SEMANTICCONSTITUENTSANDSENSERELATION

1、2. Sense RelationsSense refers to meaning in language (intralanguage) with no relation to the world, that is, it is conceptualized meaning about the world, it is abstract. The formula is Sense = Sense relations + Sense properties (Wang Yin, 2001).2.1 Presentation of Sense2.1.1 Sense in LexiconSense

2、is revealed in lexicon is: Hyponymy, Synonymy, Antonymy, Ambiguity, Polysemy, Homonymy Sense in SentenceThe study of sense in sentence is the study of the features of analytic sentence and synthetic sentence. The criterion of dividing the two kinds of sentences is dependence or independence on the c

3、ontext of situation. If dependent, the sentence is synthetic, or it is analytic (Wang Yin, 2001).Sense in sentence concretely refers to:Anomaly, Entailment, Paraphrase, Contradiction, Ambiguity Sense in TextSense and reference can work well in studying text. The sentences that can be composed of tex

4、ts are in four types: Declaration, Interrogation, Imperation, Exclamation; the types of composition can be traditionally divided into Description, Narration, Exposition, Argumentation. Actually, the types of sentences and texts are reflections of senses while what the texts actually show is referenc

5、e. The forms of the texts are independent from context of situation, they are senses; the contents of the texts are the references to what happens around us.2.2 Sense Relations2.2.1 Kinds of Sense RelationsAccording to the relations and restrictions in the semantic features that language elements ha

6、ve, there are two kinds of relations: substitutional and combinatorial (Lyons, 1995) or paradigmatic and syntagmatic. 2.2.2 Substitutional (Paradigmatic) Sense RelationsSubstitutional sense relation refers to those words that exist in the same category such as noun, verb, adjective and adverb. Becau

7、se they are in the same category, they share semantic features such as similarities, differences, relations, increase in meaning, relation in sound and form. In semantics, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homonymy, hyponymy are the issues.2.2.2.1 Synonymy Synonymy is used to mean “sameness” of meaning.

8、 The words that share the same or similar meanings are called synonyms. Synonyms are different phonological words (different words) which have the same or very similar meanings (J. I. Saeed, 1997). The following are the criteria of synonyms:1) All their meanings are identical;2) They are synonymous

9、in all contexts;3) They are semantically equivalent (i.e., their meaning or meanings are identical) on all dimensions of meaning, descriptive and non-descriptive. (J. Lyons, 1995)According to the three criteria, synonyms are divided into near synonyms (words that are more or less similar, but not id

10、entical, in meaning), partial synonyms (words that are identical in meaning, but not to satisfy all the three criteria) and absolute synonyms (words that are identical meeting all the criteria). “Mist” and “fog”, “mellow” and “mature”, “lure” and “coax” in English, “快捷” and “迅速”, “悬崖” and “峭壁” in Ch

11、inese are near synonyms. English words like “tree” and “willow”, “ox” and “cow” and Chinese words such as “百货商店” and “超市” are partial synonyms, because they share parts of semantic features + plant of wood with braches and leaves and with a canopy / + tamed animal / +place for selling goods, but the

12、y are different in other semantic features +/- polysemous / +/- male / +/- free selection. Absolute synonyms are extremely rare (J. Lyons, 1995), though “dog” and “hound”, “狗” and “犬” are possibly absolute synonyms, but there are some slight differences between them. 2.2.2.2 AntonymyThe term antonym

13、y is used for “oppositeness” or “contrast” of meaning; words that are opposite or contrary are antonyms. In language acquisition, researchers have found that semantic feature analysis is particularly helpful in understanding the acquisition of synonyms and antonyms. The research shows that one membe

14、r of a pair of antonyms is more basic and easier to learn. The easier term in the pair is said to be unmarked (positive) and the more difficult one to be marked (negative). Unmarked terms “wise”, “intelligent”, “useful”, “interesting”, etc. ) are generally easier to learn than marked terms “foolish”

15、, “stupid”, “useless”, “boring”, etc. So “happy” is usually acquired before “unhappy”; “high” is usually acquired before “low”. A. Contradictory Antonyms ( Complete Contrast or Gradable Antonyms)1). Qualitative adjectives English abounds in pairs of words such as “wide” and “narrow”, “old” and “youn

