Meaning Running throughout the previous chapters, suffusing our discussions at notion of meaning. Yet we have said virtually nothing about it. tis high time we remedied this sition, and explttly discussed meaning In this chapter we setup basic frameworks for investigating meaning, First we deal with meanings encoded by words and Second we discuss meanings tances of speech, andor that intend ther utterances to exp from them. 6.1 What smezring? 62 Sema 63 Pragmatics he meaning of utterances Suing up Guide to futher sues for ure thought and exercises Whatis Meaning? 129 speach syonyny vagueness Greean axing pirates sem rapmatcs mag rear concernsthat which is expressed by sentences, utterances 1 content conveyed in communication by language, the and draw some distinctions thet will hopefully clarify the concept Reference and sense In saying My computer crashed I am talking about something that happened to an objec in the real woré, an object that sits on my desk. The NP my computer refers o this material artefact, and the relationship between the NP and this object is called reference Reference is ‘more general than this, however, and covers the relationship between an NP and imaginary fe words of human imagination, Thus we speak of| rhimedes and Sherlock Holes, tion to my dean,130 chapters © meaning though the NPs surely have diferent meanings. The term sense is sometimes used for this typeof meaning. ‘The sense of a linguistic sign derives in part from language. The sense ofthe lexeme has defined in pat fons to other signs in che the existence of the exeme or nouns, Sanskrit had a three-way con plural is diferent in French and Sansiet. contrasts with other merabers ofthe lan ‘But thee is more to sense than just value. For most signs the ‘meaning’ aspect can also be understood in ters of defining properties that mast he satisfied in any application of sm. Technically this s referred to as the intension of the sign For instance, lade properties suchas ‘animal, ‘mammal, feeds by grazing, a lings the intension of sheep wi Sense and connotations ‘Words often have connotations, unstable mesning associations such 2s emotional overtones (soe $48). Unlike the sense of a woud, which isan essetial part oft, connotations are not What is Meaning? always present. Connctations can differ according to a persons atitudes, For example, the word mathematical m ald ‘Comnotation als flr according to the linguistic or speech context. For example, if used the term mathematical of someones approach to life or social relations 2 negative evaluation would probably be atache but it could express postive rating ina description of «piece of baroque music or of Esher art CConsetatons can be important in language cqustion 2ndchangssovertime a conntion «an become so firmly attached aspect ofthe ealier sease. Foe instanee, for many speakers of English the dor contemptible person witha egtiveappralial ‘Tae word ist appeared a a lang term fr penis the attnadnal component was connota- tion that came to stick, ousting the original meaning. Uteral and figurative meaning Wie donot always use an eapreson i component lexical and grammat: sucha le ced the Beet which died’ Theft interpretation i the iter meaning. the second nom ‘mening can be considered to bean extension o literal sense, the sense actually encoded by its lustraton is provided by idioms (S ‘Metaphor in which the sense of an expresion is extended to another concept on the fs resemblance, For instance, in Bel is made), _Motomymy- here the senscis extended to another concept viaa typical rh ation, The literal sense of unersty ing in which the educational ‘used metonymically to refer to the aleohoic iy contained in battles. Governments are commonly refered toby the city in ‘which they are located, asin London, Washington, Part, Kremlin. Synecdoche ~ where the seas is extended via a part-whole relation, For instance, the ‘erm whee is often used to refer to one's car. And in the speech of hospital sometimes refered to by idney a feral and figurative senses, and some linguists associated with George Lakof, Ronald Langacker, ve Sweetser and others, ends ta take this view According to this approach, metaphor plays 131132. chapter 6 « Meaning ind is pervasive in ordinary language. Metaphor isnot ther a cognitive strategy llowing peopl to un Sentence and utterance meaning Consider the simple sentence The car broke down yesterday, This describes flue of & car. You can easly picture the event and invoke a conceptulizaton inyour mind How do we get his mean ‘pedi the previous chap . pass and grammatical lations. These sign all have meanings, concep associated with ther forms. Supposing we know all of hese meanings we could expect that putting them together il give a good in the whole sentence. We geta good way towards ths gal by puting the meaning of te ar tgether withthe meaning of the gram matical role Actor (se $54, the meaning of