Contrastive grammar and semantics, part 2

Introduction

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet…”

(W. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

“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.”

(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

Semantics

from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikós, "significant“

● the study of meaning;

● the expressive aspect of language in general;

● the meaning of one particular word in all its varied aspects and nuances.

Semasiology syn. semantics (1900, M. Breal “Semantics”)

Linguistic semantics looks at the way an individual language structures the world for its speakers, and
analyses the sense relations that can be set up between different words or groups of words (2007, R.
Hartmann).

Semantic space is distributed differently from one language to another (L. Hjelmslev)

Contrastive semantics deals with the differences in semantic structures of contrasted languages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKK7wGAYP6k

Comparative linguistics

◦ Comparative linguistics is an umbrella term to denote all types of linguistic enterprises founded
on the assumption that languages can be compared.

◦ (Andreichuk N., Babelyuk O. CONTRASTIVE LEXICOLOGY OF ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN

LANGUAGES: THEORY AND PRACTICE)
Historical Comparative Linguistics
to classify the languages of the world, to sort them out and to assign them to genetic families and thus
to ascertain the kinship between related languages and description of their evolution in time and space
Descriptive Synchronic
Comparative Linguistics: Typological linguistics
◦ deals with establishing similar general linguistic categories serving as a basis for the classification
of languages of different types.

◦ languages are typologically grouped according to their present-day characteristics, no reference

being made to the histories of languages, not even to their historical relatedness.

◦ Contrastive typology aims at establishing the most general structural types of languages on the
basis of their dominant or common lexical features

◦ I.V. Korunets

◦ Linguistic universals, a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially
true for all of them (e.g. semantic field of color terms: black/dark and white/bright; kinship
terms: father, mother);

◦ Isomorphic features, i.e. common features, observed in all the compared languages (e.g. for
English and Ukrainian: color terms: red, yellow, green, gray, orange, brown, pink, etc.).
 ◦ Allomorphic features, i.e. divergent features, observed in one language and missing in others
(e.g. blue vs синій або голубий; mother-in-law vs теща або свекруха, spouse vs дружина або
чоловік);

● https://www.coursera.org/lecture/human-language/semantics-5LCCn
● https://www.coursera.org/lecture/human-language/discussion-with-marten-and-inge-color-
and-snow-2WMrC

Typological study of lexicon

I.V. Korunets

◦ The principal constants

▫ Words, their semantic classes and word-forming means as well as their structural
models and stylistic peculiarities

▫ Lexico-semantic groups (LSGs) of words

▫ Stable and idiomatic expressions

◦ The systemic organization of lexicon is conditioned by lingual and extralingual factors which are
of universal nature

◦ Linguistic factors:

▫ common LG nature (notional and functional words),

▫ common LSG,

▫ peculiar stylistic function and meaning,

▫ denotative and connotative meaning, etc.

◦ Extralingual factors:

▫ Physical and mental,

◦ physical needs of human being: live, eat, drink, sleep…

◦ common mental activity: speak, think, ask, decide…

▫ Environmental: the sun, the moon, the wind, plants, colours,

▫ Social: mother, father, child, sister…

Common layers of lexicon

• Dialectal, professional, poetic, archaic, slang, international elements vs nationally specific
lexicon, etc.
• Internationalisms

• Genuine: parliament, poet, theater, forum, history…

 • Lexical loans: specific weight/ питома вага, the law of gravitation/ закон земного
тяжіння, addition/ додавання, subtraction/ віднімання…

• Nationally specific/ culturally biased lexicon: shilling, dollar, haggis, Yorkshire pudding;
кутя, вареники, бандурист, кобзар
Descriptive Synchronic Comparative Linguistics: Contrastive linguistics

◦ CL is a particular linguistic enterprise within the field of descriptive synchronic comparative

linguistics aimed at producing description of one language from the perspective of another and
concerned with in depth analysis of similarities and contrasts that hold between them.

◦ The purpose of contrastive studies is to compare linguistic and socio-cultural data across
different languages (cross-linguistic/cultural perspective) or within individual languages (intra-
linguistic/cultural perspective) in order to establish language-specific, typological and/or
universal patterns, categories, and features. Contrastive linguistics compares and contrasts
languages which need not be culturally related (‘socio-culturally linked’).
◦ Contrastive linguistics is the systematic comparison of two or more languages, with the aim of
describing their similarities and differences,

◦ focusing, however, on differences (basis for typological description),

◦ it is predominantly practical (translation, foreign language teaching and learning,

bilingual lexicography (dictionaries))
◦ The term “contrastive linguistics” was used for the first time by Whorf in 1941.

◦ Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, formulated in Robert Lado’s Linguistics Across Cultures (1957).

◦ Tertium comparationis or common platform of comparison

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)

Anna Wierzbicka
◦ Semantic primitives/ primes

◦ universal concepts

◦ semantic categories shared by all languages

◦ every language shares a core vocabulary of concepts

◦ the elements which can be used to define the meaning of words (or any other
meanings) cannot be defined themselves;

◦ a set of universal semantic atoms in terms of which all conceivable meanings can be
expressed
A set of universal semantic primitives offers us a common measure and thus makes it
possible to study the extent of semantic differences between languages.

A.Wierzbicka’s Semantic Primitives (65 items currently)

◦ Substantives: you, I; someone, people; something
Mental predicates: think, know, want, feel, see, hear
Speech: say
Actions, events, and movement: do, happen, move
Existence and life: be (there s/are), live
Determiners and quantifiers: this, the same, other; one, two, many / much, some, all
Augmentor: more
Evaluators: good, bad
Descriptors: big, small
Time: when, after, before, a long time, a short time, now
Space: where; far, near; under, above; side; inside; here
Interclausal linkers: because, if, if …would
Clause Operators: not, maybe
Metapredicate: can
Intensifier: very
Taxonomy, partonomy: kind of, part of
Similarity: like

• An example: happy
◦ X feels happy. =

X feels something

sometimes a person thinks something like this:

something good happened to me

I wanted this
I don’t want anything more now

because of this, this person feels something good

X feels like this
The Subject Matter of Contrastive Semantics
Linguistic semantics

Linguistic semantics looks at the way an individual language structures the world for its speakers, and
analyses the sense relations that can be set up between different words or groups of words (2007, R.
Hartmann).

Semantics studies the meaning, i.e. assignment of linguistic symbols to extra-language objects in a
broad sense.

How do words acquire meaning?

Arbitrariness and conventionality of linguistic signs

◦ Ferdinand de Saussure (1916)
Linguistic signs are bilateral, i.e. every linguistic sign has two aspects which are inseparably
connected: the sound sequence (signifier) on the level of expression, and the concept (signified)
on the level of meaning.

The relationship between the sound sequence and the concept of a linguistic sign is said to
be arbitrary, i.e. predetermined by convention only.
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2PDhtqDgKg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5vhq3aRNjE
Charles Sanders Peirce
'we think only in signs’
'A sign... [in the form of a representamen] is something which stands to somebody for something in
some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an
equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of
the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in
reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen’

◦ Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is
fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g.
language in general, numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags;

◦ Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbitrary but is directly connected in some
way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. 'natural
signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints), medical symptoms (pain, a rash), 'signals' (a phone ringing),
pointers (a pointing 'index' finger), recordings (a photograph, a film), personal 'trademarks'
(handwriting) and indexical words ('that', 'this', 'here', 'there').

◦ Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified -
being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model,
onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme music’;
Semantics in a linguistic model

A three-dimensional linguistic model (S.Ullmann)

Semantics vs pragmatics

◦ Semantics is concerned with language as a system; it deals with the conventional meaning
conveyed by the words and sentences of a language. It is mainly concerned with context-
independent meaning

◦ Pragmatics is concerned with how speakers use language; examines meaning in context; deals
with aspects of individual usage and
context-dependent meaning

◦ https://www.coursera.org/lecture/human-language/layers-of-meaning-uK8lb

Subfields of semantics:

◦ Lyons (1995) defines semantics as the study of meaning and linguistic semantics as the
study of meaning in so far as it is systematically encoded in the vocabulary and
grammar of natural languages.

◦ lexical semantics, which deals with the meaning of words and meaning relationships
within the lexicon
◦ sentence semantics, which studies the meaning of syntactic units larger than words (i.e.
phrases, clauses, and sentences) and the meaning relationships between them
Areas in the study of meaning
Alan Cruse (2000)
● Lexical semantics focuses on ‘content’ words (tiger, daffodil, inconsiderate) rather than
‘grammatical’ words (the, of , and).

● Grammatical semantics studies aspects of meaning which have direct relevance to syntax.

● Logical semantics (also called formal semantics) studies the relations between natural language
and formal logical systems such as propositional and predicate calculi.

Lexical semantics

◦ The units of analysis in lexical semantics - lexical units:

◦ words

◦ affixes

◦ phrases

LS deals with

◦ the classification and decomposition of lexical items

◦ the differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure cross-linguistically

◦ the relationship of lexical meaning to sentence meaning and syntax

The definition of the word

◦ The syntactic criterion

◦ the smallest part of the sentence (Dionisius Frakiyskiy)

◦ a minimum sentence (H.Sweet)

◦ a minimum free form (L.Bloomfield)

◦ The semantic-logical criterion

◦ the sign of a separate notion (W. Humboldt, D. Kudryavskyy)

◦ The psychological criterion

◦ a linguistic equivalent of a separate concept (W. Wundt)

◦ The semantic-phonological criterion

◦ an articulate sound-symbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about

(A.H. Gardiner)

◦ The semantic criterion

◦ meaningful units of connected discourse (S. Ullmann)

◦ The syntactic-semantic criterion

 ◦ the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated “meaning” into which the sentence
resolves itself (E. Sapir)

◦ The combination of semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria

◦ association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a

particular grammatical employment (A. Meillet)

The word

◦ the basic unit of the language system resulting from the association of a particular meaning with
a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment;

◦ simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit of the lexical system of a

language;

◦ the largest unit on morphological level and the smallest unit on the syntactic plane of linguistic
analysis

◦ a unit of speech which, as such, serves the purposes of human communication (a unit of
communication);

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP4TOiW9Hmk

Lexicon

◦ (Gr. ‘lexikos’ denoting ‘of/from words’) a book containing a selection of the words of a
language and meanings, arranged in alphabetical order (the early 17 th cent);

◦ the total stock of meaningful units in a language (words, idioms, parts of words that
express meaning, i.e. prefixes, suffixes);

According to L.Lipka, the lexicon

◦ a) a metalinguistic level, or a subcomponent in a linguistic model;

◦ b) vocabulary as seen from a systematic, synchronic point of view.

◦ The system

◦ denotes a homogeneous whole, constituted by independent elements of the same

order related in certain specific ways [Arnold 1973, p. 12];

◦ a set of elements associated and functioning together according to certain laws;

◦ The lexical system of every language contains productive elements typical of this particular
period, others that are archaic and are dropping out of usage, and, finally, some new
phenomena, neologisms.

The lexical system

The lexicon is the structured word-store of a language, consists of certain units which are related to each
other in a twofold way: syntagmatically and paradigmatically
 ◦ Syntagmatic
◦ He got a letter

◦ He got tired
◦ He got to London

◦ He could not get the piano through the door

◦ Paradigmatic

◦ To go a mile

◦ run

◦ walk

◦ stroll

Technical terms
◦ The lexeme is an abstract unit of the lexicon (lexis, vocabulary) of a language, lexical item;
comprises a group of word-forms (lexeme find is realized by find, found). Its form is governed by
sound and writing, its content – by meaning and use: deforestation – 1 lexeme, anger – 2
lexemes.

◦ The word-form is inflectional or other variants of the lexeme on the morphological,

phonological or grammatical level.
◦ The lexical unit is the union of a lexical form and a single sense. It is related to the various
‘senses’ of a polysemous word. The lexeme is a ‘family’ of lexical units.

[Cruse, 1986]

◦ The lemma is a headword representing a set of all the inflected forms of a lexeme in a dictionary
(the least marked, basic form of the lexeme)

The development of lexical semantics

 Historical-philological semantics (1830-1930), Michel Bréal, Hermann Paul, Albert Carnoy and
Gustaf Stern. Basic interest lies in change of meaning; classifications of mechanisms of semantic
change, like metaphor, metonymy, generalization, specialization.

 Structuralist semantics (1930-1960), Jost Trier, Leo Weisgerber. Approaches: lexical field theory,
relational semantics, and componential analysis.

 Generativist semantics (1960-1970), Katz and Fodor, a theory of generative grammar holding
that the deep structure of a sentence is equivalent to its semantic representation, from which
the surface structure can then be derived using only one set of rules that relate underlying
meaning and surface form. Formalization.
  Neostructuralist semantics (1970-) Distributional corpus analysis stands out because of its
contextual perspective and its elaboration into statistical forms of lexical knowledge
representation.

 Cognitive semantics (1980-) the psychologically and cognitively oriented approach. An attempt
to integrate meaning and cognition, and similarly, to integrate semantics and pragmatics.
Prototype theory and frame semantics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory.

The methodological history of lexical semantics

◦ Current approach to semantics

◦ Corpus-based cognitive semantics

Semantic conventions have to be verified by "hard, measurable evidence" (Sinclair,

Introduction to the Cobuild Dictionary) on the basis of representative text corpora of
languages-in-use.

(DIRK GEERAERTS)
Meaning as a linguistic notion
Meaning as a linguistic notion
◦ Analytical or referential definition of meaning;

◦ Functional or contextual definition of meaning;

◦ Operational or information-oriented definition of meaning.

The semantic triangle

F. de Saussure

G. Frege

Referential approach

C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards

The word

◦ is not only the form of the linguistic sign but also its meaning and what it refers to
I. Arnold

Lexical meaning

◦ “The meaning of the word is a certain reflection of the object, phenomenon or relation
in the mind of language users, which creates the internal part of the word structure,
and, in reference to this structure, the sound form is the material shell of the word,
which is necessary not only for reflecting the meaning and sending the message to other
members of the society, but for creating of the word itself, its formation, existence and
development.”

◦ (M.Ivchenko, 1956)

Kinds of meaning

J. Lyons (1977)

◦ 'descriptive meaning',

◦ 'social meaning',

◦ 'expressive meaning'

G. Leech (1981)
Reference, denotation, sense

Lyons (1977: 207) defines the d e n o t a t i o n of a lexeme as:

the relationship that holds between that lexeme and persons, things, places, properties, processes and
activities external to the language-system.

Denotatum* - the class of objects, properties, etc., to which the expression correctly applies.
The denotation of a lexeme is independent of the concrete circumstances of an utterance.

Re f e r e n c e
the relationship which holds between an expression and what that expression stands for on particular
occasions of its utterance.

◦ G. Frege (1970[1892])
◦ The reference (or "referent"; Bedeutung) of a proper name is the object it means or indicates
(bedeuten), its sense (Sinn) is what the name expresses.
Beethoven’s home town

and

The former capital of the Deutschland’s Republic

◦ both have the same reference, Bonn, but different sense.

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXMGL5qfjqo

◦ Sense is mental representation of the type of thing that can be used to refer to (A.Cruse).

◦ Sense is a matter of the relations between a word and other words in a language. (J.Lyons).
Sense is an interlexical or intralingual relation; it defines relations within the same language.
Denotation relates expressions to classes of entities in the world.

