CONCEPT DEFINITION KEY WORDS ADDITIONAL NOTES

O' Grady
MEANING The content of an utterance
SEMANTICS The stuy of meaning in human language
SEMANTIC RELATION AMONG WORDS
SYNONYMY Synonyms are words/expressions that have the same meaning in most contexts.
Perfect synonymy is rare.
Antonyms are words/phrases that are opposites with respect to some component of their
ANTONYMY meaning BUSCAR TYPES OF ANTONYMY
Types of antonymy:
POLYSEMY It occurs where a word has two or more related meanings Lexical ambiguity
A single form has two or more entirely distinct meanings NOT A SENSE RELATION
HOMONYMY HOMOPHONY: two separate words with the same pronounciation (write/right)
HOMOGRAPHY: two separate words have the same spelling (light/light) lexical ambiguity
Two sentences that can have the same meaning. It would be impossible for one sentence to be TRUTH CONDITIONS
PARAPHRASE true and the other to be false.
Same truth conditions symmetrical relationship
ENTAILMENT The truth of one sentence guarantees the truth of the other but the reverse does not follow assymetrical relationship
CONTRADICTION Both sentences cannot be true, if one is true the other must be false
Saeed
CHAPTER 1
Semantics is a subsystem of the system of grammar which focuses on the study of meaning
communicated through language.

SEMANTICS BASIC ASSUMPTION: A person's linguistic abilities are based on knowledge they have. -->
knowledge about pronounciation, the construction of sentences and the meaning of individual
words and sentences. (phonology, syntax, semanics)
Knowing a word unites different kinds of knowledge.
SIGNIFICATION The process of creating and interpreting symbols.
The study of the use of sign systems
SEMIOTICS
The types of relationship that may hold between the sign and the object it represents are studied
There is a similarity between the sign and what it represents
ICON
E.g: portrait - real life subject, diagram of an engine - real engine
There is only a conventional link between the sign and its signified
SYMBOL E.g: insignia to denote military ranks / mourn = black clothes
In this classifiction, words are verbal symbols.
Where the sign is closely associated with its signified, often in a casual relationship
INDEX
E.g: smoke is an index of fire.
 When a speaker combines words to form sentences according to the grammatical rules of her
language, the word definitons are combined to form phrase and then sentence definitions, giving
us the meaning of sentences.
DEFINITIONS
LIMITATIONS: this theory is replaced
THEORY
1) Circularity
2) Linguistic knowledge vs General knowledge
3) Context as a contribution to meaning
Solution: semantic metalanguage
CIRCULARITY We use words to define words. --> Dictionaries
Used to describe the semantic units and rules of all languages.
The tool for description.
SEMANTIC Object language vs. metalanguage.
METALANGUAGE An ideal metalanguage should:
- be neutral, ie unbiased
- satisfy scientific criteria
Meaning is a kind of knowledge as the meanings of words exist in the minds of native speakers of
the langauge.
BIM: meaning is a product of all linguistic levels

The meaning of a word derivees both from what it can be used to refer to and from the way its
MEANING semantic scope is defined by related words semantic scope

Types of meaning:
- coneventional/literal meaning
- word meaning
- sentence meaning
COGNITIVE According to this view, meaning cannot be a separated level or module as meaning is produced at
?
GRAMMAR all linguistic levels
IDIOLECT The tecnical term for an individual's language.
Mental store of words
The knowledge a speaker has of the meaning of words. --> large but finite body of knowledge
LEXICON
This lexicon is not completely static beacause we are continually learning and forgeting words

Words are less productive than sentences.

