胡壮麟《语言学教程》第四版笔记

Chapter 1 Invitations to Linguistics

1.3 Design features of language

The features that define our human languages can be called design features which can distinguish human language from any animal system of communication.

1.3.1 Arbitrariness

Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meanings.

1.3.2 Duality

Duality refers to the property of having two levels of structures, such that units of the primary level are composed of elements of the secondary level and each of the two

levels has its own principles of organization.

1.3.3 Creativity

Creativity means that language is resourceful because of its duality and its recursiveness. Recursiveness refers to the rule which can be applied repeatedly without

any definite limit. The recursive nature of language provides a theoretical basis for the

possibility of creating endless sentences.

1.3.4 Displacement

Displacement means that human languages enable their users to symbolize objects, events and concepts which are not present (in time and space) at the moment of

conversation.

加1 Each sound in the language is treated as discrete.

加2 the direct/non-arbitrary/non-symbolic relation between meaning and form. There are resemblances between the language form and what

they refer to. That relationship is called icon. Iconicity exists in sounds,

lexicons and syntax. It is the motivation between language forms and

meanings. It is a relation of resemblance between language form and what

they refer to.

1.5 Functions of language

As is proposed by Jacobson, language has six functions:

1. Referential: to convey message and information;

2. Poetic: to indulge in language for its own sake;

3. Emotive: to express attitudes, feelings and emotions;

4. Conative: to persuade and influence others through commands and entreaties;

5. Phatic: to establish communion with others;

6. Metalingual: to clear up intentions, words and meanings.

three metafunctions:

1. function: to convey new information, to communicate a content that is

unknown to the hearer;

embodying all use of language to express social and personal relationships;

3.

of spoken and written discourse into a coherent and unified text and make a living

passage different from a random list of sentences.

According to Hu Zhuanglin, language has at least seven functions:

1.5.1 Informative

The informative function means language is the instrument of thought and people often use it to communicate new information.

1.5.2 Interpersonal function

The interpersonal function means people can use language to establish and maintain their status in a society.

1.5.3 Performative

The performative function of language is primarily to change the social status of persons, as in marriage ceremonies, the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children,

the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, and the cursing of enemies.

1.5.4 Emotive function

The emotive function is one of the most powerful uses of language because it is so crucial in changing the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or

something.

1.5.5 Phatic communion

The phatic communion means people always use some small, seemingly meaningless expressions such as Good morning, God bless you, Nice day,etc., to

maintain a comfortable relationship between people without any factual content.

1.5.6 Recreational function

The recreational function means people use language for the sheer joy of using it, such as a baby’s babbling or a chanter’s chanting.

1.5.7 Metalingual function

The metalingual function means people can use language to talk about itself. E.g. I can use the word ―book‖ to talk about a book, and I can also use the expression ―the

word book‖ to talk about the sign ―b-o-o-k‖ itself.

1.6 What is linguistics?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It studies not just one language of any one community, but the language of all human beings.

1.7 Main branches of linguistics

1.7.1 Phonetics

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds, it includes three main areas: articulatory

phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics.

1.7.2 Phonology

Phonology studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables.

1.7.3 Morphology

Morphology studies the minimal units of meaning –morphemes and word-formation processes.

1.7.4 Syntax

Syntax refers to the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language, or simply, the study of the formation of sentences.

1.7.5 Semantics

Semantics examines how meaning is encoded in a language.

1.7.6 Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.

1.8 Macrolinguistics

1.8.1 Psycholinguistics

1.8.2 Sociolinguistics

1.8.3 Anthropological linguistics

1.8.4 Computational linguistics

To say that linguistics is a descriptive science is to say that the linguist tries to discover and record the rules to which the members of a language-community actually

conform and does not seek to impose upon them other rules, or norms, of correctness.

Prescriptive linguistics aims to lay down rules for the correct use of language and settle the disputes over usage once and for all.

For example, ―Don’t say X.‖ is a prescriptive command; ―People don’t say X.‖ is a descriptive statement. The distinction lies in prescribing how things ought to be and

describing how things are. In the 18th century, all the main European languages were

studied prescriptively. However, modern linguistics is mostly descriptive because the

nature of linguistics as a science determines its preoccupation with description instead

of prescription.

