Semant ics
Week 5
Linguist ic Cont ext
A. Cont ext as meaning
The most ext reme view
sees t he meaning of t he word as whol l y st at eabl e in t erms of cont ext in which it occured
st ruct ural ist (1950s) t he idea of dist ribut ion
The not ion of Dist ribut ion
usage according t o environment
In phonol ogy :
Two ‘ l ’ s in l eaf and ‘ f eel ’
compl ement ary dist ribut ion
Phoneme / p/ al l ophones [ ph]
[ p]
In morphol ogy :
‘ a’ and ‘ an’ are ‘ compl ement ary’
Synt agmat ic vs Paradigmat ic rel at ions
Dist ribut ion synt agmat ic rel at ions
Para dig ma tic
Syntagmatic
The cat sat on the mat
B. Col l ocat ion
A much l ess ext reme view
Firt h : ‘ we shal l know a word by t he company it keeps’
words t hat can ‘ go t oget her’
The st udy of l inguist ic cont ext :
it enabl es us t o dist inguish bet ween dif f erent meanings
Rat her,
words may have more speacif ic meaning in part icul ar col l ocat ions, e. g.
except ional / abnormal weat her
except ional / abnormal chil d
Col l ocat ional rest rict ion
based whol l y on t he meaning of t he it em
based on range
C. Idioms
col l ocat ion of a special kind
not ref erring t o t he meaning of t he individual word
it does not f unct ion as a singl e word, t hus, cannot be seen as one
some may be put in passive voice, but some may not
D. Col l ocat ion and Grammar
“ Sel ect ional Rest rict ions”
any sent ence which does not compl y t o t hem is rul ed out and t he grammar wil l not generat e it , e. g. The idea cut t he t ree
I drank t he bread
He f right ened t hat he was coming He el apsed t he man
