SEMANTICS
Definition
The study of meaning in human language.
The study of the linguistics meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences.
Meanings of Words and Sentences
Semantic Relations among Words
Synonymy: synonyms are words or expressions that have the same meaning in some or
all contexts.
Antonymy: antonyms are words or phrases that are opposites with respect to some
component of their meaning
Polysemy: occurs where a word has two or more related meanings. Example: the word
‘bright’ can have two meanings; those are ‘shining’ and ‘intelligent’.
Homophony: exist where a single phonetic form has two or more entirely distinct
meanings.
Semantics Relations Involving Sentences
Paraphrase: two sentences that have essentially the same meaning are said to be
paraphrase of each other.
Entailment: when truth of one sentence guarantees the truth of another sentence, we
say that there is a relation of entailment. Example: a) The thief stole the purse; b) The
purse is gone.
Contradiction: sometimes it turns out that is one sentence is true, then another
sentence must be false. Example: a) Charles is a bachelor; b) Charles is married.
Meaning
Connotation: the words’ general meaning
Denotation: the word’s meaning overtime
Extension and Intension: extension corresponds to the set of entities that the expression
picks out in the world, while intension corresponds to its inherent sense, the concepts
that it evokes. Example:
Componential Analysis: sometimes known as componential analysis or semantic
decomposition, this approach has often been used to analyze the meaning of certain
types of nouns in terms of semantic features. Example:
Verb Meaning and Sub-categorization: sometimes features of verb meaning can be
relevant to the choice of accompanying phrases. Example the contrast between the
verbs in sentence ‘a’, which can occur with two NP complements and the ones in ‘b’,
which cannot: a) Phone [(NP) Helen] [(NP) the news]; b) * murmur [(NP) Helen] [(NP)
the news]. The verb in sentence ‘a’ has meanings that include the means by which a
message was communicated. In contrast, the second sentence have meaning that
describe the type of voice that used to communicate the message.
Syntax and Sentence Interpretation
Constructional Meaning
There’s a reason to believe that structural patterns can have a meaning of their own,
independent meaning of their component part.
Caused motion construction:
Form: NP V NP PP
Meaning: ‘x causes Y to go somewhere’
Example: Seymour pushed the toy off the table.
Boris sneezed the handkerchief right across the room.
Ditransitive construction:
Form: NP V NP NP
Meaning: ‘X causes Y to have Z’
Example: Jerry sent Lou a present.
Marvin threw Harry the ball
Structural Ambiguity
Some sentences are structurally ambiguous in their component words can be combined in
more than one way. Example:
a. [Wealthy men] and women. (only the men are wealthy)
b. Wealthy [men and women]. (both the men and the women are wealthy)
Thematic Roles
Linguist often use thematic roles to categorize the relation between a sentence’s parts and the
event that it describes. The thematic roles are:
- Agent: the entity that performs an action.
- Theme: the entity undergoing an action or a movement.
- Source: the starting point for a movement.
- Goal: the end point for a movement.
- Location: the place where an action occurs.
Example: The courier carried the document from Boston to Los Angeles.
agent theme source goal
The athletes practiced in the stadium.
agent location
Interpretations of Pronouns
Syntactic structure also has an important role to play in the interpretation of pronouns,
including pronominal such as he, him, she, and her and reflexive pronouns such as himself and
herself.
A defining property of pronouns is that their interpretation can be determined by another
element, called the antecedent. Example:
a. [(TP) Claire knew that [(TP) Alexis trusted her]].
b. [(TP) Claire knew that [(TP) Alexis trusted herself]].
In sentence ‘a’, her refers to Claire and in sentence ‘b’, herself refers to Alexis. This reflects the
fact that a reflexive pronoun typically must have an antecedent in the same clause.
Other Factors in Sentence Interpretation
The Role of Beliefs and Attitudes
Non-linguistic knowledge and beliefs can also play an important role in selecting the antecedent
for a pronominal. Example:
a. The judge denied the prisoner’s request because he was cautious.
b. The judge denied the prisoner’s request because he was dangerous.
These two sentences have identical structure, differing only in the choice of the adjective in the
second clause. Most people feel that he in sentence a refers to the judge but in sentence b, he
refers to the prisoner. The crucial factor involves our beliefs about people in our society and
their likely characteristics and behavior.
Setting
The pragmatic factors relevant to sentence interpretation can include knowledge of the context
in which a sentence is uttered, including its physical environment or setting.
All languages have forms whose use and interpretation depend on the location of the speaker
and/or hearer within a particular setting. Called spatial deictics, these forms are exemplified in
English words such this and here (proximity to the speaker) versus that and there (proximity to
the hearer and/or distance from the speaker).
Determiners are not the only type of element whose use and interpretation require reference
to features of the setting. Deictic contrasts are also crucial to the understanding of such
commonly used verbs as come and go. Example:
a. The bear is coming into the tent!
b. The bear is going into the tent!
Come with a third-person subject implies movement toward the speaker, go with the same
type subject suggest movement away from the speaker.
Discourse
Additional source information relevant to sentence interpretation can be found in discourse,
the connected series of utterances produced during a conversation, a lecture, a story, or other
speech act. The importance of discourse stems from the fact that individual sentence
commonly include elements whose interpretation can only be determined with the help of
information in preceding utterances. Example:
A little girl went for a walk in the park. While there, she saw a rabbit. Since it was injured, she
took it home.
We interpret there with reference to in the park, she with reference to a little girl, and it with
reference to a rabbit.
One of the most important contrasts in the study of discourse involves the distinction between
new and old information. Example:
a. The man is at the front door.
b. A man is at the front door.
The in the sentence a suggest that the referent of the phrase is someone who has already been
mentioned in the discourse, while in sentence b, implies that the referent is being introduced
into the discourse for the first time.