1.9.2

A synchronic study takes a fixed instant (usually at present) as its point of

observation. Saussure’s diachronic description is the study of a language through the

course of its history. E.g. a study of the features of the English used in Shakespeare’s

time would be synchronic, and a study of the changes English has undergone since then

would be a diachronic study. In modern linguistics, synchronic study seems to enjoy

priority over diachronic study. The reason is that unless the various state of a language

are successfully studied it would be difficult to describe the changes that have taken

place in its historical development.

1.9.3

Saussure distinguished the linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or data of linguistics as langue and parole. Langue is relative stable and

systematic, parole is subject to personal and situational constraints; langue is not spoken

by an individual, parole is always a naturally occurring event. What a linguist should do,

according to Saussure, is to draw rules from a mass of confused facts, i.e. to discover

the regularities governing all instances of parole and make them the subject of

linguistics.

1.9.4

According to Chomsky, a language user’s underlying knowledge about the system of rules is called the linguistic competence, and the actual use of language in concrete

situations is called performance. Competence enables a speaker to produce and

understand and indefinite number of sentences and to recognize grammatical mistakes

and ambiguities. A speaker’s competence is stable while his performance is often

influenced by psychological and social factors. So a speaker’s performance does not

always match his supposed competence. Chomsky believes that linguists ought to study

competence, rather than performance. Chomsky’s competence-performance distinction

is not exactly the same as, though similar to, Saussure’s langue-parole distinction.

Langue is a social product and a set of conventions of a community, while competence

is deemed as a property of mind of each individual. Saussure looks at language more

from a sociological or sociolinguistic point of view than Chomsky since the latter deals

with his issues psychologically or psycholinguistically.

1.9.5 Etic vs. emic

Being etic means researcher s’making far too many, as well as behaviorally and inconsequential, differentiations, just as often the case with phonetics vs. phonemics

analysis in linguistics proper.

An emic set of speech acts and events must be one that is validated as meaningful via final resource to the native members of a speech community rather than via appeal

to the investigator’s ingenuity or intuition alone.

Chapter 2 Speech Sounds

2.1 Speech production and perception

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds. It includes three main areas:

1. – the study of the production of speech sounds

2. –the study of the physical properties of the sounds produced in

speech

3. – the study of perception of speech sounds

Most phoneticians are interested in articulatory phonetics.

2.3 Segments, divergences, and phonetic transcription

2.3.2 Phonetic transcription

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): the system of symbols for representing the pronunciation of words in any language according to the principles of the International

Phonetic Association. The symbols consist of letters and diacritics. Some letters are

taken from the Roman alphabet, some are special symbols.

2.4 Consonants

2.4.3 Manners of articulation

1. Stop/plosive:

2. Fricative:

3. (Median) approximant:

4. Lateral (approximant):

2.4.4 Places of articulation

1. Bilabial: A speech sound which is made with the two lips.

2. Labiodental: A speech sound which is made with the lower lip and the upper

front teeth.

3. Dental: A speech sound which is made by the tongue tip or blade and the

upper front teeth.

4. Alveolar: A speech sound which is made with the tongue tip or blade and the

alveolar ridge.

5. Postalveolar: A speech sound which is made with the tongue tip and the back

of the alveolar ridge.

6. Retroflex: A speech sound which is made with the tongue tip or blade curled

back so that the underside of the tongue tip or blade forms a stricture with the

back of the alveolar ridge or the hard palate.

7. Palatal: A speech sound which is made with the front of the tongue and the

hard palate.

8. Velar: A speech sound which is made with the back of the tongue and the soft

palate.

9. Uvular: A speech sound which is made with the back of the tongue and the

uvula, the short projection of the soft tissue and muscle at the posterior end of

the velum.

10. Pharyngeal: A speech sound which is made with the root of the tongue and the

walls of the pharynx.

11. Glottal: A speech sound which is made with the two pieces of vocal folds

pushed towards each other.

2.4.5 The consonants of English

Received Pronunciation (RP): The type of British Standard English pronunciation which has been regarded as the prestige variety and which shows no regional variation.

It has often been popularly referred to as ―BBC English‖ or ―Oxford English‖ because it

is widely used in the private sector of the education system and spoken by most

newsreaders of the BBC network.

