21.12.2010 descriptive grammar

Topic: MULTIPLE MEANINGS

• homonyms

bank1 - an institution which keeps and lends money

bank2 - land along the side of a river or lake

• homophones and homographs

SIGHT vs. CITE

CONTENT, n. vs. CONTENT, adj.

• polysemy

foot 1: 'a part of a leg'

foot2: 'foot of a mountain'

• different semantic fields:

foot1, arm, leg

foot2, summit, foothills

• metonymy

HEAD of the bed

BACK of the chair

THE HAM SANDWICH wants his coffee now.

• metaphor

I see the cat. (SEEING)

I know what you mean. (KNOWING)

I SEE WHAT YOU MEAN. (KNOWING IS SEEING)

Two extreme approaches to multiple meanings

• monosemic view of word meaning

• a wide range of meanings of a word- form (various contexts, speakers, occasions)

RICHARDSON'S MONOSEMIC THEORY

' a word has one meaning, and one only, that from it all usages must spring and be derived...

Order of meaning in dictionaries

• historical

• by usage (frequency)

• meanings clustered around the 'core' sense

• primary meaning first

Establishing a 'primary' meaning

• intuition

• nota mataphorical sense

Arriving at a 'primary' meaning

• etymology?

Breakfast - a break or breaking of a fast ; the first meal of the day

persuade lit. To advise thoroughly..., to influence successfully by argument, advice

[ L. Per – 'thoroughly', suadere – 'advice']

(from Chambers, 1867)

Combinations of words

• grammatical restrictions on the verb 'be'

(np.) He IS at the hospital. (PP)

(np.) The trousers WERE very dirty indeed. (AP)

(np.) My ambition IS to visit the moon (non-finite clause)

• semantic 'agreement' between subject and complement of 'be'

My idea is colourful.

SEMANTIC RESTRICTIONS

• verbs and adjectives requiring animate subjects

walk, run

think, feel

hungry

• human subjects

talk, assume

• edible objects

eat, nibble

• subjects denoting things made of iron

rusty

Collocations

• My computer HATES ME.

• Semantically defined range of collocations

• arbitrary collocations (and prohibited combinations)

dinner set,

*breakfast set, *lunch set