pairs of words in Table 6.3 provide examples of antonymy.
Table II. Some English antonyms

Dark Light
Male Female
Hot Cold
Up Down
In Out
come go

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 Polysemy and Homophony When a word has two or more meanings that
are at least vaguely related to each other, this is called polysemy (see Table III).
Table III. Some English polysemous words

Iron a type of metal an instrument (made of iron for pressing clothes

Diamond a precious stone a baseball field (in the shape of diamond)
Leaf a part of a tree a sheet of papers

Homophones are words that have a single phonetic form but two or more
entirely distinct meanings (see Table IV).
Table IV. Some English homophones
bat a winged rodent a piece of equipment used in baseball
bank a commercial lending institution a small cliff at the edge of a river
club a social organization a blunt weapon
pen a writing instrument a small cage

In such cases, it is assumed that there are two separate words with the
same pronunciation (rather than a single word with two related meanings).
Polysemy and homophony create lexical ambiguity in that a single word has two
or more meanings. Thus, a sentence such as 1 could mean either that Liz
purchased an instrument to write with or that she bought a small cage.
1. Liz bought a pen.
Of course, in actual speech the context usually makes the intended
meaning clear. Thus, it is improbable that anyone would perceive ambiguity in a
sentence such as 2.
2. He got a loan from the bank.

3. Semantic Relations Involving Sentences

Like words, sentences have meanings that can be analyzed in terms of
their relation to each other. We consider three such relations here-paraphrase,
entailment, and contradiction.

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 Paraphrase. Two sentences with identical meanings are said to be
paraphrases of each other. The following pairs of sentences provide examples of
complete or near paraphrases.
1. a). The police chased the burglar.
b). The burglar was chased by the police.
2. a). I gave the summons to Erin.
b). I gave Erin the summons.
3. a). It is unfortunate that the schooner lost
b). Unfortunately, the schooner lost.
4. a). The game will begin at 3:00 p.m.
b) At 3:00 P.M., the game will begin.

The a and b sentences in each of the above pairs are obviously very similar
in meaning. Indeed, it would be impossible for one sentence in any pair to be true
without the other also being true. Thus, if it is true that the police chased the
burglar, it must also be true that the burglar was chased by the police. For some
linguists, the fact that two sentences must either be both true or both false is an
indication that they have the same meaning. However, you may notice that there
are subtle differences in emphasis between the a and b sentences in 1 to 4. For
instance, it is natural to interpret 1a as a statement about what the police did and
1b as a statement about what happened to the burglar. Similarly, 4b seems to
place. More emphasis on the starting time of the game than 4a does. Some
linguists feel that it would be inefficient for a language to retain two or more
structures with absolutely identical meanings and that perfect paraphrases
therefore do not exist.
Entailment A relation in which the truth of one sentence necessarily,
implies the truth of another, as happens in examples 3 to 6, is called entailment. In
the cases we have been considering, the entailment relation between the a and b
sentences is mutual since the truth of either member of the pair guarantees the
truth of the other. In some cases, however, entailment is asymmetrical. The
following examples illustrate this.

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 1. a). The police wounded the burglar.
b). The burglar is injured.
2. a). The house is red.
b) The house is not white

The sentences in 1 and 2 entail the b sentences. If it is true that 1h

wounded the burglar, and then it must also be true that the burglar is However, the
reverse does not follow since the burglar could be without the police having
wounded him. Similarly, if it is true that the house is red, then it is also true that it
cannot be white. Once again thought reverse does not hold: even if we know that
the house is not white, cannot conclude that it must be red.
Contradiction Sometimes, the truth of one sentence entails the fat another.
This is the case with the examples,
1. a). Charles is a bachelor.
b) Charles is married.
If it is true that Charles is a bachelor, and then it cannot be true that he is
m A relationship wherein the truth of one sentence entails the falsity of sentence
in this way is called a contradiction.
In this section, we have considered some of the major problems associated
with the representation of word meaning as well as some basic semantic relations
and contrasts involving words and sentences. Our next must be to consider how
speakers of a language are able to produce and understand meaningful utterances.
Although much of the work in this N; is quite complex, it is worthwhile to
consider simplified versions of aft representative proposals.

