Semantics: a coursebook, second edition
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xiii examples. Most of the time, the students’ intuitions about the meanings of words, sentences, and utterances will be sound and consistent, but they lack the terminology to discuss meanings systematically. As noted above in our advice to students, discussion usually helps to clarify issues. Approach the questions asked by your students with an open mind, aiming to see how any misunderstandings may have arisen. And always be prepared to admit that some of the basic exercises in this book are not, ultimately, susceptible to quite such cut-and-dried answers as we have given. That is not to say that questions in semantics can’t be resolved by sensible discussion, but just that the answers may sometimes be more subtle, and more interesting, than some of the cut-and-dried sample feedback answers that we have given. 1 1 Basic ideas in semantics UNIT 1 ABOUT SEMANTICS Definition SEMANTICS is the study of MEANING in LANGUAGE. Comment The rest of this book can be regarded as an example of how one goes about investigating and understanding semantics. It may seem to you that meaning is so vague, insubstantial, and elusive that it is impossible to come to any clear, concrete, or tangible conclusions about it. We hope to convince you that by careful thought about the language you speak and the way it is used, de finite conclusions CAN be arrived at concerning meaning. In the first exercise below, we ask you to start to get yourself into the habit of careful thinking about your language and the way you use it, concentrating, naturally, on instances of such words as mean, means, and meaning. Practice Reproduced below is a well-known passage from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. Pick out all the instances of the word mean (or means, or meant), noting which lines they occur in. (Some line numbers are given in the margin for convenience.) After the passage there are some questions for you to answer. 1 ‘. . . that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents.’ ‘Certainly,’ said Alice. ‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for 5 you!’ ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,” ’ Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knockdown argument for you.” ’ ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean ‘a nice knockdown argument,’ Alice 10 objected. ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many di fferent things.’ 15 ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’ PA RT O N E Basic ideas in semantics 2 (1) What word is the subject of the verb mean in line 6? .......................................................................................................................... (2) What is the subject of the verb mean in line 9? .......................................................................................................................... (3) What is understood as the subject of the verb mean in line 12? .......................................................................................................................... (4) List all the instances (by line number) where mean, means, or meant has a personal subject, e.g. I or you. (Include instances already listed in the questions above.) .......................................................................................................................... (5) List all the instances (by line number) in which mean, or means, or meant is understood as having as subject something linguistic, e.g. a word, or words. (Include instances mentioned in questions above.) .......................................................................................................................... Feedback (1) you (2) the word glory (3) it, or a word (4) lines 6, 8 (5) lines 9, 12, 12, 13 Comment Lewis Carroll had brilliant insights into the nature of meaning (and into the foibles of people who theorize about it). In the passage above, he is playfully suggesting that the meanings carried by words may be a ffected by a speaker’s will. On the whole, we probably feel that Alice is right, that words mean what they mean independently of the will of their users, but on the other hand it would be foolish to dismiss entirely Humpty Dumpty’s enigmatic final remark. Lewis Carroll’s aim was to amuse, and he could a fford to be enigmatic and even nonsensical. The aim of serious semanticists is to explain and clarify the nature of meaning. For better or for worse, this puts us in a di fferent literary genre from Through the Looking Glass. The time has come to talk seriously of meaning. Practice (1) Do the following two English sentences mean (approximately) the same thing? tải về 1.74 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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