There is no such animal as unicorn

 ◦ unicorn has no denotation, but nevertheless have sense
J. Searle (1969) "definite reference"

◦ 1. Proper names, e.g. Socrates, Ukraine;

◦ 2. Complex noun phrases in the singular - often with a definite article - a category that is
normally termed definite descriptions in philosophy, e.g. the m a n who called, John's brother;

◦ 3. Pronouns, e.g. this, that, I, he, she, it;

◦ 4. Titles, e.g. the P r i m e M i n i s t e r , the Pope.

Concepts which have no reference (no physical referent) although they have sense;

◦ Myth creatures: ‘unicorn’ or ‘phoenix’

◦ Functional words: a, in, and…

◦ He seems a nice man’

◦ Abstract nouns: love, hate, idea…

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSpXHxBK2ac&t=160s

Functional or contextual definition of meaning

◦ (L.Bloomfield)

defining meaning in the situation in which the word is used;

Context is the minimum stretch of speech necessary and sufficient to determine the meaning of the
word;
e.g. to take a seat vs. to take to sth

Meaning is understood as a function of a linguistic unit

Components of the word meaning. Componential
analysis
The semantic structure of the word

◦ The meaning is a system of components (semes), constituting a structure (sememe)

◦ Father – [human], [male parent]

[human], [founder] (George Washington is considered a father of the United States)

◦ The levels of the analysis of the word

◦ Semic (on the level of semes – separate components of meaning)

◦ Sememic (on the level of the sememe – a separate meaning of a polysemantic word)

• The basic or minimal unit of meaning, not further subdividable, is the seme, and . . . two or more
semes existing together in a more complex unit of meaning comprise a sememe.

• The term seme as a microcomponent of meaning was introduced by V. Scalicka. The seme
reflects specific signs of the phenomenon, named by the word.

• A sememe is the totality of semes that are actualized by a term within a given context.

• The children had to run to keep up with their father. [action] [human] [movement] [fast]
• He's been running a restaurant since he left school. [action] [human] [control]

Macrocomponents of meaning
The denotative meaning

◦ the notional information, associated with the reflection of extralingual reality, be it objective or
subjective
◦ also called referential or extensional

◦ To denote is to serve as linguistic expression for a notion or as a name for an actually existing
object referred to by a word

◦ Denotatum (Lat. denotatum – означуване) is a notional nucleus of meaning, i.e. “objective”

(“nominative”, “cognitive”, “representative”, “factual”) component of meaning abstracted from
stylistic, pragmatic, modal, emotional, subjective, communicative and other shades.

◦ needle – “thin, sharp, steel instrument …”

◦ lonely – “alone, without company”

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx0nra6R-eE

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoDJ769R7I
 The connotative meaning
◦ expresses the attitude of the speaker to the object of nomination in the form of emotions and
evaluation of denotate

◦ also called emotive charge or intentional connotations

◦ Connotation (Lat. connoto – маю додаткове значення) is an emotional, evaluative or stylistic

component of meaning of a linguistic unit of regular or occasional character.

◦ needle – “painful”

◦ lonely - ‘melancholy, sad’

Connotation

◦ The emotive charge:

◦ daddy :: father

◦ Evaluation:

◦ банда :: група (людей)

◦ Intensity (expressiveness):
◦ to adore :: to love

◦ Imagery (figurative):
◦ to wade (eg. go through mud with difficulty) :: to wade through a book

Types of connotation
by which synonyms differ (G. Antrushyna et al., 2000)
◦ The connotation of degree or intensity: to surprise — to astonish — to amaze — to astound; to
shout — to yell — to bellow — to roar; to like — to admire — to love — to adore — to worship.

◦ The connotation of duration: to flash (brief) — to blaze (lasting); to shudder (brief) — to shiver.
(lasting); to say (brief) — to speak, to talk (lasting).

◦ The emotive connotations: alone — single — lonely — solitary.

◦ The evaluative connotation: well-known — famous — notorious — celebrated.

◦ A. His eyes sparkled with amusement, merriment, good humour, high spirits, happiness,
etc. (positive emotions).
◦ B. His eyes glittered with anger, rage, hatred, malice, etc. (negative emotions).

◦ The causative connotation: to shiver with cold, from a chill, because of the frost; to shudder with
fear, horror, etc.; to blush from modesty, shame or embarrassment, to redden from anger or
indignation.
 ◦ The connotation of manner: to stroll — to stride — to trot — to pace — to swagger — to stagger
— to stumble

◦ The connotation of attendant circumstances: to peep - to peer .

◦ The connotation of attendant features: pretty, handsome, beautiful .

◦ Stylistic connotation (colloquial, slang, dialect, poetic, archaic, terminological, etc) – girl, girlie
(coll.), lass, lassie (dial.), bird, skirt (sl.), maiden (poet.), damsel (arch)

Connotation and connotative

◦ social and expressive meaning (Lyons,1977)

◦ a subclass of additional associative aspect of meaning, inherent property of lexeme (Leech,1981)

◦
Markedness
Markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent in comparison to a regular or more
common form.

Semantic marking (Lyons,1977)

◦ A semantically marked lexeme is more specific than an unmarked one

◦ lioness as opposed to lion

◦ Is that lion a lion or a lioness?

Connotatively marked lexemes (Lipka, 1986)

◦ stylistically marked,

◦ affectively or emotionally marked,

◦ regional or dialectal,
◦ archaic or neologistic,

◦ sociolinguistic variation
Classes of connotations (by Hansen, 1985)
Componential analysis
or semantic decomposition

◦ Componential analysis of meaning – linguistic analysis of the semantic structure of a word (a

monosemantic word or a lexico-semantic variant of a polysemantic unit) as constituted by a set
of minimal elements of sense – semes.

◦ Componential analysis provides a descriptive model for semantic content, based on the
assumption that meanings can be described on the basis of a restricted set of conceptual
building blocks—the semantic ‘components’ or ‘features’.

◦ The American branch emerged from linguistic anthropology, in studies like Kroeber (1952),
Conklin (1955), Goodenough (1956), Lounsbury (1956), E. Nida [1975].

◦ In Europe, the first step in the work of Louis Hjelmslev (1953), the full development in the early
1960s, in the work of Bernard Pottier (1964, 1965), Eugenio Coseriu (1962, 1964, 1967), and
Algirdas Greimas (1966).

◦ Louis Hjelmslev
 ◦ the meaning side of the linguistic sign should show the same structuring principles as
the sound side;

◦ The meaning of mare can be separated into components according to the following
sequence: [HORSE] and [FEMALE] and if the second element is changed into [MALE] the
resulting element in the plane of expression is then stallion.

◦ A. Wierzbicka [1980-1996] tried to work out a radical decomposition of all words into a number
of primitives (Natural Semantic Metalanguage). Semantic primitives are the elements which can
be used to define the meaning of words (or any other meanings) cannot be defined themselves;

◦ Mentalist Postulate by R. Jackendoff [1983-1996]. Describing meaning involves describing

mental representations. Semantic structure is conceptual structure.
How does the theory of meaning components work?

binary feature specification and redundancy rules

HUMAN> ANIMATE

ADULT > ANIMATE

ANIMATE > CONCRETE

MARRIED> ADULT

Types of components
Man +[human] +[adult] +[male]

Woman +[human] +[adult] -[male]

Boy +[human] -[adult] +[male]

Girl +[human] -[adult] -[male]

◦ E. Nida in “Componential Analysis of Meaning” (1975)

◦ “If all the universe were blue, there would be no blueness, since there would be nothing to
contrast with blue. The same is true for the meanings of words. They have meaning only in terms
of systematic contrasts with other words which share certain features with them but contrast
with them in respect to other features”.

◦ Common component. This is the central component which is shared by all the lexemes in the
same semantic domain or lexical field.

◦ Diagnostic or distinctive components. They serve to distinguish the meaning from others from
the same domain.

◦ The meanings of the individual items can then be expressed by combinations of these features

The matrix of kinship terms (Jackson, 1996)

Procedural Steps in the Componential Analysis of Meaning

◦ Componential analysis (CA) can only be done within the same semantic domain. There are three
basic steps in the procedure for determining the diagnostic features (Nida, 1975: 48), they are:

◦ a. determining the common features and line up all the apparently relevant differences
in form and possibly related functions;

◦ b. studying the relations of the features to one another, in order to determine the
redundancies and dependencies;

◦ c. formulating a set of diagnostic features and testing such a set for adequacy.

Componential analysis is used in

◦ classifications of lexical units

◦ the investigation of the lexico-semantic fields: go, walk, run, slide, fly, crawl [move]

◦ the analysis of hyponymic groups: bear, mammal, animal

◦ the investigation of the semantic structure of synonyms: stare, glare, gaze, peep, peer

◦ a characterization of antonyms by a difference of the value plus or minus a feature

◦ combined with contrastive analysis shows the lack of one-to-one correspondence not only
between the semantic structure of correlated words (the number and types of meaning) but
also the difference in the seemingly identical and correlated meanings of contrasted words:
товстий vs. thick, stout, buxom

◦ componential analysis is combined with the semantic analysis through collocability or co-
occurrence :
 ◦ if one learns that a puffin flies, one can assume that a puffin is animate and is probably a
bird or an insect.

◦ The cows — through the fields vs The boys — through the fields

stray, wander, ran, lumber, walk, hurry, stroll

◦ The baby drank his bottle vs The baby drank her bottle

Reasons that justify identifying semantic components in componential analysis

◦ economic characterization of lexical relations

◦ describe a range of syntactic and morphological processes

◦ semantic primitives form part of our psychological architecture as they provide us with a unique
view of conceptual structure, as pointed out by Jackendoff (1983)

Lexical vs grammatical meaning

 Lexical meaning

 meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions: go, goes,
went, going, gone [‘the process of movement’];

 Grammatical meaning

 expression in speech of relationship between words: asked, thought, walked [‘tense

meaning’];
 Part-of-speech meaning

 Word-classes (major WC: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; minor WC: articles,
prepositions, conjunctions, etc).

The pragmatic aspect of lexical meaning

◦ Conveys information on the situation of communication

◦ Time and space relationship of the participants (come :: go);

◦ Participants and language community

1) They chucked a stone at the cops, and then did a bunk with the loot.

2) After casting a stone at the police, they absconded with the money.
◦ Tenor of discourse;

◦ There are three basic factors within tenor:

◦ agentive role, or the institutional (or not) roles of the participants, such
as doctor/patient, teacher/student, etc.;
 ◦ social role, or the power relationship between them which may be
hierarchic or nonhierarchic and includes expert/novice and also
conferred social status and gender, etc.;

◦ social distance, or the amount or nature of contact the participants may

have, which ranges from minimal (close friends) to maximal (formal
settings).

◦ Register of communication
◦ Formal: cordial, fraternal, anticipate;

◦ Informal: to be kidding, hi, stuff.

The complexity of the word meaning is manifold

◦ Many words not only refer to some object but trigger some associations expressing the attitude
of the speaker. They have not only denotative but connotative meaning as well.

◦ E. g.: Daddy is a colloquial term of endearment.

◦ The denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes.

◦ E.g.: Father is a male parent.

◦ A word may be polysemantic, that is it may have several meanings, all interconnected and
forming its semantic structure.

◦ E. g.: Father may mean: ‘male parent’, ‘an ancestor’, ‘a founder or leader’, ‘a priest’.

◦ Every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings. E.g.: Father is a personal noun.

◦ Words convey information on the situation of communication (pragmatic aspect)

◦ Will you read me a story, Daddy?
Polysemy and homonymy
Polysemy or multiplicity of meaning

◦ Polysemy is the phenomenon whereby a single word form is associated with two or several
related senses.

◦ M.Bréal ([1897] 1924) was the first to use the term polysemy (la polysémie) to describe single
word forms with several related meanings. Polysemy was primarily a diachronic phenomenon,
arising as a consequence of lexical semantic change. When words acquire new meanings
through use, their old meanings typically remain in the language. So polysemy involves the
parallel existence of new and old meanings and is a result of new senses becoming
conventionalized: It is the synchronic outcome of lexical semantic change. At the same time,
Bréal ([1897]1924) observed that, at the synchronic level, polysemy is not really an issue, since
the context of discourse determines the sense of a polysemous word and eliminates its other
possible meanings.

John has his mouth full of food.

Open your mouth wide and say "Ah".

Watch your mouth.

I have three mouths to feed.

You can see the mouth of the river from here.

◦ The relations between the senses are often metonymic (part-for-whole), or metaphorical.

◦ The problem of polysemy is mainly the problem of interrelation and interdependence of the
various meanings of the same word.

Table

◦ 1. a piece of furniture;

◦ 2. the persons seated at a table;

◦ 3. sing. the food put on a table, meals;

◦ 4. a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.;

◦ 5. pl. slabs of stone;

◦ 6. words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables);

◦ 7. an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.;

◦ 8. part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on;

◦ 9. a level area, a plateau.

Polysemy
Diachronic Approach
◦ If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is understood as the growth and development of or, in
general, as a change in the semantic structure of the word.

◦ the primary meaning of the word ‘table’ is ‘a flat slab of stone or wood’, which is proper to the
word in the Old English period (OE. tabule from L. tabula); all other meanings are secondary as
they are derived from the primary meaning of the word

Synchronic approach

◦ Synchronically we understand polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings of the same

word at a certain historical period of the development of the language.

◦ the meaning that first occurs to us whenever we hear or see the word ‘table’, is ‘an article of
furniture’. This emerges as the basic or the central meaning of the word and all other meanings
are minor or marginal in comparison.
◦ The meaning having the highest frequency is usually the one representative of the semantic
structure of the word, i.e. synchronically its central (basic) meaning.

Polysemy and Arbitrariness of Semantic Structure

◦ The words of different languages which are similar or identical in lexical meaning, especially in
the denotational meaning are termed correlated words.

◦ one-to-one correspondence between the semantic structure of correlated polysemantic words

in different languages is scarcely possible

◦ As a rule it is only the central meaning that is to a great extent identical, all other meanings or
the majority of meanings usually differ.

G.K. Zipf
“the principle of diversity of meaning”

◦ The greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of elements that
constitute its semantic structure, i.e. the more polysemantic it is.
 ◦ “different meanings of a word will tend to be equal to the square root of its relative frequency
(with the possible exception of the few dozen most frequent words)”

m= 𝐹1/2
m – number of meanings

F – relative frequency

Polysemy and context

◦ Linguistic contexts:

◦ Lexical context:

◦ Heavy load, weight (of great weight)

◦ Heavy rain, storm, snow, wind (abundant, striking, strong);

◦ Heavy industry, arms, artillery (larger kind of sth).

◦ Grammatical context (distributional patterns):

◦ to make + prn. + verb: to make sb. laugh (to force);

◦ to make + adj. + n.: to make a good wife, to make a good teacher (to become).
◦ Extra-linguistic context (context of situation):

John was looking for the glasses.

spectacles ? or drinking vessels?

Zeugma

◦ The zeugma is a literary device that uses one word to refer to two or more different things, in
more than one way.

◦ She spent half an hour and almost a whole week’s salary in a store

Homonymy

◦ from Gr. Homs – ‘similar’ and onoma – ‘name’.

◦ words identical in sound form, spelling but different in meaning, distribution and in origin.

◦ full homonymy :

◦ seal (a sea animal) vs. seal (a design printed on paper by means of a stamp)

◦ Identical paradigm “seal, seal’s, seals, seals’ ”

◦ partial homonymy:
 ◦ Seal (a sea animal) vs. (to) seal (to close tightly)
◦ Different paradigm

◦ seal seal
◦ seals seals

◦ seal’s sealed

◦ seals’ sealing, etc.