B. Syntactic Structure and Interpretation.

The syntactic representations (tree structures) generated by the graze w are
important not only for determining the form of sentences, but also determining
their interpretation. In this section, we will consider the Relevance of syntactic
structure to three aspects of sentence interpretati0athe representation of structural

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ambiguity, the assignment of thematic role, and the interpretation of reflexive
pronouns.
1. Structure Ambiguity
As noted in the chapter on syntax, some sentences are ambiguous because
their component words can be arranged into phrases in more than one way; this is
called structural ambiguity and is to be distinguished from lexical ambiguity,
which is the result of homophony or polysemy. Structural ambiguity is
exemplified by phrases like old men and women, where we eye take old to be a
property of both the men and the women or of the men alone. These two
interpretations or readings can be linked to separate trot structures, as Figure I
shows. (C = conjunction.) Figure I a corresponds to the reading in which old
modifies men as well as women. This is shown by making the adjective a sister of
the category that dominates both nouns. In Figure I b,

a. b.
NP NP

Adj N Adj NP

N C N C N
Ajd N

Old men and women Old men and women

Another case of structural ambiguity is found in sentences such as:

1. Nicole saw the people with binoculars.
In one interpretation of 1, the people had binoculars when Nicole noticed
them (the phrase with binoculars modifies the noun people), while in the other
interpretation, Nicole saw the people by using the binoculars (the PP modifies the

b.
verb). These two readings can be represented as in Figure II. In Figure II a, the PP
with binoculars combines with the N people, reflecting the first reading for this
sentence. In Figure II b, on the other hand, the PP is a sister of the verb and its
direct object and is not linked in any special way to the N people.

a.
S

NP V
P

NP
N V
De N
PP
t

Nicole saw the people with binocular

b. S

NP VP

N V NP PP

Det N

Nicole saw the people with binocular

As a final example of this type of structural ambiguity, consider the
compound French history teacher, which can refer either to a history teacher who
is French or to a teacher of French history. These two readings can be associated
with the trees depicted in Figure III a and III b, respectively.

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 a. b.
N N

Adj N N N

N N Adj N

French history teacher

French history teacher

The three cases of structural ambiguity just outlined all have it the fact that
the two interpretations can be related to differences in the surface structure tree.
Sometimes, however, ambiguity can be properly characterized only with the help
of deep structure. Consider in this sentence such as the following:
1. Who do you expect to play?
On one reading, 1 can be interpreted as a question about who your
opponent will be (who you will play against) while on another, it asks who
playing. Although it is difficult to see how the grouping of constituent in surface
structure could reflect these different interpretations, cons of the relevant deep
structures provides the needed insight. The first corresponds to example a below,
in which who appears as direct object of play, second interpretation, on the other
hand, is associated with the deep structure depicted in b, in which the wh word is
subject of play. In both Wh Movement will yield the sentence above.
a. You expect to play who.
b. You expect who to play.
The fact that deep structure is needed to represent certain types of
ambiguity provides interesting additional evidence for the view that there are at
least two levels of syntactic structure-deep structure and surface Structure.

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 2. The Interpretation Of Reflexive Pronouns
The interpretation of reflexive pronouns such as himself, herself, or
themselves provides another example of the relevance of syntactic structure to
semantics. Reflexive pronouns are considered to be a type of NP since they occur
in the positions normally reserved for this type of syntactic category. In 1, for
instance, the reflexive pronoun himself occurs in the direct object position.
1. Jim hurt himself.
In order to interpret a reflexive pronoun, it is necessary to identify
elsewhere in the sentence the NP that indicates its referent. In a sentence such as 1
the referent of the reflexive pronoun himself is specified by the NP Jim. The NP
to which a pronoun looks for its interpretation is called its antecedent.
Consider now the following two sentences.
a) [s Clare showed Alice a picture of herself].
b) [s Clare said [s Alice took a picture of herself]].
Most speakers of English find that the first sentence is ambiguous in that
herself can have either Clare or Alice as its antecedent. Thus, the picture
mentioned in a could be of either Clare or Alice. Not so in b. Here, herself can
only take Alice as its antecedent.