16、g”, “big” and “small”, etc., words like “快” and “慢”, “好” and “坏”, and “大” and “小”, “多” and “少” in Chinese have in common the fact that they may be seen in terms of degrees of the quality involved. 2). Adverbs denoting time, position, direction and state Adverbs are words that show the time, position

17、, direction and state of actions that occur. Adverbs that are antonymous are from three resources: free morphemes (independent words), derivation (affixation) and compounding. “early” and “late”, “up” and “down”, “square” and “round” in English, “过去” and “现在”, “快” and “慢” in Chinese are free morphol

18、ogical antonymous words. “Quickly” and “slowly”, “happily” and “sadly”, “generally” and “specifically”, “comfortably” and “uncomfortably” are derivational antonyms. “Upstairs” and “downstairs”, “forward(s)” and “backward(s)”, “迅速” and “缓慢”, “轻巧” and “笨拙” are compound antonymous adverbs. For Chinese,

19、 “地”, as a bound morpheme, is added to an adjective, then the adjective becomes an adverb. 3). Verbs denoting feelings, emotion, action Verbs that show the actions are naturally exist in language, they are also from three ways like those in 3). “to love” and “to hate”, “to support” and “to oppose”,

20、“to give” and “to take” and “to win” and “to lose”, “爱” and “恨”, “来” and “去”, “上” and “下” are free morphological verb antonyms; while “agree” and “disagree”, “understand” and “misunderstand”, “前进” and “退却”, “上山” and “下乡”, “记住” and “忘记” are derivational antonyms; “志同道合”and “分道扬镳” are compounding anto

21、nyms.B. Relative Antonyms (Relative Contrast)Some scholars suggested that there are complementary and relational antonyms. Complementary antonyms are those words whose meanings are complementary to each other in a meaning range in which one is at one end and the other is at another, it is also named

22、 as binary pairs. For example: “male” and “female”, “married” and “single”, “alive” and “dead”, “男” and “女”, “学生” and “教师” are complementary antonyms. Normally, we cannot say, “someone is a half man.” or “他是半个男人”. But there is an odd language phenomenon that the words are used in violation of nature

23、 and features of language. This is a metaphorical usage. So we say the above. Complementary antonyms are different from contradictory antonyms. The following box shows the differences between them. typecriterionexamplecontradictoryThere may be middle wordsbest, ,good, bad, , worstcomplementaryThere

24、are no middle wordsdead, alive; employer, employeeRelational antonyms refer to the words whose meanings are relational, that is, if one is mentioned, the other must appear to accompany the former. “Father” and “mother”, “brother” and “sister”, “employer” and “employee”, “buy” and “sell”, “lend” and

25、“borrow”, “丈夫” and “妻子”, “父母” and “子女”, “债权人” and “债务人”, “索取” and “奉献” are relational antonyms. To verbs in this category, there exists a phenomenon that the tow words in relational condition can be used in the conversed structure, “John bought a bike from Tom” can be conversed as “Tom sold a bike t

26、o John”; “他有两辆汽车” can be conversed as “这两辆汽车属于他”. Terms involved in relational opposition may be transitive, e.g. both “above” and “below”. If the picture is “above” the table and the table “above” the carpet, the picture is “above” the carpet (and similarly for “below”, “over”, “under”, etc.). Kins

27、hip terms are especially interesting in a discussion of relational opposites for two reasons. In the first place many of them indicate not only the relationship, but also the sex of the person concerned. Thus “father” is the male parent, “daughter” a female child and so on. This blocks reversibility

28、, for to say that “John is Sams father” does not entail that “Sam is Johns son”, because Sam could be his daughter. We therefore have pairs indicating the same relationship but a different sex: “father” and “mother”, “son” and “daughter”, “uncle” and “aunt”, “nephew” and “niece”. There are also pair

29、s of words that would be symmetric were it not for their indication of sex. An example is “brother” and “sister”. It does not follow that if “John is Sams brother”, “Sam is Johns brother (she might be his sister)”. Only a small number of terms in English do not indicate sex - cousin, parent, child,

