英语语言学概论第五章笔记

Chapter 5 Semantics 语义学

1. What is semantics？什么是语义学？

Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language.

语义学可定义为对语言意义的研究。

2. Some views concerning the study of meaning

语义研究的几种主要理论

1) The naming theory 命名论

It was proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to this theory,

the linguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words used in a language are

taken to be labels of the objects they stand for. So words are just names or labels

for things.

命名论是最原始的语义理论，是古希腊学者柏拉图提出的。该理论把词看作是该词所

指事物的名称或标记。

2) The conceptualist view 意念论

The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic

form and what it refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked

through the mediation of concepts in the mind.

意念论认为，语言形式及其所代表的对象之间（即语言与现实世界之间）没有直接联

系；确切地说，在理解语义时，是通过大脑中存在意念这一中介物来联系的。

3) Contextualism 语境论

Contextualism is based on the presumption that one can derive meaning from

or reduce meaning to observable contexts. Two kinds of context are recognized:

the situational context and the linguistic context.

语境论以这样的假设为基础：人们可以从显而易见的语境中推知或归纳出语义。语境

有两种：情景语境和语言语境。

语境论认为语言的意义离不开使用语言的语境，语义不是抽象的，它存在于语境之中，

它来自语境，取决于语境。

4) Behaviorism 行为主义论

Behaviorists attempted to define the meaning of a language form as the

“situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the

hearer.” This theory, somewhat close to contextualism, is linked with

psychological interest.

语义的行为主义论和语义的语境论有相似之处，它也把语义放到语境中去研究，但它

更注重人的心理活动，认为语言的意义存在于语言使用者在交际过程中对听到话语的反应。

3. Sense and reference 意义和所指

They are two related but different aspects of meaning.

它们是词汇意义的既相互联系又有所不同的两个方面。

1) Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the

collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and

de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning dictionary compliers are interested

in.

意义关心的是语言形式的内在意义。它是语言形式所有特征的总和，它是抽象且脱离

语境的。它是词典编写者们所感兴趣的语义方面。

简单地说，意义是词汇内在的，抽象的，游离于语境之外的意义。

2) Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world;

it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and non-linguistic

world of experience.

所指是语言形式在现实世界中所指称的东西；涉及语言成分和非语言的经验世界的关

系。

简单地说，所指是词汇在特定的语境中所指称的具体事物。

4. Major sense relations 主要意义关系

1） Synonymy 同义关系

Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. Words that

are close in meaning are called synonyms.

同义现象指的是语义的相同或相近。词义相近的词叫同义词。

According to the way they differ, synonyms can be divided into the following

groups:

a) Dialectal synonyms – synonyms used in different regional dialects.

British English and American English are the two major geographical varieties

of the English language.

方言同义词 － 用在不同地域方言中的同义词。

英国英语和美国英语是英语的两大地理变体。

示例：

英国英语 美国英语

Autumn fall

Lift elevator

Flat department

Windscreen windshield

Torch flashlight

b) Stylistic synonyms – synonyms differing in style.

Words having the same meaning may differ in style, or degree of formality. In

other words, some words tend to be more formal, others casual, and still others

neutral in style.

文体同义词 － 在文体上有差异的同义词。

有同样意义的词可能在文体上，或者在正式程度上有所不同。也就是说，有些往往比

较正式，有些比较随意，有些在问题上则是中性的。

示例：

Old man, daddy, dad, father, male parent

Start, begin, commence

Kid, child, offspring

c) Synonyms that differ in their emotive or evaluative meaning

There are words that bear the same meaning but express different emotions of

the user, indicating the attitude or bias of the user toward what he is talking about.

情感意义或评价意义有所不同的同义词。

有着相同的意义却表达了使用者的不同情感的词语，这些词暗示使用者对他所谈论的

事情的态度或倾向。

示例：

Collaborator 合作者/ Accomplice 同谋者，帮凶

Like, love, admire, adore, worship

Economical, frugal, thrifty, mean, miserly, stingy

d) Collocational synonyms – synonyms differing in their collocation.

Some synonyms differ in their collocation, i.e., in the words they go together

with. This is a matter of usage.

