Semantics Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language.

Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language. Semantics is perhaps the most difficult part of the grammar of a language to learn. Language is arbitrary. It is arbitrary because the relationship between forms and their meanings are sometimes can not logically proved.

Hua Thi Hoai Thu (Autumn)

MA student LSPU, Siniloan Campus

What is

“semantics”?

Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language

Semantics is perhaps the most difficult part of the grammar of a language to learn

Language is arbitrary It is arbitrary because the relationship between forms and their meanings are sometimes can not logically proved.

Although a form can have more than one meaning, there is always a primary or original meaning that is express.

The original meaning of a form in a language

is normally called “denotation”.

With respect to words (lexical terms), the primary (original) meaning is the meaning that

we can find in a dictionary

E.g

Rose The flower of a rose brushWhat is

“semantics”?

Beside, there are additional meaning , which is know as “connotation”.

With respect to words, connotation or additional meanings of a word are not listed in

a dictionary ; and therefore we can not find them in a dictionary.

Normally, a person expresses a connotative meaning through a word, phrase, clause or sentence based on certain characteristics of the entity or event that he/she is referring to.

Conceptual meaning refers to the linguist function of the word, that provides its meaning

The Semantic Features are ‘categories’ that allow us to classify the meaning of a word

They are usually represented with a headword and using the symbols ‘+’ and ‘-’ to say if the word contains that feature

There is no list of semantic features We need the context to create one

Semantic

features

Man Woman Girl

Table Horse Boy

Semantic

features

The semantic roles are properties that the noun phrases have according to their meaning inside the sentenceThe semantic roles are:

AgentThemeInstrumentExperiencerLocationSourceGoal

Semantic

roles

The boy kicked a ball

In that sentence, the person who executes the action is called AGENT The agent in that sentence is the boy

The THEME is the object or person that is directly affected or described by the action In this case a ball

Agent &

theme

The boy cut his hair with the scissors

In this example, we can notice that there is a tool that helps the Agent to perform the action That is the semantic role of

INSTRUMENT

He felt sad about cutting his hair

When the action is related to a feeling, a state

or perception, the agent takes the name of EXPERIENCER

Instrument

&

experiencer

The keys are next to the vase.

She brought some souvenirs from France.

Marco travels to Merida tomorrow.

In the first sentence the text in blue marks the

semantic role of Location

In the second, the semantic role of Source

In the third one, the semantic role of Goal

Location,

source and

goal

Not just the semantic roles provide a meaning

to the words, phrases or sentences Sometimes

meaning comes from the semantic relationships that are built.

Polysemy is the state or phenomenon in which the words that have more than one meaning In other words, it can be described as multiple meanings of words The words are considered to be related etymologically

The concrete form of polysemy is called

“polysemy”

E.g.

Plain Simple (e.g English is extremely plain subject).With nothing added/ not decorate in anyway (e.g This

blouse is too plain)

Simple (e.g English is extremely plain subject).

With nothing added/ not decorate in anyway (e.g This blouse is too plain)

Synonymy is the state or phenomenon in which

the words that sound different (different in pronunciation) but have the same or identical meaning as another word or phrase

The concrete form of synonymy is called synonym

E.g

Small = Little Big = large Mother and father = parents Politician = Statesman

Antonymy is the state or phenomenon in which the words have the sense relation which involve the opposite of meaning

The concrete form of antonymy is called

“antonym” (opposite)

The word pairs of antonym can be divided into several types:

•Implicitly gradable pairs (graded antonym)

•Complementary pairs (complementarity)

•Relational pairs (converseness)

a Implicitly

gradable

pairs

Graded antonym refers to the words related

to the object they modify The words themselves do not provide an absolute scale

Another fact dealing with this type is that

“a small elephant” for example, is much bigger than “a big mouse”.

We answer, “ten thousand feet high”, but never

“ten thousand feet low”, EXCEPT humorously or ironically or the topic of the conversation is the conversation is the particular context.

Thus, “high” is the unmarked member of “high/ low”

E.g

Male >< female Alive >< dead Present >< absent awake >< asleep Thus, if one is not male, then one is certainly female, if one is not present, the he/she must be absent, and so on…

Incomparable objects

Incomparable objects

Related to complementary pairs, sets of terms like colors or numbers where the assertion of one member implies the negation of all the others.

Thus, if we have a set of such as:

√ X X X X

When we say: “this is green”, for instance,

it means that it is not yellow, brown, red or blue.

green yellow Brown red blue

b

Complementary

pairs

c Relational

pairs

Converseness refers to the pair of words

that display symmetry in their meaning

If X give Y to Z, then Z receives Y from X

Relationships between certain semantic features can reveal knowledge about antonym.

Other commonly relational pairs are:

buy >< sell push >< pull give >< take teach >< learn doctor >< patient

In the context of sentence, occasionally the same verb can be supposed as a relational pair

E.g

John married Mary >< Mary married John

c Relational

pairs

Hyponymy is the state or phenomenon that

show the relationship between more general term (lexical representation) and the more specific instances of it

The concrete forms of sets of word (the specific instances) are called “hyponymy”

E.g

The lexical presentation of:

Red, yellow, green, blue, black is [+color] Thus we can say that: “red” is a hyponym

of “color” and so on …

Sometimes there is no single word in the language that encompasses as set of hyponyms.

E.g

Clarinet, guitar, piano, trumpet, violin are hyponyms because they are “musical instruments”, but there is not a single word meaning “musical instrument” that has these words as its hyponyms.

HYPONYMY

The relationship between the general term and the specific instances is often be described using a hierarchical diagram, called “taxonymy”.

HYPONYMY

Semantics is the study of meaning

Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs

to have multiple related meanings

Synonymy is a word with the same or similar meaning of another word

Antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings

Hyponym is a word

or phrase whose semantic field is included within that of another word