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DIMENSIONS OF MEANING

HOME ASSIGNMENT (1/6)

You spelled "do" wrong.

In this example, adding "not" to "do" does not make a negation. It
informs which words were spelled wrong.

object language metalanguage

The language whose The language in which we

meanings we are describing describe these meanings

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HOME ASSIGNMENT (2/6)

•There isn't no other way.
= There's some other way.

•There isn't no other way!

= There's no other way!

I didn't go nowhere today.

vs
I didn't not go to the park today.

HOME ASSIGNMENT (3/6)

Two friends are discussing their plans for the weekend. One of them
tends to say "I'm not playing darts this weekend", which every single
time turns out to be false. The friends are aware of that. His female
friend says "I'm not going to the cinema this weekend", imitating her
friend’s intonation and accent. Everyone understands that she is
actually going to the cinema.

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HOME ASSIGNMENT (4/6)

I couldn’t care less. (BrE) vs I could care less. (AmE)

HOME ASSIGNMENT (5/6)

1. I didn’t like it. I loved it.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJYE20cO8h0 (starting at 2.54)

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HOME ASSIGNMENT (6/6)

Polish examples:
Cokolwiek się (nie) wydarzy, zawsze Ci pomogę.

Jakkolwiek by (nie) próbowała, nie udawało jej się znaleźć sposobu

DIMENSIONS OF MEANING

From word meaning to sentence meaning

The dog has ruined my blue skirt!

We could describe the meaning of the sentence as follows:

the situation at the time of utterance results from a previous event in which a
dog that is uniquely determined in the CoU ruined a blue skirt which is
uniquely determined by its being linked to the speaker.

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DIMENSIONS OF MEANING

The meaning of a content The meaning of a sentence

word (noun, verb, adjective)
a concept that provides a a concept that provides a
mental description of a certain mental description of a certain
kind of entity. kind of situation.

DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

Descriptive meaning (propositional meaning): the dimension of

meaning that bears on reference and truth.

It is usually not simply words that have referents.

Adjectives never have a referent of their own, but they always

describe the referent of some NP. Their referents are borrowed.

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DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

All this notwithstanding, it makes sense to talk of the potential

referents of content words.

The descriptive meaning of a content word is a concept for its

(potential) referents

When a sentence is used in a particular CoU, the addressees will try

to fix referents that match the descriptions. However, it may be
impossible to fix referents, if the sentence is not true, e.g.

There’s a letter for you

DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

The descriptive meaning of a sentence (often called its

proposition) is a concept that provides a mental description of the
kind of situations it (potentially) refers to.

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DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

This table gives a survey of different types of potentially referring
expressions, their respective descriptive meanings and types of referents.

DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

The truth conditions of a sentence are the conditions under which

it is true.

The sentence The dog has ruined my blue skirt is true in a given CoU
if and only if the following holds:
The situation at the time of utterance results from a previous event in which a
dog that is uniquely determined in the CoU ruined a blue skirt which is
uniquely determined by its being linked to the speaker.

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DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

John didn’t eat the cake and the ice cream.

What would have to be true in the world for this sentence to be true?

“John didn’t eat [the cake and the ice cream together].”
Truth condition: John did not eat both things.
This allows:
He ate the cake, but not the ice cream
He ate the ice cream, but not the cake JOINT INTERPRETATION
He ate neither
He ate both

“John didn’t eat the cake, and he didn’t eat the ice cream.”
Truth condition: John ate neither the cake nor the ice cream.
This is a stronger reading:
He ate both
He ate one DISTRIBUTIVE INTERPRETATION
He ate neither

DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

Compare this with:
John ate the cake and the ice cream.

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DESCRIPTIVE MEANING (PROPOSITIONAL MEANING)

Want a real life example? Pulsifier vs US

After pleading guilty to distributing at least 50 grams of methampheta

mine, petitioner Mark Pulsifer faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 15
years in prison. At sentencing, he sought to take advantage of the “safety
valve” provision of federal sentencing law, which allows a sentencing court
to disregard the statutory minimum if a defendant meets five criteria.
Among those is the requirement, set out in Para graph (f)(1), that the
sentencing court find that—
the defendant does not have—
(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal
history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined
under the sentencing guidelines;
(B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing
guidelines; and
(C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the
sentencing guidelines.

PROPOSITION AND SENTENCE TYPE

proposition - the meaning of a sentence that makes a statement

about some state of affairs. As such, a proposition has a truth value;
it can be either true or false.

1) The dog has ruined my blue skirt.

2) My blue skirt has been ruined by the dog.
3) What the dog has ruined is my blue skirt
4) It was my blue skirt that the dog has ruined

But what about the following sentence?

5) Has the dog ruined my blue skirt?

 propositional content

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PROPOSITION AND SENTENCE TYPE

A declarative sentence presents the situation expressed as actually

pertaining (useful for making assertions and communicating
information).

An interrogative sentence leaves open whether or not the situation

pertains (useful for asking questions).

Are there any other sentence types?