搭配同义词 － 同义词在其搭配上各不相同，即能和这些不同的同义词相配的词各不

相同。

示例：

Accuse…of charge…with rebuke…for

e) Semantically different synonyms –synonyms that differ slightly in what they

mean.

语义上不同的同义词 － 同义词的意义非常接近，但却有细微差别。

示例：

Amaze 暗示困惑和迷惑 astound 暗示难以置信

Escape 意味逃离不愉快或者危险的事 flee 意味匆匆离开

2） Polysemy 多义关系

The same one word may have more than one meaning. This is what we call

polysemy, and such a word is called a polysemic word. The fact is the more

commonly used a word is, the more likely it has acquired more than one meaning.

同一个单词可能有一个以上的意义，这就是我们所说的一词多义，这样的词叫多义词。

一个词越常用，它就越可能获得一个以上的意义。

示例：

Table 一词最初只有一个意义，很可能指一块石板或木板，这叫做其原始意义。后来

它逐渐获得了它现在所指称的其它意义。

3） Homonymy 同音/同形异义关系

Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that word having different meaning

have the same form, i.e., different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in

both.

When two words are identical in sound, they are homophones.

When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs.

When two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are complete

homonyms.

同形异义是指意义不同的词有着相同的语言形式的现象，即不同的词发音上或拼写上，

或者两个方面都相同。

两个单词在发音上相同时，叫同音异义词。

两个单词在拼写上相同时，叫同形异义词。

两个单词在发音和拼写上都相同时，叫完全同形异义词。

示例：

同音异义词： rain/ reign; night/ knight; piece/ peace

同形异义词： bow v./ bow n.; tear v./ tear n.; lead v./ lead n.

完全同形异义词：fast adj./ fast v.; scale n./ scale v.

4） Hyponymy 上下义关系

Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more general more inclusive

word and a more specific word. The word which is more general in meaning is

called the super-ordinate, and the more specific words are called its hyponyms.

Hyponyms of the same super-ordinate are co-hyponyms to each other.

上下义关系是指一个具有一般性、包容性的词与一个更为具体的词之间的意义关系。

意义更具有一般性的词叫上义词，意义更为具体的词叫下义词。同一个上义词的多个

下义词叫并列下义词。

示例：

上义词： flower

下义词： rose（玫瑰花）, tulip（郁金香）, carnation（康乃馨）, lily（百合花）, morning

glory （牵牛花）

上义词： animal

下义词： dog, cat, tiger, lion, wolf, elephant, fax, bear

5） Antonymy 反义关系

The term antonymy is used for oppositeness of meaning, words that are

opposite in meaning are antonyms.

反义关系用以指意义的相反。意义上相反的词叫反义词。

a) Gradable antonyms 分级反义词

Some antonyms are gradable because there are often intermediate forms

between the two members of a pair. So it is a matter of degree.

一些反义词是级别上的对立，因为一对这样的反义词中间常有其它表示程度的词。意

义相反实际上只是程度问题。

示例：

Old 和 young 是反义词，但它们代表两个极端，中间还存在着代表年老和年轻的不

同程度的其它语言形式，如 middle-aged, mature, elderly.

b) Complementary antonyms 互补反义词

A pair of complementary antonyms is characterized by the feature that the

denial of one member of the pair implies the assertion of the other.

互补反义词具有这样的特征，否定其中一个就意味着肯定另一个。也就是说，是一个

非此即彼、非彼即此的问题。

示例：

Male/ female alive/dead

c) Relational opposites 关系反义词

Pairs of words that exhibit the reversal of a relationship between the two items

are called relational opposites.

在意义上现实出逆向关系的一对词语叫关系反义词。

示例：

Wife/ husband father/ son teacher/ pupil doctor/ patient buy/ sell

above/ below

5. Sense relations between sentences

句子间的意义关系

1) X is synonymous with Y.

X和Y 是同义关系

示例：

X: He is a bachelor all his life.

Y: He never married all his life.

如果X是真的，Y也是真的，如果X是假的，Y也是假的。

2) X is inconsistent with Y.

X和Y是前后矛盾关系

示例：

X: John is married.

Y: John is a bachelor.