WORD MEANING
It is always possible to create new words but is less frequent
Sentence meaning is compositional, that is, the meaning of an expression arises from the
meaning of its component parts and the way in which they are combined.
SENTENCE MEANING
Sentence meaning is more productive tha word meaning since speakers regularly create
sentences that they have nevr used nor heard before (confident that their audience will
understand them)
 CHOMSKY
A relative small number of combinatory rules allows speakers to use a finite set of words to
GENERATIVE
cerate an infinite number of sentences.
GRAMMAR - productivity
- recursiveness --> repetitive embedding or coordination of syntactic categories
SEMANTIC RULES They have to be compositional too
The most concrete level of language.
Created by speaking (or writing).
Utterances may (or not) coincide with a sentence (grammatical structure).
Utterances are any instance of language in use. → communication
LEVEL OF LANGUAGE
UTTERANCE - Oral
Real piece of speech
- Written
- Multi-modal → through different channels
Utterances can be one word long.
Utterances include gestures or gestural meaning.
Abstract grammatical elements obtained from uterances, that id, sentences are abstracted, or
generalized, from actual language use.
A structure, syntactic unit, organized.
Sentences are always: LEVEL OF LANGUAGE
SENTENCE
- abstractions Abstract grammatical lement
- decontextualized
- grammatical
They are phrases in themselves = inflectional phrases IP
Description of states of affair.
BASIC ELEMENT OF SENTENCE MEANING
It is also an abstraction but it is more abstract than a sentence.
Propositions are complete ideas expressed by a sentence. → The idea expressed by the LEVEL OF LANGUAGE
PROPOSITION utterance. CORE MEANING
A proposition may be seen as a core/initial meaning from which sentences dispaly certain Basic element
grammatical differences like tense or voice.
In non-statements they cannot be the complete meaning since such sentences include an
indication of the sepaker's attitude to the proposition.
METAPHORICAL
Some new idea is depicted in terms of something more familiar There are no fossilized metaphors
EXTENSION
Metaphors and other non-literal uses of language require a different processing strategy than
LITERAL LANGUAGE literal language.
THEORY Hearers recognize non-literal uses as semantically odd and so they make inferences out of it.
Some expressions are conventionalized and require less interpretative effort than others.
Words and sentences have a meaning independently of any paticular use, which is then
incorporated by the speaker into the particular meaning she wants to convey.
SPEAKER MEANING
semantics → sentence meaning
pragmatics → speaker meaning
CHAPTER 2
REFERENT Entity referred to in a particular context
 The relationship by which language hooks onto the world. Here a refering expression points to
specific (actual) entities in the extralinguistic world. The referent may be different every time an
utterance is expressed.
Not all linguistic expressions (words) have reference. → Not all linguistic expressions are
moment-by-moment relation → depends on the context
REFERENCE referring expressions, that is, only some linguistic expressions have the property of being a
what speakers do
referring expression.
→ → I love my cat. ← ←
The referent of a linguistic expression depends on the context of use, therefore; we are
considering utterances.
The relationship between a linguistic expression and the world
Denotation is, in general, independent of use (how such a word is used in context) while the relationship between an
reference is intimately related to use. expression and its extension
Class/category of entity talked about is called denotation
DENOTATION
Stable type of meaning and encompasses its mental representation.
→ → I love cats. ← ← STABLE RELATONSHIP
To denote property of words
Generic meaning
The action of putting words into relationship with the world is meaning
To provide a semantic description for a langugae we need to show how the expressions of the
language can "hook onto" the world.

BASIC PREMISE:
Words and sentences have meaning if they show to be related to situations/entities.

LIMITATIONS:
Meaning derives from
1) Words whose real world referent is hard to find - they would have no meaning (very, so, not,
language being attached to,
THE REFERENTIAL but)
or grounded in, reality.
APPROACHES
2) Many nominal expressions used by speakers do not have a referent that exists or has ever
REFERENCE = MEANING
existed (unicorn, fairy, siren, WWIII)

3) There is not always a one-to-one correspondence between a linguistic expression and the
item we want to identify
We can refer to the same individual in different ways as in: the princess of pop, the singer of
"Toxic" (definite description), Britney Spears (name)
If reference was meaning, all these expressions would have the same meaning as they have the
same referent in the extralinguistic world.
Meaning derives from
language being a reflection of
Our ability to talk about th world depends on our mental models of it. our conceptual structures.
THE Different conceptualizations influence the description of the real-world situations.
REPRESENTATIONAL The emphasis of these theories is on the way our reports about reality are influenced by the THERE IS MORE TO
APPROACHES conceptual structures conventionalized in our language. MEANING THAN
It is because we understand the sense of an expression that we can use it to refer to sth. REFERENCE

