Chapter 5 Semantics

The idea here is to demonstrate that word-meaning is difficult to pin down based on semantic features and this is particularly the case at the level of superordinate categories such as UTENSIL and APPLIANCE. It is difficult to find a set of common features which are shared by members of each and which distinguish one category from the other.

The idea here is to demonstrate that word-meaning is difficult to pin down based on semantic features and this is particularly the case at the level of superordinate categories such as UTENSIL and APPLIANCE. It is difficult to find a set of common features which are shared by members of each and which distinguish one category from the other.

Similar to questions 2 and 3, this exercise is meant to illustrate the difficulties associated with componential approaches to word meaning and the radial and fuzzy nature of categories. In the case of BIRD, for example, not all birds fly (e.g. ostrich), some can swim (penguins) etc. Likewise, other creatures fly, build nests, lay eggs etc. but are not birds. Not all birds are equally ‘bird-like’ but instead some are more prototypical than others. These are the ones come to mind more quickly, are talked about more often etc. because they are salient in experience. This means that the category of BIRD will be organised differently across different cultures. In the UK, robins, starlings and blackbirds are probably among the most prototypical. Among Amazon communities, the Toucan might be more prototypical. The same kind of analyses could be given for SPORT and WEAPON.

The point here is demonstrate the background knowledge (in the form of frames) that necessarily forms the meaning for words for it is only against the backdrop of such knowledge that words can meaning anything. In the case of ‘hypotenuse’ you need to know what a triangle is, and in order to know what a triangle is you need to know something other shapes. In the case of ‘wicket’, you need to know something about cricket and the role of the wicket in the game, and in order to know the meaning of cricket you need to know something about sport and recreation etc. Word-meaning is then cascading, accessing more and more general frames. Some words meaning different things depending on the frames they are accessing. So ‘menu’ means one thing in a COMPUTER frame but another in a RESTAURANT frame.

This diagram would involve roles for doctor (or nurse or surgeon etc.), patient, illness, and treatment and capture the relations between then.

Examples for ANGER IS HEAT are found in (8a) – (8h). Students should be able to produce similar examples for other conceptual metaphors. E.g. taken from Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 4), expressions evidencing an ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor would include the following:

Your claims are indefensible
He attacked every weak point in my argument
His criticisms were right on target
I demolished his argument
I’ve never won an argument with him
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out
He shot down all of my arguments

NB: Students might (rightly) point out that not all examples are so clearly connected to the idea of war and that citing them as evidence of a conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR is potentially problematic.

After Lakoff (1993: 207):
Travellers  Lovers
Vehicle  Relationship
Destinations  Common goals
Distance covered ? Progress made
Directions  Choices
Obstacles  Difficulties

Taking in as example, the central meaning involves an object being located completely inside another larger object as in the biscuits are in the cupboard. However, there are spatial arrangements that are different and yet are still coded by the word in. For example, imagine a fruit bowl in which the top fruit is not actually contained within the bowl and yet we still describe it as being in the bowl. As another example, when we say the dog is in the field, the field is not a three-dimensional container like a cupboard. Notice also that scale doesn’t matter. So we can equally say the keys are in the cupboard and the keys are in the house. Likewise, tightness of fit doesn’t matter. So we use the same word in for cases of tight fit as in the foot in the sock and loose fit as in the sock in the drawer. In many cases, the thing containing another is not actually a physical object or area as when we say she stood in the light or the cry was in earshot. There are then many metaphorical expressions involving in which construe abstract ideas as physical containers as when we say I am in love (emotional states), I work in finance (activities), I wrote the letter in ink (instruments). One reason we might think about emotional states as containers and use in in relation to them is that like physical containers, emotions exercise control over us so that we can feel ‘confined’ by them.   Similar analyses can be given of the remaining prepositions

They should come to the conclusion that the two concepts naturally overlap and therefore that grammatical structure itself can be meaningful.

They should come to the conclusion that e is not idiomatic, in that the ditransitive construction [Subj V Obj1 Obj2] requires an animate object acting as a recipient in Ob1 position. This should convince them once again that constructions are meaningful and that semantics and grammar are part of a continuum.

• Componential analysis has to do with decomposing the sense of a word into its constituent semantic characteristics.
• The meaning of a word is defined in relation to other words based on contrasting semantic features, e.g. male rather than female, animate rather than inanimate, young rather than old when defining the meaning of the word ‘boy’.
• The componential analysis is problematic because it does not account for contextual, cultural, and experiential components of meaning and therefore often leads to synonymy in cases where two words actually have completely different usgaes, contextual characteristics and so on. A case in point are the words boy and lad. These two nouns may appear to be equivalent in a componential approach to meaning, but in fact lad is connected to more distinctive societal expectations and stereotypes, which are dimensions that this semantic model fails to capture.

• Some of the main claims associated with cognitive semantics are that:
• Meaning in language is not determined solely by reference to the external world, but also by how we conceptualise and categorise that objects and concepts.
• Language is not a set of arbitrary symbols but reflects our embodied experiences and sensory perceptions.
• Our conceptual structures are not fixed but are shaped and influenced by our experiences and interactions with the world. This means that the conceptual frame of a restaurant will be represented differently depending on the socio-cultural experiences and encyclopaedic knowledge that we associate with our own specific idea of dining at a restaurant. This also entails that semantic meaning is relational, in the sense that the notion of waiter is a component of the conceptual frame of restaurant, as much as the notions of bill or menu.
• There is no clear-cut distinction between literal and metaphorical language, as metaphors are a fundamental aspect of our conceptual systems and shape our understanding of the world.