Lexical Semantics. An Introduction

Lexical Semantics. An Introduction Boris Iomdin Russian Language Institute,Russian Academy of Sciences iomdin@ruslang.ru

Lecture 6. Plan • History of lexicography • Families of dictionaries • Lexicology vs. lexical semantics • New type of dictionary: • productive • systematic • integrated • Lexeme as the main unit of description • New types of information in the lexical entry: • non-trivial semantic features • connotations

Glosses A gloss is the meaning of a less known word marked at the margin of a manuscript Sumerian (XXVB.C.), Chinese (XX B.C.), Ancient Greek, Indian glosses

First dictionaries: Chinese Erya (IIIB.C.): a collection of direct glosses to concrete passages in ancient texts 4300 words, 13000 hieroglyphs Shuowen Jiezi (II B.C.): Explaining simple and compound characters 9353 characters + 1163 variants

First dictionaries: Latin De Significatu Verborum, • Marcus Verrius Flaccus (I century), • SextusPompeius Festus (II century, an abridgment in 20 books, arranged alphabetically)

First dictionaries: English Épinal Glossary (VII): bilingual (Old English to Latin) dictionary, 3200 words

Glossary manuscripts, the earliest (1282) contains 174 words The first printed Slavic dictionary:Annex to Grammar by Laurentius Zizanius (1596),1061 words First dictionaries: Slavic

Golden age of lexicography • In postwar Europe, it was clearly understood that the dictionary is the key to culture. • Hence, in France, then Great Britain and the US, an then in many other countries, lexicography becomes very active.

Golden age of lexicography More than 90% of British households have at least one explanatory dictionary Dictionaries are more popular than cookbooks (70%) or the Bible (80%)

Families Families of dictionaries • Webster, Random House, Barnhart, American Heritage (USA) • Oxford, Chambers, Collins, Hamlyn, Longman(Great Britain) • Le Robert, Larousse, Tresor (France) • Duden, Langenscheidt (Germany) • Academy of Sciences (USSR, than Russia)

A dictionary family • Large explanatory dictionary • Small explanatory dictionary • Learners dictionary • Phraseological dictionary • Historical dictionary • Regional dictionary • Dictionary of synonyms • …

Lexicology vs. lexical semantics • Lexicology is much older: Diderot et d’Alembert 1765 • Common interests: • what do lexical units mean • whether two or more given words are different or are they variants of a single word • polysemy or homonymy (lexical semantics) • phonetic and morphological variants (lexicology) • what the system of lexicon is

Lexical semantics ignored: • separate word / morpheme / word combination • etymology: aboriginal words / loanwords • frequency of use: active / passive • style: elevated / standard / colloquial / slang etc.

Traditional lexicology ignored: • integrated description of language • metalanguage for description of meanings • rules according to which lexical units interact • highly systematic organization of the lexicon

New type of dictionary • Active(productive) • Systematic • Integrated • Reflecting the naïve picture of the world • Using special metalanguage • Combining techniques of corpus lexicography and experimental linguistics

Productive • Comprehensive information on each lexeme, necessary not only to understand its every occurrence in texts, but also to use it correctly in speech. • Hence new types of information needed to describe fully the linguistic competence of native speakers.

Systematic • The semantic system of the human language as a framework of repeated semantic oppositions. • They divide the lexicon into classes of lexemes, or lexicographic types (with many intersections), having common properties. • Words of same types react identically or very similarly to different linguistic rules.

Integrated • The description of the lexicon should be coordinated with the description of the grammar as much as possible. • Different kinds of rules : • Morphological • Syntactic • Semantic • Communicative • Pragmatic • etc.

