Semantics

Semantics is the study of meanings of words, phrases

and sentences.
Semantics focuses on how meaning is constructed,
interpreted, obscured and negotiated by speakers and
listeners of a language.
Conceptual (Denotative) Meaning

Conceptual meaning is often described as dictionary

meaning or literal meaning of a word. It is the core of
the meaning of a word.
It is relatively constant and stable since it is the
meaning agreed upon by all the members of the same
speech community.
Conceptual (Denotative)Meaning

For instance:
Needle is a thin sharp steel instrument.
Low-calorie is producing a small amount of heat or energy
Dog is a four-legged animal which can make the sound of
barking.
Associative Meaning

Associative meaning is the meaning supplemented to the

conceptual meaning.
It is the meaning which arises of associations or connotations
attached to a word.
It is less stable and indeterminate, because it varies with
culture, time, place, class, individual experiences, etc.
Associative Meaning
For instance:
Needle pain, or illness, or blood, or drugs, or
thread, or knitting, or hard to find (especially in a
haystack),etc.
Low-calorie healthy, diet, etc.
Dog loyal to owner, fierce, violence, etc.
These are not part of the basic conceptual meaning of
these expressions.
 Associative Meaning

Poets, song-writers, novelists, literary critics, advertisers and

lovers may all be interested in how words can evoke certain
aspects of associative meaning, but in linguistic semantics
we're more concerned with trying to analyze conceptual
meaning.
 Semantic Features
A semantic feature is a written method which can be used to express the
existence or non-existence of pre-established semantic properties by using plus
and minus signs.
 Semantic Features
With semantic features, we can detect ‘oddness’ in a sentence. Look at these sentences:
The hamburger ate the boy. NP + V + NP NP + VP S
The table listens to the radio. NP + V + PP NP + VP S
The horse is reading the book. NP+ AUX+ V+ NP NP+AUX+VP S
Hamburger - animate, -human is not capable of eating
Table - animate, -human is not capable of listening
Horse + animate, -human is not capable of reading
We should first note that the oddness of these sentences does not derive
from their syntactic structure. According to the basic syntactic rules for
forming English sentences (as presented in Chapter 8), we have well-
formed structures.
NP V NP
The hamburger /ate / the boy
The components of the conceptual meaning of the noun hamburger must
be significantly different from those of the noun boy, thereby preventing
one, and not the other, from being used as the subject of the verb ate. The
kind of noun that can be the subject of the verb ate must denote an entity
that is capable of “eating.” The noun hamburger does not have this
property and the noun boy does.
We can then use this idea to describe part of the meaning of words as
either having (+) or not having (−) that particular feature. 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).
From a feature analysis like this, we can say that at least part of the
meaning of the word girl in English involves the elements [+ animate,
+human, +female, −adult]. We can also characterize the feature that is
crucially required in a noun in order for it to appear as the subject of a
particular verb, supplementing the syntactic analysis with semantic
features.
The ………….. is reading the newspaper.
N [+human]
This approach would give us the ability to predict which nouns make this
sentence semantically odd. Some examples would be table, horse and
hamburger, because none of them have the required feature [+human].
 Semantic(Thematic)Roles
Instead of thinking of words as “containers” of meaning, we can
look at the “roles” they fulfill within the situation described by a
sentence.
A semantic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has
with the main verb in a clause.
Some semantic roles can be listed as agent, patient (theme),
experiencer, instrument, location, source, goal, etc.
 Semantic(Thematic)Roles
The boy kicked the ball
Agent is the entity that performs the action. The boy
Theme or patient is the entity that is involved in or affected by
the action the ball
NOTE: Agents and themes are the most common semantic roles.
The theme can also be an entity (The ball) that is simply being
described (i.e. not performing an action), as in The ball was red.
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 (agent)kicked the ball. (theme)

The wind (agent) blew the ball (theme) away.
A car (agent) ran over the ball. (theme)
The dog (agent) caught the ball. (theme)
 The theme is typically non-human, but can be human (the boy), as in
The dog chased the boy. In fact, the same physical entity can appear
in two different semantic roles in a sentence, as in The boy cut
himself. Here The boy is agent and himself is theme
 Semantic(Thematic)Roles
The boy cut the rope with an old razor
Instrument is the means by which an action is performed.
an old razor
Edna felt ill.
David saw the smoke.
Faruk heard the door shut.
Experiencer is the entity which feels, sees, hears, perceives. It is aware of the action
but cannot control it.
Edna, David and Faruk
If we see, know or enjoy something, we’re not really performing an action
(hence we are not agents). We are in the role of experiencer. In the
sentence The boy feels sad, the experiencer (The boy) is the only
semantic role. In the question, Did you hear that noise?, the experiencer
is you and the theme is that noise.
Semantic(Thematic)Roles
The book is on the table
Location is where an entity is or where the action occurs
on the table
We drove from Chicago to New Orleans
Source is the entity from which something
moves from Chicago
Goal is the entity towards which something
moves to New Orleans
Mary saw a fly on the wall.
EXPERIENCER THEME LOCATION

She borrowed a magazine from George.

AGENT THEME SOURCE

She handed the magazine back to George.

AGENT THEME GOAL
 Lexical Relationships

Lexical relationships are culturally recognized patterns of

association that exists between lexical units in a language.
Lexical relationships include synonymy, antonymy and
hyponymy, prototypes, homophones and homonyms,
polysemy, metonymy, and collocation.
 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.
Some common examples of synonyms are the pairs:
almost/nearly big/large
broad/wide buy/purchase
cab/taxi car/automobile
couch/sofa freedom/liberty
father/dad
 Antonymy
Two forms with opposite meanings are called antonyms.
Some common examples are the pairs:
alive/dead big/small
fast/slow happy/sad
hot/cold long/short
male/female married/single
 Antonymy
There are two types of antonyms: gradable (opposites along a
scale) and non-gradable (direct opposites).
Gradable antonyms, such as the pair big/small, can be used in
comparative constructions:
I’m bigger than you.
A pony is smaller than a horse.
With non-gradable antonyms (complementary pairs),
comparative constructions are not normally used. For instance,
male/female, married/single and true/false.
 Hyponymy
When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of
another, the relationship is described as hyponymy.
For instance:
Blue, Green are kinds of color. They are specific colors and
color is a general term for them.
Blue and green are hyponyms of color.
Color is called superordinate.
The relation of hyponymy captures the concept of ‘is a kind of’.
 Hyponymy
A superordinate can have many hyponyms:

Superordinate Hyponyms
 Bird sparrow, hawk, crow, pigeon
 Action punch, shoot, stab
 Animal dog, cat, tiger, fish
 Plant flower, tree, vegetable, fruit
 Prototype
The idea of ‘the characteristic instance’ of a category is known as
the prototype.
For instance:
In category ‘furniture’, we are quick to recognize chair as a better
example than bench or stool.
In category ‘bird’, we are quick to recognize sparrow and pigeon
as better example than ostrich or penguin
 Homophones

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
to/too/two.
 Homonyms
We use the term homonyms when one form (written or spoken) has
two or more unrelated meanings.
For instance:
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

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 of beer, person at the top of a company or
department,etc.
Other examples of polysemy are foot (of person, of bed, of mountain)
or run (person does, water does, colors do).
 Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not
by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in
meaning with that thing or concept.
This connection can be based on
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).
 Metonymy

For instance, we use metonymy when we talk about filling up the

car, answering the door, boiling a kettle or giving someone a
hand.
 Collocation
In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a sequence of words or terms
that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance.
Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become
established through repeated context-dependent use.
Such terms as crystal clear, strong tea and true feeling are
examples of collocated pairs of words.