Lecture 4 - Summary

The meaning of words I

1. What is a word?

1.1 The orthographic word

A word is most easily defined in written language: we can then provisionally define an orthographic word as the unit that occurs between two spaces (or a space and a punctuation mark). A word defined in this way is simply a sequence of letters; in the previous sentence space and spaces are two different words (two different types), whereas the two occurrences of the word word count as two tokens of the same type. Similarly, ear¹ 'hearing organ' (N. øre) and ear² 'a cluster of grains' (N. aks) would count as tokens of the same word type; so would smoke (n.) and smoke (v.). This is the definition of the term word that is used in computer-based word counts, word frequency studies, etc.: it is simple enough that a computer program can handle it.

1.2 The lexeme

For more sophisticated word studies we introduce the concept of the lexeme, which is intended to take both the grammar and the meaning of words into account. The lexeme is an abstract unit which subsumes all the inflectional variants of a word: thus, dog, dogs, dog's are all different forms of the lexeme DOG, and be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been are different forms of the lexeme BE (small capitals are used to indicate a lexeme, italics to mark individual forms of the lexeme). EAR¹ and EAR² are two different lexemes, since they do not mean the same. SMOKE¹ (n.) and SMOKE² (v.) are different lexemes, since they have different grammatical properties.

The lexeme is also useful in handling expressions like red tape 'silly detailed unnecessary official rules that delay action' (1) and kick the bucket 'die' (2) as opposed to red tape 'tape which is red' (3) and kick the bucket 'strike the bucket with one's foot' (4).

(1) It took a long time to cut through the red tape and get the building started.
(2) Have you heard that Fred Jones has kicked the bucket?

(3) He made up the parcel with red tape.
(4) The cow kicked the bucket so that it overturned and the milk ran out.

The underlined expressions in (3) and (4) are straightforward syntactic constructions (NP made up of premodifier + head, and a clause fragment made up of V + dO, respectively) whose meaning is entirely predictable from the meaning of each morpheme. In the first two examples, on the other hand, the meaning of the underlined expression is not predictable from the meaning of each morpheme; instead, these expressions must be learned as units. We say that the original constructions have been lexicalized, i.e. made into lexemes. Such lexemes are referred to as idioms: they are said to have idiomatic meaning (i.e. meaning not predictable from the meaning of each morpheme making up the lexeme) as opposed to the literal meaning of the underlined expressions of (3) and (4).

Two lexemes which have the same form but different sense are said to be homonyms: BANK 'land on either side of a river' v. 'financial institution', EAR 'hearing organ' v. 'cluster of grains'. A polysemous lexeme, on the other hand, is one lexeme with two or more related senses (e.g. FOOT, HEAD, PAPER).

Homonyms typically correspond to two different lexemes in another language; cf. EAR¹ (N. øre) and EAR² (N. aks). But this in itself is not a sufficient criterion for homonym status: cf. the polysemous PAPER, which has a separate Norwegian counterpart for each major sense: 'paper'¹ (N. papir), 'paper'² (N. avis), 'paper'³ (N. foredrag), 'paper'⁴ (N. eksamensoppgave), 'paper'⁵ (N. tapet).

2. The semiotic triangle

Two corners of the so-called semiotic triangle (EGTU p. 44) (form and sense) correspond to what we earlier called the linguistic sign (cf. lecture 1).

The third corner (labelled referent³ below) would normally be labelled denotatum (cf. the use of the verb denote in EGTU 2.4.2):

FORM	SENSE	REFERENT³ (=DENOTATUM)	REFERENT¹
girl	'young female human being'	any person about whom the lexeme may be used (i.e. what the lexeme denotes)	The particular girl I'm talking about (referring to) when I say There is a girl outside who wants to talk to you.
book	'a set of printed pages fastened together in a cover'	any object about which the lexeme may be used (i.e. what the lexeme denotes)	The particular book I'm talking about (referring to) when I say The book I read last night was boring.

