Brinton and Brinton Sense relations.

1. Traditional semantics
 the traditional approach tends to be prescriptive
 to assume that there is just one true meaning for a word is mistaken.
 Dictionaries do not provide every meaning of a phrase/word
 Word meaning is a matter of both social agreement and use, that’s why they are imprecise
and fluid
 E.g. brother-in-law = your sister’s husband/ your husband’s brother/ your wife’s brother or
all of the above
 Some word lost their actual meaning, e.g. desultory, they inherited a new one
 The traditional view of semantics ignores some of the meaningful phonological features,
such as intonation and stress, the significance of the communicative context etc.
 The relation between a word and the world is quite complex (the traditional semantics
assumes) that it is simple and direct) --- we must rely on the context --it is culturally assigned
and generally accepted
 The extension – the class of entities that a word denotes in the world
 The intension – the set of properties shared by all the referents of a word
 The extension may be the same while the intension differs
 We should not take the meanings of individual words separately --- words enter into various
sense relations with other words in the language
 When it comes to some networks, the meanings of the words are interdependent

2. Basic semantic relationships

 Paraphrase = it goes both ways; e.g. Philip purchased an automobile / Philip bought a
car. (the first sentence has the same meaning as the second one)
 Entailment = it is one way; e.g. Alan lives in Toronto entails Alan lives in Canada. (the
second utterance is a logically necessary consequence of the first.)
 Inclusion = one utterance includes another; e.g. I like fruit includes I like apples. (the
relation is unidirectional)
 Contradiction = if one utterance is true, the other must be false; e.g. He is an orphan
contradicts His parents are living.
 Anomaly = an utterance has no meaning in the everyday world; e.g. He swallowed a
dream.
 Lexical Ambiguity = more than one meaning in the context; e.g. an old friend
 Denotation/ connotation = literal meaning (D), figurative meaning (C); e.g. soldier-
warrior / draft (cold and undesired) and breeze (cool and desired)
 Words also carry social meaning – age, sex, social class, race
 Polysemy = a word has more than one meaning, the meanings should have at least a
common feature; e.g. court: enclosed area, retinue of a sovereign, judicial tribunal
  Homonymy = two words are written and sound the same, but are different in meaning;
e.g. swallow1 = to ingest, swallow2 = a type of bird (HINT !!!! – If the two forms belong to
different parts of speech one may simply conclude that they are homonyms)
 Meronymy = a word denotes part of a whole; e.g. week – month
 Presupposition = you assume or take something/someone for granted; e.g. My teacher
gave a boring lecture. Individual words may carry or trigger presuppositions.
 HINT! In order to distinguish presupposition from entailment we should know that
entailment doesn’t hold up under negation.

3. Structural semantics
 Synonymy = it denotes sameness in meaning; e.g. unhappy/sad, casual/informal,
flourish/thrive. Synonymy is context-dependent. It recognizes only the denotation of a
word.
 Hyponymy = is a relation of inclusion or entailment. The meaning of the hyponym
includes the meaning of the superordinate term. (red includes scarlet, crimson, etc.).
This relationship works in only one direction: if roses is a hyponym of the superordinate
term flowers, then I bought some roses entails I bought some flowers, but I bought
some flowers does not entail I bought some roses.
 Complexities (p.152)
 Complementarity = can be translated as a relation of contradiction. X is not Y and Y is
not X; e.g. single-married, male-female
 Antonymy = gradable concepts which may be compared; e.g. big-small/little. Scalar
adjectives – there is always an implicit comparison to a norm. e.g. A small elephant is a
large animal. / A large mouse is a small animal. Antonymous pairs typically permit
intermediate stages. E.g. between often and seldom we have occasionally and
sometimes. ---- In a scalar pair, one is unmarked (this will fit more naturally into the
context) and one is marked. E.g. How old are you? Instead of How young are you?
 Converseness = denotes a kind of reversal. E.g. You sell, I buy. / I buy, you sell; zip/unzip;
outside/inside etc. ----Symmetry: Helen is married to David and David is married to
Helen = Helen and David are married.

4. Sematic features
 Semantic features are usually presented as a matter of opposition, denoting the
presence or absence of the particular feature in the meaning of the word.
 the choice of supposedly universal features is somehow arbitrary
 in theory, every word can be accounted for by a unique set of features
 features can be used to compare words and talk systematically about sense relations

4.1.Feature analysis of nouns

 Nouns can be: count/concrete/collective; noncount/abstract/noncollective;
noncount/concrete/collective
  Nouns will be analyzed with the following set of semantic features: common, count,
concrete, collective, animate, human, male, collective.

4.2.Feature analysis of verbal predicates

 We have four semantic features for verbal predicates: stative, durative, telic, voluntary
 Stative = the situation denoted by the verb involves change or not
 Durative = the situation either goes on in time or occurs at a moment in time
 Telic = this feature recognizes whether the situation has an endpoint or goal which is
necessary for the situation to be what it is or has no necessary conclusion
 Voluntary = the action is intentional or not.