Understanding Semantics

Sebastian Loebner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134052783
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistic Semantics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Understanding Semantics, Second Edition, provides an engaging and accessible introduction to linguistic semantics. The first part takes the reader through a step-by-step guide to the main phenomena and notions of semantics, covering levels and dimensions of meaning, ambiguity, meaning and context, logical relations and meaning relations, the basics of noun semantics, verb semantics and sentence semantics. The second part provides a critical introduction to the basic notions of the three major theoretical approaches to meaning: structuralism, cognitive semantics and formal semantics.

Key features include:

• A consistent mentalist perspective on meaning
• Broad coverage of lexical and sentence semantics, including three new chapters discussing deixis, NP semantics, presuppositions, verb semantics and frames
• Examples from a wider range of languages that include German, Japanese, Spanish and Russian.
• Practical exercises on linguistic data
• Companion website including all figures and tables from the book, an online dictionary, answers to the exercises and useful links at routledge.com/cw/loebner

This book is an essential resource for all undergraduate students studying semantics.

Sebastian Löbner is a Professor of Linguistics at the Institute for Language and Information at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany

1

Meaning and semantics

Semantics is the part of linguistics that is concerned with meaning. This is, of course, a very superficial definition. The crucial term ‘meaning’ on which the definition rests has several different readings — a first semantic observation which you will find at the beginning of almost every textbook on semantics. Among the many uses of the notion ‘meaning’, only some belong to the field of linguistic semantics. Meaning is always the meaning of something. Words have meanings, as do phrases and sentences. But deeds may have meaning too. If a government pursues a certain policy, we may ask what the meaning is of doing so. The ‘meaning’ of an action or a policy is what sense it makes or what purpose it serves or what it is good for. More generally, we apply the notion of meaning to all sorts of phenomena that we try to make sense of.

The first thing to be stated is that linguistic semantics is exclusively concerned with the meanings of linguistic expressions such as words, phrases, grammatical forms and sentences, but not with the meanings of actions or phenomena. We will approach the problem of linguistic meaning step by step, to arrive at a more precise definition of semantics at the end of this chapter. A more concrete idea of what semantics is about will result when you learn about the many facets of this fascinating discipline in the course of this book.

1.1 LEVELS OF MEANING

Even if we restrict the study of meaning to words and sentences, the notion of meaning has to be further broken down into different levels at which we interpret words and sentences.

1.1.1 Expression meaning

Let us get started by looking at a simple example that will illustrate what semantics is about.

(1)	I don't need your bicycle.

This is an ordinary English sentence. Without even noticing, you have already recognized it as such, you have interpreted it and you are probably imagining a situation where you would say it or someone would say it to you. Since you understand the sentence, you know what it means. But knowing what the sentence means is one thing, describing its meaning is another. The situation is similar with almost all our knowledge. We may exactly know how to get from one place to another, yet be unable to tell the way to someone else. We may be able to sing a song by heart, but unable to describe its melody. We are able to recognize tens of thousands of words when we hear them. But the knowledge that enables us to do so is unconscious. Uncovering the knowledge of the meanings of words and sentences and revealing its nature is the central objective of semantics.

Let us now try to determine the meaning of the sentence in (1). We start from the meanings of the words it contains. The main verb in a sentence occupies a key role. So, what is the meaning of the verb need?¹ Actually, there are two verbs need: an auxiliary verb (as in I need not go) and a full verb. In (1) we have the full verb. It is used with a direct object (your bicycle) and roughly means ›require‹.² We ‘need’ something if it is necessary or very important for us. In (1), what is needed is described by an expression composed of the possessive pronoun your and the noun bicycle. The noun means some sort of vehicle, usually with two wheels and without a motor.

The words need and bicycle are the main carriers of information in the sentence, so-called content words. The meanings of most content words are very differentiated because there are thousands of the same kind. All the other elements in our sentence are different in that they represent items from a very limited choice of expressions of the same kind. Such words are called function words and include articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and other ‘small’ words. We will examine these elements one by one.

