Word Meaning

UNIT 16

ABOUT DICTIONARIES

A.    Definition & Parts

Dictionary is a list or a collection of word and their meanings, which dictionary is a part of the description of any languages.

1.      Ordinary dictionary

In ordinary dictionary typically gives (at least) three kinds of information about words:

1.      Phonological information,  about how the word is pronounced, grammatical (syntactical and morphological)

2.      Information about its part of speech (e.g. noun, verb) and

3.      Inflections (e.g. for plural number or past tense), and semantic information about the word’s meaning.

Example:

·         Green (gre~n), adj. of the color of growing foliage.

·         Must (must), auxiliary verb to be compelled to, as by instinct or natural law

From the two examples above, we will see some information about the word, such as;

·         Green.

(gre~n) is phonological information,

Adj. is grammatical information, and

Of the color of growing foliage is semantic information

·         Must

(Must) is phonological information,

Auxiliary verb is grammatical information, and

To be compelled to, as by instinct or natural law is semantic information

2.      Semanticist-dictionary

To distinguish between various semantic senses of a word we have to concentrate to the semantic aspects of the kind of dictionary of a language. From the point of view in modern linguistics, the dictionary constructed by a semanticist is expected to represent important aspects of the knowledge about meaning a dictionary tells us what the words mean. The semanticist dictionary-writer and the ordinary dictionary-writer have quite similar aims, but they differ markedly in their style of approach and the emphasis which they place on their various goals.

Example of semanticist-dictionary;

·         female 1 Of the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs; (of plants or their parts) fruit-bearing, having pistil and no stamens . . .

·         male 1 Of the sex that can beget offspring by performing the fertilizing function; (of plants) whose flowers contain only fecundating organs . . . of men or male animals or plants

·         sex 1 Being male or female or hermaphrodite

·         woman 1 Adult human female

·         human 1 Of or belonging to man; that is a man or consists of men

2 Of man as opp. to God

3 Having or showing the qualities distinctive of man as opp. To

(The word Human has three different sense h1, h2 and h3)

3.      Interconnectedness

The first point to note about all dictionaries is that their definitions are necessarily interconnected, and to show the interconnection we have to draw a diagram. The rule for drawing arrows is: If the definition of X includes Y, draw an arrow from X to Y.

Example:

                 male

sex

               female        woman

In the kind of dictionary that a semanticist would propose, as part of the semantic description of a language, there would be the same interconnectedness between the definitions of various predicates, because the semantic dictionary-writer’s main interest is in representing as completely as possible the knowledge about all of the sense relations between predicates.

4.      The use of certain technical or theoretical terms

The technical terms can be seen as an attempt to break out of the circularity which we have noted: an attempt to define the words of ordinary language in another language the descriptive semanticist’s dictionary does use a few technical devices specifically designed (by semanticists) for the purpose of describing meaning. Beside some undefined semantic primes, the main technical device used is the framework of logic, with its notation using 1, &, etc. and a small set of technical semantic terms, like hyponym, clearly defined within this logical framework.

In connection with the use of technical language in ordinary dictionaries, we mention that they operate a small bias in favour of educated usage. This educated bias of dictionaries should not lead to misunderstanding about the nature of the semanticist’s task. Semanticists aim to describe the sense relations between predicates, as they understand them, in their own everyday language. Such theoretical predicates must be used sparingly and only to collect together under one heading a set of predicates that share a common conceptual element. Thus, *sexed can justifiably be used because male and female are, so to speak, ‘two sides of the same coin’, and the predicates grouped together under *locomote, such as walk, run, crawl, and roll, all have in common the fact that they contain an element of ‘change of place’, an element not contained in predicates such as shake, twitch, and sway.

Example;

·         sing, talk, dance, speak, shout, whisper, mutter

Above are sets of predicates. In each case, there is one ‘odd man out’, a predicate not belonging to the same natural class as all the others and Dance is the answer because dance is not deliberate noise-making activity with the vocal tract.

5.      Dictionary Vs Encyclopaedia

We see that some quite clear facts about sense relations in English, i.e. the incompatibility of male and female, the symmetry of join and of marry, and the hyponymy of man to animal, are either not explicitly stated or left  unclear in this ordinary dictionary. Traditionally, the linguistic semanticist is interested in the meanings of words and not in non-linguistic facts about the world. The facts are not particularly relevant to the study of linguistic meaning (that is, the meanings conveyed by the sense relations of the words within the language itself as opposed to meaning conveyed by information from the context or situation in which the language is used). Correspondingly, he attempts to make a strict demarcation between a dictionary and an encyclopaedia. (This attempt is actually highly problematic, but many linguists have assumed that the goal is worth pursuing.)

