Meaning???

 To understand the meaning (especially the

descriptive meaning) of a word, one needs to turn to
three central pairs of concepts used in semantics,
which are overlapping:
 Sense – Reference
 Intension – Extension
 Connotation - Denotation
 The first-mentioned terms (sense, intension, and
connotation) relate to the conceptual side of
meaning and to the problem of how to provide a
language-internal definition of meaning.
 Meaning???

 On the other hand, the three contrasting terms

(reference, extension, and denotation) relate to
extra-linguistic reality, i.e. to the relation between
language and the world.
 The term reference designates the relation between
entities in the external world and the words which
are used to pick out these entities. The “referent” is
the entity referred to by an expression in a
particular situational context (e.g. people, objects,
events, places, points in time, etc.).
 Meaning???

 Consider the below examples:

a. Take the bottle and put it in the dustbin.
b. He took a bottle and put it in a dustbin.
c. A bottle is in not a dustbin.
 Both (a) and (b) deal with a particular bottle and a
particular dustbin. The only difference between
them is that in (a) the referents of the bottle and the
dustbin are accessible to the hearer. In both cases,
the referents of the/a bottle and the/a dustbin vary
from a situational context of an utterance to another.
 Meaning???

 In (c), matters are different: here a bottle does not refer

to a particular bottle, nor does a dustbin refer to a
particular dustbin. Both noun phrases are thus used in a
non-referring sense. Despite the lack of a referent, both
noun phrases in (c) have an “extension”.
 Extension designates the class of objects to which a
linguistic expression can be applied, i.e. the class of its
potential referents. In example (c) above, the extensions
are the class of all bottles and the class of all dustbins.
A referent of a word is always a member (a subset) of
the class of objects that constitute the word’s extension.
 Meaning???

 Though it can be used synonymously with extension,

the term denotation is understood in a broader
sense covering not only the relation between nouns
or noun phrases and groups of individuals or
objects, but also the relation between words
belonging to other word classes and the extra-
linguistic phenomena they relate to.
 Thus verbs denote situations, adjectives denote
properties of individuals and objects, while adverbs
denote properties of situations.
 Meaning???

 Connotations are typically secondary meanings which

can vary according to culture, region, social class, etc.
and which are often restricted to particular contexts…
 Connotations are part of the encyclopedic meaning of
a lexeme (as apposed to its dictionary meaning, the
much more rigid definition we can find in a dictionary)
 The intension of a linguistic expression is the group of
characteristic features which determine the class of
entities it may be used to refer to, i.e. its extension.
 For example the intension of the word girl includes the
features [+human, -Adult, +female].
 Meaning???