30、and niece.C. How to Analyze AntonymsWhen we analyze antonyms, we must do according to at what point we want to study them. It depends on what semantic feature we take according to the context. If we are in a public place, we should not “shout”, but “whisper” when we want to talk, in which we should

31、not interrupt others, and the semantic feature we take is loudness to distinguish the two words. The following are more examples to show the criteria in analyzing antonyms (Wu Qian guang, 1988): In English, there are many pair terms which have positive meanings and negative meanings.POSITIVENEGATIVE

32、POSITIVENEGATIVEamusedisgustadoreabhorcalmdisturbcontenteddespondentusefuluselessfairunfairpleasantunpleasant/irritatingimpartialprejudicedlovehateintelligentstupidfortunateunfortunatewisefoolish/sillyAfter studying synonymy and antonymy in words, we have had some knowledge in differentiate synonyms

33、, antonyms by using synonymous or antonymous features. For example: “gentle” and “soft” are synonyms, the differences can be detected by using their antonyms - “coarse” and “hard”; “平庸” and “平凡” synonymous to each other, but their antonyms are different - “高尚” and “伟大”. From their antonyms, we can k

34、now their differences as synonyms.2.2.2.3 HyponymyIn language, the words are closely related. Some words are genus, while the others are species. In semantics, the words in genus positions are called superordinate, those in species are called hyponyms or subordinates. For example: “cow” and “dog” ar

35、e hyponyms of “animal”; “桌子”, “椅子” and “茶几” are hyponyms of “家具” Such relations are called hyponymy. For example:a. genus flowersuperordinatespecies rose peony tulip lily etc subordinate2.2.2.4 PolysemyPolysemy means that a word has more than two meanings. The word that has more than two meanings is

36、 called polysemant. But we should pay attention to a point: polysemy is different from hymonymy. Polysemy is the result of changes of word meanings. Human beings are supplying new meanings to the old words. The meanings of the same word are related. Sometimes, the parts of speech are different, the

37、meanings are associated, even the meanings go a little away, but the basic meaning remain the same. For hyponyms, the words and their meanings are absolutely different, the spuperordinate is a genus and the other are species, and they share some semantic feature(s).2.2.2.5 Meronymy Meronymy refers t

38、o a phenomenon in language in which a part-whole relationship between words. For instance: “screen”, “loudspeaker” are meronyms of “television (set)”. Factually, meronymy is a relationship between thing and its constituents. And meronymy is hierarchical. 2.2.3 Combinatorial (Syntagmatic) Sense Relat

39、ionsIn the above part, the sense relations in substitutional (paradigmatic) category are discussed: the relations in that sense are specified in the meaning-substituted vertically. The following is the discussion about meaning-combined horizontally. This kind of relation is concerned closely with se

40、mantic features. Semantic features are determinable factors in the combinational sense relations. In combinational sense relations, empty words play an important role.2.2.3.1 CollocationCollocation is about the probabilistic lexical relations. Superficially, collocation refers to the together-use of

41、 two or more than two words. As we know, not all words can be used together. When words are used together, they must be consistent, conventional, reasonable, understandable, and acceptable. All the requirements are from different aspects: one is semantic restriction, the other is usage convention. N

42、ow look at the sentences in the following box:NoWe can say:We can not say:1My father shaves beard everyday.My father makes up everyday.2她身材高挑，丰满。她身材高大，魁伟。3He is heavy.He is fat.4他的房间想破烂仓库。他的房间像猪圈。5He smiled at the stranger.He giggled at the stranger.6我们不能忘记我们是龙的传人。我们不能忘记我们是龙的嫡系。7He goes to work at s

43、even oclock.He go to work at seven oclock.8各位朋友，让我们入席吧！各位朋友们，让我们入席吧！9He is a man in the street.She is a woman in the street.10朗朗乾坤，你竟敢做这样羞耻的事情！漆漆黑夜，你竟敢做这样羞耻的事情！Semantic feature restriction refers to the combination being consistent with each other of the words. That is to say, some words have relati