Reflecting the NPW • The NPW may differ from the scientific picture of the world and from the NPWs of other languages • Reconstruction of naïve ethics, anatomy, psychology, teleology, time, space, etc. is based on linguistic data only • The reconstructed fragments serve as a theoretical basis for further lexicographic descriptions

Metalanguage • Special metalanguage should be used for the analytic explications of the meaning • It should be a sublanguage of the object language, but use only simple words and constructions • No homonymy or synonymy is allowed • The semantic metalanguage may be easily reduced to a small number of semantic primitives

Corpora and experiments • Unlike traditional dictionaries, new ones should be based on large and balanced text corpora (collections of texts) • Linguistic experiments (putting words into different contexts and than evaluating the sentences) should also be widely used • Negative linguistic material is especially useful when demonstrating correct word usage

Картотеки

Lexeme as the unit • A lexeme is a certain meaning of a given word (monosemous words have one lexeme, polysemous words have several lexemes) • A complete description of the lexeme is the principal component of the integrated description of language • The description includes: • Analytic explication in a special metalanguage • Rules of interaction of meanings • Non-trivial semantic features • Connotations • Pragmatic information

Non-trivial semantic features • objects with / without own anatomy • objects with a front: width and depth; left vs. right, in front of vs. behind according to their own anatomy • objects without a front: width and length; left vs. right, in front of vs. behind according to the observer’s point of view

Non-trivial semantic features • X is in front ofY = ‘X is situated on that side of Y through which Y is normally used, and in a distance to Y which is comparable to the dimensions of Y’ [if Y is an object with a front] • X is in front ofY = ‘X is situated between Y and the observer, the dimensions of X and Y are comparable, and the speaker estimates the distance from X to Y as not long, comparable to the distance from X to the observer’ [if Y is an object without a front]

Non-trivial semantic features • My car was in front of the house. • My car was in front of the lake. • The lake was in front of the mountain. • *The lake was in front of the bush. • The picture was behind the mirror. • The picture was behind the lamp. • the top <bottom> of the cupboard • the top <bottom> of the cube

Girl in front of the car

Connotations • An inessential but settled feature of a notion that reflects an evaluation of the referent in the language • The connotation of a lexeme is not part of its meaning and cannot be logically concluded from it • Therefore, not included into the explication • Helps explain the phraseology, figurative meanings, semantic links between different lexemes, etc. • Connotations are often language-specific

Connotations of Dutch • Dutch bargain. A bargain settled over drinks. • Dutch courage. The courage exerted by drink. • Dutch defense. A sham, feigned defense. • Dutch feast. Where the entertainer gets drunk before his guest. • Dutch headache. Hangover. • Dutch treat. A meal, amusement, etc., at which each person pays for himself.

Boys will be boys • Boys will be boys • ?Les garçons seront les garçons • ?Knaben werden Knaben • ?Mal’chiki vsegda budut mal’chikami • ?Lexicographers will be lexicographers • ?Lamas will be lamas • ?Computers will be computers • ?Dictionaries will be dictionaries

Boys will be boys (Wierzbicka) • everyone knows: people of this kind do things like this one would want them no to do things like this • I know: someone can think: this is bad, they should not do it • I think: one should not think this • one should know: all people of this kind are the same they want to do things like this because they want to feel something good they will do them because of that they cannot not do them • I don’t want to think: this is bad • I don’t want to feel something bad because of this • I think: people of this kind are not bad

Connotations of animals • wolf: ‘cruelty’, ‘rapacity’, ‘greed’ in Russian, English, Chinese • cow: ‘stupidity’ in English, ‘overweight’ in Russian, ‘strength, persistence’ in Chinese • goose: ‘wealth’ and ‘stupidity’ in English, ‘importance’ in Russian, ‘married bliss’ in Chinese • snake:‘cunning, treachery’ in English and Chinese, ‘danger’ in Russian, ‘immortality’ in Korean • elephant: ‘heaviness, awkwardness’ in Russian, ‘grace, elegance’ in Sanskrit

Next lecture • Systematic lexicography. Lexicographic types. Lexicographic portraits.

Lexical Semantics. An Introduction