Finegan Chapter 6 Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in words, sentencesm, and phrases. In semantics there are three types of meaning. They are linguistic, social and affective. In this chapter there are a number of semantic fields covered including hyponymy, part/whole relationships, synonymy, antonymy, and converseness.

Hyponymy refers to a group of words that can be categorized into a generalized term.

Converseness refers to a reciprocal relationship between words. An example would be teacher and student or employee and employer

Synonymy in this relationship the words have the same meaning.

an example of a part/whole relationship is the body-arm, foot, and hands. The last three are all parts of the body and the whole is the body.

antonymy is the opposite of synonymy so the words are opposites.

Class 4/16/09

Today's class topic was the historical development of English. Today's class was very engaging for me because I was interested in the topic and also able to use my background knowledge of other languages.
My favorite activity was the passage comparison. It was fascinating for me to see how languages develop over time. Also, my knowledge of German and a little bit of Dutch was very helpful in analyzing old English because German and Dutch are the two closest languages to English. So the final "e" in words often appears in German and Dutch in adjectives. Also, German tends to end sentences and clauses with verbs. Also, V's were initial syllable which is very common in German. V's are not usually place in the middle of words. So for me to be able to see these similarities and differences was very eye opening. It was great to be able to make all of these connections between languages. It also showed me that languages can have influences on other languages.

Class 4-9-09

Today's class went by very smoothly. Todays topic was speech acts. We first met in small groups to discuss a few questions that Dr. Smidt had put on the discussion notes. Then, we discussed our trial writing sample in small groups. We then moved into large groups and discussed some of the terminology that we will need to use when doing our final writing sample. I thought it was good practice to hear some of these terms again and keep working with the material that we have covered through out the semester. Overall, I thought it was a great class even though I continue to have microphone problems.

Class 3/26/09

Todays class focused on Chapters 10 and 11 and the "he said she said" video we watch. Todays class began with a discussion about differences in registers between eastern and western societies with regards to gender and ethnicity. The overall consensus is that there are differences between gender and ethnicity. We then moved to small groups where each group went over the different parts of the quiz from chapters 5 and 6 in Finnegan. My group worked on the tree diagram for the fourth sentence and we never got to the second part of the activity which was to discuss section 6-4. Next, we moved back into the big group and discussed the tree diagrams for the first section of the quiz. My impression of the class is that if we had a more flexible writing medium it would be easier to complete group activities, but we do not have this so it complicates communication.

Class 3/19/2009

Class last week was focused on semantics. We broke into groups and talked about specific lexical semantic groups such as hyponyms, part/whole relationships, synonyms, and antonyms. I thought these terms were pretty understandable in the reading. We also talked about practicing for our final assessment. We talked with our group members who we are supposed work together with for the practice writing sample. It is good that we were able to meet and talk with them because it keeps me organized and focused. Also the practice writing sample with be a good opportunity for me to prepare for the final assessment and give me a chance to practice what I have learned so far. My biggests concerns with class is working out technology bugs and also keeping track of group members. I feel often times that I am in too many groups and it is hard to keep track of which groups I am in for different activities. The online class makes it harder because I do not have a face to put with the name.

Syntax

I do not think Chapter 5 in Finegan could be written any more technichal than it is. Yes, the book provides you with great information, but it is very difficult to understand and hard to translate into the classroom. One thing I found interesting in this chapter is that not all languages use word order rules to express meaning for example "she ate the cat" means she ate the cat. " You can not switch she and the cat without changing the meaning of the sentence, but in other langauges for instance you can. I would like to know why there is this difference between languages. What has influenced the language in its history to create differences like this?
Freeman is like a breath of fresh air. So easy to read and understand. I like Freeman so much because it does take into account different perspectives about learning and relates them to teaching. In this chapter Freeman asserts tahat students have trouble learning and applying grammar rules when they speak and write. In chapter 9 Freeman also provides a plethora of examples of tree diagrams. These diagrams were very easy for me to understand and I was able to see a variety of sentences some that included conjunctions, auxillaries, and compound sentences. While I read about auxillaries, seeing them in a tree diagram helped me put them into perspective and made them easier for me to identify them.

Class 3-5-09

In today's class session we discussed syntax. We created tree diagrams in small groups from sentences that we created. We also went over the quiz from the week before which covered morphology. Overall I thought the class was good. I have found it very useful to practice the skills we use in activities during class time. I think it helps reinforce and process the information. Problems with technology still seem to be an issue. I think one possible solution could be for us to create the activites before class and then upload them through microsoft word if that is possible. I think this could be an alternative too quizes or the practice activites.