◦ find [faind], found [faund], found [faund], and found [faund], founded ['faundid],
founded ['faundid];

◦ know [nou], knows [nouz], knew [nju:], and no [nou]; nose [nouz], noses ['nouzis]; new
[nju:]

Classification of Homonyms

◦ lexical,

◦ seal ‘a sea animal’, ‘the fur of this animal’ vs. seal ‘a design printed on paper, the stamp
by which the design is made’

◦ lexico-grammatical

◦ Seal ‘a sea animal’ vs. (to) seal ‘to close tightly’

◦ grammatical homonyms

◦ the Past Tense is homonymous with the form of Participle II, e.g. asked [a:skt] — asked
[a:skt];
Lexico-Grammatical Homonymy

1.seal1 n — ‘a sea animal’; seal3 v — ‘to close tightly as with a seal’;

2.seal2 n — ‘a piece of wax, lead’; seal3 v — ‘to close tightly as with a seal’.

Groups:

◦ A. identical in sound-form but different in their grammatical and lexical meanings (seal1 n —
seal3 v),

◦ B. identical in sound-form but different in their grammatical meanings and partly different in
their lexical meaning, i.e. partly different in their semantic structure (seal3 n — seal3 v; paper n
— (to) paper v).

Graphic and Sound-Form of Homonyms

◦ Homophones:

◦ piece (part separated from sth.) vs. peace (no war situation)
 ◦ біль :: білль
◦ Homographs:

◦ bow /bəʊ/ (a weapon) vs. bow /baʊ/ (a formal movement)

◦ деревина :: деревина, замок :: замок

◦ Perfect homonyms

◦ case (something that has happened) vs case (a box, a container)

◦ коса :: коса

Sources of Homonymy

◦ 1) diverging meaning development of a polysemantic word (Modern English flower and flour
which originally were one word (ME. flour, cf. OFr. flour, flor, L. flos — florem) meaning ‘the
flower’ and ‘the finest part of wheat’)

◦ 2) converging sound development of two or more different words (OE. ic and OE. еаzе have
become identical in pronunciation (MnE. I [ai] and eye [ai])

Homonymy
Polysemy and homonymy

◦ In order to distinguish one word with several meanings (i.e. polysemy or multiple meaning) from
two different words with unrelated meanings (i.e. homonymy) basically three types of criteria
have been used:

◦ 1.etymology,

◦ 2. close semantic relatedness.

◦ 3. formal identity or distinctnes (distribution and spelling)

◦ Both polysemy and homonymy are lexical relations that deal with multiple senses of the same
phonological unit. However, polysemy is used if the senses are considered to be related (1.
semantic inclusion, 2. metaphor or metonymy) and homonymy if the senses invoked are
considered to be unrelated.

◦ The literal and figurative nouns tick in (4a) are two lexical units within the same polysemous
lexeme. The verbs in (4b) and (4c) are derived by zero-derivation from the respective nouns and
therefore homonyms. The three nouns in (4) are also homonymous lexemes, since they are
semantically unrelated.

Paronyms

◦ from the Greek para ‘beside’ and onoma ‘name’

◦ Words resembling each other in form but different in meaning and usage:
◦ ingenious (clever) – ingenuous (frank),
◦ Physicist (scientist specializing in physics) – physician (doctor);

◦ alternate ‘succeeding each other’ and alternative ‘providing a choice’

◦ громадський – громадянський;

◦ компанія – кампанія;

◦ абонент – абонемент
Change of meaning
Historical-philological Semantics

◦ In the earlier stages of its development (up to the early 1930s) semasiology was a purely
diachronic science dealing mainly with changes in the word meaning and classification of those
changes.

◦ M. Bréal and H. Paul

◦ Discussing the causes of semantic change we concentrate on the factors bringing about this
change and attempt to find out why the word changed its meaning.

◦ Analysing the nature of semantic change we seek to clarify the process of this change and
describe how various changes of meaning were brought about.

◦ Our aim in investigating the results of semantic change is to find out what was changed, i.e. we
compare the resultant and the original meanings and describe the difference between them in
terms of the changes of the denotational and connotational components.

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z09fQeoxKk
Causes of semantic changes

Extra-linguistic:

◦ The word car, e.g., goes back to Latin carrus which meant ‘a four-wheeled wagon’ (ME.
carre) but now that other means of transport are used it denotes ‘a motor-car’, ‘a
railway carriage’ (in the USA), ‘that portion of an airship, or balloon which is intended to
carry personnel, cargo or equipment’

◦ The extra-linguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language: they are
observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion expressed and
the thing named and by the appearance of new notions and things.

Linguistic

◦ factors acting within the language system

◦ Ellipsis:

◦ OE starve ‘to die’ was used in collocation with the word hunger, later ‘to die of hunger’

◦ Differentiation of synonyms:

◦ OE land ‘solid part of earth’s surface’ and ‘the territory of a nation’; in the Middle
English period the word country was borrowed
◦ beast displaced deer and was in its turn itself displaced by the generic animal

◦ Fixed context:
 ◦ token vs. sign (love token, token of respect)
◦ Analogy

◦ catch, grasp, get – understand

Nature of Semantic Change

◦ A necessary condition of any semantic change, no matter what its cause, is some connection,
some association between the old meaning and the new.

◦ a) similarity of meanings or metaphor ,

◦ b) contiguity of meanings or metonymy.

Similarity of meanings or Metaphor

◦ a semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other

◦ The word hand, e.g., acquired in the 16th century the meaning of ‘a pointer of a clock of
a watch’

◦ Metaphor (Gr. ‘transposition’) is the semantic process when a form of a linguistic unit or
expressing of a linguistic category is transposed from one object of designation to another on
the basis of a certain similarity between these objects as reflected in the speaker’s mind.

◦ based on comparison

◦ Poetic metaphor
◦ ‘X is like Y in respect of Z’

◦ Byron’s line:
◦ ‘women are like angels, so good they are, but wedlock is as bad as the devil’

◦ The words women, wedlock, i.e. what is described in the metaphor, are its tenor, while
angels, the devil are the vehicle, that is they represent the image that carries a
description and serves to represent the tenor. The third element Z is called the ground
of the metaphor. In the example the ground is ‘good’ (used ironically) and ‘bad’.

◦ Linguistic metaphor

◦ foot (of a mountain), leg (of a table), eye (of a needle), nose (of an aeroplane), back (of a
book).

Metaphor

◦ Types of similarity:

◦ Similarity by physical features:

◦ Form and sight: head of a cabbage, гірський хребет, сонечко (комаха);

◦ Position: foot of the mountain, back of the sofa, голова колони;

 ◦ Sounding: to drum fingers, барабанити у двері;
◦ Peculiarities of movement: коник (комаха), супутник (небесне тіло);

◦ Peculiarities of functioning: a bookworm, leg of the chair, повітряний флот

◦ Similarity by physiological and psychological impressions from the perception of
different objects:

◦ Synesthetic: soft (voice, colour), крикливий (одяг), гострий (запах)

◦ From physical to psychological and social spheres: горіти (завзяттям),

гострий (розум)

◦ Actualization of a relatively indistinctive semantic feature: прірва (безліч)

◦ Similarity which exists only in the imagination of the speaker: друже, брате

Directions of metaphoric development

(S. Ullmann)
◦ Anthropomorphic: eye of a needle, голова зборів; душа компанії,

◦ Zoomorphic: лис, fox;

◦ From concrete to abstract: thrill, золотий (дорогий);

◦ Synesthetic: гіркий досвід,

◦ From lexical units which attract a special attention of the society in a particular period: чорт,
ірод, галузь (знань), сіяти (добро), запрограмуватися на, больові точки, культурний
фронт

Contiguity of meaning or Metonymy

◦ the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is
closely connected with it.

◦ the word tongue — ‘the organ of speech’ in the meaning of ‘language’ (as in mother
tongue)

◦ Metonymy (Gr. ‘renaming’) is the semantic process when a form of a linguistic unit or expressing
of a linguistic category is transferred from one object of designation to another on the basis of a
certain contiguity of these objects conditioned by spatial, temporal, causal, symbolic,
instrumental, functional and other relations.

Metonymy

◦ Regular spatial relations (the name of the place is used for the people occupying it)

◦ The chair may mean ‘the chairman’, the bar ‘the lawyers’, the pulpit ‘the priests’

◦ Causal relationship
 ◦ ModE fear < ME fere/feer/fer < OE fær ‘danger’, ‘unexpected attack’
◦ Symbol for thing symbolized

◦ The crown (monarchy), булава (гетьманство)

◦ The instrument for the product

◦ Hand (handwriting)

◦ The container for the things contained

◦ a kettle (is boiling),

◦ Material for the particular article

◦ Glass, iron, copper

◦ The sign for the thing signified

◦ номер (примірник газети, кімната в готелі),

◦ The feature for its subject

◦ магістр, граф, талант, authorities;

◦ Pars pro toto (a part is applied to the whole)

◦ I want to have a word with you.

◦ Proper names

◦ Diesel, volt, watt,

◦ Wellingtons

◦ Place names

◦ Wall Street, Fleet Street (British journalism)

◦ China (ware), damask (steel), champagne, brie cheese

Hyperbole

◦ (Gr. ‘exaggeration’)

◦ I haven’t seen you for ages; a thousand thanks; море крові; черепашача швидкість

Litotes

◦ (Gr. ‘simplicity’) is aimed at making the statement less categorical through the use of
indirect designation of a certain notion, namely through the negation of the notion that
is opposite to the given:

◦ Not bad (good), не заперечую (погоджуюся)

Irony
◦ (Gr. ‘mockery’)

◦ A pretty mess, святий та божий, нагородити (стусаном)

Euphemism

◦ (Gr. ‘mild expression’)

◦ Pass away (die), elevated (drunk), нерозумний (дурний)б пішов з життя (помер)

Results of semantic changes

Denotative meaning

◦ Restriction of meaning (specialization):

◦ hound (a dog of any breed), meat (food: Once man’s meat, another’s poison)

◦ Extension (generalization):
◦ target (a small round shield), fee (cattle)

Connotational meaning
◦ Amelioration (improvement):

◦ minister (servant) , queen (woman), knight (servant);

◦ Deterioration (pejorative development):

◦ boor (peasant), silly (happy, kind)

Motivation of words
Motivation

◦ Relationship between the phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the
word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other

◦ S. Ullmann (1962)

◦ Phonetical

◦ Morphological

◦ Semantic

Phonetical motivation

◦ Direct connection between the phonetical structure of the word and its meaning

◦ onomatopoeia

◦ sound imitation

◦ echo-words

◦ Bang, buzz, giggle, hiss, hum, jingle, splash, moo, mew, bow-wow, cock-a-doo-dle-doo etc.

◦ гав-гав, кукуріку, гриміти, дзижчати, хихотіти, шипіти, хлюпати, мукати, мурчати,

воркувати, бурчати, хропіти, нявчати, тощо.

◦ In the Ukrainian echo-words the sound [р] is the most productive;

◦ Sibilant fricatives [s, z, ∫, ђ]are typical of the English sound imitation

◦ In English about 1.08 % and in Ukrainian only about 0.8 %

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uxFwmYIHwk

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYGa3Lvlq0

◦ https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/onomatopoeia/
Sound symbolism

◦ Phonetic symbolism—the nonarbitrary relation between sounds and meaning (Lowrey & Shrum,
2007).

◦ Phonetic symbolism is based on the idea that phonemes can evoke emotions, may suggest
spatial and visual dimensions, shape, size, etc.

◦ Sapir (1929) believed phonetic symbolism to be a psychologically- measurable factor. Sapir

tested the phonetic effects that American English vowels had on the participants in his study
(MAL and MIL, /a/ was more favored than /i/ because, /a/ is a “larger” vowel, and as such, has
more potential symbolism. Therefore, an object name including the vowel / a/ would be
perceived as larger than an object name with /i/, or even /e, ɛ, æ/).

◦ /l, s, v/ evoke pleasant feelings and /r, p, t, d/ are associated with unpleasant feelings. Fricatives
such as /f, v, s, z/ are fast and connote speed, while sounds that come to a complete stop /p, b, t,
 d/ imply slowness. The consonant /v/ is one of the most “energetic” sounds in American English
(Begley, 2002).

◦ As the same combinations of sounds are used in many semantically similar words, they become
more closely associated with the meaning.
◦ Flap, flip, flop, flitter, flicker , where fl – quick movement;

◦ Glare, glitter, glow, glimmer, where gl – light and fire;

◦ Sleet, slime, slush, where sl - mud.

◦ Ring, sing, swing, fling, where iŋ - swift movement

◦ initial [f] and [p] are felt as expressing scorn, contempt, disapproval or disgust (pooh! fie!
fiddle-sticks, flim-flam)

Левицький В.В. Символічні значення українських голосних і приголосних / В.В. Левицький //

Мовознавство. – 1973. – № 2. – С. 36-49.

Левицкий В.В. Звуковой символизм. Мифы и реальность. Монография. – Черновцы: Рута, 2009.

Sound symbolism and brand names

◦ David Crystal (“Little Book of Language”) introduces some basic concepts about sound
symbolism. He explains that sound symbolism effects brand names because sounds convey
personality. For instance, soft consonants like M, L, and N are more welcoming and friendly than
hard consonants like T and G.

◦ Many of the top name brands start with a stop and marketing researchers have revealed that
stop phonemes evoke recall and recognition (Vaden Bergh et al., 1984).

◦ For example, Coke and Blackberry. Not only does Blackberry start with a stop, which
helps in memory recall, the /b/ is associated with reliability as well as a product that will
be easy to use (Begley, 2002). The hard sound of the consonant /k/ in Blackberry and
Coke suggests a “daring” and “active” product. The /i/, however, in Blackberry evokes
speed.

◦ low-back vowels like “Oo” or “Oh” convey greater size and power. For instance, the word
“Google” uses the “Oo” sound mixed with the hard consonant sound of “G” to demonstrate the
vast and broad nature of the search engine.

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQvb5MJ2XnA

Morphological motivation
 ◦ Direct connection between the lexical meaning of the component morphemes, the pattern of
their arrangement and the meaning of the word

◦ Re- ‘again’, ‘back’: rethink, rebuild, resell, redo

◦ Ex- ‘former’: ex-president, ex-wife, ex-filmstar

◦ Faded motivation

◦ Recover (get better)

◦ Expert, export

◦ Finger-ring

vs. ring-finger

Morphological motivation
◦ A synchronic approach to morphological motivation presupposes historical changeability of
structural patterns and the ensuing degree of motivation.

◦ Newtowns and Wildwoods are lexically and structurally motivated

◦ Essex, Norfolk, Sutton, are non-motivated. However, upon examination the student of language
history will perceive their components to be East+Saxon, North+Folk and South+Town which
shows that in earlier days they .were just as completely motivated as Newtowns or Wildwoods
are in Modern English

◦ Morphologically motivated words in the contrasted languages natu¬rally constitute the largest
part of their motivated lexicons: 88,5 % in English and 91.8 % in Ukrainian.
 ◦ ‘fuzzy sets’ :
◦ Smoker – one who smokes tobacco

◦ Smoker – a railway car in which passengers may smoke

Semantic motivation

◦ the relationship between the central and the coexisting meaning or meanings of a word which
are understood as a metaphorical extension of the central meaning

◦ Mother

◦ Necessity is the mother of invention.

