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Lexicology - is an overall study of a languages vocabulary. As a branch of linguistics it is a diachronic and synchronic study
of the form and structure, origin and development, referential and contextual meaning, as well as the usage of words.
General lexicology - is a general study of words and vocabulary of all languages. While, special lexicology - studies the
peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language.
Special L contributes to the general L and the general L deals with the special L. This is the link between the two.
Contrastive lexicology - studies the comparison of one lexical system to another.
Synchrony & diachrony - are two main temporal dimensions of linguistic investigation, introduced by the father of the
modern linguistics, de Saussure:
(synchrony (lat.) = sin - with, chronos - time.)
(diachrony (lat.) = dia - through, chronos - time.)
Diachrony studies the language through time, through history.
Synchronic or Descriptive lexicology - studies words and vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its
development, usually the contemporary languages (the present).
Diachronic or Historical lexicology - a branch of linguistics which deals with the origin and development of the meaning,
structure and usage of the words through time.
Etymology - is a traditional term for diachronic or historical lexicology. Etymology is diachronic study of words. (the same
definition as D/H L)
etymology (Gr.) = etymos - true, logos - word, study.
E.g. antropology (Gr.) = anthropos - human being, logos - study
lexicology (Gr.) = lexis - word, logos - study
geography (lat.) = geo - earth, graphos - sth. drawn or printed
Anthroponymy is etymology of human names.
(anthroponymy (Gr.) = anthropos - human being, noma - name)
E.g. Irena (Gr.) = erinos - peace
Sofia (Gr.) = sophia - wisdom
Sociolinguistics - a branche of linguistics which studies the relationship between language and society. It studies the origin,
development and current usage of words as depending on the needs of social communication and combines in a most fruitful
way both synchronic and diachronic lexicology.
Lexicology vs. Phonetics/Phonology
Phonetics - studies the speech sounds in terms of their articulation, production, quality, distribution. It deals with the material
realisation of the sounds of a given language.
Phonology - studies the speech sounds and their function to build up morphemes. It deals with the abstract units of a sound
system, phonemes, allophones, their distribution and usage. (the word record is recognized as a noun and distinguished
from the verb record due to the position of the stress)
Sounds are important to lexicology. They combine with each other and form words. That is how phonology is linked to
lexicology.
Lexicology vs. Morphology
Morphology - branch of linguistics which studies the forms and structures of words through the use of the morpheme
construct.
Selection of the form of a morpheme may be influenced by the sounds of the neighbouring morphemes.
E.g. We cannot describe the phonological shape of the indefinite article without referring to the sound at the beginning of the
word that follows it (a donkey but an ass).
Morphology is vital for lexicology or in fact it can be regarded as part of lexicology. Morphology is important to the study of
lexicology because words are actually combinstions of morphemes.
(morphology (Gr.) = morph - form, logos - study)
Lexicology vs. Syntax
Syntax - a study of the rules of how words are combined to form sentences in a language.
The form of a word is affected by the syntactic construction in which the word is used. E.g. the verb walk has a number of
forms: walk, walks, walked, walking. The selection of a particular form of this verb is dependent on the syntactic construction
in which it appears. (In present tense we use walk, but in the 3 rd person singular - walks, while in past tense - walked)
Lexicology vs. Semantics
Semantics - is a study of meanings of words of a given language. Semantics, especially lexical semantics is crucial for
lexicology as ir supplies the meaning of the word.
Lexicology vs. Pragmatics
Pragmatics - is a traditional part of linguistics which deals with the contextual meanings of words. It studies the language from
the point of view of the users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints encountered in using language insocial
interaction and the effects their use of the words has on the other participants in an act of communication.
Lexicology and Lexicography
Lexicography is applied knowledge of lexicology. Is the art of making dictionaries. Ultimate goal of lexicology is to produce
good lexicography, as good lexicography produces better lexicology. Lexicology is an overall study of the vocabulary of a
given language, whereas lexicography deals with making dictionaries. This means that lexicology chooses examples to
provide rules and principles, whereas lexicography deals with listing and describing all the words provide by lexicology.
Lexicology should provide all the theoretical needs for making dictionaries.

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2. WORD
The word is a major linguistic unit, a stable and intuitively recognizable unit, which belongs both to the morphological and to
the syntactic and the lexical levels of analysis.
- Grammarians (traditional linguists) define the word as a basic unit conveying a single idea (yet even novel can convey a
single idea).
- Another definition is that word is a segment of a sentence that comes between two pauses. (this is also not right, because
speakers do not normally pause between words)
- According to the semantic definition, the word is the union of a particular meaning with particular complex of sounds capable
of a particular grammatical employment. (but phrases are also capable of particular grammatical employment and consist of
number of sounds: on Friday, whereas it is obvious the particular meaning of Friday, but what about the meaning of on?)
- According to Bloomfields definition the word is a minimum free form, the smallest form that occurs in isolation. (but free
forms may be any pieces of speech. For ex. the answer to the question: Did you say s or z? - could be: z, which is not a
word)

Opened vs. closed classes


Bloomfield divides open vs. closed set of words.
Open class words are: V, N, Adj, Adv. They are open because every day there is influx of V, N, Adj, Adv. Closed class
words are: articles, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries, functional words or determiners. They are closed because it is
difficult to include new item in this set of words.

Lexemes, word-forms, citation forms, grammatical words


Lexeme - is the basic abstract (lexicographical) unit of a language that represents a number of forms; it is abstract idea of
word that carries the meaning.
Word-forms are concrete realisations of lexemes. (E.g. play = lexeme; playing, plays, played = word-forms)
Citation form - is a headword and basic form of all word forms chosen to represent a lexeme in dictionary - bare infinitive.
(E.g. the lexeme play is regarded as the most basic form among the word-forms: played, plays and playing; in Macedonian:
3rd pers. sing. of the verb is chosen)
Grammatical words - the same word-forms represent different grammatical words.
with different lexemes:
E.g. Visiting students, lexeme visiting (adj.)
Students are visiting, lexeme visit (v.)
or, the same lexeme:
I usually put my books in my bag (present)
I put my books in my bag yesterday (past)
Grammatical words are representations of lexemes associated with certain morpho-syntactic properties (partly morphological
and partly syntactic properties) such as: N, V, Adj, number, tense, gender, etc.

Morphemes, morphs, allomorphs


Morpheme 1- is a smallest distinctive unit or the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words. The morpheme
belongs only and exclusively to the morphological level and the word belongs both to the morphological and to the syntactical
and specially, the lexical levels.
(*It is the smallest abstract unit of meaning which is not capable of further breaking down into meaningful parts. It is the
fundamental unit of morphology. Morphemes are abstract units which are realised in speech by discrete units, known as
morphs*).
For e.g. the complex nouns: lips, dogs, bushes are made up of simple nouns: lip, dog, bush, followed by the plural affix -s,
with meaning more-than-oneness. Or, verbs like: reddens, thickens, ripens are made up of adjectives: red, thick, ripe,
followed by the affix -en, which has the function of changing an adjective into a verb.
(Affixes -s and -en are morphemes. Plural morpheme and morpheme used for changing an adj. into a v.)
When it comes to the realisations of a morpheme, two forms have been invented: morphs and allomorphs.
Morphs - when there is only one realisation of a single morpheme, we are talking about morph. A morph is physical form
representing some of the morphemes in a language.
E.g. toplar, adamlar. /Lar/ is the morph(eme) marking plurality in Turkish. 1 morpheme - 1 morph, one-to-one relation - when
morphemes are realised by single morphs. (toplar-guns, adamlar-men)
Allomorphs are different realisations of a morpheme. Group of morph used to represent the same morpheme.
- E.g. the morpheme for indefinitness in English has 2 forms: a and an: an apple, a boy.
An and a - are two different morphs which represent the same morpheme, and they are called allomorphs. (the form a is used
before words beginning with consonant and the form an before words beginning with a vocalic element)
- E.g. plurality has more than one realisation: plural morpheme -s = /s/, /z/, /iz/. cats, dogs, horses.
/s/, /z/ and /iz/ are allomorphs of the plural morpheme -s.

