Pitanja za zavrni ispit iz semantike

1. Define componential analysis and provide the names of the semanticists who created the theory. The theory was created by American semanticists Katz, Fodor and Weinreich. It is the semantic approach where a words meaning is reduced to its ultimate minimal (contrastive) components (elements). The word is broken down into meaningful components which make up the total sum of the meaning in a word. (Katz) Katz tried to describe words in terms of relatively small sets of general elements of meaning which some are also called Universals. 2. Is kinship terminology the most important for componential analysis? Provide the basic example. It is a domain where componential analysis was successfully used, because we need many semantic components to distinguish the kinship terms. For example, colour vocabulary, and words for botanical and animal world easily lend themselves for this kind of analysis. A basic example of how we use componential analysis in kinship terms would be: MAN HUMAN ADULT MALE + HUMAN + ADULT + MALE WOMAN + HUMAN + ADULT - MALE BOY + HUMAN - ADULT + MALE GIRL + HUMAN - ADULT -MALE

3. What are the dimensions in componential analysis? In the above mentioned example, the words in green are dimensions. They are overall feature sets that are necessary and sufficient to discriminate the kin terms. When defining a word, we turn these dimensions into FEATURES or COMPONENTS by adding a plus or a minus in front of them, depending on the word we wish to define. The dimensions for man are HUMAN, MAN and ADULT, and the components/features are [+HUMAN], [+MAN], [+ADULT].

4. Mention the types of semantic components, according to Nida.

Common, Diagnostic, Supplementary

There are three different types of semantic components, according to Nida. The first type is COMMON (common to all of the meanings in the set and define it) ili (those that serve to identify a semantic domain and that are shared by all the lexemes in the domain). In our example, [+HUMAN] would be a common component. The second type is DIAGNOSTIC (necessary and sufficient to distinguish between various meanings) ili (those that serve to distinguish lexemes from each other within a semantic domain). In our example, both [+ADULT] and [+MALE] are diagnostic components. And the third type is SUPPLEMENTARY (additional features, important for an extensive definition of a meaning). One may feel that run is faster than walk and so wish to set up a component of speed as a diagnostic feature of run. Although speed is not diagnostic in this case (one can also walk quickly), it is an important supplementary component. 5. How would you define semantic primes, according to Anna Wierzbicka? Wierzbicka and Goddard propose that all concepts (pojmovi) can be defined in terms of primitive components. They are simple, phenomenal, perceptual, innately understood, and learned through practice. The first universal primitive inventory contained 43 atoms, but was later on expanded to 61. 6. What is semantic frame? Provide the basic example. Semantic frame is a collection of facts that specify characteristic features, attributes and functions of a denotatum, as well as the interactions with things typically associated with it. Basically, it means that one cannot understand the meaning of a single word without having access to all the essential knowledge related to that word. Another definition: In Frame semantics, a semantic frame is defined as a coherent structure of concepts that are related in such a way that without knowledge of all of them, one does not have complete knowledge of one of them either. You cannot understand the word SELL without knowing the situation of commercial transfer (involving seller, buyer, goods, money, interaction between money and goods etc.) 7. What do we discuss about in the frame of temporality? We define temporality as the linear progression of past, present, and future. The principal linguistic expression of temporality is tense, but within this frame we also discuss about aspectuality (tense aspect and lexical aspect or aktionsart).

8. Provide three types of tenses with illustrative examples.

DEICTIC, PRIMARY, ABSOLUTE these tenses locate situations in the past, present and future times. (e.g. past sank, present sink, future will sink) RELATIVE locates situations relative to time intervals within those three times. (e.g. has sunk, would sink [perfektivna vremena]) METRICAL indicate the degree of remoteness from the deictic centre (immediate past, remote past)

9. Aktionsart or lexical aspect is? Aktionsart involves characterization of situations in terms of the different ways in which they occur: e.g. semelfactive (wag) vs iterative (waggle) or activity (read a book for an hour) vs accomplishment (read a book in an hour). 10. Does lexical aspect concern primarily the internal temporal constituency? Yes, it does. The linguistic expression of aspectuality, which concerns the different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation has been termed aspect or aktionsart (kind of action).

11. Is tense a deictic category? What does deictic mean? Yes, tense is a deictic category, because it indicates spatial and temporal relations. [Deiksa je skup jezikih elemenata koji upuduju na vremensko-prostorne okruenje komunikacije koja se odvija). There are three types of tenses: Absolute, Relative and Metrical. The first type is also known as deictic or primary. Deictic tenses locate situations in the past, present and future times (e.g. past sank, present sink, future will sink). 12. Provide at least two definitions and five examples of collocations.

Collocations are partly or fully fixed experssions that become established through repeated context-dependent use. Such terms as crystal clear, middle management, nuclear family, cosmetic surgery, keep a promise are examples of collocated pairs of words. (Halliday) A collocation is a permissible connection of usually two lexemes within a grammatical structure. (Hlebec)

13. What is a collocate? Give the definition and demonstrate on at least three examples. A collocate is one of the two or more elements that make up a collocation. a surge of anger [surge] and [anger] are collocates happily married [happily] and [married] are collocates a major problem [major] and [problem] are collocates.

