This document provides an overview of semantics, the study of linguistic meaning. It discusses several subfields of semantics including lexical semantics, which examines word meanings, and sentential semantics, which analyzes the meanings of larger syntactic units. The document also explores topics such as what speakers know about language meaning, ambiguity, compositional semantics, lexical relations between words, and thematic roles. Overall, the document outlines key concepts in semantics and how meaning is constructed in language.

1. Lecture 4
The Meaning of
Language
Ching-Fen Hsu
2013/11/12

2. Semantics
• The study of linguistic meaning of morphemes,
words, phrases, sentences
• Subfield #1: Lexical semantics is concerned
with meanings of words & meaning
relationships among words
• Subfield #2: Phrasal or sentential semantics is
concerned with meanings of syntactic units
larger than words
• Subfield #3: Pragmatics deals with how context
affects meaning in certain situations

3. The Meaning of ‘Meaning’
• Lg speakers easily understand what is said
• Lg speakers produce strings of words that are
meaningful
• Lg is used to convey info to others (My new
bike is pink), ask Qs (Who left the party early?),
give commands (Stop lying), express wishes
(May there be peace on Earth)
• How do you know that you know a lg? (1) to
differentiate meaningful word (flick) or
meaningless (blick) (2) meaningful S (Jack
swims) or meaningless S (Swims metaphorical
every) (3) a word has two meanings (bear)

4. When You Know A Language,
You Know…
(4) a S has two meanings (Jack saw a man with a
telescope) (5) two words have the same meaning
(sofa & couch) (6) two Ss have the same
meaning (Jack put off the meaning, Jack put the
meaning off) (7) words or Ss have opposite
meanings (alive/dead; Jack swims/Jack doesn’t
swim) (8) have real-world object knowledge (the
chair in the corner) or non-actual objects (the
unicorn behind the bush) (9) truth conditions
(True: all kings are male, False: all bachelors are
married) (10) entailment knowledge (Nina bathed
her dog  Nina’s dog got wet)

5. What Speakers Know about
Sentence false
Meaning
• Ss are not always true or
• Ss are true or false in given situations, ‘Jack swims’
is true for you know he can swim; ‘Jack swims’ is
false for you know he never learned to swim
• Tautologies (analytic): Ss are always true
regardless of circumstances, their truth is
guaranteed solely by meanings of parts & ways
they are put together
Circles are round, A person who is single is not
married
• Contradictions: Ss are always false, Circles are
square, A bachelor is married

6. Entailment & Related
Notions
• One S entails another if whenever 1st S is true 2nd
is also true in all conceivable circumstances, Jack
swims beautifully entails Jack swims
• Entailment goes only in one direction, Jack swims
does not entail Jack swims beautifully
• Negating Ss reverses entailment, Jack doesn’t
swim entails Jack doesn’t swim beautifully
• Synonymous (or paraphrases): Ss are both true or
false with respect to same situation, Jack put off
the meeting = Jack postponed the meeting
• Two Ss are synonymous if they entail each other

7. Contradictory
• Two Ss are contradictory if one is true & the other
is false (contradiction: both Ss are false)
• Two Ss have opposite truth values
Jack is alive vs. Jack is dead
• Two Ss are contradictory if one entails the
negation of the other
Jack is alive = ﹁ Jack is dead (Jack is not dead)
Jack is dead = ﹁ Jack is alive (Jack is not alive)
• Two Ss are contradictory, their conjunction with
and is a contradiction, Jack is alive and Jack is
dead  contradiction (they cannot be true
simultaneously under any circumstances)

8. Ambiguity
• The meaning of a linguistic expression is built
on words it contains & on its syntactic structure
• Structural ambiguity: Ss have more than one
meaning, The boy saw the man with a
telescope (p. 143)
• Lexical ambiguity: one word in a phrase has
more than one meaning, This will make you
smart
• Principle of compositionality: the meaning of an
expression is composed of meanings of its
parts & how they are combined structurally

