introductiontoenglishlinguistics.doc

Introduction to English Linguistics Part I Cornelia Hamann Handout based on word by Cornelia Hamann And Geneveva Puskas (Syntax) For additional reading please consult Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams: An Introduction to Language Stand: 22.3.2005 Semantics and Pragmatics Cornelia Hamann University of Oldenburg 1. Introduction p. 3 2. Lexical Semantics p. 4 2.1. Semantic properties and semantic features p. 4 2.2. Relationships between words (-nyms) p. 7 2.3. Levels of language p. 11 3. Phrasal and sentential semantics p. 12 3.1. Three basic approaches to meaning p. 12 3.2. Building up meanings p. 13 3.2.1. Important constraints p. 13 3.2.2. From atomic to complex expressions p. 16 3.3. Sentence meaning p. 21 3.3.1. Preliminary considerations p. 21 3.3.2. The definition of sentence meaning p. 23 3.3.3. Meaning relations between sentences p. 23 4. Pragmatics p. 26 4.1. Conversational Maxims p. 26 4.2. Speech Acts p. 28 4.3. Discourse and Situation (Deixis) p. 29 References p. 33 Chapter 4 Semantics and Pragmatics – the meaning side of language 1. Introduction Semantics and pragmatics describe how meaning is assigned to the expressions of a language. To understand an utterance we must know the meanings of words and morphemes, we must know how the meanings of words combine into the meanings of larger syntactic units and how the meanings of such phrases combine into sentence meanings, and finally we must interpret the utterance according to the context in which it is made. So there are several layers which contribute to the final interpretation or “reading“ of an utterance. Normally, interpretation proceeds in three steps. Step 1: The meanings of words (mare) and morphemes (un-) have to be defined. Such meanings are discussed and defined in lexical semantics. Step 2: The meanings of lexical units (mare, brown) must be combined to form larger chunks of meanings (brown