1 free morpheme: What are you going to do now? - Eat bound morpheme: re-, -ed, -tion

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Empty vs. zero morphs
Empty morph is a morph with a form but without lexical nor grammatical meaning.
(E.g. children = 3 morphemes: child = root; en = allomorphy for s plural; r = empty morph
factual = fact+u+al (u = empty morph)
contextual = context+u+al (u = empty morph)
Zero morph - formally there is no morpheme: sheep-sheep (pl.); fish-fish (pl.)
If it is plural, two morphemes should be isolated sheep and s, but the realisation of the plural morpheme is zero. In this
case the number of forms is smaller than the number of meanings i.e. we have one form but two meanings. (because these
morphemes requered a zero plural)

Allomorphs can be: phonologically conditioned


ortographically conditioned
lexically conditioned
grammatically conditioned

Phonologically conditioned allomorphs - depending on the phonetic environment, the nature of the preceding and following
sounds. (E.g. morpheme s plural in the words: cats, dogs, horses. The s plural has 3 allomorphs:
/s/ - occurs after voicless sounds
/z/ - occurs after voiced sounds
/iz/ - occurs after fricatives and africatives
These allomorphs are phonologically conditioned.
(other examples: morpheme used to express indefinitness, plural morpheme -s, past tense morpheme (of regular verbs) -ed)
Grammatically conditioned allomorphs - appear as a result of the presence of a particular grammatical element.
E.g. - in German and Macedonian the definite article depends on the grammatical feature - gender:
ubavata moma ubavite momi ein grosser Wagen
ubaviot ma` ubavite ma`i ein grosses Haus
ubavoto ma`e ubavite ma`iwa eine grosse Vase
These alomorphs are not conditioned phonologically, but they are grammatically conditioned.
Lexically conditioned allomorphs - are those allomorphes which use is obligatory in specific lexical words.
E.g. - we know that plural morpheme in English is realised by phonologically conditioned allomorphy, but in the case of the
plural morpheme in the word oxen, this rule fails. The plural of ox is not oxes (although foxes, boxes), but it is oxen. So, the
choice of the allomorph -en is lexically conditioned.
Also, allomorphs in the past tense of irregular verbs (the change of the root vowel) are lexically conditioned: swim/swam,
hang/hung, shoot/shot.
Orthographically conditioned allomorphs - depending on the spelling.
When verbs are inflected with the -ing inflection, they lose the silent -e. (take: take+ing = taking)
Tak is an allomorphic root of the proper root take.

Types of morphemes (lexical-grammatical, free-bound)


The morphemes are classified in notional and distributional terms.
Notionally distinguished (or in terms of their meaning) are lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes:
- Lexical morphemes carry meaning in themeselves and are used for the construction of new words (lexemes) such as in
compound words. (eg. boy and friend = boyfriend)
- Grammatical (formal) morphemes - lack lexical meaning and they express grammatical relationship between a word and
its context, such as: inflectional -s (plural), -s possessive, -er comparative affixes.
E.g. s in boys is a formal morpheme.
Grammatical morphemes which are separate items are called function words (to, and, on). Grammatical words are auxiliary,
general and relational to the lexical morphemes.
Distributionally distinguished: free and bound morphemes.
- Free morphemes - can stand alone as an independent word, bound morpheme - cannot stand alone and have to be
attached to another morpheme. E.g. the morpheme house is free morpheme, because it can be used as a word on its own,
whereas the plural -s is bound.

Generally speaking we can say that lexical morphemes are usually free morphemes, whereas grammatical morphemes
are usually bound morphemes. But this is not a rule and there are many exceptions. For example, verbs and nouns are
lexical morphemes as well as free, but conjunctions and prepositions, although free morphemes, are grammatical.
Free grammatical morphemes are known as functional morphemes. Bound grammatical morphemes are called
inflections.

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free-bound, lexical-grammatical

free: bound:
lexical: cat, dog, boy, friend, run, go, school reapply, undo, unfair, dismount
bottle, hot, green, phone, museum preheat, boyhood, manly, kindness
leader, tallish

grammatical: a, the, this, that, I, my, you, your -s 3rd pers.sing.present


who, whom, and, yet, more, most -ed past tense
-ing progressive
-en past participle
-s plural
-s possessive
-er comparative
-est superlative

Root, base, stem


monomorphemic word - consisting of a single (free) morpheme.
polymorphemic word - one part of the word is basic, while the other one is added.

Base - is neither necessarily the smallest nor the initial point. It is any form to which sth. can be added (most often an affix). It
can consist of one or more morphemes. E.g. in unhappy, the base form is happy. But in unhappiness, unhappy is the
base and -ness is an affix.
Root - is the base form of a word which cannot be further analysed without total loss of identity. (It is the smallest initial base
point in the process of derivation to which sth. can be added.) If the affixes
-ing, -ful, -ness are removed from the word meaningfulness, we are left with the root mean. Sometimes the root is equal
with the base (e.g. boy)
From semantic point of view, the root generally carries the main component of meaning in a word.
Stem - is a base to which inflectional affixes are attached. It may consist of:
- a single morpheme (i.e. a simple stem, as in boy), or
- two root morphemes (i.e. compound stem, as in boyfriend) or
- a root morpheme + a derivational affix (i.e. a complex stem, as in mainly, unmanly, manliness).

Affixes, inflections
- Affixes - are bound morphemes. Affix is a letter or group of letters added to a word to change its meaning or the way it is
used. Depending on their position in the base of the word affixes are classified into three groups:
prefixes - affixes added to the beginning of a base, un- in unhappy,
suffixes - affixes which follow the base, -ness in happiness and
infixes - affixes which occur within a base (inserted in the middle of the root), fan-bloody-tastic.
Affixes can be divided into derivational and inflectional.
interfix - an affix which occurs between two bases, (e.g. -o in soci-o-lingiostics).
transfix - a vowel that is inserted in the root. They exist in Arabic where roots are only consonants and by adding vowels
between the consonants you get different words (e.g. ktb: k(a)t(i)b=writer, but k(i)t(a)b=book).
circumfix - a prefix and suffix in combination. There are no circumfixes in English (e.g. in German: past participle is marked
by the circumfix get, gemacht=made).
Derivational affixes are lexical (with meaning): -er in singer. They are class-changing, they change the part of the speech or
the word class (e.g. V-N) and they create new lexemes. (-hood in boyhood).
Inflectional affixes are grammatical. They represent a grammatical category. They are class-maintaining. (e.g. small-
smallest, boy-boys).

Inflections - are also bound morphemes: -s (plural), -s (3rd person singular, present simple), -s (saxon genitive), -ed 1 (past
tense), ed2 (past participle), -ing (present participle), -er and -est (comparison of adjectives).

Problems with morphemes


Non-problematic aspect of morphemes is when a morpheme has only one realisation (e.g. the word girl has one morpheme
realised by a single morph).
Problems with morphemes appear in the following cases:
1. A single phonological form may be used to represent different morphemes. For example, the same phoneme spelled -er
can represent either:
- comparative degree of adjectives (as in tall-er) or
- the nomina agentis suffix -er as in teach-er.
Or the ending -s in English verbs (walk-s) signals three morphemes, namely:
- third person,
- present tense and

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- singular number. This kind of a morpheme in which more than one grammatical meaning is stored is called portmanteau
morpheme.
Portmanteau morpheme
They are called word carrier and it is a kind of morpheme when more than one grammatical meaning is stored into one
morpheme.
- E.g. -er = representation of the concept of comparative and nomina agentis (one who does things)
-s = plural morpheme, 3rd p. singular of verbs, saxon genitive.

Syncretism - where different grammatical forms are represented by the same word-forms
(E.g. visiting relative/ visiting a cousine, I put it yesterday on/ I put it always on.)
Syncretism is a result of neutralisation - where the same form is used to represent distinct morphological concepts.

2. Difficulties appear when there is no match between a morpheme and a morph. Two cases are possible: zero morph
and empty morph.
a) The sheep are in the meadow. - The dogs are in the meadow.
Yesterday John hit the roof. - Yesterday John painted the roof.
We can see that the noun sheep is plural as it is the noun dogs, and the verb hit is past as the verb painted. But we can see
that, because of the verb form are and because of the past time adverb yesterday. The plural morpheme -s and the past
tense morpheme -ed with sheep and hit are realised by a zero-form.
Zero morph - formally there is no morpheme: sheep-sheep (pl.); fish-fish (pl.)
If it is plural, two morphemes should be isolated sheep and s, but the realisation of the plural morpheme is zero. In this
case the number of forms is smaller than the number of meanings i.e. we have one form but two meanings. (because these
morphemes requered a zero plural)
b) When the number of morphs is larger that the number of morphemes represented.
person/person-al fact/fact-u-al
music/music-al spirit/spirit-u-al
We can see that adjectives are formed by adding the suffix -al to nouns. But the morph -u- doesnt represent any morpheme
and it does not have any lexical or grammatical meaning. The -u- morph is called empty morph (meaningless form). (Other
examples: -n-: maternal, paternal; -r-: children, brethern; -u-: rivulet)
Empty morph is a morph with a form but without lexical nor grammatical meaning.
E.g. children = 3 morphemes: child = root; en = allomorphy for s plural; r = empty morph
factual = fact+u+al (u = empty morph)
contextual = context+u+al (u = empty morph)

3. Cranberry morph (unique morph) - does not carry meaning in isolation, but acquires meaning only when combined with
other morphemes.
e.g. huckleberry, cranberry
The morphemes huckle and cran carry meaning only when combined with the morpheme berry. Such morphs are called
unique or cranberry morphs.

