THE LINGUISTICS SEMANTICS FIELD

The Linguistics Semantics Field

Linguistics Semantics Field

Specific vs. Generic

A ringtail Possum

Specific Interpretation: A Ringtail Possum is an Australian marsupial. It lives in a variety of habitats and eats a variety of leaves of both native and introduced plants, as well as flowers and fruits.

Generic Interpretation: The scientific name of a Ringtail Possum is a bit of a mouthful and means 'false-hand from foreign parts'.

The ringtail Possum

Specific Interpretation: The Ringtail Possum has a long friction pad on its underside and is used as a fifth limb when climbing and also to carry nesting material.

Generic Interpretation: The head and body the Ringtail Possum are from 300 to 350 mm, with the tail also between 300 to 350mms.

Ringtail Possums

Specific Interpretation: Ringtail Possums are almost entirely arboreal, and climb by simple bounds, jump well and crawl amongst branches.

Generic Interpretation: Ringtail Possums have selendontic dentition - their molar teeth have sharp, triangular or crescentic ridges on them.

Re-writing the specific and generic sentences

A ringtail Possum

Specific Interpretation: A Ringtail Possum is an Australian marsupial. It lives in a mixture of habitats and eats a selection of leaves of inhabitant and initiated plants, as well as flowers and fruits.

Generic Interpretation: The technical name of a Ringtail Possum is a bit of a mouthful and signifies 'false-hand from foreign parts'.

The ringtail Possum

Specific Interpretation: The Ringtail Possum has a long resistance pad on its bottom and is used as a fifth limb when climbing and also to take nesting stuff.

Generic Interpretation: The head and body the Ringtail Possum are from 300 to 350 mm, with the tail also involving 300 to 350mms.

Ringtail Possums

Specific Interpretation: Ringtail Possums are approximately completely arboreal, and climb by easy bounds, jump well and crawl amid branches.

Generic Interpretation: Ringtail Possums have selendontic dentition - their molar teeth have sharp, triangular or crescentic ridges on them.

What does the logical form capture that the English does not? What does the English express that is absent in the logical form? Give examples.

The scheme is the basis for an English translation system called PArR and was used to specify a semantically interesting fragment of English, including such constructs as tense, aspect, modals, and various lexically controlled verbs complement structures. Grammar formalism is beet characterized as n specialized type of augmented context-free grammar° That is, we take a grammar to be a set of context-frees rules that define a language and associate structural descriptions (parse trees) for each sentence in that language in the usual way.

Denotation and connotation

Neutral Positive Negative

Thinslenderscrawny

Carvehicleauto

SpeakTalkChat

WalkMarchToddle

Three more Examples

Neutral Positive Negative

LightBeam Glow

AngerAnnoyRage

Happy JoyfulPleased

Choose one of the above sets of a neutrally, positively and negatively connotated item. What is a context in which the item with positive connotations would be inappropriate? When would the negatively connotated item be inappropriate?

The relationship between words and meanings is extremely complicated, and belongs to the field of semantics. For now, though, what you need to know is that words do not have single, simple meanings. In this case, the dry legal expression "with no ...