[p] voiceless bilabial stop

[b] voiced bilabial stop

[s] voiceless alveolar fricative

[z] voiced alveolar fricative

[m] bilabial nasal

[n] alveolar nasal

[l] alveolar lateral

[j] palatal approximant

[h] glottal fricative

[r] alveolar approximant

Chapter 3 Lexicon

3.1 What is word?

1. What is a lexeme?

A lexeme is the smallest unit in the meaning system of a language that can be

distinguished from other similar units. It is an abstract unit. It can occur in many different forms in actual spoken or written sentences, and is regarded as the same lexeme even when inflected. E.g. the word ―write‖ is the lexeme of ―write, writes, wrote, writing and written.‖

2. What is a morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest unit of language in terms of relationship between

expression and content, a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical. E.g. the word ―boxes‖ has two morphemes: ―box‖ and ―es,‖ neither of which permits further division or analysis shapes if we don’t want to sacrifice its meaning.

3. What is an allomorph?

An allomorph is the alternate shapes of the same morpheme. E.g. the variants of the plurality ―-s‖ makes the allomorphs thereof in the following examples: map – maps, mouse –mice, ox – oxen, tooth – teeth, etc.

4. What is a word?

A word is the smallest of the linguistic units that can constitute, by itself, a complete

utterance in speech or writing.

3.1.1 Three senses of “word”

1. A physically definable unit

2. The common factor underlying a set of forms

3. A grammatical unit

3.1.2 Identification of words

1. Stability

2. Relative uninterruptibility

3. A minimum free form

3.1.3 Classification of words

1. Variable and invariable words

2. Grammatical words and lexical words

3. Closed-class words and open-class words

4. Word class

3.2 The formation of word

3.2.1 Morpheme and morphology

Morphology studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed.

3.2.2 Types of morphemes

1.

Free morphemes: Those which may occur alone, that is, those which may constitute words by themselves, are free morphemes.

Bound morphemes: Those which must appear with at least another morpheme

are called bound morphemes.

2. Root, affix and stem

A root is the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed. An affix is

the collective term for the type of formative that can be used only when added to

another morpheme. A stem is any morpheme or combination of morphemes to

which an inflectional affix can be added.

3. Inflectional affix and derivational affix

Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case,

which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached.

The distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes is sometimes known as a distinction between inflectional morphemes and

derivational morphemes. We can tell the difference between them with the

following ways:

(1) Inflectional affixes very often add a minute or delicate grammatical

meaning to the stem. E.g. toys, walks, John’s, etc. Therefore, they serve

to produce different forms of a single word. In contrast, derivational

affixes often change the lexical meaning. E.g. cite, citation, etc.

(2) Inflectional affixes don’t change the word class of the word they attach

to, such as flower, flowers, whereas derivational affixes might or might

not, such as the relation between small and smallness for the former, and

that between brother and brotherhood for the latter.

(3) Inflectional affixes are often conditioned by nonsemantic linguistic

factors outside the word they attach to but within the phrase or sentence.

E.g. the choice of likes in ―The boy likes to navigate on the internet.‖ is

determined by the subject the boy in the sentence, whereas derivational

affixes are more often based on simple meaning distinctions. E.g. The

choice of clever and cleverness depends on whether we want to talk

about the property ―clever‖ or we want to talk about ―the state of being

clever.‖

(4) In English, inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes, which are always

word final. E.g. drums, walks,etc. But derivational affixes can be

prefixes or suffixes. E.g. depart, teacher, etc.

3.2.3 Inflection and word formation

1. Inflection

Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case,

which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached.

2. Word formation

Word formation refers to the process of word variations signaling lexical relationships. It can be further subclassified into the compositional type (compound)

and derivational type (derivation).

(1) Compound

Compounds refer to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form,

such as ice-cream, sunrise, paper bag, railway, rest-room, simple-minded,

wedding-ring, etc.

The head of a nominal or an adjectival endocentric compound is deverbal, that is, it is derived from a verb. Consequently, it is also called a verbal

compound or a synthetic compound. Usually, the first member is a participant

of the process verb. E.g. Nouns: self-control, pain-killer, etc. Adjectives:

virus-sensitive, machine washable, etc. The exocentric compounds are formed

by V + N, V + A, and V + P, whereas the exocentric come from V + N and V

+ A. E.g. Nouns: playboy, cutthroat, etc. Adjectives: breakneck, walk-in, etc.