break down with that of Event, and of yesterday “Temporal Location. Wealso need the meaning ofthe sentence inthe abstract thats, 8am expres English language ‘Our sentence canbe uttered in many different ctcumstances. Lt’ consider Cot Whats een Aagoing lobe any? dary Tecarbroe cn yey. (62) Cx Do yous te gong out ongh? Bay The cr bce nyse ‘The meaning actualy expressed by the senence remains constant: the sume conceptual ‘vents construed, But, depending on context, ferent meanings are conveyed by tering the sentence the meanings ofthe ntterances ifr. ample (6-1 could from acoaverstion between frends who have not seen one acer for sometime due to Carat absence abroad Barryissusking a phn statement of ot, givinga direct right ls occurin a conversation betwen frends, bt here what Carol ays couk’ be tation to Barry to go out with hr. Barrys aleratvely express willngnes, Sentence meaning i ugh the utterance meaning changes. “The investigation of sentence meaning ~ and the mex senteaces~is called semantics, Semantics deals with the mesning of expressions takea in ‘soaton, with the meaning they have within the system ofthe language. "The study of utlerance meaning is called pragmatics, Pragmatics deals with the specific meaning of actual instances of language use, thats with the meaning conveyed by alingu- ti expression in particular conte of speach eis concerned with the uses made of signs belonging othe language system in interactions among hurnan beings."There i sytem 10 rary, bat follow regular pate esis abou ngs to the sytem of spec include writing and signing) rather than of language. Figure 6.1 puts the the previous sections together in singe diagram to show the sors of mei ngusticlly relevant ‘This all may seem quite cut and dried. But, as usual in linguistics, things are somewhat azz in practice. tis not always obvious where te ine between pragmatics and semantics falls, an linguists disagree about the location of the border. Some linguists, suchas Charles Fillmore Michae! Halliday, Ronald Langackerand Peter Mathewsare dubious about o reject, the dvisionoflabour into semantcsand pragmatics. However aside from the itseems conceptually useful to make the distinction, there are clear-cut cass (6-2). The line we take inthis book istat the two types of meaning are in principle (though ‘not necessarily in prsctce) distinguishable. Nor ace they unrelated: indeed, semantics and ragaties go hand in hand, tothe extent that ater can be investigated in the absence of the other. They also go together in language change and sequisition. 6.2 Semantics 6.2 semantics “The bulk of tis section discusses the semantics ofexial tems, tems that (regardless of size) ‘need tobe listed separately inthe lexicon ofa language. These are of course sign, and ous focus ican their senses. Three key issues in lexical semantics concer: (2 pinning dawn and134 chapter 6 © Meaning tree isan important de. ©2009 Wi sol rts xn Semantics 135 identifying the meanings of les 7 relationships amongst the mesnings of lexical terns the meaningsof tems, These concerns also need to know how it ula determined by the contrasts it Homophony, polysemy and vagueness “wo diferent lexees somtimes accidentally share the same phonological form; tis ic called homophony or homonymy, and the words are said to be homophones. Some homophones in English. in they marked the place with @ buoy) port (a as in J put the luggage in Land baka nF hae ne mony in the ar) ad eyo the bik ofthe river. Word forms each as band le the verb bear asin she agreed o ear the fourist share the same phonological sa ona forms /bed and bez), but only the verb has ‘ce (a phonological form that is incidentally also shared withthe verb bore, ‘Homophony i sometimes exploited for humorous effet or theses? 5 te Wht Goer You mus ee ut oman cr 5) Polysemy is winere identical forms have related meanings. For exaemple, the meanings associated with ear in the fllowing sentences seem related (6) attention ta whats Being aid ort sou “favourable attention directed toa person. ‘Most dictionaries recognize the distinction between homoghony and polysemny by giving Separate entries forthe former and inluding the latter uader the same enty. But the distinc tion isnot always easy to draw, because ofthe fuzzines ofthe distinction between different136. chapter6 Meaning Most dictionar tobe a homo. In tis ease, the words come from to dif fom Old English dare, whereas car (inthe p ew speakers of English ee any semantic relation between the two senses of bank men tioned inthe fst paragraph ofthis section, and dictionary makers tend to them uncer diferent head-words Bt both infact, canbe traced back ukimat ‘Germanic*bang-ridge, mound, bordecing slope. You eanapprecite the connection though the flowing chains of plausible meaning ridge > bench > moneylender’s counter > moneylender’ shop > financial institution; and (b) ridge > slope > side of water- couse