1.      DICTIONARY describes the senses of predicates

2.      ENCYCLOPAEDIA contains factual information of a variety of types,

Most ordinary dictionaries occasionally stray into the domain of encyclopaedias, giving information not strictly relevant to the bare senses (as opposed to stereotypes) of words. To illustrate this point, we will compare some entries from the Concise Oxford Dictionary with the corresponding entries in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1959 edition).

Example

Concise Oxford (1)   beret Round flat felt or cloth cap

Webster’s New Collegiate (1)   beret A round, flat, visorless cap of soft material, originally worn by Basque peasants

6.      Analytic & Synthetic

To show you the basis of our judgements, and the criteria used by the theoretical semanticist, we now relate the above cases to judgements about sense properties, particularly drawing upon the notions of analytic and synthetic, An ANALYTIC sentence is one that is necessarily TRUE, as a result of the senses of the words in it. An analytic sentence, therefore, reflects a tacit (unspoken) agreement by speakers of the language about the senses of the words in it. A SYNTHETIC sentence is one which is NOT analytic, but may be either true or false, depending on the way the world is.

From a traditional point of view, the descriptive semanticist is basically interested in that information about words which can give rise to sentences containing them being either analytic (e.g. The walrus is an animal) or contradictions (e.g. The walrus is not an animal). Any other information is not strictly semantic but encyclopaedic, at least under the assumption that such a distinction can indeed be made. Many semanticists are coming to the realization that the study of meaning has to include the study of encyclopaedic information in some way along with dictionary information in order to represent more adequately the knowledge a speaker has about the language.

UNIT 17

MEANING POSTULATES

1.      Definition

A meaning postulate is a formula expressing some aspect of the sense of a predicate. It can be read as a proposition necessarily true by virtue of the meaning of the particular predicates involved. Meaning postulates play a central part in the traditional approach to constructing a semantic dictionary. Meaning postulates can be used to deduce information about sense relations,

Example:

v  x MAN2 > x MALE (2) x MAN2>x ADULT (3) x MAN2>x HUMAN BEING (4) x WOMAN >x FEMALE (5) x WOMAN 1>x ADULT (6) x WOMAN >x HUMAN BEING

The predicates of a language all fit into an enormously complicated network of interrelationships. A predicate may be indirectly related through this network to thousands of other predicates. The semanticist wants the presentation of information in his dictionary to be economical, and so only includes the minimum number of meaning postulates from which it is possible to deduce all the (direct or indirect) sense relations between predicates.

v  METAL: x METAL > x MINERAL

MINERAL: x MINERAL > x SUBSTANCE

= x METAL >x SUBSTANCE

In short, if it is stated that metal is a hyponym of mineral, and that mineral is a hyponym of substance, there is no need to state explicitly that metal is a hyponym of substance. This example illustrates a basic principle in the organization of the dictionary, namely that the information explicitly stated in it is less than the information that can be deduced from it.  the information that is not stated explicitly in dictionary entries must be deducible by the strict, simple, and clear laws of The negative connective ~ can be used to account for relations of binary antonymy.

v  ASLEEP: x ASLEEP >~x AWAKE

Write partial dictionary entries for male, abstract, open (adj.), and right with meaning postulates accounting for the binary antonymy between these predicates and female, concrete, closed, and wrong respectively.

Intuitively, the hyponymy relation between predicates is often naturally expressed by the phrase ‘ . . . is a kind of . . . ’, e.g. An idea is a kind of abstraction, A parrot is a kind of bird. The arrow 1 in the meaning postulates of dictionary entries can be used to express both the ‘. . . is a kind of . . .’ relationship traditionally identified with hyponymy and the sort of relationship between red and concrete that we have called a selectional restriction. In connection with the distinction traditionally drawn between hyponymy and selectional restrictions, we mention a corresponding distinction made between contradiction and anomaly.

2.      Contradiction & Anomaly

a.      CONTRADICTION is most centrally a logical term. The basic form of a logical contradiction is p &~p. anything that is clearly an instance of this basic logical contradiction,

e.g. John is here and John is not here, can be called a contradiction.

b.      ANOMALY is semantic oddness (as opposed to grammatical oddness) that can be traced to the meanings of the predicates in the sentence concerned.

Thus Christopher is killing phonemes is anomalous because the meanings of the predicates kill and phoneme cannot be combined in this way. Anomaly involves the violation of a selectional restriction.

Study the above chain of deduction carefully. Note that each step (apart from the introduction of the tautology) is a direct interpretation of a meaning postulate. We will now get you to construct a similar chain of deduction, reducing a case of anomaly to a basic logical contradiction. (Actually the following exercise on deduction, though we have made it fairly precise and rigorous, is still informal and skirts around several technical problems involving logic and reference. We think it best to avoid these problems in an introductory text.) Hyponymy relations between two-place predicates can also be expressed by meaning postulates. Cases of binary antonymy between two-place predicates can also be handled.