9. Compositional Semantics
• Our knowledge of grammaticality, constituent
structure, relations bet Ss, limitless creativity of
linguistic competence  syntactic rules in the
grammar
• Our knowledge of the truth, reference,
entailment, ambiguity of sentences, ability to
determine meaning of limitless number of
expressions  semantic rules combine
meanings of words into meaningful phrases &
Ss in the grammar

10. Semantic Rules
• Jack: a proper name refers to a precise object
in the world, a referent; the individual it refers to
• Swim: relies on what is happening in the world
• Predicates (verbs, adjectives, common nouns):
the individuals that those predicates
successfully describe; the set of individuals
(human beings, animals) that swim
• Semantic rules are sensitive to meanings of
individual words and structures in which they
occur
• Computing semantic rules of Jack swims (p.144)

11. Semantic Rule I & II
• Rule I: a S composed of a subject NP & a
predicate VP is true if the subject NP refers to
an individual who is among members of the set
that constitute the meaning of the VP (p.145)
Jack kissed Laura (p.145)
• Rule II application (p.146): the meaning of VP is
the set of individuals X such that X is the first
member of any pair in the meaning of V whose
second member is the meaning of NP

12. Truth Condition
• Semantic knowledge of entailment may be
represented in grammar, Jack swims beautifully
• Beautifully: an operation reduces size of sets that
are the meanings of verb phrases; reduces the set
of individuals who swim to smaller set of those who
swim beautifully
(1)Jack swims beautifully-narrower truth condition
(2)Jack swims-wider truth condition
(1) entails (2); Jack swims beautifully entails Jack
swims
• Semantic rules account for our knowledge about
truth value of Ss by taking meanings of words &
combining them according to syntactic structure &
Ss, She can’t bear children

13. When Compositionality Goes Awry
• Compositional truth-conditional semantics is
powerful & useful tool for investigating semantic
properties of natural lg
• Compositionality breaks down when words or
semantic rules have problem
• Semantic anomaly: (1)one or more words in a S do
not have a meaning (2)when individual words have
meaning but cannot be combined together as
required by syntactic structure & related semantic
rules
• Metaphors: meanings derived with lots of creativity
& imagination
• Idioms: expressions have fixed meanings (noncompositional)

14. Anomaly
• Semantic feature conflict: Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously, colorless [without color], green
[green in color] (or anomalous S)
Dark green leaves rustle furiously
• Uninterpretable Ss: nonsense words
combination, Lewis Carroll’s poem
Jabberwocky (p.148), words do not exist in the
lexicon of the lg
• Semantic violations in poetry form strange but
interesting images, a grief ago!
• Breaking semantic rules creates desired
imagery

15. Metaphor
• Anomaly in nature creates salient meanings
• Metaphors are ambiguous: literal meaning +
metaphorical meaning (算帳/耳邊風)
• Compositionality failure: Walls have ears
• Listeners try literal meanings first, then infer or
provide resemblance or comparison to end up
as a meaningful concept
• Necessities to understand metaphors: individual
words, literal meaning of whole expressions,
facts about the world; Time is money (time is
taken as a valuable concrete object as money)

16. Cultural Component of
Metaphors
• Shakespeare’s metaphors to depict “Fortune” as
“woman” (p.150)
• Computer usage: there is a bug in my program
• Common expressions nowadays may have
originated as metaphors: the fall of the dollar
(decline in value on the world market), bat an
eyelash (to save time or not to waste time)
• Metaphorical use of lg is lg creativity at its highest
• The basis of metaphorical use is ordinary linguistic
knowledge of words, semantic properties,
combinatorial possibilities

17. Idioms (1)
• Individual morphemes are not decomposable &
have fixed meanings to learn
• Usual semantic rules for combining meanings do
not apply
• Idioms are similar in structure to ordinary phrases
except they tend to be frozen in form
• Idioms do not undergo rules that change word
order or substitution of parts
idiomatic meaning: put her foot in her mouth (p.151)
• Some idioms whose parts can be moved without
affecting idiomatic sense, keep tabs on radicals
(p.152)

18. Idioms (2)
• Idioms can break rules on combining semantic
properties, “eat” for something edible
Eat your heart out
• Idioms lead to humor (p.152)
• Idioms may be used to create paradoxes, “drop
the ball” in Times Square in New York
• Idioms have special characteristics
grammatically & semantically for entering
lexicon or mental dictionary as single items with
specified meanings
• Speakers learn their special restrictions on their
use in lgs