(English words formed from latinate roots)


Some affixes do not express the same meaning as they do when they are attached to a free morpheme.
e.g. re- of receive, does not have the same sense of again that it has in redo (do again) or
de- of deceive, does not have the meaning of reverse such in demistify or deactivate.
Although -ceive does not mean anything, it is accepted like its kin as a morpheme.
-fer -mit -sume -ceive -duce re- con- in- de-
refer remit resume receive reduce repel compel impel
defer demit deceive deduce remit commit demit
prefer presume refer confer infer defer
infer resume consume
confer comit consume conceive conduce
transfere transmit conceive deceive
submit subsume induce reduce conduce induce deduce
admit assume adduce
permit perceive receive

There are English words whose roots are not existing English words: inane, inept, inert, uncouth, recalcitrant, feasible,
edible, horrible, legible, grateful.
The reasons of this anomaly is historical: they were borrowed as whole words from Latin and French (recalcitrant, edible).
Some of them were not borrowed but formed long time ago and disappeared from the standard dialect (couth in uncouth,
living un- without a base).
Others are cases of historical accident and have bound roots (grateful, horrible).

The productive English word-formation is word-based.

- go-went, good-better-best, to despise (v.)-contempt (n.), well-good, was-were, bad-worse-worst,


These are morphemes whose allomorphs do not show phonological connection.

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Go and went represent the lexeme go, although they dont have a single sound in common. There is no relationship between
allomorphs through a general rule, because the forms have different roots - and this is called suppletion.
Suppletion - impossibility to show relationship between allomorphs through a general rule, because the forms involved have
different roots.
(other e.g.:
- the use of was and were as the past tense forms of be,
- of better and best, worse and worst as the comparative and superlative forms of good and bad,
- nominalisation of the verb despise - contempt, rather than *despisal, 8despisement or 8dispission,
- the adverb well which is related to good.

Morphological changes are due to adding morphemes. The morphological changes are:
- assimilation - affects the realisation of morphemes in terms of the surrounding sounds. It can be progressive (when
the preceding sound affects the following sound: bag-bags, /begz/.) and regressive (when the following sound affects
the preceding sound: wife-wives /waivs/).
- neutralisation - it is pronounced differently but the spelling is the same (e.g. /t/, //)
- ablaut/umlaut - is change of medial vowels (e.g. shine+ed=shone, take+ed=took, goose-geese)
- deletion (omission) - process of adding sth and then deleting it (e.g. put+ed=puted)
- syncope - is dropping of medial sounds (e.g. have+s=has)
- suppletion - a process of supplying a word which is related in meaning with the previous one, but they do not share a
common element either in spelling or in pronunciation. (e.g. go-went, good-better-best, to despise (v.) - contempt
(n.)).

3. SENSE, REFERENCE, SEMANTICS


Semantics - is a study of language meaning. Two methodologies can be distinguished:
1. logical/philosophical/formal/pure semantics - deals with artificially made systems like computers languages. It studies
the logical meaning, the logical properties of language.
2. linguistic semantics - studies the linguistic meaning in natural languages.
The base word mean has two meanings: it can be applied to words and sentences to express equivalent to and on the other
hand can be applied to people who use language, i.e. speakers, authors in the sense of intend. So, there is speaker
meaning and sentence or word meaning. Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (pragmatic semantics) and
sentence/word meaning is what a sentence/word means (lexical/structural semantics).
Genereally, the sentence/word meaning of an expression is the meaning of that expression in the language. The speaker
meaning depends on whether the speaker is speaking literally or nonliterally. When we speak literally, we mean what our
words mean and in this case there is no difference between the speaker meaning and the sentence/word meaning. But when
we speak nonliterally, i.e. figuratively, we mean something different from what our words mean, as when we use irony,
sarcasm or metaphors.

meaning

linguistic/descriptive speaker meaning


word/sentence meaning

grammatical lexical literal nonliteral

language idiolect

standard dialect

historical geographical functional social


(temporal) (regional) (stylistic) (sociolects)

Linguistic meaning vs. speaker meaning


Linguistic/descriptive meaning deals with the language itself, with literal meaning of the words, their denotation.
Speaker meaning - is the meaning of the author of the sentence. It is connected with the performance of the speaker:
e.g. it means.. (to mean - linguistic meaning)
I mean. (to mean - speakers meaning)
When we speak of sentence/word meaning we can distinguish between lexical and grammatical meaning.
Lexical and grammatical meaning
Lexical meaning refers to the semantic content of the language units (lexemes).
Grammatical meaning refers to language units whose function is to signal grammatical relationships (different forms of the
lexeme, materialisation of lexeme)
e.g. boy (lexical) + s (grammatical)

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Language meaning vs. idiolectal meaning
When we are talking about the lexical semantics we must distinguish: language meaning and idiolectal meaning.
Language meaning - the meaning of the language of a whole group, the speaking community.
Idiolectal meaning - individual speech variation within the same dialect (the language of an individual with her/his own
vocabulary, pronunciation, register or syntax).
Standard meaning vs. dialect meaning
The language meaning can be divided into: standrad meaning and dialect meaning.
Dialect meaning is divided into: historical (temporal), regional (geographical), functional (stylistic) and social (sociolectal)
meaning.
- historical/temporal language which is temporally spread and depends on history.
- regional/geografical language, horizontally spread. Division of English according to different regions.
- functional/stylistic language varieties - this refers to different registers that vary on the scale of formality such as
formal, informal, frozen forms of English etc.
- social language varieties/sociolects - used by different groups of people (e.g. female lg., baby lg) Language
varieties spoken by different groups of people differ in terms of AGE (different lg. of babies and teenagers, etc.),
GENDER (male and female language); STATUS, PROFESSION etc.
Literal vs. nonliteral meaning
The speakers meaning can be literal and nonliteral:
- Literal meaning which is descriptive (actual) meaning of a word and there is nothing individual in it.
- Nonliteral meaning which is figurative by the use of: irony, sarcasm, metaphor (a figure of speech used to convey
meaning other than the one given).

Sentences, utterances and propositions


Sentence - is an abstract unit of meaning, string of words arranged following the grammatical rules of the language. It is a
grammatical pairing of a subject and predicate. In English there must be a subject (?and predicate?) in the sentence, if not
real at least a formal one. (eg. it, there: Its rainig=Vrne)
Utterance - is a concrete realisation of a sentence. It is practical and pragmatic and deals with the factual status of the state
of affairs. Utterance is everything uttered between two breaks. It is the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of
any piece of language. (semantics is concerned not only with the whole sentences but also with the meaning of non-
sentences (incomplete sentences)).
Proposition - is the sense of the sentence, the meaning of the sentence. They present the semantic structure of a sentence.
Proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a simple declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs.
The same propositional content may be mentioned in declarative or interrogative or imperative sentences, but only declarative
sentences commit themeselves to the truth of the proposition. They are a brief summarized meaning of the utterance.
A proposition should not be confused with the thought. Proposition is an abstract semantic entity, not a process, whereas a
thought is a mental process going on in an individuals mind, not necessarily available to others.

Sense and reference


Sense and reference are the two basic concepts to the study of meaning.
The sense of an expression - is its place in a system of semantic relationship with other expressions in the language. Sense
is about the relationship inside the language. The terms used for sense are intension and connotation, and terms used for
reference are extension and denotation. The sense/reference contrast is understood in terms of intension vs. extension.
According to Carnap, the intension of an expression is more precise than its sense, it is its reference (or denotation).
Reference - by means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about.
In the sentence: Your Excellency has finally honoured this country by paying a visit today - expressions your Excellency, this
country and today identify person, location and time in the world (outside the language).
So, we have 2 things: expressions your Excellency, this country, today (as part of the language) and the actual person,
location and time referred to (as part of the world). This relationship between them is called reference.
The actual person, location and time in the world, picked out by the use of the corresponding language expressions on a
particular occasion of utterance are called referents.
For many language expressions there is more to meaning than just reference. For instance, your Excellency and the first
British ambassador in Macedonia may refer to the same person, and that is coreferential. Although these two expressions
have the same reference, they do not have the same meaning. Also, the same expression can have variable reference. Your
Excellency can refer to as many different individuals as there are qualifiers whodeserve that address.

Sense - is intralinguistic, within the language itself, it describes the language by using language and it reflects the knowledge
of the language; it is a linguistic description of a word, i.e. the essential meaning of the word.
Reference - is extralinguistic, outside the language, it describes objects by means of language and it reflects the knowledge
of the world; it is a process of linking the referent with the word itself.
Extension vs. intension
Extension - is a set of potential referents. It is the whole exhaustive reference in the world. The word tree can refer to all
trees in the world. It is almost the same with reference, but there is one big difference. Extension refers to all the reference in
the world, i.e. it is all-inclusive. E.g. chalk = not one only, but all of them in the universe, in the past, present and future.

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Intension - is a whole set of associations evoked by the language expression (e.g. woman, extension - all women; intension -
adult female person).