◦ She became a mother to her orphan nephew,

◦ Romulus and Remus were supposedly mothered by a wolf.

◦ mother country, a mother’s mark (=a birthmark), mother tongue,

◦ burn with anger, break smb’s heart, jump at a chance,

◦ a meeting at the summit, a summit meeting vs foothill meetings

◦ coexistence of direct and figurative meanings of the same word within the same synchronous
system

◦ the mouth of the river, the mouth of a cave

◦ (‘mouth’ – opening or outlet)

◦ легка/важка рука (легко/ дошкульно б'є), легкий/ важкий на руку, липкі руки/липкий на
руку (злодій); купатися в розкошах, купатися в славі/купатися в промінні південного
сонця, братися за справу (діло),

A transparent etymological motivation

◦ bluebell is дзвоник, blue-bottle is васильок which is blue (синій), black¬bird is чорний дрізд,
blackcock is тетерук, black berry means ожина, horse-tail/cat's tail means хвощ, redwood
means секвоя, umbrella-tree means американська магнолія, violet means фіалка.

◦ жовтець (yellow gold), чорниця (bilberry), чорнобривці (French marigold), чорногуз (чорне
гузно), чорнослив (smocked prunes), соняшник (sunflower), куцохвостий (заєць), круторогі
(воли), серпокрилець (стриж).

◦ in Ukrainian and Byelorussian (or Polish) names of months: січень (сніг січе), лютий (мороз
лютує), березень (береза сік пускає), квітень (перші квіти – проліски з'являються і
зацвітають), липень (липа зацвітає), серпень (серпами жали і жнуть збіжжя)

◦ Semantical1у motivated lexical units constitute in English about 10 % and in Ukrainian about 7.4
% of their total motivated lexicons.

Compound words
 ◦ Eyewash
◦ a lotion for the eyes (the morphological motivation)

◦ misleading or deceptive statements, actions, or procedures (the semantic motivation)

Folk etymology

◦ (from [English] “folk” and Greek etymología -ἐτυμολογία- ‘true or original sense of a word) is
defined as a change in the form and /or meaning of a word, which results from the incorrect
assumption that it has a certain etymological origin.

◦ This supposition is triggered by some associations of form or meaning between the changing
word, unfamiliar to the speakers, and a more familiar term.

◦ Reanalysis, pseudo-etymology, popular etymology, or analogical reformation

◦ A nightmare is not ‘a she-horse that appears at night’ but ‘a terrifying dream personified in
folklore as a female monster’. (OE таrа ‘an evil spirit’.)

◦ The international radio-telephone signal may-day corresponding to the telegraphic SOS used by
aeroplanes and ships in distress has nothing to do with the First of May but is a phonetic
rendering of French m'aidez ‘help me’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gb3mulQtSk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSAW4FSA8Dg
Sense relations (1)
Sense relations

◦ “We have a sense relation when we feel that lexemes relate to each other in meaning” (D.
Crystal 2003)

◦ describe internal meaning relations: relations between words within the vocabulary (sameness,
oppositeness, hierarchical (hyponymy, meronymy))
◦ paradigmatic relation between words

◦ A. Cruse (2004) classifies sense relations into two classes, i.e. those that express identity and
inclusion between word meanings and those that express opposition and exclusion. The first
class discusses the sense relations between words whose meanings are similar or included in
other ones. The second class discusses the sense relations between words whose meaning are
opposite or excluded from other words.

◦ Semantic proximity

◦ beautiful, pretty, attractive, sparkling, handsome

◦ Semantic equivalence

◦ She lives in Paris. – She lives in the capital of France.

◦ Inclusion

◦ Vehicle – bus, car, taxi, tram …

◦ Opposition

◦ Polar: rich – poor

◦ Relative: to leave – to arrive

Taxonomic (Hierarchical) relations:

◦ Hyponymy

◦ Hyponymy is a semantic relationship of inclusion: plant includes grass, bush, tree and so on; oak
implies tree

◦ The hyponymic relationship may be viewed as the hierarchical relationship between the
meaning of the general and the individual terms.

◦ The hyponymic structure:

◦ the umbrella (more general/ superordinate) term is called the hyperonym/hypernym or

the classifier;

◦ the hyponym is a subordinate term, member of the group

X is Y, ‘a kind of’ or ‘type of relation’
A fox terrier is a kind of dog

A dog is a kind of mammal

A mammal is a kind of animal

Entailment

Jane has got another fox terrier

entails

Jane has got another dog

Meronymy

◦ the ‘part/ whole’ relations between words in the vocabulary

◦ If ‘X is part-of Y or ‘Y has X then X is a meronym of Y and Y is a holonym of X.

 ◦ Subtypes of the part-whole relations:

◦ relation between component parts and the material entity to which they belong
(keyboard/computer),

◦ the relation between a member and the collection to which it belongs (soldier/army),

◦ the relation between a material and the object of which it forms an ingredient or a
constituent element (wood/door),

◦ the relation between a component action and the overall activity of which it forms part
(paying/shopping).

Winston, Chaffin, and Herrmann (1987)

Conceptual or Semantic Fields

◦ vocabulary is 'an integrated system of lexemes interrelated in sense'. Therefore, the 'words of
language can be classified into semantically related sets or fields (Trier, Jost)

◦ The SF of colours: blue, red, yellow, black, etc.

◦ The SF of fruit: apple, pear, peach, apricot, orange, etc.

◦ “Fields are linguistic realities existing between single words and the total vocabulary; they are
parts of a whole and resemble words in that they combine into some higher unit, and the
vocabulary in that they resolve themselves into smaller units.” (Trier, Jost. Der deutsche
Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes. Die Geschichte eines sprachlichen Feldes. Heidelberg,
1931)

◦ closely knit sectors of vocabulary each characterized by a common concept;

 ◦ The semantic component common to all the members of the field is described as the common
denominator of meaning;

◦ the word-meaning is to a great extent determined by the place the word occupies in its
semantic field; The semantic field may be viewed as a set of lexical items in which the meaning
of each is determined by the co-presence of the others, e.g. orange: red, blue, yellow (colour),
orange: pear, apple, peach (fruit)

◦ In the SF of space we find nouns: expanse, extent, surface, etc.; verbs: extend, spread, span, etc.;
adjectives’ spacious, roomy, vast, broad, etc.

◦ Semantic field of the same concept may not have the same members in different languages

Types of organization in semantic fields

◦ SFs are ‘systems of interrelated senses’ (Lyons 1977)

◦ words applicable to a common conceptual domain are structured one way or another. That is,
they are organized within a semantic field by relations of affinity and contrast (e.g. synonymy,
hyponymy, incompatibility, antonymy, etc.).

◦ Hierarchical structures

◦ Linear structures

Hierarchical structuring

◦ It includes two types of relations:

◦ relation of dominance

◦ relation of differentiation.

Lexical hierarchies

Taxonomic hierarchies
Meronymic hierarchies

Linear structures

◦ bipolar chains: minuscule, tiny, small, large, huge, gigantic

◦ monopolar chains:
 ◦ degrees: fail, pass, distinction; puddle, pond, lake, sea, ocean; glance, look, stare
◦ stages: infancy, childhood, adulthood, old age

◦ measures: second, minute, hour, day, week, month

◦ ranks: lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, professor

◦ sequences: days of the week, months of the year, seasons

◦ grids: [dog, puppy, cat, kitten], [hand, finger, foot, toe].

◦ clusters

◦ centred clusters: die, pass away, pop off, decease, breath one’s last, kick the bucket

◦ non-centred clusters: rap, tap, knock, slap, thwack, crack, bang, thump, bump, pop, tick

Lexico-semantic groups

◦ lexical groups consisting of words of the same part of speech and linked by a common concept;
◦ the criterion for joining words into LSG is the identity of one of the components of their
meaning found in all the lexical units making up these lexical groups;

◦ E.g. saleswoman

◦ LSG of human together with the words man, woman, boy, girl, etc.

◦ LSG of female with the words girl, wife, woman etc.

◦ LSG of professionals together with the words teacher, pilot, butcher, etc.

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
WordNet® is a large lexical database of English. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into
sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept. Synsets are interlinked by
means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations.
WordNet interlinks not just word forms—strings of letters—but specific senses of words. As a result,
words that are found in close proximity to one another in the network are semantically disambiguated.
WordNet labels the semantic relations among words (synonymy, hyponymy, meronymy, antonymy,
cross-POS relation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IHA8QgKwbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UbF1mYjKWs
Sense relations (2)
Synonymy

◦ Two (or more) items are synonymous if the sentences which result from the substitution of one
for the other have the same meaning [Lyons, 1968]

◦ cognitive synonymy: "bilateral implication" or "equivalence"

Synonyms

◦ Conceptual criterion: synonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech conveying
the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics;

◦ Semantic criterion: in terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with
the same denotation, or the same denotative component, but differing in connotations, or in
connotative components;

◦ The criterion of interchangeability: synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at
least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning.
◦ Synonyms are words of the same meaning belonging to the same part of speech, possessing one
or more identical meanings, interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable
alteration in denotation meaning, but differing in morphemic composition, phonemic shape,
shades of meaning, connotation, affective value, style, emotional colouring and valence peculiar
to one of the elements in a synonymic group [I.Arnold].

◦ Absolute (strict, complete) synonyms vs near-synonyms (relative)

◦ Absolute synonyms: 1)all their meanings are identical; 2) synonyms in all contexts (the
same connotational range); 3) semantically equivalent on all dimensions of meaning
(including expressive, connotational nuances) [Lyons]

◦ Classification of synonyms by V. V. Vinogradov:

◦ ideographic: to shake, to tremble, to shiver, to shutter etc., горіти, палати,

палахкотіти, жевріти, тліти;

◦ stylistic: father, parent, dad, papa etc., батько, тато, таточко;

◦ absolute: fatherhood, motherhood, homeland; word-formation, word-building;

compounding, composition;

◦ Polysemantic words are not synonymous in all their meanings. The number of synonymic sets of
polysemantic word tends to be equal to the number of individual meanings the word possesses.
 ◦ Roget P.M. Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. – London, 1962.
◦ WordNet

Criteria for distinction between synonyms

◦ Frequency

◦ dominant synonym:
to surprise — to astonish — to amaze — to astound.
to shout — to yell — to bellow — to roar.
to shine — to flash — to blaze — to gleam — to glisten — to sparkle — to glitter — to
shimmer — to glimmer.

◦ Distribution:

◦ dialectical:

◦ boot, lift, underground, pavement – British

◦ trunk, elevator, subway, sidewalk – American

◦ Anyway, child, money, sandwich – Standard English

◦ Anyroad, bairn, brass, butty – Northern British English

◦ functional

◦ Argument, cat, earthly, timely – neutral

◦ Disputation, feline, terrestrial, temporal – formal

◦ Prison, drunk, kill, money – standard English

◦ Can/ slammer, bombed/ tanked/ hammered, waste, dough/ cabbage –
American slang

◦ Collocational range:

◦ Offence vs. insult : no offence, take offence at sth vs. take sth as an insult, be an insult to
sb, add insult to…

◦ Connotation

Types of connotation

◦ The connotation of degree or intensity: to surprise — to astonish — to amaze — to astound; to

shout — to yell — to bellow — to roar; to like — to admire — to love — to adore — to worship.

◦ The connotation of duration: to flash (brief) — to blaze (lasting); to shudder (brief) — to shiver.
(lasting); to say (brief) — to speak, to talk (lasting).

◦ The emotive connotations: alone — single — lonely — solitary.

◦ The evaluative connotation: well-known — famous — notorious — celebrated.

 ◦ A. His eyes sparkled with amusement, merriment, good humour, high spirits, happiness,
etc. (positive emotions).

◦ B. His eyes glittered with anger, rage, hatred, malice, etc. (negative emotions).

◦ The causative connotation: to shiver with cold, from a chill, because of the frost; to shudder with
fear, horror, etc.; to blush from modesty, shame or embarrassment, to redden from anger or
indignation.

◦ The connotation of manner: to stroll — to stride — to trot — to pace — to swagger — to stagger

— to stumble

◦ The connotation of attendant circumstances: to peep - to peer .

◦ The connotation of attendant features: pretty, handsome, beautiful .

Discrimination of synonyms

◦ Difference in denotation (in the range and intensity of meaning)

◦ Difference in connotation (the stylistic and emotive colouring of words)

◦ policeman, constable, bobby, cop; bliss, happiness; dire, dreadful

◦ Difference in application

◦ allow, let (allow sb to do sth, let sb do sth)

◦ empty, vacant, blank

Distributional semantics

◦ is a research area that develops and studies theories and methods for quantifying and
categorizing semantic similarities between linguistic items based on their distributional
properties in large samples of language data.

◦ Distributional hypothesis: linguistic items with similar distributions have similar meanings. The
more semantically similar two words are, the more distributionally similar they will be in turn,
and thus the more that they will tend to occur in similar linguistic contexts.

◦ The distributional hypothesis in linguistics is derived from the semantic theory of language
usage, i.e. words that are used and occur in the same contexts tend to purport similar meanings
 [Harris, Z. (1954) "Distributional structure"], and the idea that "a word is characterized by the
company it keeps" [Firth, J.R. (1957), "A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930-1955"].

◦ The distributional hypothesis is the basis for statistical semantics.

◦ Distributional semantics uses linear algebra as computational tool and representational

framework. Distributional information is collected in high-dimensional vectors.
Distributional/semantic similarity is defined in terms of vector similarity.

Oppositeness of meaning
[Lyons]

◦ Antonymy (gradable, contrary, more/less relations):

◦ long – short, good – bad, big –small, high – low, fast – slow

◦ a middle ground: huge/very big/big/quite big/medium-sized/ quite small/ small/ tiny

◦ Marked vs unmarked term: How long was the discussion? How short was the
discussion?

◦ Complementarity (contradictory, mutually exclusive, either/or relations, one is the denial of the
other):

◦ dead – alive, asleep – awake, male – female, win – lose, shut – open, true – false, on –
off

◦ 'X is female' implies 'X is not male' and 'X is not female' implies 'X is male’

◦ Converseness (mirror relation, relational pairs):

◦ precede –follow, above – below, in front of – behind, buy – sell, give – receive, parent –
child

◦ John borrowed 100 dollars from his friend ↔ John’s friend lent him 100 dollars

◦ She spoke and spoke, but nobody listened

◦ 'buy' (X,Y,Z) ≡ 'sell' (Z,Y,X).

Contrast

◦ Lyons, 1977;Gecker, 1980

Opposition

Non-binary contrast

Antonymy
 ◦ Antonyms are words different in sound-form and characterised by different types of semantic
contrast of denotational meaning and interchangeability at least in some contexts.

◦ Structural classification:

◦ Root antonyms (of different roots; morphologically unrelated; semantic): rich-poor, up-
down, long-short;, давати-брати, старий-новий)

◦ Affixal (of the same root; morphological; derivative): English prefixes: un-, in-/il/ir-/im-,
dis-, mis (happy-unhappy, regular-irregular, appear-disappear, etc.); suffix: -less (careful-
careless). Ukrainian prefix не-, без-, роз-, а-, анти-, де-, дез- (правда-неправда,
болісний-безболісний, заплутати-розплутати, логічний-алогічний тощо).

