Linguistics 616--Semantic Theory

Scott DeLancey
346-3901
delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu


Linguistics 616 -- Topics and readings                Spring 1997


Required text:  Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things.


Week 1: Introduction to the problems of semantics

     Lakoff Chs. 1-2, Katz 1972, Jackendoff 1988  

Week 2: Basic issues in lexical semantics

     Definitions: Putnam 1970, Haiman 1980
     Componential analysis: Katz 1972, Bolinger 1965

Week 3: Prototype theory

     Prototypes: Lakoff Ch. 3, Lakoff 1972, Rosch 1975 or 1978
     Basic level: Brown 1958

Week 4: Frames & schemas

     Lakoff Chs. 4-7, 17
     Frames: Minsky 1975, Fillmore 1975
     ICM's: Coleman & Kay 1981 with Sweetser 1987

     On definitions: Wierzbicka 1984, 1985
     Networks: Quillian 1968

Week 5: Metaphor

     Lakoff Chs. 8-10
     Reddy 1979, Basso 1967
     Idioms: Ernst 1981

Week 6: Verbs

     Vendler 1967, Talmy 1985, DeLancey 1991

Week 8: Case

     DeLancey 1984, Lakoff 1977, Langacker 1986

Week 9: Local relations and localism

     Jackendoff 1978

Week 10: Tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality

     Goldsmith & Woisetschlaeger 1982


Lingustics 616  recommended readings

Basso, Keith (1967), Semantic aspects of linguistic
     acculturation. American Anthropologist 69.

Bolinger, Dwight (1965), The atomization of meaning. Lg. 41.

Brown, Roger. (l958), How shall a thing be called? Psych. Rev. 
     65.14-21. also in Brown, Psycholinguistics (l970).

Coleman, Linda and Paul Kay (1981), Prototype semantics:  The
     English word lie. Language 57:26-44.

DeLancey, Scott (1984), Notes on agentivity and causation.
     Studies in Language 8:181-213.

DeLancey, Scott (1991), Event construal and case role assignment.
     BLS 17:338-53.

Ernst, Thomas (1981), Grist for the linguistic mill:  idioms and
     "extra" adjectives.  J. of Linguistic Research 1.3:51-68.

Fillmore, Charles (1975), An alternative to checklist theories of
     meaning.  BLS 1:123-131.

Goldsmith, John, and E. Woisetschlaeger (l982), The logic of the
     English progressive. Linguistic Inquiry 13.1:79-90.

Haiman, John (1980), Dictionaries and encyclopedias.  Lingua
     50.329-357.

Jackendoff, Ray (1978), Grammar as evidence for conceptual
     structure. (Halle, Bresnan and Miller, Linguistic Theory and
     Psychological Reality, pp. 201-28).

Jackendoff, Ray (1988), Conceptual semantics.  (U. Eco et. al.,
     Meaning and Mental Representation, 81-97).

Katz, Jerrold (1972), The Philosophy of Language, pp. 151-175
     ("Semantic Theory"), 224-239 ("Semantic Categories").

Lakoff, George (1972), Hedges:  A study in meaning criteria and
     the logic of fuzzy ocncepts.  CLS 8:183-228.

Lakoff, George (1977), Linguistic gestalts.  CLS 13:236-87.

Langacker, Ronald (1986), Settings, participants, and grammatical
     relations. (S. DeLancey and R. Tomlin, eds., Proceedings of
     the Second Annual Meeting of the Pacific Linguistics
     Conference, pp. 1-31).

Minsky, Marvin (1975), A framework for representing knowledge.
     (P. Winston, The Psychology of Computer Vision, pp. 211-280
     (long version)).

Putnam, Hilary (1970), Is semantics possible?  (H.E. Kiefer and
     M.K. Munitz, eds., Language, Belief, and Metaphysics, pp.
     50-63).

Quillian, M. Ross (1968), Semantic memory. (M. Minsky, ed.,
     Semantic Information Processing, pp. 216-270).

Reddy, Michael (1979), The conduit metaphor -- a case of frame
     conflict in our language about language. (A. Ortony, 
     Metaphor and Thought, pp. 284-324).

Rosch, Eleanor (1975), Cognitive representations of semantic
     categories.  J. Experimental Psychology: General 104.5:192-
     233.

Rosch, Eleanor (1978), Principles of categorization. (E. Rosch
     and B. Lloyd, eds., Cognition and Categorization, pp. 27-
     48).

Sweetser, Eve (1987), The definition of lie. (D. Holland and N.
     Quinn, eds., Cultural Models in Language and Thought, pp.
     43-66).

Talmy, Leonard (1985) Lexicalization patterns:  semantic
     structure in lexical forms.  (T. Shopen, ed., Language
     Typology and Syntactic Description III:  Grammatical
     Categories and the Lexicon, pp. 57-149.

Vendler, Zeno (1967), Verbs and times. In: Z. Vendler,
     Linguistics in Philosophy, pp. 97-121. Ithaca: Cornell
     University Press.

Wierzbicka, Anna (1984), Apples are not a "kind of fruit":  the
     semantics of human categorization.  American Ethnologist
     313-28.

Wierzbicka, Anna (1985), Lexicography, pp. 193-226.