Speakers do not perceive the cannetin between the two extreme concepts because socistion wi bork Speakers perceive, quite reasonably of ear (aso sup ported by many oer such connections, an, for example, had of bbe) than the geo praphicl and institution. ‘Homophony and polysemty must alsobe distinguished from vagueness or 4s,lack of specificity of meaning, Ea senses ofenr tat are involved in (6-4. Sense ‘covers not just (6-4), but also useof er inthe two sentences in (6-5). (651 +, Tetceterpesite boy aloy hee Thecog rhe isco the three cases ~ the mental concepts invoked ia the mind ate quite ferent: in (64a) we think ofa 0 (65a), ofan appendage at the side ofthe human head fan appendage at the side ofa dog’ head (which doesnot Tok very much i con the side ofthe human head) ‘We dont usualy think ofthese three meanings spolyseics fear because the meanings ae so closely tlsted that they fll unde a single general specification, something ike (part ofthe) organ of hearing of mans and animal, Sinalat forthe meanings associated with is wrong to speak with your mouth fil was wrong to tae Aboriginal dren snd I is wrong to attribute chat quote to Sausire, The fst vols the ‘sense ‘improper’ the second ‘immoral, while the third just ‘incorrect tis not difficult see single general sense covers each, The sententia] context, our knowledge ofthe workd cour knowledge of the speaker’ beliefs, can be brought into account to narrow down 0 te specific meaning invoked, ‘The meanings thal a word aces rom its can Asdlstnc from the sense ofalereme, which remo of use ae called contextual meanings. rant, contextual meanings are not Semantics 137 fixed. Thus, It was wrong to take Aborii on rom their mothers doesnot necessarily invoke a moral comment. For instance, «policeman involved in removing Aboriginal chil dren might have sen his actions as fully moral, and wrong’ ony in the sense ‘mistaken! the Aatended results were not achieved, Like the oer di we have discussed, the line between vagueness and poiysemy «canbe dificult to draw. Some linguists, the present author inchided, believe thatlexernes ave _nuch vaguer senses than usully thought, and that polysemyis comparatively rar. semantic relations ‘The lexemes ofa language relate to one another semantically in various ways, and form @ lexicon, As mentioned in $4.1, thisis better thought ofae huge uch asis provided bya dictionary. ‘We discuss four types of semantic relation that give structore to the lexicon, synonymy, antonymy,hyponymy and meronymny: Synonymy Synonymy is the relation of sameness or close similarity of meaning; lexemes related inthis ‘ay ae synonyms. Some examples of synonyms ar: hide and conceal, small and itl ric and wealthy, mother and mum, car and automobile, ack and loryand dear and expense You willotce that the members of these pars are not exact smanyms; indeed, exact iden tity of meaning is quite rae. Synonyms often belong to different registers or styles (se $73) ‘of langage such as formal literary or cllogulal I cancealea the automobile under a tarpaulin {ismore formal than I hid the car wider the tarp. Synonyms sometimes belong to different dia- company they keep inthe cllocations ($4 al eyronyms, and share some contents: he has strong arms ad he has powerful arms. But we speck ofthe strong orm ofthe law 90% “the powerful «rm of the law, and a strong head for alcohol not “a powerful head for alcakl. Stang enters {nto many more compounds than powerful they Antonymy ‘Antony is the relation of opposite in meaning, and examples of antonyms include big and smal, long and short, up and down, dead and alive and so on. Several diferent types of ntonymy are usually identified. Gradable antonyms allow intermediate degrees between the two opposite extremes, ike st and slow and rich and poor. Gradable atenyms can thus be used in com- like richer than and poorer than. And for gradable antonyas, the neg stive of one does not necessarily imply the positive of the other: no fast does not necessarily mean slow. ‘Non-gradable antonyms re poler opposites, and allow no intermediate degrees, Examples ate den and alive, passand fai, male and female, and true and false. For these, the negative of138 chapter 6 © Meaning ‘movement, can also be interpreted as being opposite in meaning, These are called reverses, as also are pais like tie and unti, pack and unpack, and inflate and deflate where there is a reversal of the action sequence (the red blocks above the blue Bloc, the Blue block is blow te red blac Hyponymy In hyponymy the meaning of one lexeme includes the meaning of another. A hyponym the meaning’ more general word, Hamme, sa, chisel, sce wdriverallinclude the meaning of tol ~ they all denote types of tol ~ and ae hyponyms of tok the four ters are gow uae fang veodtese sede 3 ney nung 3 ype pas fer peu'p ye eae OD ams uo sey 9am ed Bynoyo 9 POU ae LON ALR saspso19 pur ayBnowp say Joy sonss| Br Sauesy + gsmdey QC]