Semantics?

What is "Semantics"? Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. Semantics focuses on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on what an individual speaker means

Conceptual and associative meaning Conceptual meaning (others call it denotative meaning) covers those basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed by the literal use of a word. Some of the basic components of a word like needle in English might include ‘thin, sharp, steel instrument’.

These components would be part of the conceptual meaning of needle.

Associative (connotative) meaning Different people might have different associations or connotations attached to a word like needle. They might associate it with ‘pain’, or ‘illness’, or ‘blood’, or ‘drugs’, or ‘thread’, or ‘knitting’, or ‘hard to find’,

Semantic features Semantic features represent the basic conceptual components of meaning for any lexical item. An individual semantic feature constitutes one component of a word's intension, which is the inherent sense or concept evoked. 

We can then use this idea to describe part of the meaning of words as having either plus (+) or minus (−) that particular feature.

Boy So, the feature that the noun boy has is ‘+animate’ (= denotes an animate being) and the feature that the noun hamburger has is ‘−animate’ (= does not denote an animate being).

Compare

Semantic roles The noun phrases in the sentence describe the roles of entities, such as people and things, involved in the action. We can identify a small number of semantic roles (also called ‘thematic roles’) for these noun phrases.

A semantic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has with the main verb in a clause.

Agent and theme Agent, the entity that performs the action. The boy kicked the ball. The boy takes agent role. Theme: the entity that is involved in or affected by the action. The ball takes theme role.

Agents and themes are the most common semantic roles. Although agents are typically human (The boy), they can also be non-human entities that cause actions, as in noun phrases denoting a natural force (The wind), a machine (A car), or a creature (The dog), all of which affect the ball as theme.

The boy kicked the ball. (boy – human) The wind blew the ball away. (wind – natural force) A car ran over the ball. (car – machine) The dog caught the ball. (dog – creature)

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.

experiencer 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 experiencer.

The boy feels sad, the experiencer (The boy) is the only semantic role. In “Did you hear that noise?, the experiencer is you and the theme is that noise.

Location, source and goal Where an entity is (on the table, in the room) fills the role of location. Where the entity moves from is the source (from Chicago) and where it moves to is the goal (to New Orleans), as in We drove from Chicago to New Orleans.

George can appear in several different semantic roles

Lexical relations The relationship between words in terms of their meanings.

Synonymy Two or more words with very closely related meanings are called synonyms. They can often, though not always, be substituted for each other in sentences.

We can say, What was his answer. or What was his reply We can say, What was his answer? or What was his reply? with much the same meaning.

Examples Almost/nearly, big/large, broad/wide, buy/purchase, cab/taxi, car/automobile, couch/sofa, freedom/liberty.

You cannot always replace synonymous words. Answer/reply Sandy had only one answer correct on the test. (sounds natural) Sandy had only one reply correct on the test. (sounds odd).

My father purchased a large automobile . My dad bought a big car. They have same meaning. Second is more casual.

Types of synonyms Cognitive synonyms: Cognitive synonymy is a type of synonymy in which synonyms are so similar in meaning that they cannot be differentiated either denotatively or connotatively.

Example: ‘seaman’ and ‘sailor’ Example: ‘seaman’ and ‘sailor’. He is a Seaman and He is a Sailor are cognitively synonymous. Other pairs include ‘mailman and postman’, ‘buy and purchase’, ‘hard and difficult’ etc.

NEAR-SYNONYMS Near-synonyms are expressions that appear similar, but not really identical in meaning because of the variations in their meaning. Examples of near-synonymy in English are ‘Mist and fog’, ‘stream and brook’, ‘dive and plunge’.

For example, ‘stream’ and ‘brook’ appear similar in meaning but they are not really identical. ‘Brook’ is a small stream while ‘stream’ is a small river. The same explanation could be offered for ‘mist and fog’. ‘Fog’ is a thick cloud while ‘mist’ is a ‘thin fog’.

