Lynne Murphy | University of Sussex (original) (raw)
Books by Lynne Murphy
The study of antonyms (or 'opposites') in a language can provide important insight into word mean... more The study of antonyms (or 'opposites') in a language can provide important insight into word meaning and discourse structures. This book provides an extensive investigation of antonyms in English and offers an innovative model of how we mentally organize concepts and how we perceive contrasts between them. The authors use corpus and experimental methods to build a theoretical picture of the antonym relation, its status in the mind and its construal in context. Evidence is drawn from natural antonym use in speech and writing, first-language antonym acquisition, and controlled elicitation and judgements of antonym pairs by native speakers. The book also proposes ways in which a greater knowledge of how antonyms work can be applied to the fields of language technology and lexicography.
Papers by Lynne Murphy
This book is not an introduction to markedness, but rather a history of the concept and its appli... more This book is not an introduction to markedness, but rather a history of the concept and its application by two influential linguists, Roman Jakobson and Noam Chomsky, and their followers. As shown throughout the book, while both theorists used markedness as an explanatory tool in accounting for language structure and acquisition, neither developed a coherent theory of markedness.
This volume brings together nineteen contributions that provide an excellent overview of current ... more This volume brings together nineteen contributions that provide an excellent overview of current research on language and gesture. Apart from an introductory chapter, in which McNeill distinguishes gesture from a number of related phenomena such as pantomime and sign language, the volume is subdivided into four sections, dealing respectively with gesture in interaction, gesture and cognition, modeling gesture performance, and the relation with signed languages.
In this published version of her 1999 Habilitationsschrift (post-doctoral thesis), Alexiadou inve... more In this published version of her 1999 Habilitationsschrift (post-doctoral thesis), Alexiadou investigates the (morpho-) syntax of nominalizations. One interesting consequence of a careful study of nominalizations is that it opens a particularly revealing window to the finer structure of the nominal layer, the DP, across languages. And A is indeed concerned with a crosslinguistic perspective.
Racial labels present particular problems for lexicographers. Because terms such as white, Black,... more Racial labels present particular problems for lexicographers. Because terms such as white, Black, Afro-American, and Caucasoid carry different social and political connotations (and often different denotations) with different speakers, audiences, and contexts, writing accurate decontextualized definitions proves challenging. The present study examines four American college dictionaries with regard to the denotational accuracy of their definitions of terms for pecple of Af-rican or European descent.
Abstract This paper raises and discusses three questions about the structure of Meaning-Text Theo... more Abstract This paper raises and discusses three questions about the structure of Meaning-Text Theory, based on consideration of the role that paradigmatic Lexical Functions play in its model of the lexicon: Is the paradigmatic-syntagmatic distinction meaningful? Do paradigmatic LFs represent redundant semantic information (and if so, is the redundancy justified)?
This monograph deals withCHANGE CONSTRUCTION, an umbrella term that includes both the traditional... more This monograph deals withCHANGE CONSTRUCTION, an umbrella term that includes both the traditionally recognized resultative construction and the at-construction ('John kicks at the door'). These two broad categories of constructions are grouped together because they share a CHANGE PHRASE, which (a) is a nonverbal phrase,(b) is neither a subject nor an object, and (c) refers to a state, position, or circumstance possibly achieved by an entity involved in an event.
We combine corpus methodology with experimental methods to gain insights into the nature of anton... more We combine corpus methodology with experimental methods to gain insights into the nature of antonymy as a lexico-semantic relations and the degree of entrenchment and routinization of antonymic word-pairs in memory. The different types of gradablity configurations in language can be tested using degree modifiers as criterial elements. UNBOUNDED gradable meaning are combinable with scaling degree modifiers, e.g. very good, BOUNDED gradable meanings with totality modifiers, e.g. absolutely terrific, and non-gradable meanings are not combinable with any degree modifiers at all (Paradis 1997). We are using 'antonymy' as a cover term for all different kinds of oppositeness in this paper. This is different from how the term is used in
Journal of Pragmatics, Jan 1, 2009
This study examines the language to and of three children from age 2 to 5 in order to determine w... more This study examines the language to and of three children from age 2 to 5 in order to determine when and how children develop adult-like use of antonyms in discourse. Using the categories of antonym functions developed in Jones 2002, we find that child and child-directed language are similar to adultdirected printed journalism in their use of the two major antonym categories, Ancillary and Coordinated Antonymy-in spite of the fact that Ancillary Antonymy requires more syntactic and semantic complexity than other types. Differences between child and adult language are to be found in the use of minor categories, with Negated Antonymy and (a new category) Interrogative Antonymy playing special roles. Possible reasons for these differences are explored.
