Semantics: Meaning in a language
1. Introduction to Semantics
Semantics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the study of meaning,
changes in meaning.
It is the principles that govern the relationship between sentences or
words and their meanings.
It is the study of the relationship between signs and symbols and what
they represent.
2. What is Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning in language. it is a wide subject within
the general study of language.
An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language
acquisition (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as speakers
and writers, listeners, and readers).
It is Important for understanding language in social context, as these are
likely to affect meaning, and for understanding varieties of English and
effects of style.
3. Types of Semantics
Formal Semantics:
Uses techniques from math, philosophy, and logic to analyze the
broader relationship between language and reality, truth, and
possibility.
Logical form: ∀x (Cat(x) → HasTail(x))
Example: “All cats have tails.”
Truth condition:The sentence is true if and only if every cat in the
domain has a tail.
Lexical Semantics:
Deconstruct words and phrases within a line of text to understand
the meaning in terms of context.
This can include a study of individual nouns, verbs, adjectives,
prefixes, root words, suffixes, or longer phrases or idioms.
Example:
Conceptual semantics:
Deals with the most basic concept and form of a word before our
thoughts and feelings added context to it.
Example:
4. Types of Semantic Relation
5. Types of Meaning
Word Meaning
Language is used for communication. In communicating, speakers
or writers communicate meaning to listeners or readers.
The nature of the meaning of a word is its referent. The referent of
a word can be an object, an event, a state, a process, or an action
here in this world. Word meaning can also say lexical meaning.
Examples:
- hot: [ a state of having a high temperature]
- to sew: [ an action of working with a needle and thread
- drizzling: [ the process of raining in small drops]
- a party: [ an event of the gathering of persons, by invitation,
for pleasure]
Phrase Meaning
A phrase is a group of words which has no finite verb in it and acts
to complete the sentence for making it meaningful.
3 types of phrases:
1. Regular Phrase:
Is a combination of two or more words which have a
denotative meaning or true meaning. Thus, this type of
phrase can be interpreted explicitly.
Example:
Father bought a new bicycle for suzy
The green car belongs to Mr. Shawn
Alexa is wearing a red shirt today.
2. Idiomatic phrase
Is a type of phrase whose combination of words creates
a new meaning that is connotative or not.
Example:
Hit The books: Study Hard
a piece of cake: something easy to do
feeling under the weather: feeling uncomfortable
or sick
Cry over spilt milk: don't regret something that
happened.
3. Ambiguous phrase
Is a type of phrase that has more than one meaning
or is ambiguous depending on its placement in the
sentence.
Examples:
a good life depends on a liver (liver maybe an
organ or simply a living person)
foreigners are hunting dogs (it's unclear
whether dogs were being hunted or foreigners
are being spoken of as dogs)
each of us saw her duck (it's not clear whether
the word "duck" refers to an action of ducking
or a duck that is a bird)
Sentence Meaning
According to Hurford, Heasley and Smith (2007), sentence
meaning is what a sentence means, i.e. what it counts as the
equivalent of in the language concerned.
According to Lyons, (1985) as in Sutrisno (2012), the meaning of
sentence is the product of both lexical and grammatical meaning
(the meaning of the constituent of lexemes and of the grammatical
constructions)
Examples:
1. This is a beautiful garden flower
2. This is a beautiful flower garden
In sentence (1) the focus is on flower, whereas in sentence (2)
the focus is on garden. The conceptual meaning of the sentence
depends on the reference and the structures of the words.