This course is offered in the first term of the fourth year of the Degree in English Studies.



In very general terms, semantics deals with the study of the meaning of lexical units and their combinations.



The aim of this course is to make students familiar with the essentials of English Semantics, with a view to completing the training in English Linguistics that students have received in other subjects. As general objectives, and on top of the specific objectives of individual units, students will be expected to identify the place of semantics within linguistics, be able to use technical terms in the field, relate lexical and sentence meaning and account for basic logical and grammatical aspects of the meanings of English expressions.

This subject belongs to Module M3 Foundations of English Linguistics. It aims at achieving Module Competence M03CM01:



M03CM01: To describe and analyze the structure of English in its phonetic, morphological, syntactic and semantic components.



The course will focus on that part of the Module Competence that describes and analyses the semantic component of the language.



Acquiring this module competence is linked to the fullfilment of the following Degree Competences:



G001: To be able to produce and understand any type of oral and written text in English.

G003: To be able to analyse, synthesise, and explain the grammar and use of English.

G008: To be able to work autonomously and in teams, making use of the techniques and tools learned.

G009: To be able to transmit the knowledge acquired in different academic contexts to be used in diverse professional contexts.



Learning outcomes:



Successful students will be able to successful students will

- have some understanding of the aims of semantics and can handle some basic technical terms in the field,

- be familiar with basic lexical semantic properties and relations,

- understand what is meant by the notions of sense and reference/denotation,

- be able to identify the referential properties of nominals in English,

- understand what is meant by the truth value of a sentence,

- be able to represent negation, conjunction and disjunction, materail implication and the biconditional connective by means of truth tables, and understand how these notions are interdefined,

- be able to define the meaning relations of entailment, paraphrase, presupposition, contradiction and incompatibility,

- be able to link these meaning relations between sentences to the lexical meaning relations of hyponymy, synonymy and opposition from which they often arise,

- be able to identify the predicate-argument structure of both simple and complex sentences and will be able to translate them into the predicate-argument notation,

- be able to identify and provide evidence of the different types of eventuality described by different sentences,

- be able to analyse how the different components of the sentence contribute to determining the type of eventuality described,

- be able to identify what aspects of the meaning of a verb are responsible for its participation in different argument structure alternations, such as the middle, conative, part-ascension, causative, dative and locative alternations.

0. INTRODUCTION

1. SENSE AND REFERENCE

2. TRUTH-CONDITIONAL SEMANTICS I

3. TRUTH-CONDITIONAL SEMANTICS II

4. PREDICATES AND ARGUMENTS

5. MEANING AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR I (LEXICAL ASPECT)

6. MEANING AND ENGLISH GRAMMAR II (ARGUMENT STRUCTURE ALTERNATIONS)





A very detailed course guide is made available to students on E-gela. On our first session we spend the necessary time going through it in case further clarification is needed.

The course revolves around theoretical lectures (around 60% of class time) and practical exercises, both individual and in groups, covering aproximately 40% of class time.



Students are expected to read the lecture notes available on eGgela before each session, and afterwards read the back-up material (also available on eGgela), and do the exercises for the following sessions.



SELF-STUDY:



Students can both practise and assess their own progress in the subjec by doing the on-line quizzes that are available on eGgela for each unit.

• Continuous Assessment System
• Final Assessment System
• Tools and qualification percentages:
  • Three written tests during the term (see below) (%): 100

The students will take three on-site tests during the term each carrying one third of the total marks for the subject, distributed as follows:



- Section 1: Units 0, 1 and 2

- Section 2: Units 3 and 4

- Section 3: Units 5 and 6



The final grade will be an aggregate score of the results for each section, with no individual pass mark for each of the tests and a global pass mark of 50%.



Students who fall short of the 50% pass mark, or who want to improve their global score can retake any of the tests they took during the term in the Convocatoria Ordinaria.

The use of mobile or electronic devices as sources of information is strictly forbidden during the tests, as is the use of lecture notes, books or any other source.



Withdrawal from Continuous or Mixed Assessment: All students have the right to be evaluated according to the final evaluation procedure independently of whether or not they have participated in the continuous or mixed assessment module.



To withdraw from continuous assessment the student must write to the instructor expressing their desire to withdraw within the first 9 weeks of the course.



In addition, not sitting the exam on the official date qualifies as an automatic withdrawal from the corresponding call and the student will be assessed as 'No grade reported' (No presentado)

For the Convocatoria Extraordinaria, students will take a global written examination (100%), pass mark 50%.



The use of mobile or electronic devices as sources of information is strictly forbidden during the tests, as is the use of lecture notes, books or any other source.

Lecture notes, compulsory reading of back up material quoted in every unit and practical exercises that go with each unit. All the material (lecture notes + exercise sheets + back-up material + classroom slides) is made available to students on eGgela, as is the rest of the specific course information. On-line quizzes for each unit are available on eGgela.

Basic bibliography

Basic Textbooks



Cruse, A. 2000 Meaning in language. Oxford: O.U.P.

Chierchia, G. & McConnell-Ginet, S. 2000 Meaning and grammar, Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T Press

Gregory, H. 2000 Semantics. London: Routledge

Hurford, J.R., Heasley, B. & Smith, M.B. 2007 Semantics. A coursebook. Cambridge: C.UP. 2nd edition.

Kearns, K. 2000 Semantics, Palgrave MacMillan.

Kearns, K. 2011 Semantics, Palgrave MacMillan, 2nd edition.

Larson, R. & Segal, G. 1995 Knowledge of meaning. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T Press

Riemer, N. 2010 Introducing semantics: C.U.P.

Saeed, J. 2007 Semantics. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 3rd edition

In-depth bibliography

Advanced bibliography

Maienborn, C., von Heusinger, K. & Portner, P. (Eds.) 2011-2013 Semantics: an international handbook of natural language meaning, vols 1, 2, 3. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Specific bibliographical references are provided with the lecture notes for every unit.

Journals

Journal of Semantics

Web addresses

http://semanticsarchive.net