The subject expression I is one of seven personal pronouns in English (I , you, he, she, it, we and they). What is the meaning of I ? If Mary says the sentence in (1), it is Mary who is said not to need the bicycle. If John says (1), it is John. In other words, I is used for the one who says it; more technically: for the one who produces an occurrence of this pronoun. The technical term for using an expression for something is reference. When people use I, they refer to themselves. The entity referred to by an expression is called its referent. The meaning of the pronoun can thus be described as follows: I indicates reference to the speaker. Similarly, the pronoun you indicates reference to the addressee or the addressees.

For each personal pronoun there is a corresponding possessive pronoun: I-my, you-your, etc. Your in (1) indicates that the bicycle referred to is linked to the addressee(s). For such a link, there is a broad variety of relations possible. Possession in the sense of ownership is only one option: the expression your bicycle may also refer to the bicycle the addressee is just riding or cleaning or repairing, or even the bicycle they³ have been talking about for the last ten minutes. The meaning of your can roughly be described as ›linked to the addressee(s)‹.

The form don't is a contraction of the auxiliary verb do and the negation particle not. don't contributes two things to the meaning of the sentence. It negates the verb need and thereby turns its meaning into the contrary. In addition, the form don't contributes present tense. Tense is the indication that the sentence refers to a certain time, e.g. present, past or future time. The actual time referred to depends on when the sentence is uttered. Due to the present tense in (1), we will by default relate the situation described to the ‘present’ time, i.e. the time when the sentence is being uttered. Combining these two components of don't , we may say: the meaning of don't is an indication of reference to the time when the sentence is uttered and it turns the situation expressed by the main verb into the contrary.

So far this has been an attempt to determine the meaning of each word in the sentence I don't need your bicycle. This is typical of the work of a semanticist. As you will have noticed, it is not trivial. For a content word, the description of its meaning must be specific enough to distinguish it from all words with other meanings. It would not suffice to describe the meaning of bicycle merely as ›vehicle with two wheels‹ because there are other kinds of vehicles with two wheels, such as motorcycles, kick scooters or kids' balance bicycles. At the same time, the description must be general enough to cover all cases in which this word could be used. Since one usually imagines a particular context when one tries to think of a word and its meaning, one tends to take the meaning too specifically, disregarding other cases in which the word can also be used.

As for function words like pronouns and auxiliaries and for grammatical forms such as present tense, their meanings may at first view seem elusive. But it is possible to account for them too, as our little discussion may have illustrated.

If we put all the pieces together, we can describe the meaning of the sentence as a whole. It can be roughly formulated as: ›for the speaker, the two-wheeled vehicle of the addressee(s) is not required at the time when this is being uttered‹.

It is very important to realize that the sentence leaves open who the speaker and the addressee(s) are, what particular time is referred to and which bicycle. This is not part of its meaning. Such questions can only be settled if the sentence is actually used on a concrete occasion. What is, however, determined by the meaning of the sentence is how the answers to these questions depend on the occasion when the sentence is used. First, if it is actually used, it is necessarily used by someone who produces the sentence. With I in subject position, the sentence ‘tells’ us that it is the speaker who does not need the bicycle. The use of I functions like an instruction: find out who produced this sentence, this is the referent of I. Second, the use of your presupposes that there are one or more addressees. The sentence describes the bicycle as related to them. Third, if a sentence is uttered, it is necessarily used at a certain time. The time of utterance serves as the reference time for determining what is present, past or future. The present tense part of the meaning of the sentence conveys the instruction: attribute the situation described to the time when the sentence is said. Thus the meaning of the sentence specifes the way in which its reference is determined if and when it is used at some occasion.

The meanings of words, phrases and sentences, taken out of any particular context constitute the level of meaning which will henceforth be called expression meaning. Expression is just a cover term for words, phrases and sentences. The term expression meaning covers in particular word meaning and sentence meaning. As you have noticed, the determination of expression meaning requires an abstraction from the use of the ...