PROPOSITION AND SENTENCE TYPE

Imperative sentences
Don’t ruin my blue skirt!

Imperative sentences express the proposition as a desirable state of

affairs.

Sentence type Discourse function

declarative Making assertions
(statements)
interrogative Asking questions
imperative Giving commands and advice;
making requests, making an
offer

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PROPOSITION AND SENTENCE TYPE

Consider the following sentences:

Are you mad?

My cup is empty.

Can you open the window, please?

Is that how you talk to your mother?

Do you know what time it is?

Suppose he goes away.

I’ll thnk about this.

LANCASTER SUMMER SCHOOLS IN CORPUS LINGUISTICS

LANCASTER SUMMER SCHOOLS IN CORPUS LINGUISTICS
16-20 June 2025
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

Lancaster Summer Schools in Corpus Linguistics are held annually during the summer at Lancaster
University. Taking part in the summer schools offers a wonderful opportunity to learn about corpus
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working on exciting projects and topics. Lancaster summer schools are a truly international event, each
year welcoming participants from over 30 countries in the world. While the participants come to Lancaster
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place for developing new academic collaborations and building new friendships.
In 2025, our annual Summer Schools in Corpus Linguistics in Lancaster will take place in person. The
programme includes both lectures and practical sessions that introduce the latest developments in the
field and practical applications of cutting-edge analytical techniques. The summer schools are taught by
leading experts in the field from Lancaster University. The summer schools are open to undergraduate,
postgraduate and doctoral students as well as postdoctoral researchers and senior researchers. The
summer schools are free to attend.
In 2025, we will offer the following two summer schools (for further details, click through to each Summer
School’s full description):

Corpus linguistics for analysis of language, discourse and society

Corpus linguistics for language testing and assessment
https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/corpussummerschools/

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SOCIAL MEANING

Language is a social instrument

Social meaning
• it is a dimension of the lexical meaning of certain words, phrases or grammatical
forms.
• If an expression has social meaning, it has so independently of the particular CoU.
• Most expressions and grammatical forms do not have social meaning, but some do

SOCIAL MEANING

(1) Ihre Fahrkarte, bitte.

(2) Deine Fahrkarte, bitte.
(3) Your ticket, please.
German pronoun Grammar Formality Addressee

Ihre possessive Formal, polite An adult, no

pronoun; speech; acquaintance of the
3rd person plural speaker
(just like their in
English)
you
Deine possessive Informal A child, a relative, an
pronoun; acquaintance
2nd person
singular (just like
your in English)

The descriptive meaning of Ihre/deine and you is the same, but the social
meaning is different. When speaking German, the inspector is forced
to choose between the formal and the informal way of address.

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SOCIAL MEANING

How about these Polish sentences?

(1) Czy ma Pani bilet? Dziękuję.
(2) Czy (ty) masz bilet? Dziękuję.

The distinction between ty and Pan/Pani/Państwo is also relevant in

other aspects. It coincides with the use of first names/surnames.

Zejdzie Pani na dół, Pani Asiu?

Zejdziesz na dół, Asiu?

SOCIAL MEANING
please
The addition of please does not change the proposition. Rather it
marks the request as modestly polite. Please is thus a mere formality
marker, indicating a certain kind of social relationship between
speaker and addressee(s).

thanks
No descriptive meaning either. It serves as a slightly formal response
that counts as a recognition of a favour or service.

Other examples?

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SOCIAL MEANING
Other examples?
• phrases of greeting (Hi) or saying goodbye (toodle-oo),
• phrases of apologizing (sorry),
• recognizing (thank you, ta),
• answering the phone
• honorifics (forms of address and self reference; Mr, Ms, Miss, Mrs,
Mstr, Messrs, Mx; Sir, Lady, Doctor, your honour, father – when
addressing a priest)

SOCIAL MEANING
Guess the expression:
• used to mean "thank you"
• used to mean "goodbye"
• a friendly expression said just before you drink an alcoholic drink

Cheers

Guess the expression:

• used as a friendly answer when someone thanks you for something
you have done
• said to show that you will or can do what someone has asked you
to
• used for telling someone not to be concerned about something

No worries

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SOCIAL MEANING: DOES IT MATTER?

please

EXPRESSIVE MEANING
Many utterances serve, consciously or not, the expression of personal
feelings, evaluations and attitudes. This does not mean they have
expressive meaning.

An expression or a grammatical form has expressive meaning

if and only if it conventionally serves the immediate
expression of subjective sensations, emotions, affections,
evaluations or attitudes.

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EXPRESSIVE MEANING
Expressives
Interjections: ouch, wow, oh, ah
Exclamations: God damn it! Oh my goodness! Holy Guacamole!

minced oath

Some feelings, sensations, attitudes and evaluations can be expressed

in two ways: subjectively and immediately by means of expressives,
and propositionally by forming sentences with the respective
descriptive meaning.
Ouch! vs That hurts!

Interjections and exclamations can be used as complete utterances.