Dennotation vs. connotation


Denotation - is the basic meaning of words found in dictionaries. Traditionalists use it as reference whereas grammarians as
sense. Denotation is link between the word and the world. It is a reference in a wider sense. Denotation of a word can be
either its reference or its basic meaning. A set of denotations for jam = strawberry jam, traffic jam = basic meanings
(reference+extension=denotation).
Connotation - is a context in which a given word is used; different meaning in different situations; it depends on the context.
Conotations are infinite = pragmatics.
Predicate, Referring Expressions and Universe of Discourse
Referring and non-referring expressions
Referring expressions - are those that refer to a particular referent in mind, to someone or something, to a clearly delimited
collection of people or things.
The same expression can be referring expression or not, depending on the circumstances of the utterance.
E.g. - Ana lives at this address. Theres no Ana at this address.
(referring expression, definite noun phrase) (not (or not clearly) referring expression, definite noun phrase)
Ana married a Macedonian. Ana wants to marry a Macedonian.
(referring expression, indefinite noun phrase) (not (or not clearly) referring expression, indefinite noun phrase)
It is howling. (vika) It is raining.
(referring expression, definite noun phrase) (non-referring expression, definite noun phrase)
Non-referring expressions - have no particular referent in mind, they dont refer to something or someone particulary.
E.g. It is raining. Ana wants to buy a house on Vodno. Every evening a swan would swim under the house.
Expressions that can only be used as referring expressions are the proper nouns.
Expressions that can never be used as referring expressions are predicators, because they never refer.
Expressions that can sometimes be used to refer and sometimes not are the indefinite noun phrases, because they can
be either referring expressions or predicators, depending on the context:
e.g. Ivan saw a man.- referring expression, Ivan is a man. - non-referring expression (predicator)

In semantic analysis of the simple declarative sentences (i.e. propositional sentences), words (or groups of words) which are
not referring expressions (including the verb be), are called predicators.
E.g. Ana is working on a project. work (verb)
Ivans car is white. white (adjective)
Skopje is in Macedonia. in (preposition)
Skopje is between Tirana and Sofia. between (preposition)
I am a techer. teacher (noun)
The semantic analysis of an utterance into predicator and referring expression doesnt correspond always to the
grammatical analysis into subject and predicate, but it does correspond to the semantic analysis of the proposition
into predicate and argument, the two major semantic roles of the proposition played by predicator and referring
expression, respectively. (predicate-predicator, argument-referring expression).
Predicate - is a certain word (verb, adjective, preposition or noun) that can function as the predicator of an utterance, whereas
argument is the obligatory semantic role of the proposition, played by the refering expression.
(A predicate is a non-referring expression that explains the relations among thereferring expressions in a sentence. It is a non-
subjectal part of the sentence). Predicates can be:
- verbs (John loves Mary)
- adjectives (Peter is ill)
- nouns (He is a doctor)
- prepositions (He is between Nataly and Mary)
Conjunctions (and, but, or), articles (the, a, an) and words of other pasrts of speech CANNOT be predicators.
There are 3 types of prediactes in simple propositions:
- one-place predicate: intr. V with 1 argument - She laughs.
- two-place predicate: trans. V with 2 arguments - She eats an apple.
- three-place predicate: V-DO-IO - She gave me a present.

Universe of discourse is a meta-linguistic term and it refers to any possible world, real or imaginary. In the process of
communication we have to refer to objects and very often people refer to referents that are real, but also to the semi-real or
imaginary things. The speaker and the audience have to be aware of the universe, and the world in which we are or pretend
that we are in can be real, semi-real or imaginary world.
* is any possible word, real or imaginary; the world of fairy tales (e.g. the frogs sing). Most of the time our communication
target is real world. On the other hand, in fiction and fairy tales we have to break the semantic rules of the language. In order
to accommodate all the situations in which objects and animals talk, linguist have invented the term universe of discourse. In
any imaginary universe of discourse everything is possible, the semantic rules are broken.
In the process of communication we have to refer to objects and very often people refer to referents that are real but also to
the semi-real or imaginary things. This term includes all the pragmatic situations of a language. For abstract notions we

8
use imagination to grasp2 reality. When an astronomer states that the Earth revolves around the sun, the universe of
discourse is the real world; when a patient in a psychiatric ward says: As your Emperor, I comand you, the universe of
discourse is the imaginary world.

Prototype vs. Stereotype


Prototype is the best example of the reference (class). E.g. - a prototype of car is BMW.
Stereotype is a list of features describing the prototype.
e.g. - elephant = the largest four-footed animal, with two ivory curved tusks 3, thick skin, a long trunk4, hairless.
- mother = a female parent of a child or animal, caring, loving and devoted to her young ones.
- cup = a small, bowl 5-shaped container, widened at the tap, and narrowed at the bottom, used for drinking tea,
coffee etc.

Sense properties vs. sense relations


Sense properties. The basic sense properties are:
1. Analytic sentences - are those that are necessarily true, always true pr logically true -e.g. People are human beings.
They arent informative and we dont say anything new when we use such sentences.
2. Synthetic sentences - are those that are either true or false. They are more frequent and reveal new information. They
are informative. - e.g. His wife is English.
3. Contradictory sentences - are opposite to the analytical. They are necessarily false but nevertheless possible in gra-
mmatical sense. - e.g. The sun rises in the west.

Sense relations:
1. Synonymy - is a sense relation which includes words with same or similar meaning, but not 100% the same.
e.g. - whimsical (colloquial) - capricious (formal)
2. Antonymy - is a sense relation which includes words opposite in meaning - e.g. day-night
3. Homonymy - is a sense relation which includes words with the same spelling or pronunciation but different meaning:
- homophony - words with the same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning - e.g. night - knight
- homography - words with same spelling, but different pronunciation and meaning - e.g. wind (n.) - wind (v.);
read (present) - read (past); live (v.) - live (adj.)
4. Polysemy - is a sense relation which includes one word with different but in a way related meanings.
- e.g. ear (organ) - ear (for music)
5. Hyponymy - the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another. It is a relationship of inclusion.
- e.g. cat/dog are hyponyms of animal
6. Hyperonymy - animal is hyperonymy of cat/dog

Corresponding terms in syntax:


Synonymy = Paraphrase
Antonymy = Contradiction
Polysemy = Ambiguity
Hyponymy = Entailment

4. WORD MEANING - Historical approaches to the study of word meaning


The basic issue of lexical semantics of the approach to word meaning can be divided into three groups.
1. referential (or denotational) theories of meaning (Nature and Convention, Meaning and Reference) - they explain
meaning in terms of a naming relation between words and their referents and are outward looking. Their main
emphasis is on the informational significance of language, its aboutness. This tradition is the basis of the semantic
techniques that have been developed within mathematical and philosophical logic.
2. mentalistic (or psychologistic) theories of meaning (Extension and intension, Meaning and Prototypes) - are
inward looking and focus on the cognitive significance of language. The meaning of the words lies in what we grasp
when we come across them; how contents are mentally represented. It is a study of semantic representation. This
tradition is the basis of much semantic work in psychology and artificial intelligence.
3. social (or pragmatic) theory of meaning (Use theory of meaning) - the emphasis is on communication as a social
activity. Meaningfulness lies in the way people use words in their communication with each other.
None of these theories give a complete answer to the question how word meaning must be represented. We should conclude
that:
- the study of the relation of words must be part of an account of meaning.

2 understand or se fa}ame za
3 zabi na slon
4 surla
5 sad, zdela
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- a given language expression has meaning for us only if we are able to understand its content, which involves
mentally representing it. If such representations are crucial in mediating between words and their content, they
must not be excluded from lexical semantics.
- we actually do things with words whose meaning is best determined by its use in the language community. The
way we use words, what we do with words must play central role in lexical semantics.
- the word meaning has actually all these three aspects (referential, representational and pragmatic aspects).

Nature against Convention


Whether the origin of language and the relations between words and their meanings are based on a natural affinity between
word form and word meaning, or they are result of convention and agreement, it had been discused since the time of the
Ancient Greece. There are two views:
Nature argument was based on the terms: onomatopoeia which means that sounds of the words should imitate the sounds
of nature, and sound symbolism which means that pronunciation of words should suggest the meaning. (which means that
there should be a sound link between the word and the referent).
Convention argument was that word forms are not naturally connected with their referents (object referred to), but these word
forms are arbitrary chosen by convention. Aristotle agreed and said that naming is not natural, but it comes from a convention.
De Saussure also agreed saying that there is conventionality of the relationship between form and meaning. The Stoics
started searching for the etimology, the origin of the first sounds i.e. how language came to existence. Epicurus said that word
forms appeared naturally but were modified by convention. In a way he united the two views.