14. Who was the first to introduce the term collocation? How did he define it? Firth inroduced the term collocation. He considered that meaning by collocation is lexical meaning at the syntagmatic level. A word is known by the company it keeps.

15. What is collocability? Collocability is the possibility or the pronounced tendency of two or more words to cooccur in texts. It depends on the semantic content of lexemes involved. (Lyons)

16. Describe the three types of relations that collocations can be in.

Collocations

can

be

in

a syntactic relation

(such

as verb-object:

'make'

and

'decision'), lexical relation (such as antonymy), or they can be in no linguistically defined relation. Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language: a grammatically correct sentence will stand out as 'awkward' if collocational preferences are violated. This makes collocation an interesting area for language teaching.

17. What are the three perspectives of collocations that Gledhill proposes?

Gledhill proposes that collocation involves at least three different perspectives: cooccurrence, a statistical view, which sees collocation as the recurrent appearance in a text of a node and its collocates, construction, which sees collocation either as a correlation between a lexeme and a lexicalgrammatical pattern, or as a relation between a base and its collocative partners, and expression, a pragmatic view of collocation as a conventional unit of expression, regardless of form. It should be pointed out here that these different perspectives contrast with the

usual way of presenting collocation in phraseological studies. Traditionally speaking, collocation is explained in terms of all three perspectives at once, in a continuum: Free Combination Bound Collocation Frozen Idiom

18. Define and describe the term colligation, according to Firth.

According to Firth (1968:181), colligation is "the interrelation of grammatical categories in syntactical structure." colligation refers to the relations between words at the grammatical level, i.e. the relations of 'word and sentence classes or of similar categories' instead of 'between words as such.' But nowadays the term colligation has been used to refer not only to significant co-occurrence of a word with grammatical classes or categories, but also to significant co-occurrence of a word with grammatical words. The patterning with grammatical words, of course, can be observed and computed even using a raw corpus. ..What collocation is on a lexical level of analysis, colligation is on a syntactic level.. ..the grammatical company a word keeps and the positions it prefers; in other words, a words colligations describe what it typically does grammatically......

19. Which use of the term colligation is more widespread nowadays? How would you define it? Although based on Firth's concept, the more widespread Sinclairian use of colligation describes the co-occurrence of a class of grammatical items with a specified node. For instance, regarding the node true feelings, Sinclair notes that 'there is a strong colligation with a possessive adjective'. Other kinds of colligation might be a preference for a particular verb tense, negative particles, modal verbs, participles, that- clauses, and so on. The notion that words may prefer (or, indeed, avoid) particular positions in text is picked up by Hoey in his more detailed definition of colligation.

20. Name the three typical criteria for collocations and describe them in detail.

Typical criteria for collocations (non-compositionality, non-substitutability, nonmodifiability)

A phrase is compositional if the meaning can predicted from the meaning of the parts. e.g. new companies A phrase is non-compositional if the meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of the parts. e.g. hot dog Collocations are not necessarily fully compositional in that there is usually an element of meaning added to the combination. e.g. strong tea.

Near-synonyms cannot be substituted for the components of a collocation. e.g. We cant say yellow wine instead of white wine even though yellow is as good a description of the color of white wine as white is (it is kind of a yellowish white). Non-modifiability: We cannot modify a collocation or apply syntactic transformations. Many collocations cannot be freely modified with additional lexical material or through grammatical transformations. e.g. white wine - *whiter wine mother in law - *mother in laws
21. How can we divide collocations? Provide the seven different types of collocations and give an example for each type.

Transitive verb + noun e.g. She bought three books in Belgrade last week. Noun + intransitive verb

e.g. The economy boomed in the 1990s.

Adjective + noun e.g. Unemployment is a major problem for the government. Verb + adverb e.g. She pulled steadily on the rope and helped him to safety. Adverb + adjective e.g. They are happily married. Verb + adjective e.g. My daughters tongue has turned blue. Noun + Noun e. g. a surge of anger (NOT a rush of anger), The ceasefire agreement came into effect at 11am.

22. Provide a few collocations using DO, MAKE, KEEP, PAY, GET, TAKE and BREAK. DO - do nothing, do someone a favour, do the cooking, do the housework, do the

shopping, do the washing up, do your best, do your hair, do your homework
MAKE - make a mess, make a mistake, make a noise, make an effort, make room,

make money
KEEP - keep a diary, keep a promise, keep calm, keep in touch, keep the change PAY - pay a fine, pay attention, pay by credit card, pay the price, pay your respects GET - get a job, get divorced, get married, get the message, get worried TAKE - take break, take a chance, take an exam, take notes, take someone's place BREAK - break a habit, break a promise, break a record, break the law, break the rules 23. If strong tea is a collocation, would you say that hot potato is a collocation as well? Explain these two expressions and your answer. Unlike strong tea, hot potato is not a collocation. Structurally they are the same, but there is a big difference between these two because hot potato has figurative meaning. It is an idiomatic expression which means a very sensitive matter that is difficult or embarrassing to deal with. For example, we can say: His resignation is a political hot potato. So, if a collocation has figurative meaning, it is an idiom.