(2) Derivation

Derivation shows the relation between roots and suffixes. In contrast with inflections, derivations can make the word class of the original word

either changed or unchanged.

3.2.4 The counterpoint of phonology and morphology

1. Allomorph: Any of the different forms of a morpheme.

2. Morphophonology / morphophonemics: Morphophonology is a branch of

linguistics referring to the analysis and classification of the phonological

factors that affect the appearance of morphemes, and correspondingly, the

grammatical factors that affect the appearance of phonemes. It is also called

morphonology or morphonemics.

3. Assimilation: Assimilation refers to the change of a sound as a result of the

influence of an adjacent sound, which is more specifically called ―contact‖ or

―contiguous‖ assimilation.

4. Dissimilation: Dissimilation refers to the influence exercised by one sound

segment upon the articulation of another, so that the sounds become less alike,

or different.

3.3 Lexical change

3.3.1 Lexical change proper

1. Invention

Since economic activities are the most important and dynamic in human life, many new lexical items come directly from the consumer items, their producers or

their brand names.

2. Blending

Blending is a relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the

second word, or by joining the initial parts of the two words.

3. Abbreviation / clipping

A new word is created by cutting the final part, cutting the initial part or

cutting both the initial parts of the original words.

4. Acronym

Acronym is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization, which has a heavily modified headword.

5. Back-formation

Back-formation refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imaged affix from a longer form already in the

language.

6. Analogical creation

The principle of analogical creation can account for the co-existence of two forms, regular and irregular, in the conjugation of some English verbs.

7. Borrowing

English in its development has managed to widen her vocabulary by borrowing words from other languages. Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Arabic and

other languages have all played an active role in this process.

3.3.2 Phonological change

1. Loss

The loss of sound can first refer to the disappearance of the very sound as a phoneme in the phonological system. The loss of sounds may also occur in

utterances at the expense of some unstressed words.

2. Addition

Sounds may be lost but they may also be added to the original sound sequence.

3. Metathesis

Metathesis is a process involving an alternation in the sequence of sounds.

Metathesis had been originally a performance error, which was overlooked and

accepted by the speech community.

4. Assimilation

Assimilation refers to the change of a sound as a result of the influence of an adjacent sound, which is more specifically called ―contact‖or ―contiguous‖

assimilation.

3.3.3 Morpho-syntactical change

1. Morphological change

The form of inflectional affixes may also change.

2. Syntactical change

There are more instances of changes in the syntactical features of words

3.3.4 Semantic change

1. Broadening

Broadening is a process to extend or elevate the meaning from its specific sense to a relatively general one.

2. Narrowing

Contrary to broadening, the original meaning of a word can be narrowed or restricted to a specific sense.

3. Meaning shift

All semantic changes involve meaning shift. Here meaning shift is understood in its narrow sense, i.e. the change of meaning has nothing to do with

generalization or restriction as mentioned above.

4. Class shift

By shifting the word class one can change the meaning of a word from a concrete entity or notion to a process or attribution. This process of word formation

is also known as zero-derivation, or conversion.

5. Folk etymology

Folk etymology refers to a change in form of a word or phrase, resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term or from the

influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous.

3.3.5 Orthographic change

Changes can also be found at the graphitic level. Since writing is a recording of the sound system in English, phonological changes will no doubt set off graphitic changes.

End of Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Syntax

4.1 The traditional approach

4.1.1 Number, gender and case

4.1.2 Tense and aspect

[For these two sections, please consult materials on traditional English grammar. –

icywarmtea]

4.1.3 Concord and government

Concord (a.k.a. agreement) may be defined as the requirement that the forms of two or more words in a syntactic relationship should agree with each other in terms of

some categories. E.g. in English the determiner and the noun it precedes should concord

in number as in this man, these men. And the form of a subject should agree with that of

the verb in terms of number in the present tense, e.g. He speaks English; They speak

English.

Government is another type of control over the form of some words by other words in certain syntactic construction. It differs from concord in that this is a relationship in

which a word of a certain class determines the form of others in terms of certain

category. E.g. in English, the pronoun after a verb or a preposition should be in the

object form as in She gave him a book; She gave a book to him. In other words, the verb,

or the preposition, governs the form of the pronoun after it. The former is the governor,

and the latter is the governed.