Referential theory of meaning - Meaning and Reference


According to this theory - the word meaning is the object to which the word refers, i.e. its referent. If we believe that the
meaning of a word is its referent, there appears two logical consequences:
- If a word has a meaning, then it must have a referent. - the referential theory is considered as a wrong one,
because there are many words which dont have referents in the real world, and still they are present in use and have
meaning. - e.g. unicorn, dragon, God. (Also, abstract nouns (love, happiness, friendship), adjectives, conjunctions,
prepositions.
- If two words (or expressions) have the same referent, then they must have the same meaning - which is also
not true. If two words (expressions) refer to the same object, then they mean the same thing, that is, they are
synonyms. But many words/expressions which refer to a single object, do not mean the same thing, i.e. are not
synonyms. For example the expressions: speaker of the Parliament and the leader of the Liberal Party, may refer
to one person (Stojan Andov in the past), They have the same referent but they dont mean the same thing.

Extension and Intension


Another try to explain the meaning of a word is this theory of extension and intension.
Words extension - is a set of entities that it picks out in the world;
Words intension - is its inherent sense, the concepts that it evokes.
E.g.
- expression: woman extension: a set of female individuals intension: adult, female, human
- expression: the capital of RM extension: Skopje intension: a Stone Bridge over the
Vardar river
The distinction between a words intension and its extension doesnt allow us to resolve the question of word meaning.
Extension vs. intension
Extension - is a whole set of potential referents in the past, present and future.
Intension - is a set of associations linked with the referents.
The Image Theory of Meaning - The Image Conception of Meaning
This theory also tries to explain the nature of word meaning.
According to this theory - the meaning of each word is a mental image, associated with the given word in the minds of
speakers (or hearers). We have images (mental pictures) for things which lack reference. It might work for words like
Pegasus or The Eiffel Tower, but the problem is variability: different people have different mental pictures of different objects
(e.g. the noun dog =could be a poodle, sheperd dog. There is no image corresponding to all different shapes and sizes of
dogs, for instance). Or the verb kick: if we form an image of X kicking Y, we dont know whether it is the right or left leg, male
or female. Also, there is a problem with pronouns (I, he) because they denote different objects at different times. Also,
prepositions and conjunctions (and, or, since, therefore), because they are meaningless and empty of lexical meaning.

Conceptual theory of meaning - Meaning and Concepts


This theory is presented by the so-called triangle of signification (De Saussures triangle)

B - concept (meaning)

sign (word) - A C - referent (object)

In the previously mentioned theories there was a direct link between the word and the object, but in the Conceptual theory of
meaning, the link is through the concept we form in our mind.
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Concepts are notions of the referents as conceived by the speaker/hearer. The concept - is a set of criterial features which
the human mind abstracts from many individual occurences of a referent. E.g. - a coat has many other feature occarences:
can be big or small, long or short, old or new etc., but they are not important; what is important, i.e. criterial is that this piece
of clothing is worn on the top of other pieces of clothing and it is open at the front.
When we think of a word (name) we think of the concept and vice versa, that is meaning consists of our ability (and practice)
of associating one with the other. The link is psychological one. But the problem with this theory is that it may works with
words but not with units such as compounds or units larger than words, such as phrases, clauses and sentences that also
have meaning. Another problem is the empty lexical words.

Componential analysis - Meaning and Semantic Features - Semantic Feature Analysis


Componential analysis or semantic feature analysis - is the approach to the description of the word meaning, according to
which, words should be decomposed into primitive, universal elements of meaning or semantic features. So, semantic
feature analysis of the lexical words is as follows:
(e.g.) - girl: human, female, non-adult.so, instead of: Thats a girl, we can say: Thats a human female who is non-adult.
- mother: female (X) and X parent of Y
- kill: X cause Y change to (not alive (Y))
- rush: (fast) motion X - motion is a feature predicated of some object (X), and this feature is an argument of which the
qualification (fast) is predicated.
Not always the lexical meaning is covered by the semantic features, so we need a number of specific characteristics which
are called semantic distinguishers. But sometimes even the distinction doesnt help. We cannot describe the meaning of the
word yellow consists of the feature (+colour). Or the meaning of dog consists of the features (+animal, +canine) when
thereis no further analysis of the feature (canine). Also there is a problem with the words which are used to describe other
words (e.g. male, female, human).
Semantic distinguishers are of lower value than the semantic markers. E.g. - cat:
+ animate, - human, + adult = markers
+ 4 legs, + mean = distinguishers
New theories: Prototypes and fuzzy concepts - Meaning and Prototypes
According to this theory we conceptualise on the basis of the best examples of the class or category. We recognise members
of a category by matching them with a typical example or a prototype of that category.
- For example the category fish: not all fish are equaly fishlike: a trout will be more central than octopus for e.g. And there is
a little disagreement on what is a typical fish.
- OR the category recognition: it applies to colour perception and recognition of geometrical patterns/forms (perceptual
processes). Rosch (a psycholinguist) claims that the concepts are formed by mental comparison with the best examples
(prototypes) of their referents. Natural species (dogs, fish, trees..) are good examples of prototypical categories. When asked
if some creature is a bird, people usually compare it with their image of a bird, which is most frequently the sparrow 6. Or
when asked to give examples of furniture, they usually respond with the word table. So, it is about the simplest possible view
of conceptualisation, which means that the relation of a word to its meaning is simply a naming relation: just as Ohrid names
a particular place, Ivan names a particular person, so dog, table, bird, each names a paricular category.

The Use Theory of Meaning


It is a modern approach to word meaning established by Ludwig Wittgenstein who says that the meaning of a word is
determed by its use in the language community. According to him if we want to discover the meaning of a word, we should
use the word in communication. The meaning of a word is in its usage and there are as many meanings as there are usages.
The major problem with this theory is that the relevant conception of use must be made precise, and it must say how exactly,
meaning is connected to use. (Little progress has been made so far in this respect).
- E.g. what is the meaning for the student who was invited to a cup of coffee by his landlord at the beginning of the new
academic year, and instead got a shot of brandy to recover from the realisation that th eutterance Come and have a cup of
coffee with me! actually meant that his landlord was going to double his rent?

UNIT 5
Lexical field - is a set of lexical items that are related in meaning. It is a group of items organized within a system and sharing
some similar semantic or lexical features. It is a set of words that might appear in similar or identical context. It is only the
letter which gives anything like a full lexicographical description of the item include.
According to Saussure, lexical field is a set of lexical items sintagmatically and paradigmatically related.
She had a _____ of beer. . example of paradigmatically related lexical items. (vertical order - substitution)
mug,
pint,
glass,
bottle
He had a false ______. .. example of syntagmatically related lexical items. (in horizontal order)
beard,
eye,
nose,
passport
The ______ is rancid. (bajat)

6 vrabec
11
butter
bacon ..examples of collocational restriction.
She has blond _____.
hair

Cliches: kind of almost ossified collocation, which have become meaningless through excessive use.

proud owner of a ; difficult decisions


unbeatable offer useful discussions
real bargain real progress
genuine price reduction dangerous precedents
real democracy inside information
Proverbs: fixed expressions with an incongruity between the literal meaning and the context to which they refer to.
e.g: A stitch in time saves nine. Birds of a feather flock together. Little strokes fell great oaks. Easy come, easy go. Like father,
like son. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Idioms:fixed expressions consisting of more than one word, whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the
individual words.
thats not mu cup of tea spill the beans
eat my hat its raining cats and dogs
out of the blue

Multi-word lexemes: like phrasal verbs like prepositional verbs: like compounds:
put off, look after, time machine,
give up, wait for, fire extinguisher,
come in think about child safety seat

Lexical gap - is absence of a lexical item in a lexical field where it is expected to exist according to the pattern of paradigm.
E.g. - grammatical gap: E.g. - phonological & morphological gap: E.g. - derivational gap:
may - might tram happy - unhappy
can - could trap bad - unbad
shall - should track ugly - unugly
must - /////// traf
E.g. - lexical gap: E.g. - phonological gap: E.g. - grammatical gap:
father - mother tip, cat - cats
brother - sister tap, ///// - trousers
son - daughter top,
cousin - ///////// tup
E.g. - grammatical gap: E.g. - lexical gap:
table - tables cattle: bull - cow - calf
pen - pens chicken: rooster - hen - chick
chaos - ////// dog: ////// - bitch - puppy

Semantic Universals - There are two hypothesis:


1. Linguistic relativism thesis - according to which - languages around the world are so diverse that each language creates its
own world and its own semantics.
2. Universalist hypothesis - there is a set of semantic features that are universal and can be found in all languages.
Both, the relativist and universalist hypotheses have been largely discredited, because it was proved that there are
interlanguage discrepancies as well as similarities.

UNIT 6

The sentence which expresses the same proposition as another sentence is a paraphrase of that sentence:
e.g. The police chased Lolita. Bachelors prefer redhaired girls.
Lolita was chased by the police. Girls with red hair are preferred by unmarried men.

I own this car.


This car belongs to me.

Entailment is a relation in which the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the truth of another. (examples above)

e.g. My car is white.


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My car is not green. ..Non-symmetrical entailment.