This paper highlights the potential usefulness of combining corpus methods and experimental metho... more This paper highlights the potential usefulness of combining corpus methods and experimental methods to gain new theoretical insights into the role of antonymy as an organizing lexicosemantic principle in human thinking and languages' vocabularies. We are intrigued by what distinguishes so-called canonical antonyms such as good-bad, long-short, thin-thick from other types of contrasts such as cold-scorching, pale-dark and speedy-slow. There are probably various converging reasons for perceptions of 'goodness of antonymy', e.g. frequency of co-occurrence, co-occurrence in certain constructions, e.g. whether slow or fast, stylistic co-occurrence preferences and pairwise acquisition (e.g. . The research reported in this paper forms part of an international collaborative project on antonymy in discourse. 1 This paper proposes (i) a principled method for creating a foundation for cross-linguistic comparisons of adjectival antonym pairings, using corpus methods and (ii) subsequently using the corpus data for the design of experiments on antonym canonicity.
Journal of Pragmatics, Jan 1, 2009
Jones (2002) identified several discourse functions of antonymy, each of which is loosely associa... more Jones (2002) identified several discourse functions of antonymy, each of which is loosely associated with a number of contrastive constructions in written English. Subsequent work (Jones, 2006; Jones and Murphy, 2005; Murphy and Jones, 2008) demonstrated that these functions are found in other modalities/registers of English, albeit with some differences in distribution. This article takes a first step in exploring discourse functions of antonymy in a language other than English. Because binary contrast has the potential to interact in different ways with the values and thought patterns of different cultures, we hypothesized that other languages differ from English in the ways in which antonyms are used in discourse.In this study of antonyms in Swedish, translational near-equivalents of pairs used by Jones were searched in the Swedish Parole corpus, and more than 4300 instances of co-occurring antonyms were found and analyzed in their sentential contexts. While the same range of antonym discourse functions is found in English and Swedish, the proportions of those functions differ significantly between the two languages. This paper both describes their functions (and the form of the functions) in Swedish and reflects on the similarities and differences with English. We ascribe some of the differences to the idiomaticity of certain componential expressions and discuss the possibility that certain cultural values affect some categories.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Jan 1, 2005
Abstract:< br/> In this study, a purpose-built corpus, cont... more Abstract:< br/> In this study, a purpose-built corpus, containing both child-produced and child-directed speech, is used to conduct a longitudinal examination of antonym use among children from the age of two to five years old. Previous research has tended to approach antonym acquisition using either elicitation techniques or corpora of printed adult language. In contrast, this research focuses on the speech of preschool children in naturally-occurring interactions. The discourse functions of antonymy in child-produced and child-directed ...
This paper argues that antonymy is a syntagmatic as well as a paradigmatic relation, and that ant... more This paper argues that antonymy is a syntagmatic as well as a paradigmatic relation, and that antonym pairs constitute a particular type of construction. This position relies on three observations about antonymy in discourse: (1) antonyms tend to co-occur in sentences, (2) they tend to co-occur in particular contrastive constructions, and (3) unlike other paradigmatic relations, antonymy is lexical as well as semantic in nature. CxG offers a means to treat both the contrastive constructions and conventionalised antonym pairings as linguistic constructions, thus providing an account of how semantically paradigmatic relations come to be syntagmatically realised as well. After reviewing the relevant characteristics of CxG, it looks at some of the phrasal contexts in which antonyms tend to co-occur and argues that at least some of these constitute constructions with contrastive import. It then sketches a new type of discontinuous lexical construction that treats antonym pairs as lexical items, and raises issues for further discussion.