◦ Semantic classification (R.S. Ginzburg):

◦ Contradictories : dead - alive, single - married, perfect - imperfect, etc.;

◦ Contraries/ gradable: cold — hot (cool and warm are intermediate members); high –
law,

◦ Incompatibles: to say morning is to say not afternoon, not evening, not night.

◦ Contextual antonyms are words that are opposite in meaning only under some specific
conditions/ in context

All I ever get from you is grief,

Why can’t you give me some relief?

◦ Polysemantic words have antonyms for each of their lexico-semantic variants: a dull knife- a
sharp knife, a dull boy-a bright boy, a dull novel-a thrilling novel, etc.

Co-occurrence of antonyms

Antithesis

◦ Man proposes, God disposes.

◦ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all
going direct the other way... (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

◦ He who desires peace, should prepare for war. (Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris, book 3,
introduction.)

Oxymoron

◦ Deeply shallow

◦ Insanely smart
◦ Farewell reception
◦ Random order

◦ "I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible." - Oscar Wilde
◦ "A joke is an extremely serious issue." - Winston Churchill
Cognitive semantics (1). Categorization. Prototypicality
Cognitive semantics

◦ Maximalist position
◦ the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is irrelevant,

◦ language is seen in the context of cognition at large (there is no separation of linguistic

knowledge from general thinking/ encyclopedic real world knowledge),

◦ language use is the methodological basis of linguistics

◦ Cognitive semantics emerged in the 1980s as part of Cognitive Linguistics

Contributions of cognitive semantics

◦ the prototype model of category structure,

◦ the conceptual theory of metaphor and metonymy,

◦ Idealized Cognitive Models and frame theory,

◦ Cognitive linguistic conception of language

◦ a belief in the contextual, pragmatic flexibility of meaning

◦ meaning is a cognitive phenomenon that exceeds the boundaries of the word,

◦ meaning involves perspectivization

Cognitive understanding of meaning

◦ no separation of linguistic knowledge from general thinking

◦ Experientialism: words and language in general have meaning only because of our interaction
with the world

◦ Meaning is embodied (Johnson, 1987, Lakoff, 1987)

◦ Our conceptual and linguistic system and its respective categories are constrained by the ways
in which we, as human beings, perceive, categorize and symbolize experience. Linguistic
codification is ultimately grounded in experience: bodily, physical, social and cultural

Concepts

• organized bundles of stored knowledge which represent an articulation of events, entities,

situations, and so on, in our experience (A.Cruse)

• Concepts are linked together in a complex multi-dimensional network. The links are of specific
types (e.g. is a kind of, is a part of , is used for, lives in, etc.) and are of variable strength.
The nature of concepts
◦ Concepts are used to categorize experience and they give access to knowledge concerning
entities which fall into categories.
◦ Two main ways in which conceptual categories can be described:

◦ the classical approach to categorization

◦ the standard prototype approach.

◦ Categorization represents (Lakoff 1987) the main way we make sense of experience.

◦ This mental operation consists of grouping different things and it is essential in all
mental activities.

The classical approach

◦ the classical view of categorization describes word meaning as a set of criterial properties or
features.

◦ Categories have clear boundaries, as membership is limited to those entities possessing the
conjunction of necessary and sufficient features particular to the category in question.

◦ Within the category itself, all members have equal status thus and the main characteristic of the
classical theory of categorization is that is has fixed, well delimited boundaries.
◦ Plato, Aristotle

◦ Aristotle applied the classical categorization scheme in his approach to the classification of living
beings (successive narrowing questions: Is it an animal or vegetable? How many feet does it
 have? Does it have fur or feathers? Can it fly?), establishing the basis for natural taxonomy. The
ten categories, or classes: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state,
action, affection.

◦ However, in terms of the concept of GAME (and many others), it appears impossible to draw up
a list of features possessed by all games

◦ a. involves winning and losing

◦ b. involves more than one person

◦ c. has arbitrary rules

◦ d. done purely for enjoyment

The prototype-based conception of categorization

◦ originated in the mid-1970s, Eleanor Rosch

◦ Rosch’s main contribution to cognitive sciences was to argue that natural conceptual categories
are structured around the ‘best’ examples or prototypes of the categories, and that other items
are assimilated to a category according to whether they sufficiently resemble the prototype or
not.

◦ experimental technique is the elicitation of subjects’ Goodness-of-Exemplar (GOE) ratings.

◦ Rating scale:

◦ 1: very good example

◦ 2: good example

◦ 3: fairly good example

◦ 4: moderately good example

◦ 5: fairly poor example

◦ 6: bad example

◦ 7: very bad example / not an example at all.

Characteristics typical of prototypicality/ prototypicality effects
◦ Degrees of typicality

◦ Oranges, apples, bananas – the most typical fruit; pineapples, watermelons,

pomegranates – low typicality ratings; coconuts, olives – fruit ?? (for Americans)

◦ Family resemblance structure, their semantic structure takes the form of a radial set of
clustered and overlapping readings (AB, BC, CD, DE)

◦ Prototypical categories are blurred at the edges (fuzzy edges)

◦ Prototypical categories cannot be defined by means of a single set of criterial (necessary

and sufficient) attributes

◦ The category ‘fruit’: attributes common to some members

The category ‘bird’

Prototype effects
(A. Cruse)
◦ Order of mention

◦ Overall frequency
◦ Order of acquisition

◦ Vocabulary learning
◦ Speed of verification

◦ Fuzzy boundaries

Basic level categories

◦ a. vehicle – car – hatchback

◦ b. fruit – apple – Granny Smith

◦ c. living thing – creature – animal – cat – Manx cat

◦ d. object – implement – cutlery – spoon – teaspoon

 ◦ It is the most inclusive level at which there are characteristic patterns of behavioural
interaction.

◦ It is the most inclusive level for which a clear visual image can be formed.

◦ Basic level items are used for neutral, everyday reference

◦ The basic level is the level at which the ’best’ categories can be created. And good
categories include the following characteristics:

◦ iii. Distinctness from neighbouring categories

◦ iii. Within-category resemblance

◦ iii. Informativeness:

◦ The names of basic-level categories tend to be morphologically simple and they are not
metaphorical extensions from other categories.

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZs0B37foQU&t=3675s
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m76gR4dsczg

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJP-rkilz40&t=5193s
Cognitive semantics (2).
Conceptual metaphor theory
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)

◦ George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980)

◦ metaphor is a cognitive phenomenon, rather than a purely lexical one;

◦ metaphor should be analyzed as a mapping between two domains;

◦ the notion that linguistic semantics is experientially grounded.

Cognitive nature of metaphor

◦ it is not a purely lexical phenomenon but is instead a deep-seated conceptual phenomenon that
shapes the way we think
◦ metaphor comes in patterns that transcend the individual lexical item

◦ THEORIES AND ARGUMENTS ARE BUILDINGS

◦ Is that the foundation for your theory? The theory needs more support.
The argument is shaky. We need some more facts or the argument will
fall apart. We need to construct a strong argument for that. We need to
buttress the theory with solid arguments. The argument collapsed. The
theory will stand or fall on the strength of that argument.

◦ LOVE IS A JOURNEY

◦ Look how far we’ve come. We are at a crossroads. We’ll just have to go
our separate ways. We cannot turn back now. We are stuck. This
relationship is a dead-end street. I don’t think this relationship is going
anywhere. It’s been a long, bumpy road. We have gotten off the track.

◦ MORE IS UP, LESS IS DOWN

◦ The number of books printed each year keeps going up. My income rose
last year. The number of errors he made is incredibly low. His income fell
last year. He is under age. If you are too hot, turn the heat down.

◦ metaphoric images may be used creatively. The sets of expressions that illustrate
metaphoric patterns are open-ended; entailment of metaphoric patters
◦ You may be walking on cloud nine now, but don’t forget there’s a world with
other people underneath.

◦ metaphoric patterns occur outside language

◦ a ‘thumbs up’ gesture

Conceptual metaphor
◦ In the cognitive linguistic view metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in
terms of another conceptual domain.

◦ A conceptual domain is any coherent organization of experience

◦ We are going nowhere in our relations

◦ We’re spinning our wheels

◦ look how far we have come

◦ We are at a crossroads

◦ We will just have to go our separate ways

◦ We can’t turn back

◦ I don’t think we can turn back

◦ Where are we?

◦ Our marriage is on the rocks

◦ Thus, for example we have coherently organized knowledge about JOURNEYS that we rely on in
order to understand LOVE

LOVE is a JOURNEY
Source: the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another
conceptual domain

Target: the domain we try to understand through the use of the source domain

The mappings inherent in metaphoric patterns

◦ Metaphors conceptualize a target domain in terms of the source domain, and such a mapping
takes the form of an alignment between aspects of the source and target (set of
correspondences)
 ◦ a source domain, usually concrete and familiar, a target domain, usually abstract or at least less
well structured

Classification
(Lakoff and Johnson)

◦ Structural metaphors,

◦ LOVE IS A JOURNEY

◦ ARGUMENT IS WAR

◦ notions drawn from the domain of war, such as winning and losing, attacking and
defending, destroying, undermining and so on.

◦ Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. I’ve
never won an argument. You disagree? Ok, shoot!

◦ Ontological metaphors (ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as entities and
substances),

◦ Personifications:

◦ Inflation is eating up our profits. His religion tells him that he cannot drink fine
French wines. This fact argues against the standard theories. Our biggest enemy
right now is inflation

◦ Orientational metaphors (connected with our orientation in the space):

◦ HAPPY IS UP/ SAD IS DOWN
 ◦ I’m feeling up. My spirits rose. You’re in high spirits. I’m feeling down. I’m
depressed. He’s really low these days. My spirits sank.

◦ CONSCIOUS IS UP/ UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN.

◦ Wake up. He fell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He’s under hypnosis. He sank
into a coma.

◦ HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP/ SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN

◦ He fell ill. She came down with flu. He dropped dead

Metaphors are grounded in experience

◦ Embodiment – the corporeal nature of experiential grounding

◦ Not only do we understand one concept in terms of another, but we commonly also structure
less concrete and vaguer concepts in terms of more concrete and more sharply delineated ones
◦ ‘An image schema is a recurring dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions and motor
programmes that gives coherence and structure to our experience’ (Johnson, 1987)

◦ Containment image schema: enter into depression, be in love

◦ Path schema: She is writing her PhD thesis and she’s nearly there. I meant to finish
painting it last week, but I got side-tracked

◦ Force schemas: I was moved by the poem.

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYcQcwUfo8c&t=428s

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0edKgL9EgM

◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7h1voGS2b8&list=PLez3PPtnpncRMUUCgnaZO2WHdEv
Wwpkpa&index=4

Typical conceptual metaphors that characterize emotions

Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2002/2010

◦ EMOTION IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER (filled with emotion)

◦ EMOTION IS HEAT/FIRE (burn with emotion)

◦ EMOTION IS A NATURAL FORCE (be overwhelmed by an emotion)

◦ EMOTION IS A PHYSICAL FORCE (be struck by an emotion)

◦ EMOTION IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR (be governed/ruled by an emotion)

◦ EMOTION IS A OPPONENT (be overcome by an emotion)

◦ EMOTION IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL (let go of an emotion)

 ◦ EMOTION IS A FORCE DISLOCATING THE SELF (be beside oneself with an emotion)
◦ EMOTION IS BURDEN (be weighed down by an emotion)

◦ Task: Find examples in fiction (or other types of discourse) to illustrate these conceptual
metaphors.

Identify conceptual metaphors (A is B)

◦ Якась пустка всередині. І навіть зла немає. Ні на кого зла немає. Але немає й краплі
любові (О. Тесленко);

◦ Зараз він добрий, доступний, але варто його сіятельству впасти у гнів — і край веселощам,
а кара настигне винуватця негайно (Б. Левін);

◦ Ні з ким було поділитися своїми думками, нікому було вилити почуття (І. Драч);

◦ Його очі запалали наглим гнівом, а його смагляне лице поблідло (О. Кобилянська);

◦ Світ гине в пристрастях та болячках, але саме в ньому ростуть теплі квіти любові,
через що він знову і знову живе (В. Шевчук)

◦ Божевільний страх охопив відразу всіх дівчат (Н. Королева);

◦ До того ж мене стримував страх перед помстою моїх спільників і, що тут

приховувати, перед органами безпеки (М. Козакевич);

◦ Разом із цим відчуттям від неї пішла любов (І. Роздобудько);

Identify conceptual metaphor

◦ The academic landscape of linguistics is a mountainous one. Broad vales where the main
streams of research flow branch off into side valleys and even smaller dales where theories are
refined and specific topics pursued. Working in their own dell of specialization, scholars will be
well aware of their local disciplinary river system, but they may be less acquainted with research
that lies beyond the mountain range of their own theoretical environment. They will be familiar
with the highest peaks of alternative frameworks, but they may be less informed about the
riches and challenges that may be found in their less visible regions. The present book, then,
contributes to the cartography of linguistic lexical semantics. It will try to map out the landscape
in such a way that researchers may easily acquaint themselves with the broader panorama, and
may perhaps also more readily travel beyond their native territory.

◦ (DIRK GEERAERTS).

Blending theory

• Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner (1994, 1995, 1998)

• Model of conceptual integration

• Input spaces (source and target domains), blended space and genetic space
 • The blending approach highlights the interaction of source and target domains; constructive
nature of metaphors (they new build meaningful structures).

Conceptual metonymy

◦ The ham sandwich has wandering hands.

◦ referential in nature, X stands for Y

◦ motivated by physical or causal associations. Contiguity

◦ Metonymy involves one conceptual domain in the conceptualization process; unlike metaphor,
it is not a cross-domain mapping, but instead allows one entity to stand for another because
both concepts coexist within the same domain (Lakoff and Turner, 1989)
 ◦ (both the target (the customer) and the vehicle (the ham sandwich) belong to the same
CAFÉ domain)

◦ Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental
access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same domain. (Kövecses and Radden
1998: 39)

◦ Metonymy is a mapping operation that highlights one entity by referring to another entity
within the same domain (Barcelona 2003b; Croft 1993).)
◦ Metonymies are represented by the formula ‘B for A’, where ‘B’ is the vehicle and ‘A’ is the
target, e.g. PLACE FOR INSTITUTION.

◦ Buckingham Palace denied the rumours.

Kinds of metonymy

◦ PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT

◦ a. I’ve just bought a new Citröen.

◦ b. Pass me the Shakespeare on the top shelf.

◦ PLACE FOR EVENT

◦ a. American public opinion fears another Vietnam.

◦ b. Let’s hope that Beijing will be as successful an Olympics as Athens.

◦ PLACE FOR INSTITUTION

◦ a. Downing street refused comment.

◦ b. Europe has upped the stakes in the trade war with the United States.

◦ PART FOR WHOLE

◦ a. Lend me a hand.

◦ b. She’s not just a pretty face.

◦ WHOLE FOR PART

◦ a. England beat Australia in the 2003 rugby World Cup final.

◦ b. The European Union has just passed new human rights legislation.
◦ EFFECT FOR CAUSE

◦ a. He has a long face.

◦ b. Her face is beaming.

Metaphtonymy
◦ Goossens (1990)
◦ Involves operation of two mechanisms: similarity and contiguity

◦ Metaphor from metonymy

◦ close-lipped

◦ metonymy: when one has one’s lips closed, one is (usually) silent. However,
close-lipped can also mean ‘speaking but giving little away’. This interpretation
is metaphoric, because we understand the absence of meaningful information
in terms of silence. The metaphoric interpretation has a metonymic basis.