Presupposition - assumption implied by the speaker in the sentence. Something was related to us without being specifically
asserted or mentioned. E.g. - He doesnt write poems anymore.
Who sold the car?
Would you like another beer?

Contradiction - the truth of one proposition entails the falsity of another one. E.g. - Trevor is a bachelor, but he is married.

Ambiguity - Structural ambiguity: when a string of words is associated in the language system with more than one
meaning.
- Lexical ambiguity: is the result of homonymy or polysemy.
E.g. - structural ambiguity / syntactic ambiguity:
1. Competent women and men hold all the good jobs in the firm.
(the men holding good jobs are competent, whereas the other does not.)
E.g. - lexical ambiguity:
2. You should have seen the bull we got from the pope.
(the form bull can have at least three different interpretations: roughly, a papal communication, a male cow or
nonsense).
E.g. - structural / syntactic & lexical ambiguity:
3. Mary claims that John saw her duck.
(lexical: Is Mary claiming that John saw the bird she possesses OR that he saw her lowering herself?)
(syntactic/structural: her duck is in one case like me jump and in the other case like my cat)
E.g. - scope ambiguity = structural ambiguity:
4. Someone loves everyone.
(we can interpret the sentence as assigning some lover to each person OR as saying that someone is a universal
lover. The ambiguity arises from the relation between someone and everyone: a scope ambiguity is not lexical
but structural).

Synonymy - sense relation which involves words distinct in form with nearly identical meaning.

Sources of Synonymy:
1. borrowings: native French origin Greco-Latin origin
bally stomach abdomen
to ask to question to interrogate
to gather to assemble to collect
to end to finish to complete
empty devoid vacuous
teaching guidance instruction
kingly royal regal
to rise to mount to ascend

2. different dialects: British American English


autumn fall
lift elevator
pavement sidewalk
petrol gas
queue line
tin can

3. the level of formality: formal informal


adolescent youth
automobile car
adversary enemy
ceize stop
commence begin
purchase buy
profound deep
conceal hide
4. the level of technicality: techical non-technical
cardiologist heart doctor
convulsion fit
gender sex
orthography spelling
sodium chloride salt
trachea windpipe
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5. phrasal verbs: abandon give up
choose pick out
continue go on
enter go in
lift pick up
postpone put off
quit give up

6. process of compounding: one-root words two-root words


arrangement layout
conscription call-up
precipitation fall-out
resistance fight-back
reproduction playback
treachery sell-out
7. generic verb combined with a deverbal noun: to laugh to give a laugh
to look to take a look
to sigh to give a sigh
to smoke to have a smoke
to swim to take a swim
to walk to take a walk
8. clipping words: laboratory lab
influenza flu
memorandum memo
doctor doc
omnibus bus
microphone mike
popular pop
9. (historical) loss of affixes: amongst among
await wait
whosoever whoever
10. lexical variants: commandment command
laughter laugh
11. different (alternative) derivation: luxury luxurious
luxuriant
12. euphemisms (& slang expressions): euphemisms slang
breast white meat tit
buttock behind ass
die pass away drop dead
drunk intoxicated sloshed
kill liquidate do in
urinate pass water piss

Synonymy - Differences in:


1. denotation (e.g. to flower - to blossom)
2. connotation - sense/intention - where the expressive and stylistic contexts differ - register (e.g. heart doctor - cardiologist)
3. distribution (use): wage (per week) - salary (per mounth)
between (two) - among (three or more)
win (with effort) - gain (without effort)

Content and Partial Synonymy


Content synonymy is equivalent to the referential meaning, so if two words are synonymous in content then they are
synonymous in reference also. The sense part is irrelevant here and what is relevant is the referential part.
When it comes to sense, words can be partially synonymous i.e. synonyms in one aspect but different in another.
E.g. - I love Jane.
I adore Jane. - more passion or worship, lacking in love.

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Hyponymy - sense relation in which the meaning/ sense of one lexeme is included into the meaning /sense of another
lexeme.
E.g. hyponyms of hypernym of (cat, dog)
cat, dog, wolf animal animal
chair, table, bed furniture furniture
clarinet, flute, trumpet instrument instrument
cabbage, carrot, potato vegetable vegetable
rose, tulip, daffodil flower flower

Meronymy - special type of hyponymy that refres to a part-whole relationship between lexical items.
E.g. - system: its metronyms:
car wheel, engine, door, window.
room window, door, wall, ceiling, floor .

E.g. - member: collection:


book library
fish shoal
sheep flock
ship fleet
tree forest
wolf pack

Hypernymy - sense relation which involves inclusion. The sense of one word is included in another.
E,g, - animal is hypernym of dog
dog is hypernym of terrier
terrier is hypernym of Spanish terrier

Co-hyponyms - items belonging to the same level. E.g. - poodle and setter are co-hyponyms of dog.

Prototypical hyponymy - here we choose the prototype (best example) of a class as a hyponym of ther hypernym.

Implicational hyponymy - is inclusion which is not obvious. (go is included in move)

Synonymy as symmetrical hyponymy - Symetrical hyponymy - means synonymy where one lexical word is totally
included in the other and vice versa, so they are equal. (e.g. - mercury = quicksilver).
If X is a hyponym of Y and Y is also a hyponym of X, then X and Y are synonyms.

Entailment relations - are similar as hyponymy but they function at the sentence level. We have a pair of sentences. The
truth of the second sentence is derived from the first sentence.
E.g. - I saw a boy entails I saw a person.

E.g. whisky - whiskey


whoever - whosoever Lexical variants - depend on the speaker and his idiolect.
enclose - inclose

Paronymy - words very similar in origin, etymology, pronunciation and spelling and easily mistaken.
E.g. effect (n) affect (v)
ingenious (clever) ingenuous (sincere)
These are false synonyms.

15
UNIT 7

Antonymy - sense relation of oppositeness in meaning. (e.g. - come/go, dark/light, hot/cold, in/out, male/female, up/down).

1. gradable antonyms
cold - hot .cold - cool - tepid - lukewarm - warm - hot
good - bad . good - fair - poor - bad
large/big - small .large/ big - mediumsized - small
old - young .old - middle-aged - young
tall - short tall - medium tall - short
wet - dry ..wet - moist - damp(ish) - dry
These antonyms are at opposite ends of a continous scale of values. They are GRADABLE or CONTRARY antonyms.

2. complementary antonyms
alive - dead
awake - asleep
male - female
open - shut
present - absent
single - married
These are COMPLEMENTARY or CONTRADICTORY antonyms. If one member of the pair is applicable, the other cannot
be and vice versa. They are mutually exclusive.

3. relational antonyms
above - below
buy - sell
employer - employee
husband - wife
parent - child
teacher - pupil
borrow - lend (If you borrow money from me, logically I lend it to you.)
The first antonym describes a relationship between two objects and the other one describes the same relationship with a
reverse order. They are RELATIONAL or CONVERSE antonyms.

4. taxonomic sisters - multi-member system of antonyms


colour words white black red green yellow
days of the week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
directions of the compass North South West East
physical-state system liquid gas solid
playing cards suits hearts clubs diamonds spades
season system Spring Summer Autumn Winter
meals breakfast lunch dinner
This is multi-member system of antonyms i.e. TAXONOMIC SISTERS. These members are at the same level in a
taxonomy and they are mutually incompatible. (What is the opposite of green? - The answer is - None! or all of them are
opposite of all the others.)

5.
negative affixes derivational antonyms
(a-) achromatic, amoral, anarchy, asymmetry
(anti-) antichrist, anticlimax, antifreeze
(dis-) dislike, dismount, disobey
(in-) inaccurate, illegal, improper, irregular
(mis-) misadventure, misbehave, mislabel
(non-) non-conformist, non-existant, non-smoker
(un-1) unbelievable, unhappy, unpleasant
(un-2) undress, unlock, unscrew
(-less) careless, speechless, toothless
These are DERIVATIONAL ANTONYMS - formed by adding negative affixes: a-, anti-, dis-, in-, mis-, non-, un-, -less)
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6. not happy - unhappy
Syntactic antonymy - formed by adding the negative particle not. Not happy - doesnt mean - unhappy. Syntactic antonymy
is not the same as derivational antonymy. Derivational antonymy is stronger. Unhappy is stronger than not happy.

7. ANTIPODALS - Antipodal antonymy - representatives of the extremes in a given opposition.


attic - cellar
cradle - grave
head - toy
top - bottom
zenith - nadir

8. REVERSES (antonyms) - when we refer to any process which can be reversed


push - pull
go - return
up - down
in - out
left - right
ascend - descend
inflate - deflate
fill - empty
expand - contract

9. PHRASAL ANTONYMY - antonymyc pairs of phrases


by accident - on purpose
in front of - at the back of
up to par - below par

10. Semantic Relativity of Derivational Antonyms: See Syntactic Antonymy

11. Relativity of Gradable Antonymy


E.g. - A small elephant is a large animal. -- not contradictory
- A male elephant is a female elephant. --- contradictory sentence
The difference between gradable antonymy (expressing gradual polarity) and complementary antonymy (expressing
contradictory notions).
- He is tall person.
- She is still young.
- New Zeland is near (Australia).
- New Zeland is far (from Macedonia).
These examples show the relativity of gradable antonyms. How tall person? What is our concept of a tall person? How young?
etc..

