Universitt des Saarlandes

1
Semantics Exam Topics

• Universität des Saarlandes
• Department 4.3 English Linguistics
• Professor Dr. N. R. Norrick
• Lecture Semantics

2
Semantics Exam

• Whats semantics?
• Linguistic meaning
• semantics between syntax and pragmatics
• semantics and adjacent disciplines
• semasiology, semiotics, philology, philosophy,
  anthropology, psychology

3
2 Semantics as a discipline synchronic
Saussure (1916) Bréal (1883) Trier
(1931) Porzig (1934) Firth (1935) The
technique of semantics
4

• Semantics in linguistic theories
• Structuralism
• Behaviorism
• Generative Grammar
• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

5
4 Models of meaning conduit model of
communication (Reddy 1969) Shannon and
Weaver (1949) Saussure (1916) dyadic
model arbitraire du signe The
semiotic triangle
6
5 Deixis (Indexicality) Person, space,
time Discourse deixis
7

• Meaning properties
• Meaningfulness
• Meaninglessness
• Tautology
• Anomaly
• Ambiguity 
• Zeugma
• Depletion

8
7 Compositionality Principle of
Compositionality Syncategorimaticity
Non-compositional constructions
9
8 Lexical relations Semantic fields
Sense relations Synonymy Polysemy
Homophony cf. Homonymy, Homography
Hyponymy Inclusion Metonymy
Antonymy Graded (scalar) adjectives
Complementaries Converses
Incompatibles
10
9 Componential analysis Features in
Semantic Theory Psychologically real
concepts vs. meta-language notation
Markerese in TG Projection Rules
11

• Metaphor
• Traditional accounts
• original vs dead metaphor
• extended metaphor
• Metaphor as ungrammatical structure
• Metaphor as anomaly
• Metaphor as figurative speech act
• Interactional theories of metaphor
• Cognitive Linguistic theories of metaphor

12

• Semantic scripts
• prototypes
• Prototype Effects in grammar
• Scripts/Frames/Schemas/Cognitive Models
• inferences

13

• Semantics and grammar
• Grammatical categories
• Grammatical relations
• Semantic Case (Fillmore 1968, 1977)
• Sentence Type

14

• Utterance Meaning
• Uses of language
• Speech events, text types
• Presupposition
• Implicature
• The Cooperative Principle
• The maxims
• Speech acts

15

• Coherence
• Thematic structure
• Information structure