◦ Metonymy within metaphor

◦ She caught the Prime Minister’s ear and persuaded him to accept her plan

◦ metaphor ATTENTION IS A MOVING PHYSICAL ENTITY + metonymy EAR FOR

ATTENTION
Cognitive semantics (3). Frames and FrameNet
Larger structures of knowledge

◦ Idealized Cognitive Model (George Lakoff, 1987) and ‘frame’ Charles Fillmore (1975, 1977b,
1985, 1987)

◦ In the broadest sense (Fillmore and Atkin), the notion of ‘frame’ is largely synonymous with that
of Idealized Cognitive Model, referring in general to the knowledge structures that embody our
thinking about the world.

◦ In the more restricted sense, it refers to a specific type of knowledge organization in the lexicon

◦ Fillmore´s frame semantics:

◦ Concepts cannot be treated in isolation because every concept is embedded in a larger

body of knowledge of some sort. Understanding any concept requires taking into
account wider domains.

◦ Langacker:

◦ concepts only make sense when viewed against the background of certain domains,
which are usually themselves concepts of a more general or inclusive nature

◦ WHEEL profiles a region of the base BICYCLE

◦ basic domains and include elementary notions, such as SPACE, TIME, MATTER,
QUANTITY, and CHANGE

FRAMES OR IDEALIZED COGNITIVE MODELS (ICMS)

◦ Both Fillmore (1982) and Lakoff (1987) take a particular approach to protypicallity that links
linguistic knowledge and encyclopaedic knowledge.

◦ They both claim that speakers have folk theories about the world, based on their experience and
rooted in their culture.

◦ Fillmore calls these theories frames and Lakoff idealized cognitive models (ICMs).

◦ According to Saeed, these are not scientific theories or logically consistent definitions, but
collections of cultural views.

◦ These authors suggest a division of our knowledge into a dictionary-type definition and an
enclyclopaedia-type entry of cultural knowledge.

Idealized Cognitive Models

◦ Lakoff (1987)

◦ Idealized Cognitive Model (or ICM) is a way of capturing the idea—fundamental to cognitive
semantics—that our knowledge of language is intimately related to our knowledge of the world,
 and that such knowledge of the world takes the form of cognitive models: structured sets of
beliefs and expectations that direct cognitive processing, including the use of language.

◦ The models are called ‘idealized’ because they are abstractions from the actual world

◦ ICMs as the way in which we organize our knowledge

◦ ICMs may also be defined as cognitive structures whose purpose is to represent reality from a
certain perspective in such a way that they result in a process of idealization of reality.

◦ ICMs use different kinds of structuring /principles (see Lakoff, 1987: 68): propositional structure
as in Fillmore’s Frame Semantics, image-schematic structure of the kind described in Langacker’s
Cognitive Grammar, and metaphoric and metonymic mappings as described by Lakoff and
Johnson (1980, 1999).

◦ Love is war – a metaphoric ICM

Frame semantics

◦ Fillmore, 1977

◦ Frame theory is specifically interested in the way in which language may be used to
perspectivize an underlying conceptualization of the world—it is not just that we see the world
in terms of conceptual models, but those models may be verbalized in different ways.

◦ Each different way of bringing a conceptual model to expression, so to speak, adds another layer
of meaning: the models themselves are meaningful ways of thinking about the world, but the
way we express the models while talking adds perspective.

◦ The scene is the underlying conceptual structure,

◦ The notion of frame refers to the grammatical patterns highlighting parts of the scene

1) Paloma bought a book from Teresa for C30.

2) Teresa sold a book to Paloma for C30.

The risk frame (Fillmore and Atkins, 1992)

◦ Why should he risk his life to try to save Brooks?

◦ Why should {he}Protagonist risk {his life}Possession {to try to save Brooks}Goal?

◦ Bad outcome may be expressed by a gerund, as in we risked being killed, but also by a nominal
phrase, as in we risked death to help you.

◦ the Decision is expressed by a gerund in he risked swimming in the river, and by a nominal
phrase in he risked a swim (or metonymically, he risked the river).
◦ The risk frame describes the behaviour of both the verb to risk and the noun risk. For instance,
a combination of the Protagonist and the Possession can be expressed by the sentence he risked
his life, but also by he put his life at risk.
FrameNet
◦ https://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/fndrupal/

◦ Berkeley project (since 1997)

◦ Johnson, Fillmore, Wood, Ruppenhofer, Urban, Petruck, and Baker 2002; Ruppenhofer,
Ellsworth, Petruck, Johnson, and Scheffczyk 2006

◦ a lexical database of English that is both human- and machine-readable, based on annotating
examples of how words are used in actual texts

◦ The on-line FrameNet lexical database

◦ more than 13,000 word senses, most of them with annotated examples that show the
meaning and usage,

◦ more than 200,000 manually annotated sentences linked to more than 1,200 semantic
frames provide a unique training dataset for semantic role labeling, used in applications
such as information extraction, machine translation, event recognition, sentiment
analysis, etc.
Corpus methods for semantic research
A corpus

◦ “A corpus is a collection of pieces of language that are selected and ordered according to explicit
linguistic criteria in order to be used as a sample of the language”

(Sinclair 1996)

◦ “[…] the term corpus as used in modern linguistics can best be defined as a collection of
sampled texts, written or spoken, in machine-readable form which may be annotated with
various forms of linguistic information”

(McEnery, Xiao and Tono 2006)

◦ Machine-readable texts

◦ Authentic texts

◦ Sampled texts
◦ Representative of a particular language or language variety

The definition of a corpus

Types of corpora

◦ • General corpora
◦ • Specialized corpora

◦ • Historical or diachronic corpora

 ◦ • Regional corpora
◦ • Learner’s corpora

◦ • Multilingual corpora
◦ • Comparable corpora

◦ • Parallel corpora

General corpora

◦ Brown Corpus, 500 samples of English language text, totaling roughly one million words

◦ British National Corpus (BNC), a 100-million-word text corpus of samples of written and spoken
English from a wide range of sources
◦ http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/

◦ Bank of English, a representative subset of the 4.5 billion words COBUILD corpus

◦ Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), over 425 million words

◦ https://www.corpusdata.org/

◦ American National Corpus, 22 million words of written and spoken data produced since 1990

◦ https://www.anc.org/

◦ • Ukrainian Language Corpus,

◦ http://www.mova.info/corpus.aspx?l1=209

◦ • General Regionally Annotated Corpus of Ukrainian (GRAC),

◦ http://uacorpus.org/

Comparable and parallel corpora

Mark-up

◦ System of standard codes inserted into a document stored in electronic form to provide
information about the text itself and govern formatting, printing and other processes

◦ TEI

◦ CES

◦ Mark-up provides objectively verifiable information

◦ Authorship

◦ Publication dates

◦ Paragraph boundaries

◦ Source text (URL, Book, …)

Annotation, tagging and parsing

◦ Annotation is “the process of adding […] interpretive linguistic information to an electronic

corpus of spoken and/or written language data”, ‘annotation = value added’ (Leech 1997)

◦ Tagging the process of marking up a word in a text (corpus) as corresponding to a particular

class, a method to represent the classes and features of words in a standardised form, called a
tag.

◦ Parsing - analyzing the sentences in a corpus into their constituents; syntactic annotation

◦ XML - eXtensible Markup Language

Levels of linguistic annotation
POS tagging
◦ Corpus annotation is the practice of adding interpretative linguistic information to a corpus.

◦ http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/claws/

◦ Corpus_NN1 annotation_NN1 is_VBZ the_AT0 practice_NN1 of_PRF adding_VVG

interpretative_AJ0 linguistic_AJ0 information_NN1 to_PRP a_AT0 corpus_SENT._PUN

◦ NN1 singular noun

◦ VBZ -s form of the verb "BE“

◦ AT0 article
◦ PRF the preposition OF

◦ VVG -ing form of lexical verb

◦ AJ0 adjective (unmarked)

◦ PRP preposition (except for OF) (e.g. FOR, ABOVE, TO)

◦ Penn Treebank Tagset

◦ Corpus/NN annotation/NN is/VBZ the/DT practice/NN of/IN adding/VBG interpretative/JJ

linguistic/JJ information/NN to/IN a/DT corpus/NN ./.

◦ NN Noun, singular or mass

◦ VBZ Verb, 3rd ps. sg. Present

◦ DT Determiner
◦ IN Preposition
◦ VBG Verb, gerund/present pple

◦ JJ Adjective
Corpus methods for semantic research (2) Sentiment
analysis
Making statistical claims

◦ A corpus can provide reliable quantitative data

◦ Raw frequency (actual count of the number of linguistic elements within a corpus) and
normalized frequency (comparable to the size of the corpora under consideration, often
common base of 1,000 words)

◦ Descriptive and inferential statistics

◦ Central tendency

◦ The mean, the mode, the median (for 4,5,6,6,7,7,7,9,9,10 – the mean is 7
(70/10); the mode is 7; the median is 7 (7+7)/2))
◦ Ways to measure the dispersion of the dataset:

◦ the range (6 (10-4)), the variance (of 4 is 3 (7-4)) and the standard deviation
(1.89)
◦ Tests of statistical significance

◦ Chi-square test (compares the difference between the observed value and the expected
values)

◦ Log-likelihood test (LL)

◦ Tests for significant collocations

◦ MI (mutual information) – the higher the MI score the stronger the link between two
items (MI score 3 and higher means that two items are collocates)
◦ The t test (2 and higher is statistically significant)

◦ The z score (a higher z score indicates a greater degree of collocability of an item with
the node word)
Keywords/ Cultural keywords

◦ Keyword analysis is essentially based on the notion that recurrent ways of talking about
concepts and ideas reveal something about how we think about the social world.

◦ For R. Williams, ‘key’ in ‘keyword’ indicates that a particular concept is salient across a culture.
So, for example, ‘democracy’ and ‘revolution’ are keywords for Williams.
◦ Williams (1983) is a socio-historical, diachronic dictionary of keywords where their
semantic development over centuries is traced and interrelationships explored. For this
 work, Williams used the complete Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which runs to
several volumes.

◦ A. Wierzbicka claims that every language has "key concepts," expressed in "key words," which
reflect the core values of a given culture [Wierzbicka A. Understanding Cultures through Their
Key Words (English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese)]

◦ Stubbs’ (1996, 2001) investigation of cultural keywords is done in the main synchronically and is
informed by corpus-based methods.
◦ ‘Standard’ is one of the cultural keywords which Williams (1983) investigates using the
OED. Stubbs (2001) uses a 200-million-word corpus of contemporary English, which
consists mainly of newspaper and magazine media texts, in order to highlight the most
common collocates of the word ‘standard’: ‘living’, ‘high’, etc. Collocates are words
which commonly accompany other words over short word spans: that is, they form a
collocation such as ‘living standards’.

◦ A corpus provides objective quantitative support for the extent to which cultural
keywords are being used, and the lexical company they keep. It thus provides a measure
of what meanings are being culturally reproduced.

◦ Keywords often inter-collocate, and ideas gain stability when they fit into a frame.

◦ Many everyday ideas about language fit very firmly into a frame which contains
terms such as:
◦ standard, standards, accurate, correct, grammar, proper, precise

◦ For linguists, the same terms mean something quite different because they fit
into an entirely different lexical field, which contains terms such as:

◦ dialect, language planning, high prestige language, social variation

Corpus-comparative statistical keywords

◦ This type of keyword is defined as words which are statistically more salient in a text or set of
texts than in a large reference corpus. A keyword is ‘found to be outstanding in its frequency in
the text’ (Scott 1999) by comparison to another corpus
◦ ‘Keyness’ here is established through statistical measures such as log likelihood value. Relatively
high log likelihoods indicate keywords.

◦ A keyword analysis not only indicates the ‘aboutness’ (Scott 1999) of a particular genre, it can
also reveal the salient features which are functionally related to that genre.

◦ Keywords are those words whose frequency is unusually high (positive keywords) or low
(negative keywords) in comparison with a reference corpus. The reference corpus is that it is
clearly much larger than the corpora that are contrasted with it.
 ◦ The programs like WordSmith, AntConc compare two pre-existing word-lists, which must have
been created using the WordList tool. One of these is assumed to be a large word-list which will
act as a reference file. The other is the word-list based on one text which you want to study.

◦ The aim is to find out which words characterise the text you're most interested in, which is
automatically assumed to be the smaller of the two texts chosen. The larger will provide
background data for reference comparison.

Сorpus linguistics suggests two types of keyness analysis (Gabrielatos 2018):

◦ explanatory – appropriate for the corpus-based discourse study, deals with concordances
showing the context of lexical items,

◦ focused – appropriate for the corpus-driven discourse analysis, presupposes comparison of the
normalized frequency of the lexical items in two corpora to address particular research issues;
attempt to generate the keywords in the texts based on robust statistical measures without any
preconceived hypothesis.
The automatic extraction of the keywords with the help of UAM Corpus tool

◦ (http://corpustool.com/index.html)
◦ In UAM CT, the keyness of a term is calculated as the relative frequency of the term in the
subcorpus of interest divided by the relative frequency of the term in the reference corpus.
Relative frequency is the count of the term in the subcorpus divided by the number of terms in
that subcorpus.

◦ Two types of keyness:

◦ Keyness-D,

◦ Keyness-S (Gabrielatos, 2018)

◦ Keyness can refer to difference (including absence)

or similarity. Keyness refers to the size of

the frequency difference.

Sentiment analysis

◦ SA, also called opinion mining, is the field of study that analyzes people’s opinions, sentiments,
evaluations, appraisals, attitudes, and emotions towards entities such as products, services,
organizations, individuals, issues, events, topics, and their attributes (Bing Liu 2012);

◦ SA is a NLP and text mining problem which deals with computational study of opinions,
sentiments and emotions expressed in text. SA is a study of subjectivity (neutral vs emotionally
loaded) and polarity (positive vs negative) of a text (Bo Pang and Lillian Lee)

◦ According to E. Hovi, SA is used to detect and retrieve the subjective information from the text.
 ◦ It is the process of algorithmically identifying and categorizing opinions expressed in text,
determining the sentiments they convey, classifying their polarity (positive, negative or neutral)
and strength/ intensity to determine the user’s attitude toward the subject of the document
(text). This process relies on sentiment vocabulary/ lexicon, i.e. large collections of words, each
marked with a positive or negative orientation.
◦ Since the early 2000s multiple techniques for SA have been proposed, including lexicon-based
approaches (e.g., General Inquirer, WordNet Affect, QWordNet or SentiWordNet) and
supervised machine learning methods (e.g., Naive Bayes, MaxEnt, Support Vector Machine).
◦ SA can be applied at the discourse level, which presupposes that each document expresses
opinions on a single entity. The sentence-level sentiment analysis determines whether the
sentence implies positive or negative opinions. The object-oriented sentiment analysis reveals
sentiment towards a specific entity mentioned in the text. The aspect-based sentiment analysis
focuses on opinions relative to specific properties (or aspects) of an entity.

SA challenges

◦ Texts are domain specific, so one system trained to work with particular domain-specific texts is
not suitable for texts in another domain at all;

◦ Difficulties of natural language processing due to the very nature of the language. Language is
dynamic and depends on the context;
◦ The battery lasts a long time. (positive sentiment)

◦ The film lasts a long time. (sentiment?)