4.2 The structural approach

4.2.1 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

Syntagmatic (a.k.a. horizontal / chain) relation is a relation between one item and others in a sequence, or between elements which are all present, such as the relation

between weather and the others in the following sentence: If the weather is nice, we’ll

go out.

Paradigmatic (a.k.a. vertical / choice) relation is a relation holding between elements replaceable with each other at a particular place in a structure, or between one

element present and the others absent.

4.2.2 Immediate constituent analysis (IC analysis)

1. How to do it

Immediate constituents are constituents immediately, directly, below the level of a construction, which may be a sentence or a word group or a word.

Immediate constituent analysis, IC analysis for short, refers to the analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents – word groups (phrases), which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate sake of convenience. The IC analysis of a sentence may be carried out with brackets or shown with a tree diagram. E.g.

Poor John ran away. →

(1) ((Poor) (John)) ((ran) (away)).

(2)

Through IC analysis, the internal structure of a sentence may be demonstrated clearly, any ambiguities, if any, will be revealed in that IC analysis emphasizes not only the linear structure of the sentence but also the hierarchical structure of the sentence.

E.g. the sentence Leave the book on the shelf. is ambiguous. It has two meanings: (1)

Put the book on the shelf; (2) Don’t touch the book on the shelf. These two meanings can be shown by the following tree diagrams. (Omitted. See the textbook p125~128.)

3. Its problems

However, IC analysis has three disadvantages. First, at the beginning, some advocator insisted on binary divisions. Any construction, at any level, will be cut into two parts. But this is not possible. E.g. Old men and women is ambiguous in that it may mean old + men and women or old men + and women. It’s impossible to combine with only the preceding part or only the succeeding part. Second, constructions with discontinuous constituents will pose technical problems for tree diagrams in IC analysis.

E.g. the phrasal verbs like make up, turn on, or give up will cause problems in that when

the object is expressed by a pronoun, it will interrupt the phrasal verb as in make it up.

The most serious problem is that there are structural ambiguities which cannot be revealed by IC analysis. E.g. the tree diagram and the labels can only do one analysis for the love of God.

4.2.3 Endocentric and exocentric constructions

An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent, or approaching equivalence, to one of its constituents, which serves as the center, or head, of the whole. It is also called headed construction. Typical endocentric constructions are noun phrases, verb phrases and adjective phrases. They may be further divided into two subtypes: subordinate and coordinate constructions. Those, in which there is only one head, with the head being dominant and the other constructions dependent, are subordinate constructions. In the coordinate construction, there are more than one head,

e.g. boys and girls, in which the two content constituents, boys and girls, are of equal

syntactic status, and no one is dependent on the other.

The exocentric construction is defined negatively as a construction whose distribution is not functionally equivalent to any of its constituents. There is no

noticeable center or head in it. Typical exocentric constructions are prepositional

phrases, subordinate clauses, English basic sentences, and the verb plus object

constructions.

4.3 The generative approach

4.3.1 Deep and surface structures

In transformational generative grammar (a.k.a. T-G grammar), the deep structure may be defined as the abstract representation of the syntactic properties of a

construction, i.e. the underlying level of structural relations between its different

constituents, such as the relation between the underlying subject and its verb, or a verb

and its object.

The surfaces structure is the final stage in the syntactic derivation of a construction, which closely corresponds to the structural organization of a construction people

actually produce and receive.

The example for the surface structure is The newspaper was not delivered today.

The deep structure of the above sentence would be something like: (negative) someone

(past tense) deliver the newspaper today (passive). The items in brackets are not lexical

items but grammatical concepts which shape the final form of the sentence. Rules which

describe deep structure are in the first part of the grammar (base component). Rules

which transform these structures into surface structures (transformational rules) are in

the second part of the grammar (transformational component).

4.3.2 The standard theory and after

What is the trace theory?