The important thing when formulating meaning postulates involving twoplace predicates is to remember that in our notation the variable x conventionally stands in subject position and y stands in object position. In the case of three-place predicates, we use z to indicate the third position. Hyponymy, converseness, and selectional restrictions affecting the three-place predicates can all be expressed using the meaning postulate notation. We will now mention a couple of types of phenomena that cannot easily be handled by meaning postulates. We take these problem areas in ascending order of seriousness.

The need to mention time in descriptions of the senses of some predicates could be overcome by developing a more elaborate logic with the capacity to represent temporal relations and formulating meaning postulates within this more elaborate logical framework. The problem is that gradable predicates like tall and short do not have absolute meanings that can be conveniently summarized by meaning postulates. The context in which tall is used also contributes to its meaning. Tall in one context (e.g. of jockeys) means something different from tall in another context (e.g. of basketball players). Meaning postulates are conceived within a framework for describing contextless sentences, and they work quite well when they are restricted to this kind of use. But as we saw in the previous unit, it is often difficult to draw the line between encyclopaedic (contextual) knowledge and dictionary knowledge (involving sense relations) in characterizing the relevant aspects of the meanings of words and other linguistic expressions. So, while contextual information is often relevant in representing the meaning of a word, it is not readily statable in the logical notation characteristic of meaning postulates.

UNIT 18

PROPERTIES OF PREDICATES

These sense properties as aspects of the meanings of each predicate that would be part of each predicate’s dictionary entry in the mind of a native speaker of the language. We shall illustrate six sense properties that predicates may have. These six properties fall neatly into three groups of two, groups which might come under the headings of ‘symmetry’, ‘reflexivity and ‘transitivity’. The two properties in each group are related to each other in exactly parallel ways. All of these properties are properties of two-place predicates.

1.         Symmetric

Given a two-place predicate P, if, for any pair of referring expressions X and Y, the sentence XPY  ENTAILS the sentence YPX, then P is SYMMETRIC.

Example

Same is a symmetric predicate, since, for any X and Y, X is the same as Y entails Y is the same as X. (In other words, if X is the same as Y, then Y must be the same as X.)

Tanzania is different from Kenya

Kenya is different from Tanzania

The dictionary can give the information that a predicate is symmetric, in the form of a meaning postulate. Alternatively one might simply use the expression ‘Symmetric’ as a shorthand for a meaning postulate conveying this information.We illustrate the two possible notations below with a partial dictionary entry for different.

2.      Asymmetric

Given a two-place predicate P, if the sentence XPY is a CONTRADICTORY of YPX, then P is an ASYMMETRIC predicate.

Example

John is taller than Bill is a contradictory of Bill is taller than John. Therefore taller than is an asymmetric predicate.

3.      Reflexive

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any single referring expression X (or for any pair of referring expressions X and Y which have the same referent,  e.g. John and himself), the sentence XPX (or the sentence XPY) is ANALYTIC, then P is a REFLEXIVE predicate.

Example The predicate as tall as is reflexive, because whenever we form a sentence with one referring expression as its subject and put another with the same referent after as tall as, as in John is as tall as himself, the result is an analytic sentence.

4.      Irreflexive

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any single referring expression X (or for any pair of referring expressions X and Y which have the same referent, e.g. John and himself) the sentence XPX (or the sentence XPY) is a CONTRADICTION, then P is an IRREFLEXIVE predicate.

Example The predicate is taller than is IRREFLEXIVE, because any sentence X is taller than Y, where X and Y have the same referent, is bound to be a contradiction.

5.      Transitive

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any trio of referring expressions X, Y, and Z the compound sentence XPY and YPZ ENTAILS the sentence XPZ, then P is TRANSITIVE.

Example The King is in his counting house and his counting house is in his castle entails The King is in his castle. So the predicate in is transitive.

6.      Intransitive

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any trio of referring expressions X, Y, and Z, the compound sentence XPY and YPZ is a CONTRADICTORY of XPZ, then P is INTRANSITIVE.

Example John is the father of Bill and Bill is the father of Sue is incompatible with John

is the father of Sue, so father of is intransitive.

	Definition involves one sentence	Definition involves two sentences	Definition involves three sentences
Definition involves a necessary truth	reflexive	symmetric	Transitive
Definition involves a necessary falsehood	irreflexive	asymmetric	Intransitive

Any relation expressed by a predicate that is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive is called an EQUIVALENCE RELATION.

Example same as expresses an equivalence relation different from does not.