The study of antonyms (or 'opposites') in a language can provide important insight into word mean... more The study of antonyms (or 'opposites') in a language can provide important insight into word meaning and discourse structures. This book provides an extensive investigation of antonyms in English and offers an innovative model of how we mentally organize concepts and how we perceive contrasts between them. The authors use corpus and experimental methods to build a theoretical picture of the antonym relation, its status in the mind and its construal in context. Evidence is drawn from natural antonym use in speech and writing, first-language antonym acquisition, and controlled elicitation and judgements of antonym pairs by native speakers. The book also proposes ways in which a greater knowledge of how antonyms work can be applied to the fields of language technology and lexicography.
This book is not an introduction to markedness, but rather a history of the concept and its appli... more This book is not an introduction to markedness, but rather a history of the concept and its application by two influential linguists, Roman Jakobson and Noam Chomsky, and their followers. As shown throughout the book, while both theorists used markedness as an explanatory tool in accounting for language structure and acquisition, neither developed a coherent theory of markedness.
This volume brings together nineteen contributions that provide an excellent overview of current ... more This volume brings together nineteen contributions that provide an excellent overview of current research on language and gesture. Apart from an introductory chapter, in which McNeill distinguishes gesture from a number of related phenomena such as pantomime and sign language, the volume is subdivided into four sections, dealing respectively with gesture in interaction, gesture and cognition, modeling gesture performance, and the relation with signed languages.
In this published version of her 1999 Habilitationsschrift (post-doctoral thesis), Alexiadou inve... more In this published version of her 1999 Habilitationsschrift (post-doctoral thesis), Alexiadou investigates the (morpho-) syntax of nominalizations. One interesting consequence of a careful study of nominalizations is that it opens a particularly revealing window to the finer structure of the nominal layer, the DP, across languages. And A is indeed concerned with a crosslinguistic perspective.
Racial labels present particular problems for lexicographers. Because terms such as white, Black,... more Racial labels present particular problems for lexicographers. Because terms such as white, Black, Afro-American, and Caucasoid carry different social and political connotations (and often different denotations) with different speakers, audiences, and contexts, writing accurate decontextualized definitions proves challenging. The present study examines four American college dictionaries with regard to the denotational accuracy of their definitions of terms for pecple of Af-rican or European descent.
Abstract This paper raises and discusses three questions about the structure of Meaning-Text Theo... more Abstract This paper raises and discusses three questions about the structure of Meaning-Text Theory, based on consideration of the role that paradigmatic Lexical Functions play in its model of the lexicon: Is the paradigmatic-syntagmatic distinction meaningful? Do paradigmatic LFs represent redundant semantic information (and if so, is the redundancy justified)?
This monograph deals withCHANGE CONSTRUCTION, an umbrella term that includes both the traditional... more This monograph deals withCHANGE CONSTRUCTION, an umbrella term that includes both the traditionally recognized resultative construction and the at-construction ('John kicks at the door'). These two broad categories of constructions are grouped together because they share a CHANGE PHRASE, which (a) is a nonverbal phrase,(b) is neither a subject nor an object, and (c) refers to a state, position, or circumstance possibly achieved by an entity involved in an event.
We combine corpus methodology with experimental methods to gain insights into the nature of anton... more We combine corpus methodology with experimental methods to gain insights into the nature of antonymy as a lexico-semantic relations and the degree of entrenchment and routinization of antonymic word-pairs in memory. The different types of gradablity configurations in language can be tested using degree modifiers as criterial elements. UNBOUNDED gradable meaning are combinable with scaling degree modifiers, e.g. very good, BOUNDED gradable meanings with totality modifiers, e.g. absolutely terrific, and non-gradable meanings are not combinable with any degree modifiers at all (Paradis 1997). We are using 'antonymy' as a cover term for all different kinds of oppositeness in this paper. This is different from how the term is used in
Journal of Pragmatics, Jan 1, 2009
This study examines the language to and of three children from age 2 to 5 in order to determine w... more This study examines the language to and of three children from age 2 to 5 in order to determine when and how children develop adult-like use of antonyms in discourse. Using the categories of antonym functions developed in Jones 2002, we find that child and child-directed language are similar to adultdirected printed journalism in their use of the two major antonym categories, Ancillary and Coordinated Antonymy-in spite of the fact that Ancillary Antonymy requires more syntactic and semantic complexity than other types. Differences between child and adult language are to be found in the use of minor categories, with Negated Antonymy and (a new category) Interrogative Antonymy playing special roles. Possible reasons for these differences are explored.