Antonymy The term antonym is used to describe oppositeness of meaning (Palmer, 1996: 94–95). alive/dead, big/small, fast/slow, happy/sad, hot/cold, long/short, male/female, married/single, old/new, rich/poor, true/false.

Types of Antonyms

(a) Implicitly Gradable Pairs ( Graded Antonym) can be used in comparative constructions Examples: big >< small good fast bad slow young old Thus, when we say that "a fly is bigger than another", we imply that 'big is to be understood in the context of 'flies'. Another fact dealing with this type is that "a small elephant', for example, is much bigger than "a big mouse". A big mouse A small elephant

(b) Complementary Pairs ( Complemetarity ) refers to the existence of pairs that the denial of one, implies the assertion of the other. Examgles: male >< alive >< present >< awake >< female dead absent asleep Incomparable Thus, if one is not male, then one is certainly female; if one is not present, then he/she must be absent, and so on.

If X gives Y to Z,then z receives Y from X (c) Relational Pairs (converseness) refers to the pair of words that display symmetry in their meaning. If X gives Y to Z,then z receives Y from X

Other commonly relational pairs are: buy push command give teach master teacher doctor >< sell pull serve take learn servant pupil patient,

Hyponymy When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another, the relationship is described as hyponymy. Examples are the pairs: animal/dog, dog/poodle, vegetable/carrot, flower/rose, tree/banyan.

The concept of ‘inclusion’ involved in this relationship is the idea that if an object is a rose, then it is necessarily a flower, so the meaning of flower is included in the meaning of rose. Or, rose is a hyponym of flower.

Vegetables

Homophones and homonyms When two or more different (written) forms have the same pronunciation, they are described as homophones. Common examples are bare/bear, meat/meet, flour/flower, pail/pale, right/write, sew/so and to/too/two.

We use the term homonyms when one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings, as in these examples: bank (of a river) – bank (financial institution) bat (flying creature) – bat (used in sports) mole (on skin) – mole (small animal) pupil (at school) – pupil (in the eye) race (contest of speed) – race (ethnic group)

Polysemy When we encounter two or more words with the same form and related meanings, we have what is technically known as polysemy. Polysemy can be defined as one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings that are all related by extension.

Examples are the word head, used to refer to: the object on top of your body, on top of a glass, person at the top of a company or department, Other examples of polysemy are foot of person, of bed, of mountain or run (person does, water does).

Examples of polysemy Man The human species (i.e., man vs. other organisms) Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman) Adult males of the human species (i.e., man vs. boy)

2. Book a bound collection of pages to make an action or event a matter of record (e.g. "Unable to book a hotel room, a man sneaked into a nearby private residence where police arrested him and later booked him for unlawful entry.")

3. Wood a piece of a tree a geographical area with many trees

4. Crane غرنوق a bird a type of construction equipment

Spring Season ربيع Jump يقفز / قفزة Water spring ينبوع زنبرك Start action quickly

Arms Part of body Ammunition

Prototypes A prototype is a cognitive reference point, i.e. the proto-image of all representatives of the meaning of a word or of a category. A robin or a sparrow can be regarded as a prototype or a "good example" of the category bird, However, a penguin or an ostrich is a rather "bad example" of this category.

Chair is a better example of furniture than bench or stool.

Metonymy Using the name of one thing for that of another with which it is associated. a container–contents 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 “the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a text” Collocation is the co-occurrence of two or more words in certain environments to give certain meaning.

What we mean by certain meaning here is that, say, deliver in deliver a letter has a different meaning compared to deliver in deliver a speech.

Types of collocation Newmark (1988:212) classifies collocations as follows: Adjective + noun, as in heavy labour عمل شاق Noun + noun (i.e. double-noun compound), as in nerve cell خلية عصبية, government securities سندات مالية حكومية . Verb + object, which is normally a noun that denotes an action, as in pay a visit يزور, read a paper يقرأ ورقة , attend a lecture يحضر محاضرة.

Collocations with deliver

Heavy heavy suitcase heavy smoker heavy meal

Fat Fat salary Fat man Fat book

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