[I think this is difficult. It is too abstract for me. – icywarmtea]

After the movement of an element in a sentence there will be a trace left in the original position. This is the notion trace in T-G grammar. It’s suggested that if we have

the notion trace, all the necessary information for semantic interpretation may come

from the surface structure. E.g. The passive Dams are built by beavers. differs from the

active Beavers built dams. in implying that all dams are built by beavers. If we add a

trace element represented by the letter t after built in the passive as Dams are built t by

beavers, then the deep structure information that the word dams was originally the

object of built is also captured by the surface structure. Trace theory proves to be not

only theoretically significant but also empirically valid.

4.3.3 Government, binding, etc.

1. Constituent command / C-command: α c-commands β if α does not dominate

βand every γthat dominates αalso dominates β, as shown in the diagram below:

2. Binding theory: Part of the government / binding theory. It examines

connections between noun phrases in sentences and explores the way they relate and refer to each other.

(1) An anaphor is bound in its governing category.

(2) A pronominal is free in its governing category.

(3) An r-expression is free.

3. Binding: The notion binding is borrowed from logic, which refers to the

relation between a quantifier and a variable, that is a variable is bound by a quantifier. In the generative approach, binding refers to the relation between different referring word and the subject of a sentence containing it.

4. Anaphor: A process where a word or phrase refers back to another word or

phrase which was used earlier in a text or conversation. In a narrow sense, it used to include only reflexives like myself and reciprocals like each other.

5. Pronominal: A pronominal refers to pronouns other than reflexives and

reciprocals.

6. R-expression: A r-expression, as the abbreviation of a referential-expression,

covers all the other r-expressions except anaphors and pronominals, e.g. John, Bill, the man.

7. The D-structure and the S-structure

In Government / Binding theory, the D-structure is an abstract level of sentence representation where semantic roles such as an agent (the doer of an action) and patient (the entity affected by an action) are assigned to the sentence. Agent is sometimes also referred to as the logical subject and patient as the rheme of the sentence. E.g. (in simplified form)

Vera shoot intruders

Agent or logical subject patient or rheme

The next level of sentence representation is the S-structure where syntactic / grammatical cases such as nominative / grammatical subject and accusative / grammatical object are assigned. E.g. (in simplified form)

Vera (agent) shoot intruders (patient / rheme) Grammatical subject grammatical object

The phonetic form (PF) component and the logical form (LF) component are

then needed to turn the S-structure into a surface sentence. The PF component

presents the S-structure as sound, and the LF component gives the syntactic

meaning of the sentence.

4.4 The functional approach

4.4.1 Functional sentence perspective

1. Functional sentence perspective (FSP)

The functional sentence perspective (FSP) is a type of linguistic analysis associated with the Prague School which describes how information is distributed in sentences.

FSP deals particularly with the effect of the distribution of known information and new

information in discourse. The known information (known as theme), refers to

information that is not new to the reader or listener. The rheme refers to information that

is new. FSP differs from the traditional grammatical analysis of sentences because the

distribution between subject-predicate is not always the same as theme-rheme contrast.

E.g.

(1) John sat in the front seat

Subject predicate

Theme rheme

(2) In the front seat sat John.

Predicate subject

Theme rheme

John is the grammatical subject in both sentences, but theme in (1) and rheme in

(2).

2. Communicative dynamism (CD)

By CD Firbas means the extent to which the sentence element contributes to the development of the communication.

4.4.2 Systemic-functional grammar

1. The material process (a process of doing): the representation of outer

experience.

2. The mental process (a process of sensing): the representation of inner

experience.

3. The relational process (a process of being): the relation between one

experience and another.

4. The behavioral process (a process of behavioring): physiological and

psychological behavior.

5. The verbal process (a process of saying): any kinds of symbolic exchange of

meaning.

6. The existential process (a process of happening): a representation of

something in existence or happening/

These six processes form a circle as follows: (omitted. See textbook, p.155)

End of Chapter 4

Chapter 5 Meaning

5.1 Meanings of “meaning”

1. Meaning: Meaning refers to what a language expresses about the world we live in or

any possible or imaginary world.

2. Connotation: The additional meaning that a word or phrase has beyond its central

meaning.

3. Denotation: That part of the meanings of a word or phrase that relates it to phenomena

in the real world or in a fictional or possible word.

4. Different types of meaning (Recognized by Leech, 1974)

(1) Conceptual meaning: Logical, cognitive, or denotative content.

