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U11, Synchronic vs Diachronic study, 2.4. Hyponymy, Homonymy: identical…

- - - - Types of homonyms
        
        Homographs
        
        same spelling, different
        pronunciation (& meaning)
        
        most homographs are polysemous
        
        "bow" a weapon or to bend forward
        
        "lead" metal or to guide
        
        "tear" drop of water or to rip
        
        "fine" good or a penalty
        
        "bow"
        
        Homophones
        
        "to", "too", "two"
        
        same pronunciation, different spelling (& meaning)
        
        Homophones are usually true homonyms in that they derive from completely unrelated sources. Not usually polysemous
        
        sea, see
        
        week, weak
        
        waist, waste
        
        their, there
        
        know, no
      - Homonymy vs Polysemy
        
        Homonymy: a (meaning) relation btw several distinct lexemes
        
        Polysemy: a single word (single lexeme) with several (slightly) different meanings
        
        In order to decide when there is one or the other as it might lead to consufion/ambiguity
        
        Coincidental homonym
        
        Words with the same form (spelling or pronunciation) whose meanings are entirely unrelated & coincidental, as a result of an etymological accident in the historical development of the word
        
        "bank" financial institution or the side of a river
        
        "bat" a mammal or a piece of sports equipment
        
        "fair" an event or just,
        
        "saw" a cutting tool or past tense of see
        
        "rose" a flower or past tense of rise
        
        True ~: different origins
        
        Polysemous homonym
        
        When multiple meanings develop historically from the same word. They usually preserve some perceptible semantic link marking the development of one meaning out of the other
        
        "leg" of a chair / of a person
        
        "book" a collection of pages or Vb to reserve
        
        "cap" the top of a pen/bottle or a type of headwear
        
        "dish" a kind of plate or a meal
        
        same origin
        
        based on Etymology
      - Words that share the same form, but are morphologically unrelated (they do not share the same stem, as it has a diff etymological origin)
  - - - Absolute vs Partial ~
        
        Absolute ~
        
        Descriptive meaning: unaffected by external factors (emotive, collocational, dialectal & contextual). Often found in scientific or technological fields
        
        However, it can be argued that there are no "true synonyms" (with exactly the same meaning & contextual relations):
        
        Principle of language economy: If two exact equivalents survive in a given language, sooner or later, one of them would become outdated or a difference in semantic function would develop
        
        water/H2O, urban area/city, salt/sodium chloride, automobile/car
        
        Partial ~
        
        semantically equivalent words in not all contexts
        
        fast, rapid, quick
        
        intelligent, smart, clever
        
        cold, chilly, freezing, cool
        
        difficult, hard, complex
        
        small, little, tiny
        
        car-vehicle, house-home
        
        speak-talk, buy-purchase
        
        happy-joyful, beautiful-stunning
        
        quickly-rapidly
      - Factors affecting meaning
        
        Emotive factors
        
        The message's content conveyed by two utterances is the same, or very similar, but they differ in the way the meaning comes across (is perceived)
        
        Expressive
        
        Adds attitudinal or emotive information in order to influence the hearer’s attitude without adding any extra information to the content
        
        "I love you so much daddy" ("father" is unsuitable in the sentence as it does not carry emotional meaning)
        
        Propositional
        
        The literal or objective meaning. It determines the content, the truth conditions (true-false)
        
        "My father/dad is called Tim" (same/similar propositional meaning & sentence lacks emotive traits)
        
        Types of meaning in a word or message
        
        Collocational restrictions
        
        They limit the interchangeability of words in certain contexts based on specific semantic features (basic elements of meaning that describe the properties of a word or concept, used to differentiate it from others)
        
        "man": +HUMAN, +MALE, +ADULT
        "boy": +HUMAN, +MALE, -ADULT
        
        "quick" short amount of time
        "fast" movement, speed
        
        "difficult" complex, abstract
        "hard" physical, tangible difficulty
        
        "smart" clever, quick-witted
        "intelligent" deep understanding
        
        "pretty" cute, attractive
        "beautiful" magnificent, stunning
        
        Some words only occur next to other types of words (not interchangeable in all contexts as they have diff collocational preferences)
        
        Geographical & Contextual factors
        
        Due to the existence of geographical differences in speech (dialects & registers), evoked meaning does not change the truth value of sentences & thus provides a further potential source of variation
        
        Dialects
        
        Groups of speakers sharing features of a geographical, temporal or social nature (they can be combined)
        
        Geographical variants: shop/store, lift/elevator, biscuit/cookie
        
        Age groups: specially younger groups, really careful not to use out-dated terminology: dope/cool, flex/show off, vibe/mood or atmosphere, chill/relax, YOLO, FOMO...
        
        Social groups: ain't/not to be, gonna/going to, reckon/think
        
        Registers
        
        Varieties of language used by a single speaker according to the situation in which the conversation is taking place
        
        Field: "What is happening": the nature of the social action, the topic/subject matter
        
        Tenor: "Who is taking part": the nature of the participants, their relationships & roles
        
        Mode: "What part (how) the language is playing": the function, the medium/channel of communication
        
        1 more item...
        
        a variety of language according to situation
        
        evoked meaning
        
        Emotive, collocational, dialectal or greographical & contextual
  - - - Gradable ~
        
        Opposite ends of a scale (gradable)
        
        Not contradictory but contrary relationships which can be measured on a scale, among which we usually find several intermediate terms
        
        hot-cold (warm-cool)
        big-small, happy-sad, fast-slow
      - Relational ~
        