Polysemy and Antonymy - where a single word has more than one meaning i.e. different meanings if the same word
appears in different contexts.
polysemous words: antonyms of the polysemous words:
silence noise, music
work leisure, loaf
old new, young
firm soft, loose
criticism praise, (lack of)
a mouth of a river (ustie) a mouth of a person
a foot of a mountain (podno`je) a foot of a person
a tail of a rabbit a tail of a coat (frak)

Metaphorical antonymy - with use of a metaphors as antonyms.


hot car (stolen car) - cold car (car that is not stolen)
hot news (news that is just breaking) - cold news (old news)
Metaphor - is figure of speech used to convey (express) a certain relation without formal exponents of the category of
comparison (asas, like)
Metaphor - is figure of speech used to convey the meaning other than the one given.

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Metaphor is a figure of speech used to convey mening other than the one given. It is a word or phrase used in an
imaginative way to describe something else, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the
description more powerful. It expresses comparison. E.g he runs as fast as rabbit- he is a rabbit. I
s understanding of one concept in terms of another or metaphor is hidden comparison.Metaphor as a literary device is a
figure of speech based on a percieved similarity between distinct objects or actions.It is very important for the conceptual
system shared by all human beings.

UNIT 8

Ambiguity - if more than one meaning is assigned to an expression.


E.g. - lexical ambiguity:
1. You should have seen the bull we got from the pope.
(the form bull can have at least three different interpretations: roughly, a papal communication, a male cow or
nonsense. The sentence is ambiguios becaise bull is ambiguous.).
E.g. - syntactic ambiguity/ (structural/ sentence/ grammatical ambiguity):
2. Competent women and men hold all the good jobs in the firm.
(Is competent modifying the phrase women and men, or is th enoun phrase competent women conjoined the
single-
word noun phrase men? One interpretation entails that the men holding good jobs are competent, whereas the other
does not. So, there are two possible interpretations:
a. Women who are comopetent and men hold all the good jobs in the firm.
b. Women who are competent and men who are competent hold all the good jobs in the firm)
E.g. - syntactic & lexical ambiguity:
3. Ana claims that John saw her duck.
(lexical: Is Ana claiming that John saw the bird she possesses OR that he saw her lowering herself? These two
senses
are associated with radically different syntactic structures. - syntactic/structural: her duck is in one case like me
jump
and in the other case like my dog and also with distinct lexical meanings: the noun and the verb duck have the
same
spelling and pronunciation but quite different senses.)
E.g. - scope ambiguity = structural ambiguity:
4. Someone loves everyone.
(we can interpret the sentence as assigning some lover to each person OR as saying that someone is a universal
lover. The ambiguity arises from the relation between someone and everyone: a scope ambiguity is not lexical
but structural).

Lexical ambiguity - when a word has more than one meaning and it has two or more synonyms which are not synonyms to
each other. Lexical ambiguity - with polysemyc and homonymyc words.
E.g. club - social organization bust - sculpture of the chest crop - harvest
- wooden stick - to break - a handle of a riding whip

pen - enclosure (trlo, zatvor) plane - airplane port - seaport sage - wise (mudrec)
- hand writing instrument - flat surface - port wine - plant (`alfija)

Grammatical ambiguity - when a sentence has two or more paraphrases which are not synonyms to each other. The
ambiguity is not inherent in the word but it is due to syntax.
E.g. - Visiting relatives can be boring. (visiting = subject, modifier)

The captain corrected the list. (list - inventory


- tilt (nakrivuvawe)
We can have: NAW-NAS I am a techer.
AW-NAS He told me to mind my watch. (to mind=V, watch=N,V)
AW-AS She is going to close the door.(is going=future, present continuous; to close=to shut, to go
closer)
NAW-AS The chicken is ready to eat.

Word ambiguity Vs. Sentence ambiguity


Word ambiguity is ambiguity at word level (polysemy or homonymy).
Sentence ambiguity is not inherent in the word, but due to syntax.

Ambiguity Vs. Referential versality and referential vagueness

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Referential versality - if a phrase or word can be used to refer to a wide range of different things and persons. There are
some words that derive their meaning from the context and have no meaning on their own if isolated (here, there, how, then, I,
you, me).
Deictic expressions - are said to be versatile, not ambiguous:
- She (any female person);
- I (any speaker);
- here (can be anywhere)

Referential vagueness - means thattwo words are not ambiguos but are referentially vague according to certain standards.
They are dependent on the language, culture and community.
E.g. - tall and short are vague words.
A Pygmy can be tall, but compared to a Macedonian he can be short.
- mountain and hill
Vodno may be a mountain for a person from Britain, but for Macedonian it is a hill.

Polysemy - when a word has two or more meanings that are related to each other.
E.g. brow a part of the eye the top of a hill, cliff
diamond a precious stone a baseball field (in the shape of diamond)
ear the organ of hearing a sense for hearing (music, languages..)
eye the organ of seeing the ability, the power to see; sth like an eye
foot part of the body of a mountain, bottom part of page
fork instrument for eating fork of a road
iron a type of metal a device (made of iron) for pressing clothes
leaf a part of a tree a sheet of paper
leg a limb of an animal of table or chair..
mouth of a person of a river
lip of a person of a jug (rab)
tail of an animal of a coat
tongue of a person of a shoe

Homonymy - when a word has two or more meanings that are not obviously related to each other in any way.
bank financial institution side of a river
club a social organization a blunt weapon
pen a writing instrument a small cage
stick a piece of wood (cause to) adhere
bear animal bear children, knowledge, ignorance

Homophony - special case of homonymy - words with different meaning and spelling, but same pronunciation.
E.g. heir air meat meet
tail tale by buy bye
threw through male mail
knight night here hear
for four bow bough
bear bare weight wait
sight site reign rain
higher hire plane plain
sea see die dye
write right rite feet feat
him hymn

Homography - special case of homonymy - words with the same spelling, but different meaning and pronunciation.
E.g. wind (n) [wind] - wind (v) [waind]
lead (v) [li:d] - lead (v) [led]
read (v) [ri:d] - read (v) [red]
row (n) [rou] - row (n,v) [rau]
tear (n) [ti] - tear (v) [te]
can [kn] - can [kn]
bow [bou] - bow [bau]

Patterened homonymy - items that share the form, arent related in meaning and belong to different word classes are called
patterned homonyms. They perform different grammatical function.
E.g. That girl..(demonstrative); above (prep., adv., adj.)
The girl that I saw.. (determiner); act (n., v.)
I think that (conjunction) back (prep., adv., conj.)
after (n., adv., v.)
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before (prep., adv., conj.)
box (n., v.)

Non-patterned - when the items belong to the same part of speech (e.g. tail-tale).

Partial homonymy
Full homonyms share the form in all cases.
Partial homonyms - homonyms that have only one identical word form from the homonymous pair. (or two, if the verbs have
the same form for past tense and past participle).
E.g. axis, axes light, lights
axe, axes light, lighter, lightest

but, butted might (power)


butt, butted may, might

flat, flats lie, lay, lain, lying


flat, flatter, flattest lie, lied, lied, lying

grind, ground (past t.), ground (p.p.) find, found, found


ground (adj.), ground (n.) (ground coffee, flat ground) found (n.), found (adj.)

The Origin of Homonyms -


Two major historical sources: through
1. Convergent sound development of homonymy - different forms converged into the same form, so we have one form
with different retained meanings.
E.g. gesund - healthy - sound
sund - swimming - sound (morski tesnec)
sonus - sound - sound
2. Divergent sense development of polysemy - when words which have the same etymology and they diverged through the
time.
E.g. - pupil has two meanings: young student and part of the eye
These meanings are distinct synchronically but diachronically thet have the same etymology: pupila.
E.g. - Latin buxus deverged into box with at least 5 different senses.
E.g. steer - steering wheel - bull (bik)
pupil - young student - part of the eye

Homonymy & Polysemy - Problem for lexicography


The main problem for lexicography is how to arrange the lexical items in a dictionary and this problem is solved by the criteria
of time and space for dictionaries of all size. Depending on the time and space available, lexicography is manipulating
dictionary users. E.g. steer and punch.

UNIT 9

Content words - (open class words) - are:


- nouns,
- verbs,
- adjectives and
- adverbs,
containing most of the referential/ cognitive meaning of a sentence.
They are open because every day there is influx of new nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. - E.g. Baby boy arrived yestersay.