如果X是真的，Y就是假的，如果X是假的，Y就是真的。

3) X entails Y (Y is an entailment of X)

X蕴涵Y (Y是X的蕴涵)

示例：

X: John married a blond heiress (女继承人).

Y: John married a blond.

蕴涵是一种包含关系。如果X蕴涵Y，X的意义就为Y所包含。

4) X presupposes Y. (Y is a prerequisite of X)

X预示Y (Y是X的先决条件)

示例：

X: John’s bike needs repairing.

Y: John has a bike.

5) X is a contradiction.

X是个矛盾句

示例：

X: My unmarried sister is married to bachelor.

X句子本身自相矛盾，它永远是假的。

6) X is semantically anomalous.

句子X在语义上反常

示例：

X: The table has bad intentions.

X 在语义上反常，它就是荒唐的。

6. Analysis of meaning

1) Componential analysis – a way to analyze lexical meaning

语义成分分析法 － 一种词义分析法

The approach is based upon the belief that the meaning of a word can be

dissected into meaning components, called semantic features. Plus and minus

signs are used to indicate whether a certain semantic feature is present or absent

in the meaning of a word, and these feature symbols are usually written in

capitalized letters.

一个单词的意义可以分析为被称作语义特征的意义成分。用加减号来表示某一语义特

征在一个词义中是存在还是省缺，这些特征符号通常用大写字母来表示。

One advantage of componential analysis is that by specifying the semantic

features of certain words, it will be possible to show how these words are related in

meaning.

成分分析的一个好处是，通过列出某些单词的语义特征，就可能显示这些单词在意义

上有什么联系。

示例：

Man 和 woman 这两个单词有 ＋HUMAN, + ADULT, + ANIMATE这些共同的特

征，但在MALE这一特征上不同。

Man 和 boy这两个单词有 ＋HUMAN, +ANIMATE, +MALE这些共同的特征，但

在ADULT这一特征上不同。

2) Predication analysis – a way to analyze sentence meaning

述谓结构分析 － 一种句义分析法

Linguists have proposed different ways to analyze the meaning of sentences.

They might differ in their framework of analysis, but they share the aim to abstract

the meaning of sentences. What we are going to introduce briefly is the

predication analysis proposed by the linguist G Leech.

语言学家们提出了不同的分析句子意义的方法。他们的分析基准体系可能有所不同，

但他们的目标都是使句子意义抽象化。我们现在要介绍的是英国语言学家G里奇提出的述

谓结构分析法。

In grammatical analysis, the sentence is taken to be the basic unit, and it is

analyzed into such grammatical components as subject, predicate, and attribute.

对句子进行语法分析时，句子被视为基本单位，它被分析谓诸如主谓语和定语这样的

语法成分。

In semantic analysis of a sentence, the basic unit is called predication, which is

the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence. This applies to all forms of sentence,

including statements, imperative and interrogative forms.

对句子进行意义分析时，基本单位称为述谓，这是对句子意义的抽象化。这一方法适

用于所有句式，包括陈述句、祈使句和疑问句。

A predication consists of argument(s) and predicate.

An argument is a logical participant in a predication, largely identical with the

nominal element(s) in a sentence.

A predicate is something said about an argument or it states the logical

relation linking the arguments n a sentence.

一个述谓由一个或数个论元和一个谓词组成。

一个论元是一个述谓的一个逻辑参与者，与一个句子中的一个或数个名词性成分大体

一致。

一个谓词是关于论元的陈述，或者说明一个句子的论元间的逻辑关系。

句子的语法形式不影响其语义述谓，下列所有句子具有同样的述谓：

Tom smokes.

Tom is smoking.

Tom has been smoking.

Tom, smoke!

Does Tom smoke?

这是同一语义述谓TOM(SMOKE)在语法上的多种体现。

According to the number of arguments contained in a predication, we classify

the predications into two-place predication (containing two arguments),

one-place predication (containing one argument), and no-place predication

(containing no argument).

根据一个述谓中所包含的论元的数目，我们把述谓结构分为两位述谓结构（包含两个

论元）、单位述谓结构（包含一个论元）和零位述谓结构（没有论元）

示例：

The building is next to the library. (Two-place predication)

He is snoring. (One-place predication)

It is late. (No-place predication)