3. The sense of lexemes

3.1 Nouns

When nouns are used to represent phenomena which make up clearly delimited categories (e.g. cows and sheep), the choice of noun is typically unproblematic. In other cases, small sets of nouns can be used to represent phenomena in the outside world which can vary infinitely. We can then typically identify prototypes without problems, whereas the boundaries between the categories are fuzzy. Figure 1 can be said to depict a prototypical cup; if it is made very high, people may hesitate whether to call it a cup or a vase (figure 2). If the handle is removed, we get a prototypical vase (figure 3). Other modifications of the shape of the object in question may yield prototypical bowls (figure 4) or flowerpot (figure 5), but exactly where the boundaries between the categories are to be drawn will be difficult to say.


Figure 1 Figure 2	Figure 3

Figure 4	Figure 5

It is customary to use inverted commas to indicate that a sequence of words are used to represent the sense of a lexeme. Thus the sense of GIRL can be represented as 'young female human being'.

It is usually easier to represent sense contrasts and sense relations than the actual sense of simple lexemes. Thus, in each group below it is easy to show how the individual lexemes relate to each other by referring to elements of meaning such as 'male'/'female' and 'adult'/'young', whereas the sense of the first element in each group is less easy to represent:

HORSE/STALLION/MARE/FOAL SHEEP/RAM/EWE/LAMB DOG/DOG/BITCH/PUPPY COW/BULL/COW/CALF

3.2 Verbs

Verbs are commonly grouped on the basis of sense elements. We can thus recognize

verbs of communication: speak, talk, say, claim, assert, maintain, ...

verbs of perception: see, hear, feel taste, sense, notice, observe, ...

verbs of cognition: think, believe, know, realize, understand, assume, ...

The following is intended to illustrate the dimensions along which the sense of movement verbs can vary: contact with the ground, part(s) of body touching the ground, speed of movement, direction of movement, purpose, etc.

go the general verb for movement

walk on two feet, constant contact with ground

crawl on hands and knees, constant contact with ground

hop on one foot, intermittent contact with ground

run on two feet, intermittent contact with ground

stride walk quickly with long steps

mince walk in an unnatural way, taking short steps and moving your hips

pace walk with slow regular steps, usually back and forth

tiptoe walk quietly with your heels off the ground

creep move quietly, so as not to be seen/hear

prance walk in a confident way in order to make people notice or admire you

sidle walk towards sth/sb slowly and quietly, as if you do not want to be noticed

3.3 Adjectives

We may identify sets of adjectives which share some basic sense (e.g. 'inclined to oppose other people's ideas') where the individual adjectives can be ranged on an evaluation scale: FIRM - OBSTINATE - PIG-HEADED. We may note, however, that this kind of phenomenon is not confined to adjectives: cf. verbs such as DISCUSS - MOAN - BULLSHIT - GOSSIP.

Other adjectives may share a basic sense ('of great size in accordance with a given norm') but vary along an intensity scale: BIG - HUGE - ENORMOUS.

Since one important function of adjectives is that of modifier in a noun phrase, it is possible to detect a good deal of systematicity in the way a given adjective tends to collocate (= occur together) with a given noun. The following are examples of typical collocations with adjectives sharing the basic sense 'not real': false teeth, spurious argument, counterfeit money, artificial flowers, fake jewellery, mock exam.

4. Grammatical properties of lexemes

As important as knowing the sense of a lexeme is knowing its grammatical properties. Lexemes with similar sense may differ with respect to their grammatical properties. Thus, the verb SHAKE may be either transitive or intransitive, but the verbs TREMBLE and QUIVER are only intransitive. Among the verbs which in EGTU 3.4.4B are said to share the sense 'say no to' (to which we may add DECLINE), REFUSE and DECLINE can be followed by to-infinitives, DENY can be followed by an -ing participle clause, REFUSE and DENY can be followed by indirect object + direct object (The US authorities refused him a visa. / They denied him access to the archives.); all the verbs can be followed by a direct object alone. But note that there is, in addition, a semantic restriction on how these verbs are used: the complementation of DENY must represent events in past or present time (except when DENY is used with iO+dO), whereas the complementation of the other verbs must represent events in future time, potential events. Cf. She denied working for the enemy and She refused to work for the enemy.

5. Connotations

In addition to the sense of a lexeme, it is customary to talk about the connotations of the lexeme: more or less subjective associations that the lexeme provokes in the individual language user. An often quoted example is the contrast between WOMAN and LADY, where LADY is said to have connotations of high class, politeness, etc., which WOMAN lacks.