Psycholinguistics

NOUN VOCABULARY

Group 3:
Salma Ristanti A12120169
Tessa Nadya Gabriella Dayoh A12120160
Putri Hanifah A12120141

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
TADULAKO UNIVERSITY
2023
 PREFACE

First of all, thanks to Allah SWT because of the help of Allah, we finished writing the
paper entitled “Noun Vocabulary” right in the calculated time.
The purpose in writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by Mr. Mawardin
Muhammad Said as lecturer in psycholinguistics major. 
in arranging this paper, the author truly get lots challenges and obstructions but with help of my
group, those obstructions could pass. we also realized there are still many mistakes in process of
writing this paper.
because of that, we say thank you to all my group who helps in the process of writing this paper.
Hopefully Allah replies all helps and bless you all. We realized that this paper still imperfect in
arrangement and the content.  then we hope the criticism from the readers can help our in
perfecting the next paper. last but not the least Hopefully, this paper can help the readers to gain
more knowledge about the has-relation, Hyponymy, Incompatibility, and Count nouns and mass
nouns.

Palu, 14 February 2023

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface……………………………………………………………………………………………

Table of contents…………………………………………………………………………………

Chapter I

PRELIMINARY

1.1 Background……………………………………………………………………....................

1.2 Formulation of the problem…………………………………………………………...........

Chapter II

Discussion

1 The has-relation ……………………………………………………………………….........

1.1 Pragmatic inferences from the has-relation……………………………………………......

1.2 Parts can have parts……………………………………………………………………......

1.3 Spatial parts……………………………………………………………………………….

1.4 Ends and beginnings……………………………………………………………………....

2 Hyponymy……………………………………………………………………………………

2.1 Hierarchies of hyponyms……………………………………………………………….......

3 Incompatibility……………………………………………………………………….............

3.1 Count nouns and mass nouns……………………………………………………………....

Chapter III

Closing………………………………………………………………………………...............

Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………........

References……………………………………………………….…………………………….
 Chapter I

Preliminary

1.1 Background

Semantics is concerned with the resources (vocabulary and a system for calculating
phrase-, clause- and sentence-meanings) provided by a language, and pragmatics is concerned
with how those resources are put to use in communication. Semantics is the study of the “toolkit”
for meaning: knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and in its patterns for
building more elaborate meanings, up to the level of sentence meanings. Pragmatics is concerned
with the use of these tools in meaningful communication. Pragmatics is about the interaction of
semantic knowledge with our knowledge of the world, taking into account contexts of use

Semantics is used heterogeneously in various disciplines, e.g., linguistic, logic, and

computer science including programming languages and semantic. The origin of the term”
semantics” lies in semiotics, the science of studying signs. Semiotics is closely related to
linguistic and investigates the abstraction, meaning, and rules of languages. Beside the use of the
sign studies of semiotics in linguistics, it is a common instrument in logics for describing rules
and meanings. An early and common definition of semantics in relation to semiotics was
proposed by Carnap. The definition of Carnap gives not only a linguistic view on semiotics and
semantics. It involves the aspect of logic too. He outlined that semantics is just the relation
between expressions and designate. With other words, semantics is defined by Carnap as the not
user influenced meaning or meanings of expressions. In terms of linguistic these expressions
(syntax) can occur as, e.g., words and consists of a logical structure

In this paper, we will discuss topic noun vocabulary in this English Semantics course,
there are the sub discussion namely, the has-relation, Hyponymy, Incompatibility, and Count
nouns and mass nouns.

1.2 Formulation of the problem

 What is the noun vocabulary?

 What are hyponyms?

 What is superordinate word?

 Chapter II

Discussion

Noun Vocabulary
The “things” denoted by some nouns have parts, which may figure in the nouns’
meaning, for example squares, circles and triangles belong together as shapes. In semantic
square, circle and triangle are hyponyms of the superordinate word shape.

1. The has-relation

Prototypes are clear, central members of the denotation of a word. When we think one
thing and we can protypes. Prototypes among the things denoted by the English word
face have eyes, a nose and a mouth.  These semantic facts are listed;

A prototype face has two eyes.

A prototype face has a nose.
A prototype face has a mouth.
A prototype house has a roof.
A prototype house has a door.
A prototype house has windows.

Restricted to prototypes, the has-relation makes available entailments. Some

examples are given in:
- There’s a house at the corner ⇒  ‘If it is like a prototype for house then
it has a roof ’
- The child drew a face ⇒‘  If the face was prototypical, then the child
drew a mouth’

1.1 Pragmatic inferences from the has-relation

A noun phrase that first brings something into a conversation is usually indefinite
(for example, marked by means of an indefinite article, a or an), but on second and
subsequent mention of the same thing in the conversation it will be referred to by
means of a definite noun phrase (marked by, for example, the definite article the):
a.  A: “I’ve bought a house.”
B: “Where’s the house?” (Not: “Where’s a house?”)
b.  C: (a child showing off a drawing): “I draw a face.”
D: (responding to the child and commenting on the drawing): “I like the face you
drew.” (Not: “I like a face you drew.”)
 1.2 Parts can have parts
Words denoting wholes bear the has-relation to the labels for their parts, but the
parts can, in turn, have parts, and a whole can be a part of a larger whole.

