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