Course description

Goals: We wil ask (and maybe answer) questions like the following: What is a word? What is the meaning of a word? Do words simply substitute for objects, or are they more like keys to a set of instructions for finding and dealing with objects? What do people do with words?

Addressees: Mainly students of English and the various branches of linguistics, Grundstudium.

Content:

• Defining `word': Definitions, terminology, dictionaries.
• `music-blues-rap-vocal': analysis of selected semantic fields
• `ball [+ count, +toy_artefact] OR [+count, +social_event]': semantic components.
• for all x,y, if SON(x,y) then PARENT(y,x): relations between words.
• `discus, Diskus, Tisch, desk, disk, disk-drive, Diskette': how do word meanings change?
• Learning meaning: how do children learn words and their meanings?
• Losing meaning: semantic processes in aphasia.
• Being practical: linking word meanings in a thesaurus hyperlexicon.

Methods:

• Projects with library/WWW research: group reports.
• Construction of `hyperlexicon' samples.
• Electronic publishing of lexicon hypertexts.
• Qualification by term paper (formal details on Web page for classes).

Reading: See the reserved bookshelf (Semesterapparat), and particularly the following:

Cruse, D. A. (1986). Lexical semantics. Cambridge: C.U.P.

von Savigny, E. (1971). Grundkurs im wissenschaftlichen Definieren. M"unchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag.

Saeed, John I. (1997). Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Preparation: Check the result of entering ``Lexical Semantics'' as a string query (in quotes) to the AltaVista Web search engine and prepare a short written overview in computer-readable form (Word, ASCII, LaTeX, HTML, ...).