(2) Associative meaning

a. Connotative meaning: What is communicated by virtue of what language

refers to.

b. Social meaning: What is communicated of the social circumstances of

language use.

c. Affective meaning: What is communicated of the feelings and attitudes of the

speaker / writer.

d. Reflected meaning: What is communicated through association with another

sense of the same expression.

e. Collocative meaning: What is communicated through association with words

which tend to occur in the environment of another word.

(3) Thematic meaning: What is communicated by the way in which the message is

organized in terms of order and emphasis.

5. The difference between meaning, concept, connotation, and denotation

Meaning refers to the association of language symbols with the real world. There are many types of meaning according to different approaches.

Concept is the impression of objects in people’s mind.

Connotation is the implied meaning, similar to implication.

Denotation, like sense, is not directly related with objects, but makes the abstract assumption of the real world.

5.2 The referential theory

1. The referential theory: The theory of meaning which relates the meaning of a word to

the thing it refers to, or stands for, is known as the referential theory.

2. The semantic triangle theory

Ogden and Richards presented the classic ―Semantic Triangle‖as manifested in the following diagram, in which the ―symbol‖refers to the linguist elements (word, sentence, etc.), the ―referent‖refers to the object in the world of experience, and the ―thought‖or ―reference‖refers to concept or notion. Thus the symbol of a word signifies ―things‖by virtue of the ―concept,‖ associated with the form of the word in the mind of the speaker of the language. The concept thus considered is the meaning of the word. The connection (represented with a dotted line) between symbol and referent is made possible only through ―concept.‖

Concept / notion

Thought / reference

----------------------

Symbol object

Word stands for reality

Signifier referent

Code signified

5.3 Sense relations

5.3.1 Synonymy

Synonymy is the technical name for the sameness relation.

5.3.2 Antonymy

Antonymy is the name for oppositeness relation. There are three subtypes: gradable, complementary and converse antonymy.

1. Gradable antonymy

Gradable antonymy is the commonest type of antonymy. They are mainly adjectives, e.g. good / bad, long / short, big / small, etc.

2. Complementary antonymy

The members of a pair in complementary antonymy are complementary to each other. That is, they divide up the whole of a semantic filed completely. Not only the

assertion of one means the denial of the other, the denial of one also means the assertion

of the other, e.g. alive / dead, hit / miss, male / female, boy / girl, etc.

3. Converse antonymy

Converse antonyms are also called relational opposites. This is a special type of antonymy in that the members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition.

They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities, e.g. buy / sell, parent /

child, above / below, etc.

5.3.3 Hyponymy

Hyponymy involves us in the notion of meaning inclusion. It is a matter of class membership. That is to say, when x is a kind of y, the lower term x is the

hyponym, and the upper term y is the superordinate. Two or more hyponyms of the

same one superordinate are called co-hyponyms, e.g. under flower, there are peony,

jasmine, tulip, violet, rose, etc., flower is the superordinate of peony, jasmine, etc.,

peony is the hyponym of flower,and peony, jasmine, tulip, violet, rose, etc. are

co-hyponyms.

5.4 Componential analysis

Componential analysis defines the meaning of a lexical element in terms of semantic components. That is, the meaning of a word is not an unanalyzable whole. It may be seen as a complex of different semantic features. There are semantic units smaller than the meaning of a word. E.g.

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

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

Son: child (x, y) & male (x)

Daughter: child (x, y) & -male (x)

Take: cause (x, (have (x, y)))

Give: cause (x, (-have (x, y)))

5.5 Sentence meaning

5.5.1 An integrated theory

1. Compositionality: A principle for sentence analysis, in which the meaning of a

sentence depends on the meanings of the constituent words and the way they

are combine.

2. Selection restrictions: Restrictions on the choice of individual lexical units in

construction with other units. E.g. the word breathe will typically select an

animate subject (boy, man, woman, etc.) not an abstract or an inanimate (table,

book, etc.). The boy was still breathing. The desk was breathing.

5.5.2 Logical semantics

1. Prepositional logic / prepositional calculus / sentential calculus: Prepositional

logic is the study of the truth conditions for propositions: how the truth of a

composite proposition is determined by the truth value of its constituent

propositions and the connections between them.

2. Predicate logic / predicate calculus: Predicate logic studies the internal

structure of simple propositions.

End of Chapter 5