19. Lexical Semantics
• Theories of word meanings
• Lexicon: storehouse of information about words
& morphemes
• Meanings of words are part of linguistic
knowledge
• This knowledge permits us to use words to
express thoughts of words
• All speakers of a lg share a basic vocabulary
• Agreed-upon meanings of words are not free to
be changed otherwise communication is
impossible

20. Reference
• Dictionaries actually provide paraphrases of
words rather than meanings
• It’s our knowledge to figure out definitions
• How words are represented in mind is mystery
• Reference: the meaning of a word or
expression, it is associated with the object
referred to (referent)
• When an NP has a referent, it is part of the
meaning of the NP, Jack, the happy swimmer
• Not every NP has a referent, No baby swims,
superman, Harry Potter, unicorns

21. Sense
• What real-world entities would function words like
of, by, modal verbs (will, may)?
• Harry Potter, unicorns have no referent but sense
vs. proper names have referents but little meaning
beyond that
• Part of word meaning is mental image that it
connects with books or movies
• Many meaningful expressions are not associated
with clear unique image, oxygen vs. nitrogen
(colorless, odorless gases); dog vs. wolf/fox
• Relate to properties of referents, associated
information to complete associations

22. Lexical Relations
• Words are semantically related to one another
• Synonyms: words or expressions have same
meaning in some or all contexts (p.156)
• No two words have exactly the same meaning
but similar as in He’s sitting on the sofa/ He’s
sitting on the couch
• English roots have Latin roots (French Norman
occupation of England in 1066 CE)
• Antonyms: words are opposite in meaning
(1)Complementary pairs: alive/dead
(2)Gradable pairs: big/small (no absolute scale),
a small elephant vs. a large mouse

23. Marked vs. Unmarked
• Unmarked member is the one used in questions
of degree, how high is the mountain? vs. how
low is it? vs. ten thousand feet high vs. ten
thousand feet low
high/low tall/short fast/slow
• Relational opposites: give/receive, buy/sell,
teacher/pupil, employer/employee, they display
symmetry in meanings
• Ways to form antonyms is adding (1) –un,
likely/unlikely, (2) non–, entity/nonentity, (3) in–,
tolerant/intolerant

24. More Lexical Relationship
• Homonyms: words have different meanings but
are pronounced the same (spell same or
different) 歧意詞
bear, bare (homophone) 同音不同形
bank (homograph) 同音同形
lead, lead (heteronym) 不同音同形
• Polysemy: a word has multiple meanings that
are related conceptually or historically, diamond
(jewel, a baseball field) 多意詞
• Hyponyms: red/white/blue are under color, lion,
tiger, leopard are under feline

25. Semantic Features
• Basic set of properties of word meanings
reflecting knowledge about what words mean
• Decomposing word meanings into semantic
features reveals relations among words
• Antonyms: sharing all semantic features but
one, buy/sell (change in possession), big
(about size)/red (about color)
• Relating to conceptual elements of word
meanings, assassin (human/murder/killer of
important people), over, with

26. Slips of the Tongue
• Semantic features are not directly observable
but inferring from linguistic evidence such as
speech errors
• Intended utterance vs. actual utterance (p.159)
• Incorrectly substituted words are not random
but sharing semantic features
• Be aware of distinguishing semantic features
from nonlinguistic properties, water (hydrogen &
oxygen)

27. Semantic Features of
Nouns
• The same semantic feature may be shared by
many words, [female], [human], [young], [male],
[adult] (p.160)
• Classifiers: grammatical morphemes indicate
semantic class of nouns, Swahili, -m for human
singular, mtoto (child), -wa for human plural,
watoto (children); ki- for singular human artifact,
kiti (chair), -vi for plural human artifact, viti
(chairs)
• Semantic features have syntactic & semantic
effects, count nouns, mass nouns

