Semantics

JOHN I. SAEED is a Senior Fellow of Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland, where he is a professor in linguistics. He has published studies on Cushitic linguistics, particularly Somali and related languages, as well as Irish Sign Language and linguistics. He is the author of several books, including Somali and Irish Sign Language: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach (with Lorraine Leeson).

• List of Figures and TablesPrefaceAbbreviations and SymbolsPart I Preliminaries1 Semantics in Linguistics1.1 Introduction1.2 Semantics and Semiotics1.3 Three Challenges in Doing Semantics1.4 Meeting the Challenges1.5 Semantics in a Model of Grammar1.5.1 Introduction1.5.2 Word meaning and sentence meaning1.6 Some Important Assumptions1.6.1 Reference and sense1.6.2 Utterances, sentences, and propositions1.6.3 Literal and non-literal meaning1.6.4 Semantics and pragmatics1.7 Summary2 Meaning, Thought, and Reality2.1 Introduction2.2 Reference2.2.1 Types of reference2.2.2 Names2.2.3 Nouns and noun phrases2.3 Reference as a Theory of Meaning2.4 Mental Representations2.4.1 Introduction2.4.2 Concepts2.4.3 Necessary and sufficient conditions2.4.4 Prototypes2.4.5 Relations between concepts2.4.6 Acquiring concepts2.5 Words, Concepts, and Thinking2.5.1 Linguistic relativity2.5.2 The language of thought hypothesis2.5.3 Thought and reality2.6 SummaryPart II Semantic Description3 Word Meaning3.1 Introduction3.2 Words and Grammatical Categories3.3 Words and Lexical Items3.4 Problems with Pinning Down Word Meaning3.5 Lexical Relations3.5.1 Homonymy3.5.2 Polysemy3.5.3 Synonymy3.5.4 Opposites (antonymy)3.5.5 Hyponymy3.5.6 Meronymy3.5.7 Member–collection3.5.8 Portion–mass3.6 Derivational Relations3.6.1 Causative verbs3.6.2 Agentive nouns3.7 Lexical Typology3.7.1 Polysemy3.7.2 Color terms3.7.3 Core vocabulary3.7.4 Universal lexemes3.8 Lexical Change3.8.1 Introduction3.8.2 Lexical shifts in meaning3.8.3 System shifts in meaning3.9 Summary4 Sentence Relations and Truth4.1 Introduction4.2 Logic and Truth4.3 Necessary Truth, A Priori Truth, and Analyticity4.4 Entailment4.5 Presupposition4.5.1 Introduction4.5.2 Two approaches to presupposition4.5.3 Presupposition failure4.5.4 Presupposition triggers4.5.5 Presuppositions and context4.5.6 Pragmatic theories of presupposition4.6 Summary5 Sentence Semantics 1: Situations5.1 Introduction5.2 Situation Types5.2.1 States5.2.2 Dynamic situation types5.2.3 A system of situation types5.2.4 Tests for situation types5.4 Aspect5.4.1 Aspect and tense5.4.2 Comparing aspect across languages5.4.3 Aspect and situation type5.5 Modality and Mood5.5.1 Modality5.5.2 Mood5.6 Evidentiality5.7 Negation5.7.1 Introduction5.7.2 Clausal negation5.7.3 Constituent negation5.7.4 Metalinguistic negation5.7.5 Polarity5.8 Summary6 Sentence Semantics 2: Participants6.1 Introduction: Classifying Participants6.2 Thematic Roles6.3 Grammatical Relations and Thematic Roles6.4 Verbs and Thematic Role Grids6.5 Problems with Thematic Roles6.6 The Motivation for Identifying Thematic Roles6.7 Causation6.8 Voice6.8.1 Passive voice6.8.2 Comparing passive constructions across languages6.8.3 Middle voice6.9 Classifiers and Noun Classes6.9.1 Classifiers6.9.2 Noun classes6.10 Summary7 Meaning and Context7.1 Introduction7.2 Deixis7.2.1 Spatial deixis7.2.2 Grammaticalization of context7.2.3 Extensions of spatial deixis7.2.4 Person deixis7.2.5 Social deixis7.3 Reference and Context7.4 Knowledge as Context7.4.1 Discourse as context7.4.2 Background knowledge as context7.4.3 Mutual knowledge7.4.4 Giving background knowledge to computers7.5 Information Structure7.5.1 The information status of nominals7.5.2 Focus and topic7.5.3 Information structure and comprehension7.6 Inference7.7 Speech Act Semantics7.7.1 Introduction7.7.2 Austin's Speech