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SEMANTICS & PRAGMATICS COURSE - Coggle Diagram
SEMANTICS & PRAGMATICS COURSE
LEXICAL SEMANTICS (Words in Isolation)
Definition: Study of word meanings, dictionaries, references
Lexical Relations (Between Words):
Synonymy (Similar meanings):
Absolute Synonyms: Rare, context-dependent (one often dies out)
Near Synonyms: Differ in degree or attribution
Connotative Synonyms: Difference in perception/emotion
Stylistic/Register Synonyms: Formality levels (e.g., Car vs. Automobile)
Antonymy (Opposite meanings):
Gradable Antonyms: Scale exists, can compare (e.g., Hot/Cold, Big/Small)
Complementary Antonyms: No middle ground (e.g., Alive/Dead, Open/Closed)
Relational Antonyms: Imply one another (e.g., Buy/Sell, Parent/Child)
Hyponymy & Hypernymy:
Hypernym: General term (e.g., Flower, Animal)
Hyponym: Specific term (e.g., Rose, Dog, Corgi)
Meronymy (Part-of Relationship):
Part to Whole (e.g., Finger → Hand → Body; Branch → Tree)
Semantic Fields:
Groups covering conceptual domains (e.g., Emotions, Colors)
SEMANTICS vs. PRAGMATICS
Semantics:
Focus: Context-independent, literal meaning
Unit: Words, phrases, sentences
Question: "What does X mean?"
Pragmatics:
Focus: Context-dependent, speaker intention
Unit: Utterances
Question: "What did the speaker mean by saying X?"
Key Difference: Pragmatics = Literal Meaning + Context + Intention
COMPOSITIONAL SEMANTICS (Sentences)
Definition: How word meanings combine to form larger units (phrases, sentences)
Principle of Compositionality (Frege):
Meaning of expression = Meaning of parts + Syntactic rules
Logic + Language structure
Three Key Notions:
Sentence: Grammatically well-formed string of words (Syntax level)
Proposition: Abstract truth-evaluable meaning/idea (Semantic level)
Same proposition can be expressed by different sentences
Utterance: Concrete instance produced by speaker in specific context
METHODS OF ANALYSIS
Truth-Conditional Semantics:
Meaning = Conditions under which sentence is true (e.g., "Snow is white")
Frame Semantics:
Words invoke cognitive frames/background knowledge (e.g., Commercial transaction)
Cognitivism:
Meaning shaped by human cognition, bodily experience & metaphors
Syntax-Semantics Interface:
Word order (syntax) directly influences meaning (e.g., Cat chased Dog vs. Dog chased Cat)
SEMANTIC RELATIONS (Between Sentences)
Tautology: Necessarily true regardless of facts (e.g., "Either we do it or we don't")
Synonymy (Sentence Level): Two sentences express the same proposition
Contradiction: Necessarily false combination (e.g., "Reading AND watching TV simultaneously")
Entailment: Logical generation (Sentence A implies Sentence B is true)
Example: "I stopped smoking" entails "I used to smoke"
Presupposition: Background assumption must be true for sentence to make sense
Example: "The King of France is bald" presupposes "There is a King of France"
Implicature (Pragmatic):
Message implied beyond literal meaning (depends on context/conversation rules)