28. Count Nouns vs. Mass
Nouns
• Count nouns can be enumerated & pluralized, one
potato, two potatoes, many potatoes
• Mass nouns cannot be enumerated or pluralized,
much rice/water/milk (p.160)
• The count/mass distinction captures properties that
govern this knowledge that speakers have
• The distinction is not grounded in human
perception
• Different lgs treat the same object differently,
hair/furniture/spaghetti in English vs. Italian (p.161)

29. Semantic Features of
Verbs
• Verbs have semantic features as part of their
meanings, [cause] in darken/kill/uglify, [go] in
swim/crawl/throw/fly/give/buy (p.161) {darken [in
liquid], crawl [close to surface]}, [become] in break,
cause to become broken
• Eventive Ss allow passively, progressively,
imperatively, being with adverbs (p.162)
• Stative Ss do not allow eventive formations
• Negative polarity items require a negative element,
doubt, refuse, ever, anymore, have a red cent
(p.162) having negative semantic features

30. Argument Structure
• Verbs differ in terms of number & type of
phrases they can take as complements or
adjuncts
• Argument: various NPs occur with a verb,
intransitives-1 argument (subject); transitives-2
arguments (subject, DO); ditransitives-3
arguments (subject, DO, IO)
• Argument structure: a part of verb’s meaning &
is included in lexical entry
• Verbs determine argument # & limit semantic
properties of subjects & objects (S-select),
sleep/find select [animate] feature

31. Verb Types
• Components of a verb’s meaning are relevant to
argument choices (p.163)
throw/toss/kick/fling a single quick motion
(ditransitives + transfer DO to IO)
push/pull/lift/haul a prolonged use of force
(transitives)
fax/radio/email/phone communication +
apparatus (DO is transferred)
murmur/mumble/mutter/shriek communication +
voice type used
• When transference is not overt, it may be inferred,
John baked Mary a cake (implied transfer of the
cake from John to Mary)

32. Thematic Roles
• Subject/objects are semantically related in various ways
to verbs
• Thematic roles express relations that hold bet
arguments of verbs & described situations: agent (doer),
theme (undergoer), goal (endpoint of a change in
location/possession), source (action origin), instrument
(means to accomplish actions), experiencer (sensory
receiver)
• The boy threw the ball to the girl (p.163)
• Professor Snape awakened Harry Potter with his wand
• Particular thematic roles assigned by verbs can be
traced back to components of verb’s meaning,
throw/buy/fly (“go”, a change in location or possession)
relating to theme/source/goal; awaken/frighten (“affects
mental state”) relating to experiencer

33. Theta Assignment
• Theta role assignment is connected to syntactic
structure rather than random assignment, buy/sell
(“go”, differ in direction of transfer)
John sold the book to Mary [recipient/endpoint of
transfer] (p.164)
Mary bought the book from John [initiator of
transfer]
• Our knowledge of verbs includes syntactic
categories, selected arguments, thematic roles
• Thematic roles are the same in paraphrased Ss
The dog bit the stick
The stick was bitten by the dog (p.164)

34. Deep Structure Matters
• Thematic roles must be assigned to the same dstructure position
The trainer gave the dog a treat (p.164)
The trainer gave a treat to the dog
• NPs receive thematic roles from positions in d-structure,
not s-structure
• D-structures determine semantic relationships
____was bitten the stick by the dog (D)
The stick was bitten _____by the dog (S)
• Thematic roles remain the same in non-paraphrased Ss
The boy opened the door with the key (p.165)
The key opened the door
The door opened

35. Pragmatics
• The study of extra-truth-conditional meaning
• How a speaker uses literal meaning in
conversation or as a part of a discourse
• Speakers invoke meaning without expressing it
literally
• Context can supplement less-than-explicit S
meaning, e.g., deictic
• Contexts or orientation of speakers help
interpretation of deictic: pronouns (she, it, I),
demonstratives (this, that), adverbs (here, there,
now, today), prepositions (behind, before),
complex expressions (those towers over there)

36. Pronouns & Deictic Words
• Our use of lg is relatively inexplicit but natural in
daily conversations (p.167, 1b vs. 1a)
• Proper nouns & dates have contextindependent meanings & pick out same
referents regardless of contexts
• Here & tomorrow are context-dependent & their
reference is determined in part by uttered
contexts
• Deictic words provide restrictions on their own
referents, location referents (here/there),
temporal referents (here/tomorrow), human
referents (he/she)