1.3 Spatial parts

A prototype thing, such as a rock, can be said to have a top, a bottom (or base),
sides and a front and back. Two points need to be noted about these words. One is
that they are general: very many different kinds of thing – windows, heads, faces,
feet, buses, trees, canyons, to randomly name just a few – have tops, bottoms, sides,
fronts and backs.

1.4 Ends and beginnings

A list of some of the things that prototypically have ends is given, example in
 - ropes
- (pieces of) string
- ships (though mariners have special words for them, stern and bows)
- roads
- trains
- planks

They also have middles. Some examples are listed in:

a. day, week, month, era, term, semester, century

b. conversation, demonstration, ceremony, meal, reception,
process

2. Hyponymy
This relation is important for describing nouns, for example, a house is one kind
of building, and a factory and a church are other kinds of building; buildings are one kind
of structure; dams are another kind of structure.

The pattern of entailment that defines hyponymy is illustrated in example:

a. There’s a house next to the gate.
b. There’s a building next to the gate.
c. (3.8a ⇒ 3.8b) & (3.8b ⇒ 3.8a)

If we are given (3.8b) as true information, then we cannot be sure that (3.8a) is true. It
might be true, but there are other possibilities: the building next to the gate could be a
barn or any other kind of building.
That is why the second half of (3.8c) has been scored out; to show that – though it
 could follow – (3.8a) does not have to follow from (3.8b). Terminology: building is a
superordinate for house and nouns labelling other kinds of building. House, barn, church,
factory, hangar and so forth are hyponyms of building.
It is possible to generalize about the pattern shown in (3.8): a sentence, such as (3.8a),
containing a hyponym of a given superordinate entails a sentence that differs from the
original one only in that the superordinate has been substituted for its hyponym, as in
(3.8b).

2.1 Hierarchies of hyponyms

House is a hyponym of the superordinate building, but building is, in turn, a
hyponym of the superordinate structure; and, in its turn, structure  is a hyponym of the
superordinate thing. A superordinate at a given level can itself be a hyponym at a higher
level.

The hyponymy relation passes through intermediate levels in the hierarchy, which
means that house is not only a hyponym of building, but is also a hyponym of building’s
immediate superordinate, structure; and, via structure, house is also a hyponym of thing.
Thing is a superordinate for all the words on lines that can be traced down from it in the
hierarchy, and so on.

Please take ‘with connections’ as short for ‘with connections between its parts’.
Notice that the meaning of a hyponym is the meaning of its immediate superordinate
elaborated by a modifier; so, the meaning of house is the meaning of building modified,
in this case by the modifier ‘for living in’. Because building is itself a hyponym one level
below structure, its meaning is that of structure plus a modifier, ‘with walls and a roof’;
and so on.

3. Incompatibility
A small hyponym hierarchy is shown above:

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are hyponyms of meal, their immediate superordinate word.
Hyponymy is about classification:
breakfast, lunch and dinner are kinds of meal.
Incompatibility is about contrast: breakfast, lunch and dinner are different from each
other within the category of meals; they are eaten at different times of day.
3.1 Count nouns and mass nouns

Mass nouns resist being quantified with numbers and plural suffixes or the word
many or the singular indefinite article a (right-hand column in Table 3.2), while count
nouns (in the left-hand column) can be quanted in this way. Count nouns denote
distinguishable whole entities, like beans or people or shirts. They can be counted. Mass
nouns are quanted with the word much. They denote undifferentiated substance, like
dough or water or lava.
 BAB III

Closing

Conclusion

The important sources of entailment possibilities contributed to sentences by

nouns: the has-relation, concerned with the parts that prototype members of categories
have; hyponymy, which links words into hierarchies where superordinate words group
together the kinds that comprise them; and incompatibility, which is the relation holding
between the different (non-synonymous) hyponyms of any superordinate. Antonymy is a
special case of incompatibility. It was shown that words denoting parts can themselves
bear has-relations to their own parts, that they can be superordinate to their own
hyponyms, and that hyponyms “inherit” parts from their super ordinates.
The distinction between count nouns and mass nouns was explained as a way of
portraying the world. Labelling with a mass noun treats what is referred to as
homogeneous substance, and therefore as not having distinct parts. Though they do not
enter the has-relation, mass nouns can figure in hyponymy and income-partibility just as
count nouns do.
 References

Griffiths Patrick,2006. An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics, Edinburgh

University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh

http://monicasemantics.blogspot.com/2017/07/noun-vocabulary.html