Semantics Nuha Alwadaani

Semantics Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. Conceptual meaning: covers those basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed by the literal use of a word. It is a type of meaning that dictionaries are designed to describe. For example, the meaning of “needle” as “thin, sharp, steel instrument.” Associative meaning: Associations and connotations attached to words. For example, associating “needle” with “pain”, “illness”, “blood”, “drugs”, “thread”, “knitting” or “hard to find.” These associations differ from one person to the next.

Semantic Features The study of conceptual meaning accounts for the “oddness” we experience when we read sentences such as the following: (note that the oddness of these sentences is not derived from their syntactic structure). The hamburger ate the boy. The table listens to the radio. Semantically, why do we regard the above sentences “odd”?

Semantic Features To answer this question, we have to determine the crucial element or feature of meaning that any noun must have in order to be used as the subject of the verb “ate.” this element must be as general as “animate being.” We can then use this idea to describe part of the meaning of words as either having (+) or not having (-) that particular feature. Accordingly, the feature that the boy has is “+animate”  (=denotes animate being). The feature that the noun hamburger has is “-animate”  (=does not denote an animate being).

This example is an illustration of a procedure for analyzing meaning in terms of sematic features. Features such as “+animate, -animate”, “+human, -human”, “+female, -female” can be treated as basic elements involved in differentiating the meaning of each word in a language from every other word. table horse boy man girl woman animate human female adult

Read page 115.

Semantic Roles “Thematic Roles” It refers to the “roles” that the words fulfill within the situation described by a sentence. The boy kicked the ball The verb describes the action (kick). The noun phrases describe the roles of entities, such as people and things involved in the action.

Semantic Roles Agent and theme Agent is the entity that performs the action. They are typically human, they can also be non-human entiteis that cause actions. Theme is the entity that is involved in or affected by the action or the object simply being described. The theme is typically non-human as in “The dog chased the boy.” For example, The boy kicked the ball and The wind blew the ball away. The same physical entity can appear in two semantic roles in a sentence as in The boy cut himself. Here The boy is agent and himself is theme.

Semantic Roles Instrument and experiencer If an agent uses another entity in order to perform an action, that other entity fills the role of instrument. The boy cut the rope with an old razor When a noun phrase is used to designate an entity as the person who has a feeling, perception or state, it fills the semantic role of an experiencer. If we enjoy, see, or know something, we are not really performing an action.

Semantic Roles Location, source and goal Location: where the entity is (on the table, in the room). Source: where the entity moves from. Goal: Where it moves to. We drove from Chicago to New Orleans I transferred my money from my savings to checking Check the example on page 116.

Lexical Relations Not only words can be treated as “containers” of meaning or as fulfilling “roles” in events, they can also have “relationships” with each other. For example, when we give the meaning of shallow as “the opposite of deep” and daffodil as “ a kind of flower.” This approach is used in the semantic description of language and treated as the analysis of lexical relations.

Lexical Relations Synonymy Synonymy are two or more words with very closely related meaning. Big/large, broad/wide, buy/purchase, cab/taxi, freedom/liberty The idea of sameness is not necessarily “total sameness.” for example, It would be odd to substitute answer with reply in the below example: Sandy had only one answer correct on the test

Lexical Relations Antonymy Antonyms are two forms with opposite meanings. Alive/dead, big/small, fast/slow, happy/sad Gradable antonyms: they are opposites along a scale and can be used in comparative constructions like big/small in I am bigger than you. The negative of one member of a gradable pair does not necessarily imply the other. For example, the sentence My car isn’t old, doesn’t necessarily mean My car is new.

Lexical Relations Antonymy Non-gradable antonyms (complementary pairs): Comparative constructions are not normally used. We do not describe someone as deader or more dead than another. The negative of one member of a non-gradable pair does imply the other member. For example, My grandparents are not alive does indeed mean My grandparents are dead. Examples, male/female, single/married, true/false.

Lexical Relations Antonymy Although we can use “negative test” to identify non-gradable antonyms, we usually avoid describing one member as negative of the other. For example, undress can be treated as the opposite of dress, it doesn’t mean “not dress” but rather “do the reverse of dress.” They are called reversives like enter/exit, pack/unpack, lengthen/shorten, tie/untie.

Hyponymy When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another. Examples, animal/dog, dog/poodle, vegetable/carrot, flower/rose. See figure 9.1, page 118.

Prototypes Prototypes is a semantic relation that refers to the characteristic instance=the clearest example. furniture/chair, vegetable/carrot.

Homophones and Homonyms Homophones: two or more different (written) forms have the same pronunciation. For example, bare/bear, meat/meet, flour/flower, right/write, two/too. Homonyms: one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings, for example, Bank (river)-bank (financial institution)

Polysemy Polysemy: one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings that are all related. For example, head  top of your body Top of a glass of juice Person on the top of a company How can we perceive date as homonym and polysemous?

Metonymy Metonymy refers to a type of relationship between words based on everyday experience like a container-content relation (bottle/water, can/juice), a whole-part relation (car/wheels,house/roof) or a representative-symbol relationship (king/crown, the President/the White House).

Collocation See page 121.