37. Reference determine referents in
Resolution
• Pronouns are uttered to
•
•
•
•
contexts
Linguistic context is anything that has been uttered
in discourse prior to or along with pronouns
Situational context is anything non-linguistic
accompanying a gesture like pointing/nodding, He
went that way!
Different reference uttered today than a month
from today, Big Sale Next Week!
Before/behind, left/right, front/back require to know
orientation in space of speakers to know their
reference, come/go, A thief came into the house vs.
A thief went into the house in English, Japanese

38. Linguistic Context
• Two diff ways for the reference of a pronoun can
be resolved: S-internal, S-external
• Reflexive pronoun receives its reference via Sinternal linguistic context; antecedent required =
the NP co-refers with the pronoun in the S,
*Herself left; reflexive pronoun match person/
gender/number of antecedent, *John wrote herself
a letter (p.169)
• Antecedents must precede reflexive pronoun,
*Himself washed John
• There can’t be another NP in bet a reflexive
pronoun & antecedent, *Jane said the boy bit
herself

39. Non-reflexive Pronouns
• Also have their reference resolved via linguistic
context
• These pronouns have their antecedent in another
preceding S, Jane likes pizza. She thinks it is the
perfect food
• The antecedent doesn’t have to be in a S spoken
by the same speaker (Rome & there, p169)
• Antecedents can be several Ss away from its coreferring pronoun
• Lg users tend to use pronouns to refer to
individuals in contexts (linguistic, situational) to
make referents of pronouns clear

40. Implicature
• Context supplement meaning of a S like filling
in gaps with extra details
• Dad: Very nice girl. What do you think, Hon?
Mom: The turkey sure was moist (p.170)
 she doesn’t particularly like Toni (implication)
• Implicature: a great example of extra-truthconditional meaning
• Do Mary have a boyfriend? She’s been driving
to Santa Barbara every weekend. (assertion +
implication) (p.171)
• Pragmatics is also rule-governed

41. Cooperative Principle
• Maxims of conversation/discourse=foundation
of pragmatics (p.171)
• Lg users can calculate implicatures for they are
following implicit principles
• Maxim of Quality: Truth
• Maxim of Quantity: Information
• Maxim of Relation: Relevance
• Maxim of Manner: Clarity
• To flout a maxim is to choose not to follow the
maxim for implicating something (turkey
example)

42. Maxim of Conversation
Examples
• “Can you pass the salt?”=maxim of quantity
violation  implicates an action for violation
• “It’s cold in here”=maxim of relevance 
implicates an action to close a window
• Implicatures result from violations of one or
more maxims & can be cancelled by providing
or clarifying information (p.173)
• Additional remarks cancel/weaken implicatures
• Implicatures (further world knowledge or verbal
clarification can cancel) ≠ entailments (cannot
be cancelled)

43. Presupposition
• Situations that must exist for utterances to be
appropriate, I am sorry that the team lost, Have
you stopped hugging your border collie? The river
Aron runs through Stratford (existence of the river
& the town), Take some more tea, Have another
beer
• Presupposition holds up under negation, I am NOT
sorry that the team lost, Do Not take some more
tea
• Presuppositions differ from implicatures, when
presuppositions are cancelled, the truth condition
of Ss are false, I am sorry that the team lost (truth
is that the team is not lost); when implicatures are
cancelled, the Ss are still true (no incongruity)

44. Speechspeaker accomplishes
Acts
• The action or intent that a
when using lg in context, the meaning of which is
inferred by the hearer, There is a bear behind you
(warning or fact)
• Performative verbs (performative Ss) add
something extra over & above the statement
(p.175): (1)speaker= subject, (2)uttering Ss with
additional actions, nominating/resigning,
(3)affirmative Ss, (4)present tense
• Insertion of hereby would be acceptable
• Illocutionary force: the intended effect of a speech
act, warning/promise/threat/bet, I resign, the
illocutionary force is resignation, depends on
contexts of utterances

45. Questions?