        Opposite roles in an interdependent relationship where the meaning of one word is defined by its opposite's presence or absence (it's inevitably/inherently linked to the meaning of its antonym), and they cannot be used independently
        
        over-under, buy-sell, teacher-pupil, husband-wife, north-south, guest-host, above-below, borrower-lender
        
        interdependent
      - Complementary ~
        
        Pairs of words correspond to binary features where any member of a particular set is either one or the other, but not both. It is a matter of absolute difference, with no intermediate states
        
        married-single, complete-incomplete, alive-dead, win-lose, on-off, male-female
        
        absolute opposites (non-gradable)
- - - - Fields where this type of lexical creativity is most widely used:
        
        Science: nanotechnology, biodegradable
        
        Technology: smartphone, cyberbullying, google
        
        Advertising: infomercial, clickbait
        
        Culture: selfie, FOMO, mansplaining, ghosting
        
        Education: gamification, flipped classroom
  - - - Nn "text" > Vb
        
        Vb "run" > Nn
        
        Nn "leather" > Adj
        
        Adv "fast" > Adj
  - - - Metaphor
        
        A comparison btw two similar things by stating that one thing is another thing. Here, a word's meaning is replaced by another similar to it
        
        Eye of a needle/hurricane
        
        Time is money
        
        Life is a journey
        
        A heart of stone
        
        Your friend is a treasure
      - Metonymy
        
        A word or phrase is used to refer to sth else which is closely related with or suggested, rather than its actual name (it substitutes/replaces the name of a thing with the name of another)
        
        The power of the crown was mortally weakened
        
        The White House announced today
        
        The dish is delicious
        
        The pen is mightier than the sword
      - Synecdoche
        
        A part represents the whole
        
        All heads are responsible for the project
        
        Let me give you a hand
        
        The restaurant served over 100 hungry mouths
        
        All eyes were on the screen
- - - - A word in the foreign language which resembles a word in one’s mother tongue (in how it sounds & looks) but has a different meaning ("actually" means "in fact", not "actualmente")
        
        Negative lexical transfer
        
        When words or phrases from one language are mistakenly used in another, resulting in errors or misunderstandings due to differences in meaning or usage
        
        Not semantically related
        
        "large" ≠ largo
        
        "success" ≠ suceso
        
        "notice" ≠ noticia
        
        Equivalent meaning but diff use
        
        "depend on" ≈ depende de (collocational restriction)
        
        "persons" ≈ personas (contextual restriction)
        
        Some related meanings
        
        "station" (bus/police) ≈ estación (del año, "season")
        
        "familiar" (well known) ≈ familiar ("relative")
      - deceptive cognates
    - - Words that are similar in form (how they sound & look) & meaning in different languages because they have the same etymological origin or root
        
        Positive lexical transfer
        
        A useful communication strategy that attributes to an L2 lexical item all the features of its theoretical equivalent in the L1. When a learner's L1 knowledge helps them to learn & use L2 words correctly
        
        cognates facilitate:
      - "father" & "padre" from "pater"
- - - - Langue
        
        Language system: the language rules of a social group outside of individual use: the systematic structures underlying individual utterances (an idealized system aside from any particular manifestation in speech)
        
        (competence)
        language system
      - Parole
        
        (performance)
        language use
        
        Speech (the real object of study): what people say, it varies to some extent from individual to individual & from situation to situation (an individual use of language, the act of speaking at a particular time & place, in a particular situation)
      - The need for a distinction btw the linguistic system and its use by speakers brought about the concepts language (langue) & speech (parole)
      - Language is composed of:
    - - as a Communication system, associates:
      - Linguistic signs
        
        Signifier
        
        form / expression (phonetic or orthographic form of a sign)
        
        (sounds of a language) symbolic relationship btw:
        
        The linguistic sign has two aspects to it: a sound side & a meaning side.
        Signs derive their meaning by contrast or opposition with coexisting signs of the same nature
        
        Signified
        
        meaning / content (concept of a sign)
        
        Characteristics
        
        Arbitrariness
        
        There is no natural, intrinsic, or logical relation between a particular acoustic sound and a concept
        
        For example, we refer to the concept of “house” with different acoustic sounds in different languages
        
        Linearity
        
        It exists in time: you cannot say two words at the same time since language operates as a linear sequence
    - - Syntagmatic
        
        The way words combine in a linear sequence to create meaning (a linear relationship btw the signs which are present in the sentence). This particular configuration of signs is its structure, where word order governs meaning. Each language has a word order structure
        
        btw the sentence elements
      - Paradigmatic
        
        The way words are organized into sets or categories (associative groups) based on shared features or meanings (outside the sentece)
        
        Lexical Semantics
        
        The meaning of a word is constituted by its contextual relations. Words can be related in several ways:
        
        Sense relations
        
        how words & expressions relate to each other in terms of their meanings
        
        Etymology
        
        having a common base form, but different inflectional and derivational affixes
        
        the study of meanings of words (in their primary function as carriers of meaning) & their relations to other words in the language
        
        association btw the language system elements
      - the (types of) meaning relations that can occur btw the linguistic units in the system
  - - - Writing
        
        Linguistic units > Words (unlimited)
      - Code: Language (oral & written)
      - Speech
        
        Speech sounds > Phonemes (limited)
        
        For humans it is essential to communicate verbally. Our vocal tract has a limited set of speech sounds, called phonemes, which can be assembled into larger linguistic units, called words, which are unlimited
    - - Auditory-vocal, Visual & Tactile modes
      - get the message by
        
        Sound
        
        Birdsong, Musical sounds, Whistling, (Speech)
        
        (auditory-vocal)
        
        Touch
        
        Braille alphabet of the blind, Secret codes
        
        (tactile)
        
        Sight
        
        Sign languages, Morse, Traffic lights, (Writing)
        
        (visual)