An introduction to English semantics

Patrick Griffiths' semantics. 1. What parts does a prototype computer have? Do those parts have parts? Answer: CPU, monitor, keyboard and mouse are hyponyms of the superordinate word computer. Parts have parts of CPU are RAM, CD-RO Drive, Hardisk drive, Motheboard and Adapter. Parts have parts of Monitor are Regulator, Driver Horizontal, flyback and RGB. 2 . The top of a thing is one of its sides : the side that is uppermost. The bottom of a thing is one of its sides : the side that is down. The front is one of the sides : the side that faces forwards. The back is one of its sides , the side that faces away from the front. What sense relations hold between the words side , top , bottom , front and back ? Give reasons to support your answer. Answer: If the statement is accepted as a reasonable reflection of a competent user of English’s knowledge of meaning, then side is a superordinate for top , bottom , front and back . The statement names the latter four as diffe...

Tense and aspect How English grammar allows us to locate events in time (tense), in relation to the time of speaking or writing, and about grammatical signals regarding the sender’s notions of how an event is distributed in time (aspect); Example (6.1), from an article 1 by Andrew O’Hagan, shows tense and aspect being used together to convey meaning. (6.1) “When I told people I was spending time with farmers, they’d say: how can you stand it, they just complain all day and they’ve always got their hand out.” Told is the past simple form of the verb tell. The first word in the two-part labels that I will use always represents tense, so told is a past tense form. The second component denotes aspect, and simple means that neither of the special aspectual meanings to be discussed later is involved. Other tenses and aspects are going to be introduced soon. The past simple indicates that he “told people …” before the time when he wrote the material quoted in (6.1). Moving on in (6.1),...

semantics Three stages of interpretation Pragmatics is the study of utterance meaning. Semantics is the study of sentence meaning and word meaning. The first stage is a semantic one: literal meaning. The others are two kinds of pragmatic interpretation: explicature and implicature. That was the last bus. The literal meaning of a sentence is based on just the semantic information that you have from your knowledge of English. something salient (That) is equated, at an earlier time (was is a past tense form), to either the final (last) or the most recent (last) bus. That meaning is available without wondering who might say or write the words, when or where. An explicature is a basic interpretation of an utterance, using contextual information and world knowledge to work out what is being referred to and which way to understand ambiguous expressions, such as the word last. Two possible contexts for using an utterance based on the sentence  will be considered. They lead to diffe...

Modality, scope and quantification Modality is the term for a cluster of meanings centred on the notions of necessity and possibility, for instance; a. You must report it. ( indicates that there is written rules) b. You have to report it.( indicates that there is pressure) c. You mustn’t report it. (indicates that there is a prohibition) d. You don’t have to report it (indicates that there is no necessity to report the matter) Relative scope is also needed for understanding quantificational meanings. Quantifiers are words such as all, some and most. s and modality: what ‘must be’ is expected under all circumstances, and if a situation is possible in some circumstances, then it ‘may be’. Modality There are example from modality: a. You must apologise. b. You can come in now. c. She’s not able to see you until Tuesday. d. Acting like that, he must be a Martian. e. With an Open sign on the door, there ought to be someone inside. f. Martians could be green. The main carri...

Connecting utterances to the background The adaptations include focal stress (as in the contrast between “Meg’s a SCOT” and “MEG’s a Scot” – where the capitals indicate syllables pronounced with stronger stress); definiteness, often seen in the choice among determiners, for example the versus a; and distinct syntactic patterns (such as It’s Mary who is Scottish and Mary is Scottish). Definiteness Definiteness in noun phrases is a significant aspect of the grammar of English and will be used as a starting point here. The definite article the signals ‘this reference is constrained: I am referring to something that you know about’. One class of example is (9.1), which might be spoken by someone phoning from the other side of town. (9.1) Go and have a look outside, there’s a weird green glow in the sky. the same sky is outside almost everywhere, so the phone caller can expect the receiver of the call to know about the sky; and that is what makes immediate definite reference appropria...

Verbs and situations some verbs will accept preposition phrases (for example to her in 4.2a). And sometimes positions are filled by embedded clauses (like the that-clauses in 4.2c–e).  A clause usually has a verb of its own and can carry a proposition, for example Spring has come early carries a proposition about the start of a season. In (4.2c, e) the same clause is not free-standing. Embedded (which is to say “packed into”) another clause as object of the verb confirm. In (4.2d, e) we see a clause embedded as the subject. The word that is one of the markers made available by English grammar to mark a clause as embedded. (4.2) a. I offered a scone to her. b. This evidence confirms my hunch. c. It confirms that spring has come early. d. That the daffodils are blooming confirms my hunch. e. That the daffodils are blooming confirms that spring has come early. f. Offer him a scone. The term argument is used to cover all kinds of obligatory, potentially referential constituents ...