Anglistics Study Programme ENGLISH SEMANTICS Week 10 Anglistics

Anglistics Study Programme ENGLISH SEMANTICS Week 10 Anglistics Study Programme www. singidunum. ac. rs/admission

Anglistics Study Programme AIMS To investigate the interrelation of grammar and meaning To uncover a rationale for the varying grammatical properties of different categories Anglistics Study Programme www. singidunum. ac. rs/admission

Anglistics Study Programme FROM SOUNDS TO MEANING Language level Focus on phonology and phonetics sounds morphology morphemes, word forms syntax phrases, sentences semantics meaning Anglistics Study Programme www. singidunum. ac. rs/admission

Anglistics Study Programme Some examples of our concern 1. extra-bright/ extra-marital 2. artists’ works/ artist work 3. He’s my brother/ He’s got a brother. 4. He stopped to talk to him/ He stopped talking to him. 5. I have worked for this company for 10 years/ I worked for this company for 10 years. 6. When she has problems, she calls only her sister/ She calls her sister only when she has problems. 7. She is a most beautiful girl/ She is the most beautiful girl.

Anglistics Study Programme Grammar - ‘’(the study or use of) the rules about how words change their form and combine with other words to make sentences’’ - integral part of language - a pervasive phenomenon - the term ‘grammar’ is used to refer to all aspects of language study, including phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics (Lyons, 1994). - a more restricted term of ‘grammar’ includes only morphology and syntax, while other linguistic levels are categorised independently as phonology and semantics.

Anglistics Study Programme Reminder - lexical meaning - grammatical meaning

Anglistics Study Programme Language without grammar would be chaotic Up and he that the in Bill Jane stand announce spring marry

Anglistics Study Programme Respecting word order – but still unclear Bill stand up announce that he and Jane marry in the spring.

Anglistics Study Programme Fundamental ingredients – morphology and syntax – leading to understanding Bill stood up and announced that he and Jane would be marrying in the spring. The premise: a speaker codes a 'meaning' into grammatical forms → communicates them to a hearer → the hearer recovers the 'meaning'.

Anglistics Study Programme Sounds and meaning - a phoneme - can bring about the change of meaning (bat-pat, blog-clog, than-then), but it does not have the meaning by itself. - a connection between sounds and their meanings is primarily of arbitrary nature - onomatopoeic words

Anglistics Study Programme Onomatopoeic words - compare quack - ‘kva’ ah - ‘ah’ neigh - ‘nji’ hiss - ‘siktati’ oink - ‘grok’ woof - ‘av’

Anglistics Study Programme Grammatical semantics “the study of meaning conveyed by grammatical device” semantics of morphology semantics of syntax Every grammatical element or category bears a certain meaning which is important for a proper understanding of language constructs.

Anglistics Study Programme Semantics of morphology - What do the following affixes mean: un- (unacceptable, unconscious, unpack, undo) theo – (theocracy, theological, theology) sur- (surmount, surplus, surreal) -ee (employee, trainee, interviewee, nominee) - cide (genocide, patricide, regicide)

Anglistics Study Programme Task: What do the following words mean? bicentennial haemorrhage downgrade warmonger

Anglistics Study Programme Key elements which help us determine the meaning bicentennial – ‘’bi’’ (two) + ‘cent’ (hundred) + ‘’al’’ (adjective forming suffix) downgrade - ‘down’ (indicates that something has become worse) haemorrhage - ‘haem’ (has ‘blood’ as part of their meaning) warmonger – war + ‘’monger’’ (indicates someone who sells something or starts/ encourages stg)

Anglistics Study Programme Polysemic morphemes out- in outplay/ outrage down- in downplay/ downtown off- in off-season/ offsping

Anglistics Study Programme Quiz – grammatical semantics https: //quizizz. com Join a game Enter 5 digit number Enter your name and surname

Anglistics Study Programme https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Wn_e. Br. IDU uc

Anglistics Study Programme KEY CONCEPTS - grammatical category - a class of units (such as noun and verb) or features (such as number and case) that share a common set of characteristics - word classes

Anglistics Study Programme Nouns - nouns denote entities - noun classes (proper, common, mass, collective, abstract) - number (countable/ uncountable) - gender (gender of animation) - case - the meaning of genitive

Anglistics Study Programme Noun classes 1. Cattle is defined as a collective noun, which means that it has plural meaning. (These cattle are being fattened up for slaughter. ) 2. If common nouns are considered to be those nouns which represent the names of entities with mutual characteristics, it means that they can be used in both singular and plural forms. 3. If a noun refers to an entity which is not concrete, we call it an abstract noun. 4. If we say ‘fishes’ we refer to different kinds of fish.

Anglistics Study Programme Semantic characteristics of number - singularity and plurality (semantic vs grammatical) 1. Statistics show that young people are using social media to be informed. 2. Social media is changing its forms. 3. The media they used to express their emotions were really extraordinary. 4. one and a half days/ one and a half pages

Anglistics Study Programme Other semantic characteristics of number - the change of meaning, e. g. , I'm telling you for your own good. / All his worldly goods were packed into a neat checked carrier bag. Other examples: ground/ grounds (zemlja/ talog) , iron/ irons (gvožđe/ okovi), work/ works (rad/ fabrika), - polysemy – one meaning has only singular form, and the other both singular and plural, e. g. , business/ business (posao – radnja/ radnje), cold – colds (hladnoća – prehlada/ prehlade), tin – tins (kalaj – konzerva/ konzerve), youth/ youths (mladost – mladić/ mladići)

Anglistics Study Programme Gender - refers to animate (masculine or feminine) and inanimate - gender of animation, e. g. , It was the middle of the morning which was at her best.

Anglistics Study Programme Case - qualifying genitive identifies/ qualifies the noun (noun is emphasised, not genitive), e. g. , The girl’s story was interesting (origin), The Earth’s surface (partitive), He applied for three weeks’ leave (quantity), This is my brother’s jacket (possession). - classifying genitive attributes the meaning of the class, type the noun belongs to, e. g. , gentlemen’s society. Ambiguities: This is my brother’s picture.

Anglistics Study Programme Pronouns - personal - reflexive - possessive (This book is mine. ) - demonstrative - interrogative - universal (everybody, everyone, everything, all, each, every) - indefinite (some, any, either, both, somebody, anybody) - negative (nobody, no one, nothing, neither, no, e none)

Anglistics Study Programme Articles - functional, empty words - they have no meaning, but the entities they refer to have - The postman is waiting outside. / A postman is waiting outside.

Anglistics Study Programme Adjectives - attribute some characteristics to nouns, denote states - modifiers (classify, describe, add meaning) - they have their own meaning – lexical words - descriptive/ classifying - descriptive adjectives, e. g. , great assistance/ greater assistance, very great assistance, great and useful assistance - classifying adjectives, e. g. , medical assistance