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COM
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T I V E S
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OBJ w h a t i s COM
en t if y l POSI
1. I d i ti o n a T
Com ticsp o s SEMA IONAL
e m a n re as NTIC
S
M aj o r a S
o p e o r
2. S c i ti o n a l
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Com tics APRIL
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NT I CS
SEMA e , w e n e e d to
n g u a g
a n d l a
d e r s t
t o u n
d e r
In o r e a n in g.
f a w o r d ?
?
i t s m i n g o e n c e
know s the mean ) s e nt
t i ic s o f a
-W h a m a n t i n g
i c a l s e m e a n t e x t?
( L e x th e t ic s ) c e o f
i s m a n e r p ie
h a t a l] s e l o n g
-W o s i t io n g o f a
m p e a n i n
(Co s th e m
c s )
t i t i
-Wha rse seman 3
i s c o u
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 LEXICAL SEMANTICS 
AND 
COMPOSITIONAL
SEMANTICS.

The difference between these

two closely related ideas lies in the
scope: lexical semantics deals
with individual word meanings,
while compositional semantics
deals with how those lexical
meanings combine to form more
complex phrasal meanings.
4
 IT I O N A L
COMPOS I C S
SE M AN T

5
 How about when
compositionality goes awry?

6
 Unlike lexical semantics, which focuses on the
A r e as o f
Major an t ic s meanings of individual words, the field
s it i o n a l S e m
Comp o of compositional semantics looks at the meanings
of sentences and longer utterances. Much of the
focus of traditional semantics has been on
N O M AL IE S
1. A vocabulary, but  contemporary semantics is
2. IDIOMS
M BI GU I TIES increasingly concerned with the analysis of
3. A NS.
P O S I TI O
4. PRESUP sentence meaning, or al least of those aspects of
sentenced meaning that cannot be predicted from
the sum of the individual lexemes. 7
 The semantic properties of words determine what other words they can be
combined with. A sentence widely used by linguistics illustrates this fact:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
The sentence obeys all the syntactic rules of English. The subject is colorless
green ideas and the predicate is sleep furiously. It has the same syntactic
structure as the sentence Dark green leaves rustle furiously

ANOMALIES 8
 fur i ou sl y.
ide a s slee p
e s s g r een
Colorl s e m a n t i c al ly
g
t h i n g e a n i n
s o m e e m t
u s ly T h i t h o u
o b v io en c e . r e " w ,
re is s e n t f e a t u g r e e n
t h e h e n t i c c t iv e  
B ut it h t
e s e m a
h e a d je
c o lo r . "
g w e s th i t h t n in
w ro n in c lu d e d w " g r e e " a n d
r le ss   m bin u r e c o l o r
lo c o ea t ut e
of co but it is a n t i c f
"w i th o
w h a t w
" e m h s
color, has the s g be bot ce violate therefore,
hi ch e t hin e n t e n is,
w n s o m h i s s s a n d
ca r "? T t u r e
How i n c o lo
n t ic f e a
n a
"gree about sem lous.
o w n o m a 9
kn i c a lly a
n t
sema
• Semantic violations in poetry may form strange but interesting aesthetic
images , as in Dylan Thomas's phrase a grief ago. Ago is originally used
with words specified by some temporal semantic features:

A week ago , an hour ago, a month ago, a century ago BUT

NOT a table ago, a dream ago, a mother ago, a paper ago

• When Thomas used the word grief with ago, he was adding a durable

feature to grief for poetic effect, so while the noun phrase is anomalous,
it evokes certain feelings.

ANOMALIES 10
So although phrases like Thomas's a grief ago violate some
semantic rules, we can understand them. Breaking the rules
creates the imagery desired. The fact that we are able to
understand, or at least interpret, anomalous expressions, and
at the same time recognize their anomalous nature,
demonstrates our knowledge of the semantic system and
semantics properties of the language.

ANOMALIES 11
 Idiomatic expressions are phrases that have fixed meanings
that are literal. Fixed meanings cannot be inferred from the
meanings of the individual words. For example, "pull my leg"
means to kid or joke and has nothing to do with pulling legs. It is
an expression whose origins are often lost to history. Here are
some common English idioms:

IDIOMS 12
 IDI OM Idioms are similar in structure to

ordinary phrases except that they

tend to be frozen in form and do not readily enter into other combinations or
allow the word order to change. Thus,
(1) She put her foot in her mouth
has the same structure as (2) She put her bracelet in her drawer
But
1.The drawer in which she put her bracelet was hers.
• 2.Her bracelet was put in her drawer.
are sentences related to sentence (2).
1.The mouth in which she out her foot was hers.
2.Her foot was put into her mouth.
 Ambiguity, as you have learned, is

GUIT Y
AMBI when words have more than one
meaning. For example, glasses can mean eye
glass, sunglasses, and drinking glasses.  Ambiguity at the sentence level
means a phrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure, such as these
phrases 
• Tibetan history teacher (the history teacher from Tibet -- and -- the teacher of
Tibetan history)
• short men and women (woman and men who are short -- and -- men and women
who are short)
• The girl hit the boy with a book (the boy possessed a book -- and -- the girl used a
book to hit the boy)
• Visiting relatives can be boring (visiting is boring -- and -- relatives who are visiting
are boring.)
• Sherlock saw the man with the binoculars (Sherlock used binoculars to see the
man? Or did Sherlock see a man who was wearing binoculars?)
 UI T Y
AMBIG
h o u g h
t y, a l t
b i g u i d t o
e l a m n l ea
c e l e v s , c a a k e r
t e n o r o u s p e
Sen s h u m
a r, t h e
e ti m e e c l e c e s .
so m T o b e n te n
s i o n . t h e s
con f u h r a s e
to r e p
nee d s
15
Presupposition

A presupposition is background belief relating to an

utterance that
• must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker
and hearer for the utterance to be considered
appropriate in context
• generally will remain a necessary assumption whether
the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion,
denial, or question, and
• can generally be associated with a specific lexical item
or grammatical feature (presupposition trigger) in the
utterance.
For example, the utterance
John regrets that he stopped doing linguistics before he
left the university

• has the following presuppositions:

• There is someone uniquely identifiable to speaker and
addressee as John.
• John stopped doing linguistics before he left the
university.
• John was doing linguistics before he left the university.
• John left the university.
• John had been at the university.
~THE END~
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