◦ Negation words or phrases, such as never, not, no, none, nothing, etc. can reverse the
polarities of the opinion words. Similarly, language patterns such as “stop + vb-ing”,
“quit + vb-ing” and “cease + to-inf vb” can express negation and a negative evaluation
but it depends on the social context of the text.

◦ The latest iPhone is great (positive) - The latest iPhone is not great. (negative)
 ◦ My iPhone stopped working (negative) - The medicines worked. The tumour
stopped growing. (positive)

◦ metaphorical expressions,

◦ sarcasm

◦ lie detection

◦ Correct detection of subjective sentences/ clauses in the text;

◦ Sentiment polarity is language-dependent.

◦ Poor materials (sentiment-annotated corpora, sentiment-lexicon) for a lot of languages, in

particular Ukrainian.

1.LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count

◦ designed by James W. Pennebaker, Roger J. Booth, and Martha E. Francis;

◦ the LIWC2015 master dictionary is composed of almost 6,400 words, word stems, and selected
emoticons;

◦ analyze over 70 dimensions of language

◦ 4 general descriptor categories (total word count, words per sentence, percentage of
words captured by the dictionary, and percent of words longer than six letters)

◦ 22 standard linguistic dimensions (e.g., percentage of words in the text that are
pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, etc.)

◦ 32 word categories tapping psychological constructs (e.g., affect, cognition, biological

processes)
◦ 7 personal concern categories (e.g., work, home, leisure activities)

◦ 3 paralinguistic dimensions (assents, fillers, nonfluencies)

◦ 12 punctuation categories (periods, commas, etc.)

◦ http://www.liwc.net/index.php

◦ the text analysis module was created in the Java programming language;

◦ analyzes .txt and .doc(x) files;

◦ output is given in .txt form but can be easily transferred to an excel file.

2.

◦ http://sentistrength.wlv.ac.uk/
 ◦ Strength estimates the strength of positive and negative sentiment in short texts (or in
text segments), even for informal language. It has human-level accuracy for short social web
texts in English, except political texts.;

◦ reports two sentiment strengths: -1 (not negative) to -5 (extremely negative), 1 (not positive) to
5 (extremely positive);

◦ can also report binary (positive/negative), trinary (positive/negative/neutral) and single scale (-4
to +4) results;
◦ output is a copy of the text file with positive and negative classifications added at the end of
each line, preceded by tabs;

◦ algorithm is based on the information contained in various files, including

◦ The EmotionLookUpTable is a list of emotion-bearing words, each one with the word
then a tab, then an integer 1 to 5 or -1 to -5.
◦ NegatingWordList.txt reverses the polarity of subsequent words -e.g., not happy is
negative.

◦ BoosterWordList.txt increases sentiment intensity -e.g., very happy is more positive

than happy.

◦ IdiomLookupTable.txt overrides the sentiment strength of the individual words in the

phrase.

EXAMPLES OF SENTIMENT DETECTION USING SENTISTRENGTH

3. UAM Corpus tool

◦ http://corpustool.com/index.html

◦ Appraisal framework, designed to explore, describe and explain evaluative uses of language,
including the ways the language is used to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to
manage interpersonal positioning and relationships (Martin & White 2005).

◦ Attitude system:
◦ Affect expresses a person's internal emotional state.
◦ Judgment evaluates a person's behavior in a social context.

◦ Appreciation evaluates norms about how products, performances, and naturally

occurring phenomena are valued, when this evaluation is expressed as being a property
of the object.
Contrastive analysis of English and Ukrainian phraseology
Phraseology

◦ expressions where the meaning of one element is dependent on the other, irrespective of the
structure and properties of the unit (V.V.Vinogradov);

◦ set expressions which, as distinguished from idioms, do not possess expressiveness or emotional
colouring (A.I. Smirnitsky),

◦ only those expressions that are imaginative, expressive and emotional (I. Arnold);

◦ fixed context units, i.e. units in which it is impossible to substitute any of the components
without changing the meaning not only of the whole unit but also of the elements that remain
intact (N.N.Amosova);

◦ phrases whose semantic integrity prevails over the structural separateness of their elements
(O.S. Ahmanova);

◦ A.V. Kunin lays stress on the structural separateness of the elements in a phraseological unit, on
the change of meaning in the whole as compared with its elements taken separately and on a
certain minimum stability.

Phraseological unit

◦ is a non-motivated word-group that cannot be freely made up in speech but is reproduced as a

ready-made unit.

◦ Idiomaticity is the quality of a phraseological unit, when the meaning of the whole is
not deducible from the sum of the meanings of the parts.
◦ Stability of a phraseological unit implies that it exists as a ready-made linguistic unit
which does not allow of any variability of its lexical components of grammatical
structure.
◦ Reproducibility is regular use of phraseological units in speech as single unchangeable
collocations.

◦ "idiom”, "set phrase/expression", "word-equivalent"

Western linguistics

◦ According to Webster's dictionary, phraseology is 'mode of expression, peculiarities of diction,

i.e. choice and arrangement of words and phrases characteristic of some author or some literary
work

◦ Phraseology can be loosely defined as the study of conventional phrases, where phrase means
any multi-word expression up to the sentence level (A.Cowie, 1998).

◦ Multiword lexemes (Weinreich, Jackson, Ze Amvela)

◦ Phrasal lexemes (Jackson, 2002)

 ◦ Phrase idioms (red herring, in the nick of time) vs clause idioms (go ballistic, paint the
town red) /Cowie, 1993/

◦ Sentence idioms (The early bird catches the worm)

◦ A phrasal structure: noun+prep+noun (bone of connection)

◦ A phrasal structure: noun in possessive +noun (baker’s dozen)

◦ A phrasal structure of two words of a similar type joined by conjunction and (or) –
binominals (bells and whistles, wide and dine), trinominals (any Tom, Dick or Harry)

◦ Verb+preposition/ adverbial particle – a phrasal verb (look up, pass out…)

◦ Metaphorical or figurative in meaning phrasal lexemes – idioms (a skeleton in the

cupboard, pick one’s brain(s), get a kick out)

◦ /Jackson/

Idiom
◦ a mode of expression peculiar to a language, without differentiating between the grammatical
and lexical levels;

◦ a group of words / expressions whose meaning it is difficult or impossible to understand from

the knowledge of the words considered separately (or groups of words with set meanings that
cannot be calculated by adding up the separate meanings of the parts /Bolinger 1975)

◦ synonymous to the words "language" or "dialect", denoting a form of expression peculiar to a

people, a country, a district, or to one individual.

◦ Idiomaticity – ‘a phenomenon which may be described as the use of segmentally complex

expressions whose semantic structure is not deducible jointly from the syntactic structure of
their components’ (Weinreich, 1972)

◦ is pervasive in language, it is ‘present and seen or felt everywhere’ (Hocket, 1958)

The essential features of idioms:

Semantic

◦ Semantic non-compositionality, lack of semantic motivation (deliver the goods, up for grabs);

◦ Metaphoricity (a wild goose chase);

◦ Conventionalization;

◦ Ambiguity (blow the whistle);

◦ Cultural component (mind one’s p’s and q’s);

◦ Sense relations: synonyms, antonymy, polysemy (pie in the sky, pipe dream, castle in the air)

Structural
 ◦ lexical and grammatical stability:
◦ Resist interruption;

◦ Not possible to reorder them;

◦ Non of the words may be freely replaced by a synonym;

◦ No passive alternative;

◦ Resist changes in grammatical parameters

Ch. Bally, V.V. Vinogradov

◦ classification is based upon the motivation of the unit, i.e. the relationship existing between the
meaning of the whole and the meaning of its component parts.
◦ phraseological fusions: tit for tat, to beat about the bush, to rain cats and dogs,
скакати в гречку, собаку з’їсти;

◦ phraseological unities: to stick (to stand) to one's guns, to know the way the wind is
blowing, закинути вудку;

◦ phraseological combinations (collocations): meet the demand, meet the necessity, meet
the requirements, брати на глум, брати гору, брати до серця, брати себе в руки,
брати верх

A.P. Cowie

◦ Pure idioms: kick the bucket,

◦ Figurative idioms: close ranks, give smb. a leg up, a skeleton in the cupboard,

◦ Restricted idioms (semi idioms): a foregone conclusions, a blind alley,

◦ Open collocations: set/give/follow an example, a good/ vivid/ telling/ prime example

N.N. Amosova's approach

◦ Contextual

◦ phrasemes: small talk, small hours, small change

◦ idioms: in the nick of time, take the bull by the horns

A.V. Kunin
◦ function

◦ nominating (a bull in a china shop),

◦ interjectional (a pretty kettle of fish),

◦ communicative (familiarity breeds contempt),

 ◦ nominating-communicative (pull somebody's leg)
I.Arnold

◦ a formal and functional classification based on the fact that a set expression functioning in
speech is in distribution similar to definite classes of words

◦ nominal phrases: the root of the trouble’,

◦ verbal phrases: put one’s best foot forward;

◦ adjectival phrases: as good as gold; red as a cherry;

◦ adverbial phrases: from head to foot;

◦ prepositional phrases: in the course of;

◦ conjunctional phrases: as long as, on the other hand;

◦ interjectional phrases: Well, I never!

◦ A stereotyped sentence also introduced into speech as a ready-made formula may be

illustrated by Never say die! ‘never give up hope’, take your time ‘do not hurry’.

Ways of forming phraseological units

A.V. Kunin

primary on the basis of a free word-group

◦ transferring the meaning of word-groups: launching pad – стартова площадка

(terminological meaning), відправний пункт (transferred meaning)

◦ transforming the meaning: granny farm – дім для людей похилого віку;
◦ alliteration: culture vulture

◦ distorting a word group: odds and ends;

◦ using archaisms: in a brown study

secondary on the basis of another phraseological unit

◦ conversion – vote with one’s feet;

◦ analogy – care killed the cat;

◦ contrast – thin cat;

◦ shortening of proverbs and sayings- to make a sow’s ear;

◦ borrowing (translation loans) – to take the bull by the horns (Latin), sotto voce

According to the origin English PhU

Native
 ◦ Terminological and professional lexis – center of gravity, specific weight;
◦ English literature – the green-eyed monster (W.Shakespeare), never say die (Ch. Dickens);

◦ Traditions and customs – baker’s dozen, дати гарбуза

◦ Superstitions and legends – a black sheep,

◦ Historical facts and events, personalities – to do a Thatcher,

◦ Phenomena and facts of everyday life – to carry coals to Newcastle.

Borrowed

◦ The Holy Script – the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing;

◦ Ancient legends, myths – to cut the Gordian knot;

◦ Facts and events of the world history – to cross the Rubicon, to meet one’s Waterloo;

◦ Variants of the English language – a heavy hitter (American);

◦ Other languages – second to none (Latin), let the cat out of the bag (German), every dog is a lion
at home (Italian).

Phraseological transference

◦ Simile: (as) pretty as a picture, (as) fat as a pig, to fight like a lion, to swim like a fish.

◦ Metaphor: Their marriage is on the rocks.

◦ Metonymy: a silk stocking meaning ‘a rich, well-dressed man’

◦ Synecdoche: to hold one’s tongue – ‘to say nothing, to be discreet’.

Conceptual approach to idioms

◦ Idioms as products of the conceptual system.

◦ Linguistic worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society
encompassing the entirety of the individual or society’s knowledge.

◦ The Conceptual Metaphor Theory

◦ ARGUMENT is WAR (to win an argument, to demolish arguments, to shoot the
argument…)

◦ Conceptual metonymy

◦ to bite one’s tongue, get back on one’s feet…

◦ Metaphtonymy

◦ to get on one’s legs, to turn one’s back…

Вогонь / fire in English and Ukrainian idioms

 ◦ Similarities
◦ play with fire (грати з вогнем, наражати себе на небезпеку) vs грат и/ жартувати з
вогнем (чинити необдумано, необережно)

◦ between two fires (поміж двох небезпек) vs між двома вогнями (бути в небезпеці з
обох сторін)

◦ add fuel to the fire / flames (підливати масло у вогонь) vs підливати масло у вогонь
(загострювати ситуацію)

◦ to go through fire and water (пройти й огонь і воду, багато пережити) vs пройти
вогонь і воду (пережити багато труднощів на власному шляху)

◦ Differences

◦ дружба - get on like a house on fire

◦ домашній спокій та затишок - keep the home fires burning

◦ енергія - ball of fire (енергійна і запальна особа)

◦ Непосидючцість - fire in your /the belly

◦ здібності - to set the Thames on fire (зробити щось незвичайне, створити чудо)

◦ страх - боятися як вогню

◦ складнощі життя - з вогню (із жару) та в полум ’я

◦ ентузіазм - працювати (робити) з вогником

◦ використання результатів праці інших - чужими руками вогонь загрібати

◦ зникнення - як віск на вогні згоріти

◦ стійкості, міцності, невразливості - у воді не тонути, у вогні не горіти

Idioms across variants of English

British idioms:
◦ Itchy feet - This refers to when you want to try or do something new, such as travelling.
Example: “After two years in the job she’s got itchy feet, so she’s going to spend three months in
Australia.”
◦ At a loose end - If you’re at a loose end, it means you’re bored or you have nothing to do.
Example: “He’s been at a loose end ever since he retired.”
◦ Cheap as chips - We love a good bargain, and when we find one we can’t help but exclaim that
it’s ‘as cheap as chips.’ Example: “Only a fiver for a ticket — cheap as chips mate!”

◦ Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. - This is one that our
grandparents have told us our whole lives. If you take care not to waste small amounts of
money, then it will accumulate into something more substantial.

◦ Nosy parker - This is for all the nosy people of the world. A ‘nosy parker’ is someone who is
extremely interested in other people’s lives. Example: “Stop being such a nosy parker! They’re
having a private conversation!”

◦ Cock and bull story - to relay a fanciful anecdote of highly questionable validity.

American English Idioms

◦ Feel like a million dollars - feel beautiful or wonderful

◦ Cat got your tongue? - not speaking for some reason

◦ Get off someone's back - stop pressuring me

◦ To spill the beans - to tell someone a secret
◦ Cough up - to pay money you owe

◦ To make ends meet - to have enough money to pay for everything

◦ Don't hold your breath - don't wait for too long

◦ To fish for a compliment - to invite someone to say nice things

◦ To gain a leg up on sth – to gain an advantage over someone or something: “Who would you
most likely study with to gain a leg up on a Spanish text?”

◦ Play hookey – run away, depart flee.

◦ Flash in the pan – temporary, not likely to last: “Which of the American idol contestants last
year is a flash in the pan?”

◦ In the boondocks – in a rural area, remote.

◦ Get on a bandwagon – join a cause or movement: “Would you get on a bandwagon for
recycling?”

◦ Roll with the punches – take things as they come, be calm no matter what happens: “Would you
describe yourself as uptight or someone who rolls with the punches?”

◦ Eat one’s hat – to bet with confidence: “I’ll eat my hat if I don’t get it.”

◦ Australian idioms
◦ Blood is worth bottling - If an Australian says to you "Your blood is worth bottling", he/she is
complimenting or praising you for doing something or being someone very special.

◦ Cut down the tall poppies - If people cut down the tall poppies, they criticise people who stand
out from the crowd.

◦ Dry as a dead dingo's donga - If something is as dry as a dead dingo's donga, it is very dry
indeed.