Other expressives such as hopefully, (un)fortunately or thank God can
be inserted into a sentence.

EXPRESSIVE MEANING
Swear words can also be considered to be expressives.

1. What the fuck does that mean?

2. It fucking hurts!

3. That bloody bastard!

They add an emotional charge to the whole utterance. None of them

changes the proposition.

4. From here on in, you can consider my ass retired.

An emotionally charged term that clearly has reference.

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EXPRESSIVE MEANING
Emotionally charged terms for people:
 darling, baby, honey
 idiot, bastard, motherfucker or ass-hole

Examples of racial dysphemisms:

frog - a French person
kraut – a German person
slant – any East Asian
? – a Pole

For more, visit: List of ethnic slurs - Wikipedia

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vUF9dZdNSg0?feature=share

-> in-group solidarity markers

EXPRESSIVE MEANING

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EXPRESSIVE MEANING
The phenomenon extends to expressions for men, women, children,
body parts or other things of central importance in everyday life, such
as certain animals, vehicles, housing, food, clothes, as well as to the
most common activities: walking, talking, working, eating, drinking,
sleeping or sexual activities.

There are many dirty words, while positive meanings are

rare.

EXPRESSIVE MEANING

The word paw dehumanizes the referent.

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CONNOTATIONS
Imagine a pig.

Why are pigs dirty?

A connotation is the conventional association that an expression

evokes.

Connotations such as ‘dirty’ for pigs are neither part of the

descriptive meaning of pig (clean pigs can perfectly be referred to as
pigs) nor do they constitute expressive meaning (the word pig can be
used in an expressively neutral way).

Connotations contribute to the semantic motivation of certain (swear)

words. You pig!

For some authors connotation is synonymous with expressive

meaning

CONNOTATIONS

Negative connotations are responsible for euphemisms

The semantic field of death (pass away for die) and that of sexuality
(cf. indirect terms like intercourse, sleep with s.o., make love, etc.)

Negative connotations are responsible for much of political

correctness (blacks, homosexuals, handicapped -> disabled ->
challenged).

What about głuchy, głuchoniemy, niepełnosprawny?

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CONNOTATIONS
The connotations of some existing words often lead to its replacement
by another word or phrase, usually with some revision of meaning.

Gendered words
man(kind) ‘human beings, people’,
chairman ‘chairperson, chair’,
or actress ‘female actor’
waiter or waitress -> server or waitperson
Salesman -> salesperson
Pregnant woman -> pregnant person

‘‘Bribes, graft and expenses-paid vacations are never talked about on

Capitol Hill. Honorariums, campaign contributions and per diem
travel reimbursements are.’’ Time Australia (April 17, 1989: 36)

CONNOTATIONS
let someone go
dehire
helping the police with their enquiries
tired and emotional
Rainbow's End
negative patient care outcome
patient failed to fulfill his wellness potential
sanitation engineer
a preloved object
opportunity shop
enhanced interrogation
final solution to the Jewish question
special military operation

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CONNOTATIONS
Euphemism treadmill
(dubbed euphemism cycle by Sharon Henderson Taylor in 1974)

 "Water closet" becomes "toilet" (originally a term for any body care, as
in "toilet kit"), which becomes "bathroom," which becomes "rest room,"
which becomes "lavatory."
 "Garbage collection" turns into "sanitation," which turns into
"environmental services”.
 People invent new "polite" words to refer to emotionally laden or
distasteful things, but the euphemism becomes tainted by association
and the new one that must be found acquires its own negative
connotations.
(Pinker 1994)

CONNOTATIONS
Cool – Originally jazz slang, meaning calm, hip, detached.

Rad / Radical – Skater and surfer slang, meaning impressive or awesome.

Awesome – Reached peak popularity in the 1980s. Still used, but somewhat diluted.

Sick – Ironic slang where “sick” means really cool or impressive.

Dope – From hip-hop culture, meaning excellent or powerful.
Legit – Used to mean genuinely impressive or trustworthy.

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CONNOTATIONS
Lit – Originally meant intoxicated, later meant exciting or amazing.
Fire – Means really impressive, often used about music, outfits, etc.
On fleek – Peaked in mid-2010s (especially for eyebrows!), meaning perfectly styled.

Chef’s kiss – Meme-based expression for something perfect.

Next level – Describes something exceptionally impressive

The hype treadmill?

CONNOTATIONS

Connotations are culture-specific

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CONNOTATIONS

BEYOND INDIVIDUAL WORDS

Shm-reduplication
Baby – shmaby
Sale – schmale
Fancy-schmancy

Hypocorisms in English
Izzy
coldie

Diminutive & augmentive forms in Polish

śledzik
zębisko

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BEYOND INDIVIDUAL WORDS

Insultive you + noun

BEYOND INDIVIDUAL WORDS

Insultive you + noun

75% of all cases of you + NP are impolite

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BEYOND INDIVIDUAL WORDS

92% of all cases of you + NP are impolite

SOURCES

Understanding semantics by Sebastian Loebner (2013)

Chapter 2

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