SENSE - REFERENCE
 NOMINALS The linguistic unit which most clearly reveals the referential function of language
Names are definite in that tey carry the speaker's assumption that her audience can identify the
NAMES referent. How come names are definite?
Names are labels
REFERRING It is used to identify an entity in the extralinguistic world
potentially referring items/elements
EXPRESSION Nouns are potentially (not always) referring expressions
Linguistic expressions which can never be used to refer → So, maybe, very, if, not, all
NON-REFERRING
They still contribute to meaning in the sentence they occurin and thus help sentences denote, non-referring items
EXPRESSION
but they do not themselves identify entities in the world.
CONSTANT These expressions have the same referent across a range of utterances.
REFERENCE E.g: the Pacific Ocean, the Eiffel Tower
These expressions have their referent totally dependent on context.
VARIABLE context dependent elements
E.g: I, you, she
REFERENCE denotational capability
See deixis
the set of things which could possibly be the referent of an expression.
EXTENSION The extension of the word "cat" is the set of all cats.
The relationship between an expression and its extension is called denotation.
A name is taken as a label or shorthand for knowledge about the referent. In this theory
understanding the name and identifying the referent are both dependent on associating the
DESCRIPTION
name with the right description.
THEORY E.g: The singer of the summer hit "Espresso" (referent: Sabrina Carpenter)
IT EMPHASIZES THE ROLE OF IDENTIFYING KNOWLEDGE
Central idea: names are socially inherited.
In some cases the name does not get attached by a single grounding; it may arise from a period of
CAUSAL THEORY repeated uses. Grounding
Speakers may use names with very little knowledge of the referent.
IT STRESSES THE ROLE OF SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE
A LEVEL OF MENTAL REPRESENTATION

Sense relations / Semantic relations among lexemes (words)

The sense of a word depends on other words that exist in the same system.
Synonymy
DIMENSION
Antonymy
SENSE Hyperonymy
It is a new level between
Meronymy
words and the world
Polysemy → different but related meanings of the same word. → 1 lexemes and its different
meanings which are related among themselves.
→ “All words are polysemous” what?
Specific meaning

RESEMBLANCE Relationship between the mental representation and the real world entity
 A noun is said to gain its ability to denote because it is associated with sth in te speaker/hearer's
mind
IMAGE THEORY
LIMITATION:
- Common nouns: there is a variation of images that different speakers might have of common
nouns depending on their experience
The sense of some words, while mental, is not visual but a more abstract element: a concept.
A concept is able to contain non-visual features.
CONCEPT Concepts may or may not be lexicalized (correspond to a single word) DIMENSION

overextending/underextending - children and the denotational scope of words

The reason why some concepts are and some concepts are not lexicalized. If we refer to sth
UTILITY
rnough it will become lexicalized.
Attributes = conditions → sth must have thos attributes to form part of the categorry →
necessary
Only by showing the right set of confitions is sufficient to be an example of the concept.
concepts = lists of bits of knowledge
NECESARY AND
SUFFICIENT LIMITATIONS
CONDITIONS 1) This approach seems to assume that if speakers share the same concept they will agree on the
necessary and sufficient conditions
2) Speakers often use words to refer knowing very little (or nothing) about the identifying
characteristics of the referent

CONCEPTS → STRUCTURED
Speakers tend to agree on central members rather than on characteristics
Fuzzy boundaries → an item in the world might bear some resemblance to two different
notion
PROTOTYPE prototypes
degree of prototypicality
The central prototype is an abstraction → a set of characteristic features

Linguistic knowledge forms distinct modules, that is, it is modularized

LINGUISTIC
There is no separation of linguistic knowledge from general thinking or cognition. --> cognitive
KNOWLEDGE
ling.
ENCYCLOPAEDIC
KNOWLEDGE
CONCEPTUAL
HIERARCHIES
OSTENSIVE Humans acquire concepts by being irected to examples in the world
DEFINITION Concepts are filled out by subsequent experience
Lexicalized concepts impose restrictions on possible ways of thinking
LINGUISTIC Boas: people's thoughts are determined by the categories available to them in their language
RELATIVITY Sapir: no two languages are ever sufficienly similar to be considered as representing the same
social reality. → Langugae = the symbolic guide to culture
 Thinking and speaking, while obviously related, involve distinct levels of representation
LANGUAGE OF
1) There is evidence of thinking without language
THOUGHT
2) Language underspecifies meaning
CHAPTER 11
Language = mental faculty
There is no separation of linguistic knowledge from general thinking or cognition
Linguistic knowledge is part of general cognition