This paper highlights the potential usefulness of combining corpus methods and experimental metho... more This paper highlights the potential usefulness of combining corpus methods and experimental methods to gain new theoretical insights into the role of antonymy as an organizing lexicosemantic principle in human thinking and languages' vocabularies. We are intrigued by what distinguishes so-called canonical antonyms such as good-bad, long-short, thin-thick from other types of contrasts such as cold-scorching, pale-dark and speedy-slow. There are probably various converging reasons for perceptions of 'goodness of antonymy', e.g. frequency of co-occurrence, co-occurrence in certain constructions, e.g. whether slow or fast, stylistic co-occurrence preferences and pairwise acquisition (e.g. . The research reported in this paper forms part of an international collaborative project on antonymy in discourse. 1 This paper proposes (i) a principled method for creating a foundation for cross-linguistic comparisons of adjectival antonym pairings, using corpus methods and (ii) subsequently using the corpus data for the design of experiments on antonym canonicity.
Journal of Pragmatics, Jan 1, 2009
Jones (2002) identified several discourse functions of antonymy, each of which is loosely associa... more Jones (2002) identified several discourse functions of antonymy, each of which is loosely associated with a number of contrastive constructions in written English. Subsequent work (Jones, 2006; Jones and Murphy, 2005; Murphy and Jones, 2008) demonstrated that these functions are found in other modalities/registers of English, albeit with some differences in distribution. This article takes a first step in exploring discourse functions of antonymy in a language other than English. Because binary contrast has the potential to interact in different ways with the values and thought patterns of different cultures, we hypothesized that other languages differ from English in the ways in which antonyms are used in discourse.In this study of antonyms in Swedish, translational near-equivalents of pairs used by Jones were searched in the Swedish Parole corpus, and more than 4300 instances of co-occurring antonyms were found and analyzed in their sentential contexts. While the same range of antonym discourse functions is found in English and Swedish, the proportions of those functions differ significantly between the two languages. This paper both describes their functions (and the form of the functions) in Swedish and reflects on the similarities and differences with English. We ascribe some of the differences to the idiomaticity of certain componential expressions and discuss the possibility that certain cultural values affect some categories.
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, Jan 1, 2005
Abstract:< br/> In this study, a purpose-built corpus, cont... more Abstract:< br/> In this study, a purpose-built corpus, containing both child-produced and child-directed speech, is used to conduct a longitudinal examination of antonym use among children from the age of two to five years old. Previous research has tended to approach antonym acquisition using either elicitation techniques or corpora of printed adult language. In contrast, this research focuses on the speech of preschool children in naturally-occurring interactions. The discourse functions of antonymy in child-produced and child-directed ...
This paper argues that antonymy is a syntagmatic as well as a paradigmatic relation, and that ant... more This paper argues that antonymy is a syntagmatic as well as a paradigmatic relation, and that antonym pairs constitute a particular type of construction. This position relies on three observations about antonymy in discourse: (1) antonyms tend to co-occur in sentences, (2) they tend to co-occur in particular contrastive constructions, and (3) unlike other paradigmatic relations, antonymy is lexical as well as semantic in nature. CxG offers a means to treat both the contrastive constructions and conventionalised antonym pairings as linguistic constructions, thus providing an account of how semantically paradigmatic relations come to be syntagmatically realised as well. After reviewing the relevant characteristics of CxG, it looks at some of the phrasal contexts in which antonyms tend to co-occur and argues that at least some of these constitute constructions with contrastive import. It then sketches a new type of discontinuous lexical construction that treats antonym pairs as lexical items, and raises issues for further discussion.