C. Other Factors In Sentence Interpretation

Syntactic structure is just one of the factors entering into sentence
interpretation. In order to use a language appropriately, it is also necessary to
understand how the grammar interacts with other systems of knowledge and
belief. Several examples of this interaction are presented in this section.
1. Pragmatic
A major factor in sentence interpretation involves a body of knowledge
that is often called pragmatics. This includes the speaker's and addressee's
background attitudes and beliefs, their understanding of the context in which a
sentence is uttered, and their knowledge of the way of in which language is used
to communicate information. As an example of this following pair of sentences.

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 a) The councilors refused the marchers a parade permit because they
feared violence.
b) The councilors refused the marchers a parade permit because they
advocated violence.
These two sentences have identical syntactic structure, differing only in
the choice of the verb in the second clause (feared in the first sentences vs.
advocated in the second). Yet, the pronoun they is usually interpreted differently
in two sentences.
The Cooperative Principle In many cases, pragmatic knowledge is put to
even subtler uses in the interpretation of sentences. Suppose, for example, that a
ship's captain makes the following entry in the log: The first mate was not drunk
tonight. Although this statement says nothing about the first mate's condition on
other nights, a reader is likely to infer that he has a problem with drunkenness.
This inference does not follow from the literal meaning of the sentence, but rather
from the way in which language used to communicate. Ordinarily, the sentences
we use are supposed to be informative and relevant. This is part of what has been
called the Cooperative Principle for the conversation.
2. Speech Acts
Still another set of factors that must be taken into account in semantic
analysis involves the type of act associated with the utterance of a sentence,
According to one influential proposal, there are three basic speech acts: the
locutionary act, which corresponds to the utterance of a sentence with a particular
meaning; the illocutionary act, which reflects the intent of the speaker in uttering
that sentence (to praise, criticize, warn); and the perlocutionary act, which
involves the effect that the speaker has on his or her addressees in uttering the
sentence. Suppose, for example, that a teacher who is having trouble maintaining
order in the classroom utters the sentence I'll keep you in after class. In uttering
such a sentence, the teacher is Simultaneously producing three speech acts-a
locutionary act (involving utterance of a sentence with the meaning `I'll make you
stay in school later than usual'), an illocutionary act (a warning), and a
perlocutionary act (silencing the students).

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 There-is no one-to-one relationship between syntactic structure and speech
acts. An illocutionary act of warning, for example, could involve (1) a declarative
sentence (a statement), (2) an imperative (a command), (3) a yes-no question, or
(4) a wh question.
a) There's a bear behind you.
b) Run!
c) Did you know there's a bear behind you?
d) What's that bear doing in here?
Similarly, a perlocutionary act aimed at getting someone to open the
window could be expressed in a variety of ways.
a) I wish you'd open the window.
b) Open the window.
c) Could you .open the window?
d) Why don't you open the window?
e) It's awfully hot in here.
Because of the perlocutionary act associated with these utterances, the
appropriate response on the part of the listener should be to open the window.
Speakers of English therefore know that 40c is not to be interpreted as a simple
request for information. Only as a joke would someone responds by saying Yes, I
could and then not do anything about opening the window.
Despite the indirect relationship between sentence structure and speech
acts, there is a small set of verbs whose use makes explicit the illocutionary force
of a sentence. Common examples of these verbs include promise, bet, warn, and
agree.
a) I promise that I'll be there.
b) I bet that the Yankees will lose.
c) I warn you that's not a good idea.
d) I agree that you should do it.

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 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

The study of semantics is concerned with a broad range of phenomena

including the nature of meaning, the role of syntactic structure in the
interpretation of sentences, and the effect of pragmatics and speaker beliefs on the
understanding of utterances. Although serious problems and obstacles remain in
all these areas, work in recent years has at least begun to identify the type of
relations, mechanisms, and principles involved in the understanding of language.
These include the notions of extension and intension in the case of word meaning,
the C-Command Requirement in the case of pronoun interpretation, and thematic
role assignment in the case of sentence interpretation.

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 REFERENCES

Fodor, Janet Dean. 1978. Semantics: Theories of Meaning in Generative

Grammar. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Hurford, James and Brendan Heasley. 1983. Semantics: A Coursehool London:

Cambridge University Press.

Kempson. Ruth. 1977. Semantic Theory. London: Cambridge University Press.

Lyons, John. 1977_ Semantics. Vols. 1 and 2. London: Cambridge University

Press.

McCawley, James. 1981.- Everything That Linguists Have Always Wanted to

Know About Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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