Word Meaning

Semantics explores the structure of meaning in words, phrases and sentences.

Semantic theories attempt to explain meaning in relation to other features.

Reference theories of meaning reduce meaning to the referents of words.

Mental Image theories account for meaning in terms of mental images.

Prototype theories account for meaning in terms of mental prototypes.

Semantic feature theories attempt to synthesize a semantic table of elementary features.

Truth conditional theories relate meaning to the truth conditions of sentences.

Presuppositions describe the conditions for sentences to have truth conditions.

Conditions of use provide another perspective on sentence meaning.

Semantic relations (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and entailment) reveal some basic features of semantic structure.

A basic goal of semantic theory is to provide an account of compositionality.

Pure intersection, relative intersection and non-intersection adjectives demonstrate some of the difficulties involved in accounting for semantic composition.

A semantic theory should also account for metaphor.

A linguistic approach to meaning explores the ways in which speakers use words.

This week’s lecture notes

Assignment #3: The meaning of cup

Due: Feb. 7th