◦ Grinning like a shot fox - If someone is grinning like a shot fox, they are smiling
uncomprehendingly or smugly, looking stupid while smiling, showing that they don't really
understand what's going on, like the bared teeth on the corpse of a fox.

◦ See which way the cat jumps - If you see which way the cat jumps, you postpone making a
decision or acting until you have seen how things are developing.

◦ She'll be apples - A very popular old Australian saying meaning everything will be all right, often
used when there is some doubt.

◦ Canadian idioms

◦ 1. Book off work – To take off time from work. I’m going to book off work next week.

◦ 2. Write a test – To take a test. I’m writing a test today in English.

◦ 3. Had the biscuit - Dead; broken.
◦ 4. Walk in the Park - A “walk in the park” refers to a task or activity that is easy and
straightforward.

◦ New Zealand idioms

◦ 1. Across the ditch - This idiom means on the other side of the Tasman Sea, used to refer to
Australia or New Zealand depending on the speaker's location.

◦ 2. Box of fluffy ducks -Used when something is working well or going your way. If you are happy,
you are a box of fluffy ducks. Also can be shortened to 'a box of fluffies'.
Semantics and Pragmatics
Pragmatics

◦ Semantics deals with those aspects of meaning which do not vary from context to context,
◦ Pragmatics deals with aspects of individual usage and context-dependent meaning.

◦ It is the study of how we use linguistic knowledge in context (J. Saeed)

◦ It is the study of how hearers, e.g., have to

◦ combine semantic knowledge with other types of knowledge

◦ make inferences in order to interpret the speaker’s meaning

◦ When sentences are viewed as utterances of individuals engaged in communication, a pragmatic

approach is assumed

DEIXIS

◦ Meaning should be considered as a text-sensitive element in which two main factors are
especially relevant: deixis and information structure.

◦ Deixis and information structure have been selected as important reference points which
connect reality, the way we perceive it, and the way we name it.

◦ Deixis commits a speaker to set up a frame of reference around herself(2001: 173)

◦ Pronominal systems are good examples of deixis. In the case of background knowledge the
important thing is that both the implication and inference relations often rely on a kind of
cultural knowledge that cannot be found in any dictionary entry.

◦ The simplest example of spatial deixis in English is adverbs of location (when used deictically)
since they pick out places according to their proximity to the location of the speaker.

◦ It’s too dangerous to pull up here just round the bend. Try and park there, by the trees.

◦ If the speaker moves, the interpretation of the adverbs will change:

◦ I’m glad we moved here, it was just too dangerous to park up there with all those cars
coming so fast...

MEANING AND CONTEXT

◦ Saeed establishes three sources of knowledge a speaker has to estimate.

◦ Knowledge computable from physical context (includes the kind of knowledge obtained
by filling in deictic expressions)

◦ Knowledge that is available from what has already been said (what can be viewed as the
talk itself. This is often called discourse understood as some kind of context): ‘I’m
exhausted’ ‘Me too’
 ◦ Knowledge available from background or common knowledge (cultural knowledge
affects the interpretation )

◦ In 1, the fact that food can be exchanged for money is a kind of cultural knowledge that
is not present in any dictionary entry for the words food or money. Likewise, speaker a)
in 2 will take the b answer as a negative based on cultural knowledge about ice creams
and diets. Again in 3, if a and b are Muslims, then a will probably infer that b’s reply is
‘no’.

INFORMATION STRUCTURE
◦ Speakers organize or package their utterances depending on how they account for these
estimates of knowledge – information structure

◦ The most general division is that made between what the speaker assumes the hearers already
know and what the speaker is giving as new or additional information. This distinction is
extensively and cross-linguistically grammaticalized in many different ways. In English the most
frequent way to do this is by using nominals.
◦ In the example I’m going to buy the car the speaker assumes that the hearer knows what car he
is referring to. That is that the hearer can identify the referent, that particular car. The general
information can be presented as I’m going to buy a car. Leaving further specifications for
following utterances The car will be delivered within the next two weeks. If the referent is not
mentioned again, it fades from salience and will need to be referred to by various support
structures that car, that car I’ve always wanted, etc. However while an entity is accessible, it can
be referred to by pronouns It is the best you can find on the market for this price.

◦ Nominals can be linked to information structure, as Gundel et al (1993) show in their Givenness
Hierarchy for English Nominals as follows:
 ◦ This hierarchy identifies different information states of a referent, moving left to right from
most given to most new. In the second line are examples of English nominals typically used for
it.

◦ The example, from Saeed (on the right), shows how the indefinite article signals the most to the
right end of the Givenness Hierarchy

FOCUS AND TOPIC

◦ Another way of marking information structure in English is using intonation. By doing this the
assignment of primary stress to some parts of the sentence makes them more prominent
(capital letters are used to signal primary stress)

◦ The English intonation system allows the speaker to divide the sentence in two parts: a
prominent part (‘focus’, marks new information) and the rest.

◦ English, use syntactic devices in addition to intonation. The most common one is the use of cleft
or pseudo-cleft sentences such as in:
 ◦ There are other resources that can be used to emphasize the topic in the discourse. Some are
anaphora, using related lexemes, repetition of lexemes etc, and all of them create cohesion in
the discourse as Halliday and Hasan (1976) first pointed out.

REFERENCE AND CONTEXT

◦ Speakers calculate how much information their hearers need to make a successful reference
because much of reference involves reliance on the context. For example, when shopping and
ordering fruits, the sentence I still need two more red ones where the client is referring to two
more apples the context provides such information.

◦ These are called by Saeed and others “short hands” and they are sometimes grouped with
metonymy.

Contextualization

◦ New word senses emerge in the context of actual language use. Conceptually, this implies a
distinction between decontextualized, coded meanings (stored in the language user’s semantic
memory) and contextualized readings that are realized in a specific discourse context. if new
meanings arise at the level of discourse, the apparatus of linguistic pragmatics should be
applicable to the relevant processes. Simplifying, this link with pragmatics takes two forms.

◦ First, the contextualization of coded meanings takes shape through ‘invited inferences’,
interpretations that are not expressed explicitly but are nevertheless intended or at least
allowed by the speaker/writer. In a standard case of metonymy like Don’t forget to fill up the
car, the conclusion that it is not the entire car that needs to be filled with fuel is not an accident;
it is intended by the speaker/writer. To explain how and when such inferences come about,
Traugott and Dasher refer to the neo-Gricean pragmatic principles formulated by Horn (1984).

◦ These principles distinguish between

◦ a Q-heuristic (like the first Gricean maxim of Quantity: ‘make your contribution
sufficiently informative, and mean no more than that’)
 ◦ an R-heuristic (invoking the second Gricean maxim of Quantity, and the maxim of
Relevance: ‘say or write no more than you must, and mean more thereby’)

◦ and an M-heuristic (specifying Manner: ‘marked expressions signal a marked meaning’).

It is the application of the R-heuristic that can result in semantic change of the invited
inference kind: the speaker/writer uses an expression that is less explicit than it might
be, but the full interpretation can be safely retrieved by the hearer/reader.

◦ Second, drawing on a distinction introduced by Levinson (1995), Traugott and Dasher suggest
the following path for the process by means of which such invited inferences become
conventionalized.

◦ As a first step, following the mechanism that we just described, a conventional coded
meaning gives rise to an utterance-token meaning, in a particular context.

◦ As a second step, the utterance-token meaning may crystallize into an utterance-type

meaning, i.e. a generalized invited inference that is the default interpretation of an
expression but that may still be cancelled. For instance, after in After the trip to
Minnesota she felt very tired would normally be interpreted as implying a causal link,
but that inference may be blocked in a sentence like After the trip to Minnesota she felt
very tired. It turned out that she had been sick for quite some time. In the latter
sentence, it is no longer implied that she felt tired because of the trip.

◦ Finally, the utterance-type meaning may further stabilize into a new coded meaning,
existing alongside the original one and sometimes replacing it. Note that the situation in
which the inferences are activated together with the original meaning function as a
bridging context between the new and the old meaning.

Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change

◦ Although the examples given so far only involve metonymies, the model is a general one. Novel
metaphors too, for instance, may be seen as emerging in the form of invited inferences: a lover
who addresses his beloved as squirrel triggers the implication that he sees her as lively and
dynamic. Nevertheless, in the actual applications of the Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic
Change, the emphasis is on metonymic relations, and there may be a tendency to see invited
inferences as a particular type of metonymy only. To avoid terminological confusion, it may be
useful to distinguish between two levels.
◦ On the level of speech acts, an inference is by definition metonymic: the utterance
Squirrel, I love you triggers the thought ‘He cannot mean that I am a rodent, so he must
mean that I am agile, industrious, and inquisitive’. That is a process that is easily
recognized as an example of a cause/effect metonymy.

◦ On the level of the propositional meaning of the predicates, however, the relation
between the ‘rodent’ reading and the figurative reading cannot be classified as
metonymic.

INFERENCE
◦ Conversational inference and conversational implicature are ways of inferring meaning from a
context. The most obvious case of conversational inference is anaphora. This is a special type of
co-reference, that is, a referential relation between expressions where they both refer to the
same entity. It could be the repetition of a noun:

◦ An independent nominal:

◦ or an anaphoric pronoun:

◦ These types of pronouns are precisely characterized by not having an independent reference
and must rely on an antecedent.
◦ There are also other types of inferential links made between sentences. Some are called
bridging inferences and were first introduced by Clark (1977)

◦ The nominal in bold occurs with a definite article showing that the speaker assumes that the
referent is accessible to the listener. It seems that the listener makes a bridging inference which
links the nominal to the preceding sentence and creates coherence. And in all these sentences
the basis for the inference seems to be background knowledge of the kind that rooms have
ceilings and windows and may have chandeliers and that one typical place to go for a walk is a
park.
◦ It seems, too, that what listeners do is make inferences to preserve some coherence in what
they are told. Saeed gives the following examples to show how speakers rely on listeners
inferences:
 ◦ It can be concluded that because speakers know that their listeners will flesh out their
utterances with inferences, this fact gives them(speakers) the freedom to imply something
rather than state it.

CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE

◦ Grice (1975,1978) proposed an approach to the speaker’s and hearer’s cooperative use of
inference. Grice postulated a kind of tacit agreement between speakers and listeners to
cooperate in communication. He called it a cooperative principle and organized his discussion
into a number of Maxims or principles. The maxims are not rules but they seem to explain how
inference works in conversation, and seems to be followed by speakers engaged in
conversation. Grice (1975,1978) four main Maxims are the following:

◦ These maxims can be viewed as follows: the listener assumes that a speaker will have calculated
her utterance along a number of parameters, she will tell the truth, try to estimate what her
audience knows and package her material accordingly, have some idea of the current topic, and
give some thought to her audience being able to understand her.
 ◦ There is no connection between the two statements but the first speaker will understand that
the answer is no because of her world knowledge, which indicates that a probable place where
CDs can be obtained is a department store.

RELEVANCE THEORY

◦ Sperber and Wilson (1995) developed a more radical version of Grice’s maxims in their
Relevance theory. This approach unifies the Gricean cooperative principle and his maxims into a
single principle of relevance that motivates the hearer’s inferential strategy. According to this
principle of relevance, Every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption of
its optimal relevance

◦ The term ostensive communication refers to a situation where there is an interaction: the
communicator wants to signal something, creates a mutual environment of communication and
this intention is recognized by her hearers. This is the situation of a normal conversation. In this
theory it is the intent to communicate that leads the speaker to calculate the relevance of her
utterance with the hearer’s role in mind.
◦ There is a distinction between implicated premises and implicated conclusions and it is
exemplified in the following example taken from Saeed 2003 (ref. Sperber and Wilson 1995:
194)

◦ Mary’s implicature is the implicated conclusion but, for it to be derived, Mary has introduced
into the context the linking assumption that A Saab is a Swedish car.
 ◦ Therefore to understand an utterance hearers have to access and use contextual information of
different kinds. For example, we have seen that the hearer has to be able to do the following
tasks:

◦ All these involve calculation and hearers create meaning by combining linguistic and contextual
information. These tasks, too, draw upon different types of knowledge such as:

SPEECH ACTS

◦ We can see how languages have different resources to mark questions, express wishes, give
orders, etc., such as using different sentence patterns or other morphological or intonational
devices. But communicating function also relies on both general knowledge of social
conventions and specific knowledge of the local context of utterance. Hearers thus have to
coordinate linguistic and non linguistic knowledge to interpret a speaker’s intended meaning.
There are two features that characterize speech acts. These are interactivity and context-
dependence.

◦ Communicating functions involves the speaker in a coordinated activity with other language
users. In certain languages (e.g. Saeed’s example of Akindele) a typical afternoon greeting
involves at least five exchanges of different expressions about the addressee’s family and its
state of health.

◦ Austin describes how bets in English exemplify this interaction. If someone says to someone else
‘I bet you five pounds that Real Madrid will win the league’ the bet is not performed unless the
addressee makes some response such as OK / You are on

◦ Many speech acts rely on social conventions to support them and these conventions can be
more or less explicit. For example, a judge saying I sentence you hanged by the neck until dead
or a priest at a marriage ceremony I now pronounce you man and wife are all sentences carrying
a special function and they can only be performed by the appropriate people in the right
situation and these are sanctioned by social laws and conventions.
◦ Austin observed that not all sentences are statements and also that much of conversation is
made up of questions, exclamations, commands and expression of wishes such as the following
taken from Saeed:

◦ Austin also found that even in sentences with the grammatical form of declaratives, not all of
them are used to make statements. He identified a subgroup of declaratives about which we
cannot say whether they are true or false.

◦ According to Austin, these sentences are in themselves a kind of action and he called them
performative utterances. In the above examples, they perform the action named in the first
verb.

◦ Verbs can be classified as performative and non-performative and implicit and explicit
performative utterances.
◦ J. R. Searle (1976) further developed Austin’s Speech Act Theory and classified Speech Acts into
five main types. They are the following:
Charles William Morris and his study of the relation of signs
◦ Charles William Morris (1901-1979) was an American philosopher who was born in Denver,
Colorado.
◦ Writings on the General Theory of Signs (1971) is an investigation of the syntactic, semantic, and
pragmatic relations of linguistic and non-linguistic signs, and is an examination of the roles that
various kinds of signs may play in influencing human behavior.
◦ Dimensions of "semiosis" (the process by which a sign vehicle functions as a sign)
◦ Morris explains that the four components of semiosis include:

◦ the "sign vehicle" (the object or event which functions as a sign),

◦ the "designatum" (the kind of object or class of objects that the sign designates),

◦ the "interpretant" (the disposition of an interpreter to initiate a response sequence as a

result of perceiving the sign)

◦ the "interpreter" (the person for whom the sign vehicle functions as a sign)

◦ Morris defined semiotics as consisting of the triad ‘syntax’, ‘semantics’, and ‘pragmatics’

◦ ‘Syntax’ studies the interrelation of signs, at the level of the sign system.

◦ ‘Semantics’ studies the relation between the signs and the objects to which they apply.

◦ ‘Pragmatics’ studies the relation between the sign system and its human user.

The semiotic triangle

◦ the user can be considered from a psychological point of view, but we can also look at usage, i.e.
at language use as a contextualized event.

◦ The structural perspective looks at the sign–sign relationship, the interrelation of signs.

◦ The pragmatic perspective looks at the sign–use(r) relationship, the relation between the sign
and the context of use, including the language user.
◦ The referential perspective looks at the sign–object relation, the relation between the sign and
the world.