Function words - (closed class words) - are:


- prepositions, ( in, to, after, with)
- conjunctions, (and, or, although, because, unless, whereas..)
- determiners, (a few, a little, such, another, any, each, one, five, my, your, a, an, this, few, every)
- specifiers, (degree words: almost, more, quite, so,too, very and qualifiers: always, ever, never, often)
- pronouns,
- auxiliearies,
items that do not fall inot any single word category. They are closed because it is difficult to include new item between this set of words.
Specifiers: Determiners are nominal specifiers, qualifiers are verbal specifiers and degree words are specifiers of adjectives and
prepositions.
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Inflectional affixes - suffexes Derivational affixes
- never change lexical category (class) of the word - may or may not change lexical category of the word
- dont change the meaning of the word - always change lexical meaning of the word
- are more productive - are lessproductive

Ranking heads and modifiers of a construction - head is a central element accompanied by dependents called modifiers.
In English the head is on the right.
E.g. - plural noun hands modified by a plural determiner these. (Modifier follows the grammatical rule of agreement between modifier and
the noun)

Clitics - forms unable to stand alone for phonological reasons and must be attached to another word.
Enclitics - clitics attached to the end of the preceding word (as in English). - E.g. Hes leaving now. Theyre here.
Proclitics - clitics attached to the beginning of the following word (as in French). - E.g. Suzanne les voit. (Suzanne sees them.)
Host - the word to which clitic is attached.

UNIT 10

Primary word formation - through imitation (onomatopoeia) or invention (coining).

Lexical change of primary words:

- semantic broadening - words get more general meaning. (Historical meaning of the word was more precise and modern meaning
becomes
more general).
E.g. - earlier meaning modern meaning
aunt fathers sister father or mothers sister
butcher one who slaughters goats one who cuts up and sells meat in a shop
dog for hunting any dog
barn only barley was kept any crops are kept
manufacture make by hand produce by machinery

- semantic narrowing - the process in which the meaning of a word from general becomes more specific. (the sense of an expression in time
has
been narrowed)
E.g. - earlier meaning modern meaning
gay joyfull homosexual
accident (any) event unintended disastrous event
silly merry foolish
sly skillful cunning, deceitful
deer any wild beast wild ruminant of a particular species
disease any unfavourable state illness
grumble make low sounds complain
witch male or female sorcerer female sorcerer

- semantic extension - formation of common nouns out of proper nouns


E.g. - Lord Sandwich sandwiches
Henry Ford Ford automobile
Celsius, the scientist degree Celsius
Fahrenheit, the physicist Fahrenheit scale
James Watt watt - unit of power
Nobel, the scientist Nobel Prize winner

- semantic intension - formation of proper nouns out of common nouns


E.g. - common noun proper noun modern meaning
big, apple Big Apple New York City
a city the City the business part of London
five-sided building the Pentagon US military command and activities
street in New York Wall Street American money market
white, house the White House American administration

- semantic shift - when words changed their meaning through the course of time undergoing a complete semantical shift. Is a kind of semi-
prime word formation process by which the original meaning of a word has been lost and it has acquired a totally new meaning. E.g silly
originally meant merry or happy but today it means stupid.

- short-hands: Lets have a skopsko!


- metonymy - reference to entity by naming something associated with: Who were those suits drinking in the pub last night?
- synecdoche - where the part stands for the whole: Hell lose more than fifty head. (cows); Its good to see familiar faces here.

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Linguistic causes of Lexical Change:
1. differentiation of synonymy - every lexical system has a tendency to get rid of total identity between words.
E.g. - beast-animal, deer-beast, time-tide.
2. fixed content - E.g: the word token became restricted in use to a number of set expressions: love token, token of respect
(token=sign-noun)
3. ellipsis - omission of some elements from a fixed expression. E.g. - expecting from expecting a baby
media from mass media
minerals from mineral waters
propose from propose marriage
summit from summit meeting
sale from cut-price sale
UNIT 11

Secondary word formation - most important processess:


- derivation (adittion of affixes - preffixes or suffixes to a stem - preffixation/ suffixation)
- compounding (addition of other roots or stems)

- conversion (change of the word class without morphological changes)


- blending (combination of 2 words using blending and clipping)
- clipping (forming a word by shortening either the front or back part or both ends)
- backformation (derivation from morphologically longer words to shorter)
- acronymy (forming a word by combining the initial letters of a larger expression)

For DERIVATION we must have 2 words which are lexically related.


Lexically related words:
1. they share the elements of meaning and form
2. one is derived from the other by morphological rule (breath, breathe), by affixation (cinstruct, construction) or compounding (white, wash-
whitewash).
E.g. - clear - unclear: are related: 1. they share the form clear,
2. they share the meaning.

Righthand Head rule - the head of a morphologically complex word is the rightmost constituent of that word. The head is on the right.
E.g. - un-kind =adj, because kind (the rightmost morpheme) is an adjective.
e.g. nice girl, girl - head, nice - modifier. This rule applies for preffixation and suffixation as well.
e.g. beauti-ful, ful - head, beauti - modifier - the suffix is the head because it is on the right and determines the word class.
e.g. mis-fortune, mis-modifier, fortune-head

Complex derivations:
activation: act (verbal base) + -ive (affix) = active (adj.) worker, seller, writer, teacher = verb+ -er
active (adj.) + -ate (affix) = activate (v)
activate (v) + -ion=activation (n)

unhappiness: happy, unhappy, unhappiness (because un- combines with adjectives, not with nouns: unable - not unhealth, and happy is
adj., happiness is noun).
unhealthy: health, healthy, unhealthy (because un- combines with adjectives: unhealthy, not unhealth)

Inflectional affixes - suffexes Derivational affixes


- (lex.) never change lexical class of the word = class-maintaining - (lex.) may or may not change lexical class of the word=class-
changing
- (seman.) dont change the meaning of the word - (seman.) always change lexical meaning of the word

Derivational affixes - classification:


- phonological: neutral7 and non-neutral8 affixes (neutral: no phonological changes: break-able, defend-er, kind-ness
non-neutral: there are phonological changes like consonant change, stress shift,
vowel segment modified: part-ial, Boston-ian, Canad-ian)
- syntactic: 1. denominal, deverbal, deadjectival and (1. according to the base thay attach to: denomial - attaches to nominal base
2. nominal, verbal, adjectival, adverbial affixes 2. according to the lexical class derived from their addition: nominal - when
forming a name, verbal-when forming a verb. E.g. - famousness: two
suffexes: -ous, -ness. -ous is denominal (added to noun) and adjectival
(produces adjective). -ness is deadjectival (added to adjective) and
nominal
(produces a noun).
- semantic: negative and diminutive affixes (negative affixes - negative, opposite, reversal meaning/semantics: a-moral, a-sexual, dis-
agree,
dis-obey, in-active, ir-regular, non-smoker, un-able, un-happy;
diminutive affixes - small, little: isl-et, dogg-ie, Ann-ie, dadd-y, cat-kin, star-let, duck-ling,
weak-ling..)

7neutral: break-able, defend-er, decid-ing, self-ish, beauti-ful, hair-less, brave-ly, kind-ness (no change)

8 non-neutral: part-ial, Boston-ian, fantas(y)-(t)ic, person-ify, nat-ion, audac-ious, electric-ity, product-ive, public-ize, democrac-y
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Origin of derivational affixes: neutral - native, most non-neutral - Latinate (foreign). Native non-neutral suffix is -th (used to form abstract
nouns from adjectives): long-length, broad-breadth, wide-width.
e.g. - borrowed preffixes: homo-, multi-, neo-, anti-, bi-, circum-, a-
- native preffixes: mis-, un-, for-

Words formation rules (WFR):


(it is not necessary to list the meanings of words like: smok-er, iron-ing, pre-arrang(e)-ed, farm-labour-er because the meanings of these
words can be computed from the meaning of their parts).
1. lexicon must include words: morphological properties
phonological properties
syntactic properties
meaning

Constraints on Productivity of word formation:


- phonological constraints: e.g. the suffix -en is subjecto to the following phonological constraint: -en can only combine with a
monosyllabic
base that end in obstruent: liven, madden, quicken, thicken, ripen, redden, soften, whiten (-en: cause to
become X)
(abstract - has two syllables, blue- doesnt end in obstruent)
- morphological constraints: native suffix -hood attaches to native bases boyhood, childhood, manhood, neighbourhood, but not with
Latinate basis such as authorhood, ministerhood(although: parenthood is borrowed from Latin):
sometimes
morpho-logical properties of a base may prevent application of word formational rules.
- semantic constraints: negative preffix -un will be attached to the positive adjective not to th enegative member of the par (happy-sad,
loved-hated, well-ill. un-happy, not un-sad.)

Pragmatic semantic is a study of the language from the point of view of the users, i.e the study of the way in which language is used to
express what somebody rally means in particular situation, especially when the actual words may appear to mean something different.
Pragmatics is the traditional part of linguistic that deals with the contextual usage of the words and it includes conversational analysis,
conversational imposture, presupposition, and speech acts.

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