Act Theory7.7.3 Evaluating performative utterances7.7.4 Explicit and implicit performatives7.7.5 Statements as performatives7.7.6 Three facets of a speech act7.7.7 Indirect speech acts7.7.8 Understanding indirect speech acts7.7.9 Speech acts: a summary7.8 SummaryPart III Theoretical Approaches8 Meaning Components8.1 Introduction8.2 Lexical Relations in CA8.2.1 Binary features8.2.2 Redundancy rules8.3 Katz's Semantic Theory8.3.1 Introduction8.3.2 The Katzian dictionary8.3.3 Projection rules8.4 Grammatical Rules and Semantic Components8.4.1 The methodology8.4.2 Thematic roles and linking rules8.5 Talmy's Typology of Motion Events8.6 Jackendoff's Conceptual Structure8.6.1 Introduction8.6.2 The semantic components8.6.3 Localist semantic fields8.6.4 Complex events and states8.6.5 THINGS: Semantic classes of nominals8.6.6 Cross-category generalizations8.6.7 Processes of semantic combination8.7 Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon8.7.1 Event structure8.7.2 Polysemy and Qualia Structure8.8 Problems with Components of Meaning8.9 Summary9 Formal Semantics9.1 Introduction9.2 Model-Theoretical Semantics9.3 Translating English into a Logical Metalanguage9.3.1 Introduction9.3.2 Simple statements in predicate logic9.3.3 Quantifiers in predicate logic9.3.4 Some advantages of predicate logic translation9.4 The Semantics of the Logical Metalanguage9.4.1 Introduction9.4.2 The semantic interpretation of predicate logic symbols9.4.3 The domain9.4.4 The denotation assignment function9.5 Checking the Truth-Value of Sentences9.5.1 Evaluating a simple statement9.5.2 Evaluating a compound sentence with ∧ “and”9.5.3 Evaluating sentences with the quantifiers ∀ and ∃9.6 Word Meaning: Meaning Postulates9.7 Natural Language Quantifiers and Higher-Order Logic9.7.1 Restricted quantifiers9.7.2 Generalized quantifiers9.7.3 The strong/weak distinction and existential there sentences9.7.4 Monotonicity and negative polarity items9.7.5 Section summary9.8 Intensionality9.8.1 Introduction9.8.2 Modality9.8.3 Tense and aspect9.9 Dynamic Approaches to Discourse9.9.1 Anaphora in and across sentences9.9.2 Donkey sentences9.9.3 DRT and discourse anaphora9.10 Summary10 Cognitive Semantics10.1 Introduction10.2 Categorization10.2.1 The rejection of classical categories10.2.2 Embodiment and image schemas10.2.3 Linguistic and encyclopedic knowledge10.3 Polysemy10.3.1 Prepositions10.3.2 Modal verbs10.4 Metaphor10.4.1 Introduction10.4.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory10.4.3 Features of metaphor10.4.4 The influence of metaphor10.5 Metonymy10.6 Mental Spaces10.6.1 Connections between spaces10.6.2 Referential opacity10.6.3 Presupposition10.6.4 Conceptual integration theory10.6.5 Section summary10.7 Langacker's Cognitive Grammar10.7.1 Nouns, verbs, and clauses10.7.2 Construal10.8 Construction Grammar10.9 Summary11 Inferential Pragmatics11.1 Introduction11.2 Propositions11.3 Beyond propositions: Grice's conversational implicature11.3.1 Introduction11.3.2 Grice's maxims of conversational cooperation11.4 Generalizing the Gricean Maxims11.4.1 Horn's Q and R principles11.4.2 Levinson's Q, I and M principles11.5 Contextualism11.5.1 Sentence and proposition mismatches11.5.2 Gradable adjectives11.5.3 Unexpressed temporal reference11.5.4 Quantifier domain restriction11.5.5 Cardinal numbers11.5.6 Section summary11.6 Relevance Theory11.6.1 Introduction11.6.2 Explicatures11.6.3 Higher level explicatures11.6.4 Implicatures11.6.5 Implicature and explicature11.6.6 Implicated premises and implicated conclusions11.7 Lexical Pragmatics11.7.1 Introduction11.7.2 Polysemy and context11.7.3 Microsenses and contextual modulation11.7.4 Neo-Gricean lexical pragmatics11.7.5 Lexical pragmatics in Relevance Theory11.7.6 Section summary11.8 SummarySolutions to ExercisesGlossaryIndex