44、ons with other words whose semantic features are relevant. For example: “night” has relation with “dark”, “girl” has relation with “pretty”, “beautiful”, “father” with “shave”, “mother” with “perfume”, “猪” is relevant to “dirty, silly”, “白”is associated with “pure, noble, clean”, etc. Convention res

45、triction refers to the together-used words should abide by convention - habit accepted by all members of a language community. In the cognition of the world, people have different opinions about the world, though the things are the same, with subjective thinking, people use different symbols to stan

46、d for the same thing with positive and negative meaning. For example, “乱糟糟” is a mess, something in pigsty is mess too, if the former is used, it is accepted, but if the latter is used, it is not accepted by the members of the community. Grammar restriction refers to grammatical regulation of the wo

47、rds used together. The words that are used together should be in agreement in the grammatical categories such as number, gender, time, case, voice, mood, etc. According to the analysis, the collocation can be divided into two types: semantic-feature-restricted and convention-restricted.A. Semantic-f

48、eature-restricted collocation is determined by the inherent semantic features. Every word carries semantic features, some word can be used together with another word with permission of their semantic features. For example, “strong” and “powerful” are synonymous, they can be used together with “argum

49、ents”, but “strong” is only used together with “tea”, but not with “car”; oppositely, “powerful” can be used together with “car”. Another example is “big”, not “large” can be used together with “mistake”.B. Convention-restricted collocation is determined by accepted rules. In language learning, we m

50、eet many fixed combinations of words. For example, “make” “contribution, achievement”, “get” “rid(of)”, “bring in/gather in/reap/yield/ruin” “a harvest”, such collocations are everywhere in language. Grammatical rules are important in the collocations, and these rules are realized by grammatical fea

51、tures as mentioned above.There are some language phenomena that are not restricted by the semantic restrictions. In some contexts, some improbable words can be used together, showing a fact, an effect: “the white night”, “a sad smile; a coward hero”, “a walking corpse”, “day dream”, “a burning quest

52、ion”, “a half man”etc. they are odd in language practice. This usage is called metaphor.2.2.3.2 Phrasal VerbsPhrasal verbs such verbs as “cut down on”, “cut up”, “do away with”, “give in”, “look after”, “make do with”, “put up with”, “type up”, “wake up to”, etc. These have been called, more appropr

53、iately, compound verbs (E.Kruisinga, 1932), and they are very much like compounds except for the fact that many of them can be “discontinuous”, that is, object noun phrases can be placed between the verb and the particle constituents, and sometimes must be: “cut the tree down”, “pick the pen up for”

54、, “type him that letter up”, “play the communists off against the fascists”. Phrasal verbs are lexemes (D. Bolinger, 1971). Now a brief summary is given to discuss the relevant features they share with conventional compounds and other lexemes.How to determine a phrasal verb? When the parts of a phra

55、sal verb are contiguous they admit no disjuncture between them, it is a phrasal verb, if a disjuncture is admissible before a preposition, it is not a phrasal verb. For example:A phrasal verbA Non-phrasal verbWe picked up a wallet in the street.We cut woods up in the field.She makes up every morning

56、.She makes a bird nest up the tree.Look up the tree!Look, up the tree! The phrases in the sentences on the left are phrasal verbs, because they do not admit any words between the verbs and the particles, while those on the right can accept words between them. But if the part as object in grammar is

57、a pronoun, the pronoun can assert between the verbs and the particles, as in “He found a wallet in the street, and he picked it up.”It is notable that the discontinuity seen in some phrasal verbs is restricted to the placing of object noun phrases between the verb constituent and the particle consti

58、tuent, as in “Tom cut the woods all up”.Additionally, neither the passive by-phrase, nor most adverbials, can interrupt phrasal constituents:1) *The onions were chopped by Tom up. 2) *Tom chopped quickly the onions up.3) *Tom made the story on impulse up.4) *Tom chopped last night up the onions.However, manner adverbs in ly can occur between the object NP and the particle in speech, although the result is unstylish, look at the following:5) Tom chopped the trunk carefully up into little pieces.6) Tom looked