Semantic Roles and Meaning

Semantic Structure and

Relationships
Lexical Relations Semantic Roles:
Agent: Doer of the action.
Semantic Features: Theme: Entity affected by the action.
Analysis of words in terms of semantic features Instrument: Tool used in the action.
Explains why certain sentences are semantically Benefactive: Entity benefiting from
anomalous. the action.
Lexical Relations:
Synonymy: Words with similar meanings.
Experiencer: Entity experiencing a
state or feeling. DEFINITION
Antonymy: Words with opposite meanings. Location, Source, Goal: Place, origin,
Hyponymy: Hierarchical relationship between words.
or destination of an entity. Study of meaning in language.
Homophony: Words with the same form but different
Entailment and Presupposition:
meanings. Analyzes how language is
Entailment: Relationship where the
Polysemy: Word with multiple related meanings. organized to convey
Metonymy: Word representing something associated. truth of one sentence guarantees the
Collocation: Words that frequently occur together. truth of another. meaningful messages.
Presupposition: Assumption necessary Meaning is abstract and tied
for a sentence to make sense.
to human cognitive abilities.
MEANING
Truth and Types of Philosophical debate on the relationship
between words and objects.
Sentences in Semantics Perspectives:
Truth in Semantics: 1. referential Theory: Words correspond
Analytic Sentences: True by to objects in the world.
definition. 2. Conceptual Theory: Words represent
Contradictory Sentences: False by mental concepts, with an arbitrary
definition. relationship between word and concept.
Synthetic Sentences: True or false Ogden and Richards identify multiple ways to
based on the state of the world. define meaning.

THEORIES OF MEANING
semantics WORDS AND MEANINGS
by Aura, Yare, Sandra,
Naming Theory: Words directly Leo and Maurico
refer to objects.
Words are names for
Conceptual Theory: Words relate to
objects through mental concepts. their meanings.
Behaviorist Theory: Meaning
derived from situational context.

ASPECTS OF MEANING OF A SENSE AND REFERENT

WORD
Principle of Compositionality: REFERENCE Sense: General meaning of a
word.
Meaning of a sentence is
Referent: Specific object a
determined by the meanings of its Speaker-reference: Speaker's intention (pragmatics).
word refers to in a context.
parts and grammatical structure. Linguistic-reference: Systematic denotation of a
Words can have the same
Formal Semantics: Studies word (semantics).
-concepts: sense but different referents.
grammatical patterns contributing
to meaning. Referent: Entity a word refers to.
Extension: Set of all potential referents.
Lexical Semantics: Studies meanings
Prototype: Typical example of a category.
of words and their relationships.
Stereotype: List of characteristics describing a
prototype.
Coreference: Two expressions referring to the same
entity.
Anaphora: Word referring back to another in the
text.
Deixis: Words whose reference depends on context.