6 semantics

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c. greene-szmadzinski

Linguistics of American Sign LanguageSign 260

InstructorChristopher Greene [email protected]

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Semantics

The meaning of words and sentences

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c. greene-szmadzinskiSemantics

• Semantics, which is the study of how meaning is constructed, is typically divided into two fields:

• Lexical semantics, which is the study at the word level, and compositional semantics, which is the study at the phrase level.

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c. greene-szmadzinskiDetermining Meaning

• How do our brains determine the meaning of signs?

• There are two competing views:• Definitional view vs prototype theory

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c. greene-szmadzinskiDetermining Meaning

• However it happens, lexical processing is fast!

• Adults can produce 150 signs per minute• The average adult knows 30,000 signs

(who’s good at Math?)• When speaking I choose from those 30,000

words 2-5 times per second

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c. greene-szmadzinskiLexicon

bird

wing

flight

insect

airplane

chirp

seedsfood

animal

machine

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c. greene-szmadzinskiTypes of Meaning

• Referential Meaning

• Social Meaning• Affective Meaning

Denotation

Connotation

• Referential Meaning – “dictionary” meaning• Social Meaning – what the sign says about

the speaker’s identity• Affective Meaning – what the sign says

about the speaker’s feelings

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c. greene-szmadzinskiSocial meaning

• “Howdy ya’ll, can I get you a couple of cokes?”• “Yeah, sure.”• “What kind would you like? Dr. Pepper, Coca

Cola, Sierra Mist, root beer?”• “We’ll take two root beers.”

• “Perhaps we can schedule some face-to-face time to dialogue about recent performance issues.” vs “We need to talk about problems at work.”

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c. greene-szmadzinskiSocial Meaning (Lakoff 1996, 2002)• Liberals• social forces,

responsibility, free expression, human rights, equal rights, concern, care, help, health, safety, nutrition, basic human dignity, oppression, diversity, deprivation, alienation, big corporations, corporate welfare, ecology, ecosystem, biodiversity, pollution

• Conservatives• corrupt, decay, rot,

degenerate, deviant, lifestyle, character, virtue, discipline, tough it out, strong, self-reliance, individual, backbone, standards, authority, heritage, competition, earn, hard work, enterprise, freedom, intrusion, interference, meddling, punishment, human nature, traditional, common sense, dependency, self-indulgent, elite, quotas, breakdown,

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c. greene-szmadzinskiInterpreting Culturally Rich… (Cokely)

• Someone who uses vocal communication

• Some who is not “one of us”

• Majority• People who may or may

not understand us• Oppressor

• Essential to human being

• Smart• Lucky• Feel bad for those who

can’t• Normal, like me• Where you go before a

trial

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c. greene-szmadzinskiAffective and Social meaning

• “Holy crap, bro, did you see that pitch? It went way over the 12 foot mark, there’s no way that blue should have called that legal. Utter bullshit.”

• Hooker vs sex worker• Bunch of flowers vs bouquet of flowers• Supervisor vs boss• Deaf vs hearing impaired• Child vs kid vs brat

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c. greene-szmadzinskiAffective Meaning

1. Holy crap! O_O Oh shit!2. Wow!3. That’s lame. ಠ_ಠ 4. That’s cool!5. That’s humiliating…. -_-

6. I’ve had it/that’s enough from you7. YES! SCHWEET! ALL RIGHT!8. You’ll get what’s coming to you.9. NOWAI!IDON’TBELIEVE IT!!OMG!!10.Darn it. ):11.What the heck?!

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• “I hate St. Patrick’s Day.”• “Melissa is fine.”• INVITE P WHY• HOME HAVE PAPER STACKS

Inflect these

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c. greene-szmadzinskiRelationships of Lexical Items

• Homonymy—same form

• Red (color) and read (the action) are homonyms.

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• Hyponymy/hypernymy (category)

• “Color” is a hypernym of “red” (and “orange” and “yellow”…); “red” is a hyponym of “color”

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• Meronymy/holonymy (whole/part)

• “Plant” is a holonym of “leaf”; “leaf” is a meronym of “plant”.

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• Metonym – an attribute substitutes for an object or concept

“Washington voted down heath care”“The crown celebrated her golden jubilee”“The pen is mightier than the sword”“If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it.”

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• Synonymy – similar meanings

• “Pretty”, “beauteous”, “bonnie”, “comely”, “fair”, “sightly”, “dishy”, “exquisite”, “good lookin’”

• “Put my foot down”, “decided”, “issued an ultimatum”

• SAME• HATE• LOVE

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• Antonymy– Gradable antonyms

– Non-gradable antonyms

– Auto-antonyms and false antonyms• “Sanction”, “fast”, “strike”

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• Converseness

• “Teacher” and “student” have converse meanings, that is, each word has meaning relative to the other.

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• Metaphor

• Different languages have different ways of representing concepts.

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• Polysemy – same word, different but related meanings

• “Get”– “I’ll get the drinks” (procure)– “I got scared” (become)– “I’ve got three dollars” (have)– “I get it” (understand)

• ASL sign for GEAR, FACTORY, MACHINE

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Role Shifting

Narrative use of ASL

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c. greene-szmadzinskiNarrative use of ASL

• ASL has built in mechanisms called role shifts. They include a set of non-manual signals that communicate a wide variety of information including speakers, internal thoughts and 3d space.

• (This is sometimes conflated with body shifting)

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• Nonmanual signals can communicate many kinds of information kinds of information:

1. Different speakers2. Internal thoughts3. Description of actions4. Distance5. Topology6. Number of referents7. Height/size of referent

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• When “shifting”, there are four ways fluent signers differentiate “characters”:– Body shift (horizontal)– Eye gaze (vertical)– Character shifting– Plural quantity shifting

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Semantic Categories

The functions of words/signs

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c. greene-szmadzinskiFunctional Words and Morphemes

• Tense – when did it occur• Aspect – manner it occurred• Reference – relationship between noun

phrases and their referents• Deixis – orientation or position of objects in

time or space

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c. greene-szmadzinskiThe Meaning of Sentences

• Semantic roles that nouns fill:– Agent – performs an action– Theme (patient) – undergoes an action– Location – place it happens– Goal – place to which action is directed – Source – place from which action originates– Instrument – how action is performed– Experiencer – one who perceives something– Causative – natural force that causes change– Possessor – one who has something

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c. greene-szmadzinskiTheta-Criterion

• A particular thematic role may appear only once in a sentence

*the boy opened the door with the key with the lock pick*the boy’s red hat of the boy

• Primates learning Sign Language never string together more than two thematic roles.

6 semantics

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