Formalism vs Functionalism
Functionalism: externally, principles of language use embody more general cognitive principles
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK According to Chomsky, linguistic
COGNITIVE and internally, that explanation must cross boundaries between levels of analysis.
behaviour is another part of the general
LINGUISTICS /
CONVENTIONALIZED cognitive abilities.
SEMANTICS REJECTION OF OBJECTIVIST SEMANTICS
CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURES Formalism --> generative grammar
There is no access to reality independent of human categorization
The structre of reality as reflected in language is a product of the human mind

Meaning is based on conventionalized conceptual structures

semantic structure + cognitive domains = mental categories
Categories exist in objective reality together with their properties and relations independently of
consciousness
Symbols of language are meaningful because they are associated wit these objective categories.

OBJECTIVISM 1) Truth conditional meaning: meaning is based on reference and truth.

2) Correspondence theory: truth consists in the correspondence between symbols and states of
affairs in the world.
3) Objective reference: there is an objectively correct way to associate symbols with things in the
world
CORRESPONDENCE truth consists in the correspondence between symbols and states of affairs in the world, that is,
THEORY truth conditions.
the most important form of figurative language use → identification of resemblances
There is a transference of properties from one concept to another
METAPHOR departure
classical view - decorative addition to ordinary plain language ANOMALOUS
- rethorical device that seeks to gain certain effect
- sth outside norma language that requires special forms of interpretation (strategies)
Metaphor is integral to language and thought as a way of experiencing the world
METAPHOR Evidence of the role of imagination in conceptualizing and reasoning → all language is
romantic view metaphorical
There is no distinction between literal and figurative language
 From a cognitivist perspective, metaphors are an essential element in our categorization of the
world and our thinking processes.
By using langugae like this, speakers are not adding rethorical or poetical flourishes to their
language, this is how we conceive concepts
Metaphors are conceptual structures which pervade ordinary language.
They exhibit chareristic and systematic features: conventionality, systematicity, assymmetry
METAPHOR and abstraction
cog. view
Metaphors are said to be productive since new vocabulary can be created through them.

REJECTION:
- Idiosyncratic anomalies
-
CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE
IMAGE SCHEMAS
They provide a basic conceptual framework derived from perception and bodily experience
MENTAL SPACES Mental structures which speakers set up to manipulate reference to entities
CONCEPTUAL Speakers develop extended analogies which selectively combine existing domains of knowledge
BLENDING to create new scenarios.
TARGET DOMAIN The starting point or described domain
SOURCE DOMAIN The comparison concept or the analogy
Based on bodily experiences
SPATIAL E.g: verticality is a human experience
METAPHORS

METAPHORICAL The schema of containment (for example) can be extended to abstract domain through this
process
EXTENSION process
MAPPING
CONVENTIONALITY
SYSTEMATICITY
Metaphors are directional
ASSYMETRY
Fatures are transfered from source to target, mapping does not work the other way around
ABSTRACTION Typically a more concrte source is used to describe a more abstract target
 It derives from our experience of the human body itself as a container and from our experience
of being physically located within bounded locations
a) Containers are a kind of disjunction: elements are either inside or outside the container
b) Containment is typically transitive: if the container is placed in another container the entity is
within both.
CONTAINMENT
Containment usually involes: bounded location
SCHEMA
- Protection from outside forces
- Limitation of forces
- Relative fixity of location
- It affects the observer's view by improving or blocking it

THIS SCHEMA IS NEITHE STATIC NOR RESTRICTED TO IMAGES IN ESSENCE.