 The sense of an expression is its descriptive

meaning, which - in contrast to reference- is
independent of a particular utterance and the
situational context in which the utterance was made.
 The distinction between sense and reference is useful
when considering expressions that have the same
referent but different senses. Consider the below
examples:
 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
 Scottish Labour politician Gordon Brown
 Tony Blair’s successor as Prime Minister
 Meaning???
 All of those expressions have the same referent,
namely the political leader of the UK at the time.
 The sense of each expression, however is different:
each highlights different properties of the person in
question.
 Additionally the referent of a linguistic expression
may change, while its sense remains the same. For
example: considering that the capital of Germany in
1992 was Bonn and that the capital of Germany
today is Berlin, the referent of “the capital of
Germany” has changed while the sense has not.
 Polysemy: one word-form with two
or more related meanings
 The distinction between sense and reference is also
fundamental because most words in a language
tend to be polysemous, i.e. they will have more
than one sense.
 The word party, for example, has two senses:
(1) an organized political group or
(2) a festival or celebration of some kind.
 These two senses don’t seem very close, but if we consider
another general sense (people united around a common
cause or purpose, we see the missing link. It is this third
sense that was in fact the historical root of both senses.
 Homonymy: one word-form with two
or more unrelated meanings
 There are other cases in which a word has more
than one sense but where these senses are not
related in any way. Thus, the English word grave
has a sense ‘tomb’ (e.g. from the cradle to the grave)
and a sense ‘serious’ (eg a matter of grave concern).
 Grave with the first sense is etymologically related to
the German word “grab”
 Grave with the second sense is derived from the Latin
adjective “gravis” that came into English via Old French.
 Here, two originally different words were collapsed into
one sound shape as a result of the accidents of the
phonetic history of English!
 Polysemy or Homonymy: how can
you make the distinction?
 In principle, the distinction between polysemy and
homonymy is clear. In practice, however, such
distinction requires profound knowledge of complex
language-historical processes!
 In the case of homonymy, we can talk about two
different words instead of one word with different
senses since those senses are unrelated!
 In actual communication, neither polysemy nor
homonymy is problematic because in any referential
expression only one of the several senses of a word
is usually activated.
 Polysemy or Homonymy: how can
you make the distinction?
 To be homonymous (‘having the same name’), words that sound
alike must have different meanings and different origins: thus
bear‘ carry, ’bear‘ grizzly,’ and bare ‘nude,’ corn ‘on the cob,’
‘corn on toe,’ riddle ‘puzzle’ and riddle ‘pierce with holes,’ rock
‘stone’ and rock ‘sway to and fro,’ fit this definition.
 Dictionaries have separate entries for homonyms: thus fast, n. (1)
is ‘religious abstinence…,’ while fast (2) is a nautical term
meaning ‘rope’; seal, n. (1) means ‘fish’ and seal (2) is an
‘imprint device.’
 It should be noted that all homonyms are by definition also
homophones.
 Some homonyms are also homographs – spelled alike: ash, corn,
fast, pupil, sole, seal.
 Semantic relations between words:
Synonymy
 Synonymy is one of the instances where the semantic analysis
moves beyond the description of meaning of individual lexical
items in isolation to study relations holding between two
words or more.
 Synonymy (from the Greek words: syn ‘with, together’+ onym
‘name’ + y or onyma ‘meaning’) is the approximate
equivalence in meaning of two or more words: For example,
quick, fast, rapid, speedy.
 Often the set of words that have similar or overlapping
meanings is quite large. In addition to quick, fast, rapid,
speedy, the Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus lists breakneck,
breathless, brisk, dizzy, fleet, fleet-footed, flying, hasty,
lightning, nippy, rapid-fire, rattling, snappy, swift, whirlwind.
 Semantic relations between words:
Synonymy
 The interesting question arising from such sets is whether the
meanings of these words are fully equivalent. One can be
happy to acknowledge a response to one’s e-mail
describing it as quick, swift, rapid, fast, speedy, but if the
recipient describes the same response as brisk, hasty,
rattling, or snappy, things are not so happy any more.
 So, is absolute synonymy possible?
 It may be possible to have two different words with exactly
the same meanings in all contexts, but this is extremely rare.
Pairs often cited as exhibiting absolute synonymy are
anyhow– anyway, everybody–everyone.
 Semantic relations between words:
Synonymy
 Two words are considered synonymous if they mean the
same thing: in precise technical terms, this means that the
words are fully interchangeable in all contexts of use. As such,
full or total synonymy in general is very hard to find in natural
languages…
 The avoidance of complete synonymy in language can be
seen as the manifestation of a more general principle of
identifying one form with one meaning. This principle
counteracts absolute synonymy; therefore, the most frequent
type of synonymy we find is near-, or partial synonymy.
 Synonyms: same denotations but
different connotations
 Two words might have broadly the same
denotation (i.e. potential reference) but one of them
expresses an additional positive or negative
emotional connotation as part of its sense.
 The list that follows contains nine pairs of words that
evoke either negative or positive feelings. For each
pair, indicate whether it conveys a more favorable
response (+) or a more a negative response (-)…
 Synonyms: same denotations but
different connotations
− Plain Natural +
+ Clever Sly −
− Cackle Giggle +
− Snob Cultured +
− Cop Police officer +
− Skinny Slender +
+ Statesman Politician −
+ Smile Smirk −
 Synonyms: same sense but different stylistic
level (Register/Degree of Formality)
 Register is concerned with the overall tone of a text or
conversation, and the relationship that is built between the
speaker and listener, or reader and writer. It is important to
speak and write in the appropriate register for the
situation.
 Some words are formal or informal, and others are quite
neutral. Examples:
 Rick’s a really nice bloke/guy. [man; informal]
 She is able to converse with everyone, which is a great gift. [have
a conversation; formal]
 Synonyms: same sense but different stylistic
level (Register/Degree of Formality)
 Sometimes it is possible to arrange words into sets of
neutral, formal and informal words.
neutral formal informal
TV/television the box / (the) telly
glasses spectacles specs
clothes clothing/garments gear
use employ/utilise
try endeavour/attempt have a
go/stab/bash/crack/shot at
things issues stuff
 Synonyms: same sense but different stylistic
level (Register/Degree of Formality)

 In present-day English there is a co-existence of

Germanic or Anglo-Saxon words beside synonyms
of Latin or French origin, as in the below examples:
to buy - to purchase
to begin - to commence
to fight - to combat
 The words on the left are of Germanic or Anglo-
Saxon origin and are more frequent in spoken use.
 The words on the right are of Latin or French origin
and are usually confined to written and formal
styles.
 Synonyms: same sense but different stylistic
level (Register/Degree of Formality)