GESTALT Organisedn unified whole within our experience and understanding that manifests a repeatable
STRUCTURE pattern or structure.
the characteristic pattern produced by the metaphorical extension of meanings from a central
RADIAL CATEGORY
origin.
Lakoff
Things are categorized together on the basis of what they have in common → common
properties → defining the category
Categories = abstract containers → things are either inside or outside the container
Categories are represented by sets defined by the properties shared by the members
Categories must be seen as existing in the world independent of people and defined only by
characteristics of their members THEORY OF
CLASSICAL VIEW
CATEGORIZATION
LIMITATIONS:
1) If categories are defined only by properties that all members share, then no members should be
better examples of the category than others.
2) If categories are defined only by properties inherent in the members they should not be
related to human experiences (which they are)
THEORY OF
Categorization is based on principles CATEGORIZATION
PROTOTYPE
Human categorization is, essentially, a matter of both human experience and imagination PROTOTYPE BASED
THEORY Human reason crucially depends on the same factors CATEGORIES
COGNITIVE MODELS
Most categorization is automatic and unconscious
CATEGORIZATION A large proportion of our categories are not categories of things byt categories of abstract
entities
The mechanical manipulation of abstract symbols which are meaningless in themselves but can
REASON be given meanig by virtue of their capacity to refer to things either in the actual world or in
possible states of the world.
Ungerer & Schmid
 Labelled by words
Properties serve to tie them to a common category
COGNITIVE
The whole internal structure of a category depends on the context. internal structure
CATEGORIES Not only the prototype, but the context-dependent category structure is different from the
structure that was obtained in non-contextualized goodness-of-example ratings.
MEMBERS All members exhibit shared and distinctive properties/attributes attribute
A category is defined by a limited set if necessary and sufficient conditions. These conditions are
clear-cut essential features.
Good and bad exampples
CLASSICAL VIEW (!) Here, attributes must be common to all category members --> category-wide category-wide
Categories come as homogeneous units with clear-cut boundaries/borderlines and all
members are characterized by a limited number of essential features (necessary and sufficient
conditions)
Categories are not homogeneous but have a prototype, good and bad memebers and have fuzzy
EXPERIENTIAL boundaries
PROTOTYPE Category members do not share the same discrete attributes but may be linked by family
category-wide attributes
HYPOTHESIS OF resemblances
CATEGORIZATION It always consists of good and bad members and include marginal examples whose category
membership is doubtful.
Members of a category are connected by a network of overlapping similarities
Each item has at least one and probably several elements in common with one or more other
items but no, or few, elements are common to all items.
FAMILY
Even very bad examples of the category have some important attributes in common with all other
RESEMBLANCES category membership
category members.
PRINCIPLE Family resemblances can explain why attributes contribute to the internal structure of the
category even if they are not common to all category members.
Category coherence is produced by family resemblances
SUPERORDINATE
CATEGORIES
two stages:
GOODNESS RATINGS 1) The perception of an object as a whole (holistic perception)
2) A kind of decomposition of the perceived whole into idividual properties or attributes
1) Principe of proximity: individual elemnts with small distance between them will be perceive as
somehow relTed to each other
2) Principle of similarity: individual elements that are similar tend to be related to be perceived as This holistic visual perception is possible
GESTALT
one common segment because the parts are organized
PRINCIPLES
3) Principle of closure: perceptual organization tends to be anchored in closed figures according to the gestalt principles of
4) Principle of continuation: elements will be perceived as wholes if they only have few proxximity, similarity, closure, and
interruptions. continuation.
 It is important because it underlies the use of words and the use of language in general since
roducing and understanding language involve cognitive processes and categorization is
necessarily a process that takes place in our minds.
The resulting categories can be understood as mental concepts stored in the speaker's mind -->
CATEGORIZATION
mental lexicon

Categorization is something that underlies the mental processes of language comprehension and
language production.
It is a cognitive reference point --> not fixed
Prototypes of cognitive categories are not fixed but may change when a particular context is
PROTOTYPE
introduced --> the same applies to category boundaries. They are liable to keep shifting as the
context changes.
A descriptive tool that is not part of the mental representation of the category
ATTRIBUTES
They are values on dimensions
An explanation of holistic perception
"prototype-gestalt"
GESTALT
The prototype gestalt contributes considerably to the ability of the prototype to function as a
model or cognitive reference point.
It is the cognitive representation of the situation depicted by the utteance. Still it does not
remai an isolated mental experience as it is immediately associated with related knowledge
stored in the long-term memory.
According to cognitive linguistics it is a mental phenomenon

Cognitive representation of the interaction between concepts in the mind) --> different from
"situation" which is a state of affairs in te real world.
CONTEXT
Cognitive categories are not just dependent on the immediate context in which they are
emedded but also on the contexts that are associated with it.

CONTEXT has a twofold effect:

1) It can change the weight of attributes (relevance)
2) It can emphasize attributes that are non prominent and even introduce new attributes which
would not be mentioned at all in non-contextualized attribute-listing.
SITUATION The iteraction between objects in the real world.
 All the stored cognitive representations that belong to a certain field.
Knowledge bases
They basically represent a cognitive view of the stored knowledge about a certain field.
not universal (culture dependent --> background)

Aspects of cognitive models

1) Incompleteness
psichological nature
COGNITIVE MODEL open-ended
inter-individual differences
It is difficult to describe the cognitive model of a domain and descriptios of cognitive models
never exhaustive but always highy selective.
2) Tendency to build networks
interrelated (not isolated entities)
3) Omnipresence
In every act of categorization we are more or less consciously referring to one or several cognitive entities = cognitive models +
cognitive models that we have stored cultural models
Cognitive models for particular domains depend on cultural models
They can be seen as cognitive models that are shared by people belonging to a social group or
subgroup. uniting aspect
CULTURAL MODELS
not static but changing collectively shared
Cultural models have an enormous influence on the conceptual structure of categories.
They do not need to be objectively verifiable but functionally effective.
Croft & Cruse
A speaker uses an expression figuratively when he/she feels that no literal use will produce the
same effect
METAPHOR
The figurative use is more attention-grabbing

SUBSTITUTION A metaphorical expression replaces some literal expression that has the same meaning
THEORY (cognitive linguists reject this since metaphors are not literally paraphrasable in general)
ONTOLOGICAL
they hold between elements of one domain and elements of the other domain
CORRESPONDENCES
EPISTEMIC correspondences between relations holding between elements in one domain and relations
CORRESPONDENCES between elements in the other domain
Abstract representation of words (abstractions/concepts) which are stored in the lexicon (in the
LEXEME
mind of speakers).
WORD FORM concrete realizations of lexemes; the form a word can take
Words
The meaning of linguistic expressions derives from two sources: the lnguage they are part of and
the world they describe.
LINGUISTIC
Words can stand in relationship to:
EXPRESSIONS
- The world
- Our mental classification of it
Words also derive their value from their position within the language system
 The mental associations triggered by a particular word which are typically culturally dependent.
CONNOTATION
HOMOPHONY: two words that have the same phonetic transcription and thus are pronounced
the same: right / wright → same phonological word, unrelated senses
HOMONYMY
HOMOGRAPHY: two words that are spelled the same but hold no sense relation.
(no sense relation)
If the content of a sentence matches a particular state of affairs then we could say that that
sentence is true.
TRUTH VALUE no existe FALSE VALUE (!)
If the content of a sentence DOES NOT match a particular state of affairs then we could say that
that sentence is FALSE
Two sentences are paraphrases of each other if both are true or false at the same time. If A is
true/false, then B is true/false and vice versa.
PARAPHRASE SYMMETRICAL RELATIONSHIP
Paraphrases are sentences that share the same truth values.

Sentences are contradictory if one of them is true and then the other one is necessarily false and
vice versa.
If A is true/false B is necessarily false/true
CONTRADICTION Symmetry is not established since these two sentences are not comparable, symmetry is
established only with truth conditionals.

Logical consequence
If sentence A semantically entails sentence B, every circumstance that makes A true makes B also
true.
However, the reverse is not possible. B does not necessarily entail A.
ENTAILMENT Mary has a dog.
Mary has a pet.
ASYMMETRICAL RELATIONSHIP

FAMILY a property of elements in a category. There are characteristics which all of the members of a
RESEMBLANCES cognitive category share, there are other characteristics which are exclusive of only one element.
- State of affairs - A particular state or situation in the “real world”. Truth conditions are
TRUTH CONDITIONS
conditions in real life that make a sentence be true or false.
All categories have prototypes and that has consequences. Words that are used to indicate that
PROTOTYPE
one thing in reality does not 100% match a prototype.
EFFECTS Greenish
METAPHOR
TARGET DOMAIN
SOURCE DOMAIN
MAPPING