 Practice1: which of the words in each pair is formal

and which is less so (neutral or informal)?
discuss | talk about
inform | tell
chance | opportunity
permit | let
last| previous
give | provide
regarding| about
ask for| request
need| require
get| receive
 Semantic relations between words:
Antonymy (oppositeness)
 In addition to Synonymy, Antonymy is another
instance where the semantic analysis moves beyond
the description of meaning of individual lexical
items in isolation to study relations holding between
two words or more.
 Antonymy covers various types of semantic opposites
… Consider the below examples:
Male Female Hot Cold Teacher Student
Dead Alive Expensive Cheap Employer Employee
Pass Fail Clever Stupid Examiner Examinee
 Semantic relations between words:
Antonymy
 The first group of words (yellow columns) illustrate
complementary or binary antonyms, where there
is an either-or relationship between the two terms of
a pair of semantic opposites.
 Here the two antonyms exhaust all possible options
in a particular conceptual domain. In these cases, the
meaning of one lexeme is equivalent to the negation
of the other (when you are not dead, you are alive;
when you don’t fail, you pass and when you are not
a male you are a female!)
 Semantic relations between words:
Antonymy
 The second group of words (green columns) are
examples of gradable antonyms, where the two
expressions involved constitute opposite poles of a
continuum rather than an either-or relationship. The
negation of one does not imply the opposite.
 In the examples here, each of the two members of
the pairs defines points at opposite ends of a scale,
with transitions in between. For example, ‘warm’,
‘tepid’ or ‘lukewarm’ water has temperatures in
between hot and cold. Similarly, “reasonable” prices
are somewhere in between expensive and cheap.
 Semantic relations between words:
Antonymy
 The great majority of gradable antonyms are pairs
of adjectives which are asymmetric in the sense that
one of the two contrasting lexemes appears in more
contexts than the other. Consider the examples:
 How …(young/old) are you?
 How …(long/short) is it?
 We use old or long respectively rather than young
or short. The terms differ in markedness: the one
with the wider range of uses is unmarked (old, long).
The term with a more limited range of uses is marked
(young, short).
 Semantic relations between words:
Antonymy
 Additionally, the unmarked member carries with it no
presupposition of any kind, unlike the marked member.
Compare the below 2 questions:
 How clever are your opponents?
 How stupid are your opponents?
 The first question is a neutral one, leaving open whether the
opponents are clever or stupid.
 Conversely, the second question comes with a previous
assumption that the opponents are more stupid than
average?
 The difference between the two questions lies in the fact that
clever is the unmarked member while stupid is the marked one.
 Semantic relations between words:
Antonymy
 How can you define the words: robin and rose
 The third group of words in the previous table (blue
columns) demonstrate yet another type of opposites;
namely, relational antonyms. These antonyms describe
the same situation from different perspectives as in:
 I am your teacher. = You are my student.
 She is my employer. = I am her employee.
 He will be our examiner. = We will be his
examinees.
 Relational antonyms include also comparative forms of
adjectives such as older - younger, longer- shorter, etc.)
 Semantic relations between words:
Hyperonymy, Hyponymy and Meronymy
 A robin is a kind of bird, along with many other kinds,
such as chickens, doves, eagles, etc.; therefore, bird
functions as the superordinate term or hyperonym,
while robin and the other terms are hyponyms
subordinated under the major category.
 Similarly, a rose is a type of flowers among many other
types, like Lily, Tulip, Orchid, etc.

 Whereas synonyms and antonyms are not subordinate

or superordinate to one another, such hierarchical
relationships are found in hyperonyms and hyponyms.
 Semantic relations between words:
Hyperonymy, Hyponymy and Meronymy
 Hyponymy (hypo ‘under’ + onym ‘name’ + y) refers to
a hierarchical relationship where the meaning of a
word is subsumed under the more general meaning of
another word. For example, oak, beech, poplar are
types of tree and are thus subsumed under it.
 Thus, the words oak, beech and poplar are hyponyms of
the word tree.
 Tree, on the other hand, is referred to as the
superordinate word, or hyperonym (hyper ‘over’ +
onym ‘name’)
 Semantic relations between words:
Hyperonymy, Hyponymy and Meronymy
 A special case of subordination is of the kind:
Sleeve – Shirt
Finger – Hand
 This type of subordinate relations is referred to as
meronymy, where one term refers to a constituent part
of another (part-whole relations).
 Meronym (mero ‘part’ + onym): a word denoting an
object which forms part of another object, as a page is
of a book or the lead is of a pencil.
 The notion of meronymy is closely related to hyponymy, yet
they should not be confused!