What is the definition of semantics?
- The study of linguistics meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences.
What are the basic semantic relationships?: 2
LEXICAL SEMANTICS is concerned with the meanings of words and the meaning relationships
among words.
SYNONYMY: Words or expressions having the same meaning in some or all contexts.
Ex: big = large; hide = conceal; small = little; couch = sofa.
ANTONYMY: Words that are in opposite meaning.
1. Complementary/contradictory antonyms: (sometimes known as binary or contradi
ctory antonyms) offer no middle ground. In other words, something can be one or the
other, but not both.
Ex: alive/dead; present/absent; awake/asleep.
2. Gradable antonyms: those words that fall on the opposite sides of a spectrum when r
eferring to a specific quality.
Ex: hot/cold; good/bad; strong/weak.
3. Relational antonyms: These are a pair of words that establishes a relationship from o
pposite perspectives.
Ex: over/under; buy/sell; doctor/patient.
HOMONYMY: Words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings.
Ex: to lie (= to rest, be, remain, be situated in a certain position)
cf. to lie (= not to tell the truth).
POLYSEMY: Words that have multiple meanings that are related conceptually or
historically.
Ex: nice (pleasant, kind, friendly).
HYPONYMY: Words that the meaning of one word includes (or contains) the meaning of
other words).
Ex:
COMPOSITIONAL SEMANTICS is concerned with how the meanings of words are combined
to form the meaning of phrases and sentences.
PARAPHRASE is the expression of the meaning of a word, phrase or sentence using other
words, phrases or sentences which have (almost) the same meaning.
Ex: John wrote a letter to Mary.
=> John wrote Mary a letter.
A dog bit John
=> John was bitten by a dog.
1. Lexical paraphrase: It is the use of a semantically equivalent term in place of another in a
given context.
Ex: John is happy = John is cheerful.
To rejuvenate = to make someone or something appear or feel younger.
2. Structural paraphrase: It is the use of a phrase or sentence in place of another phrase or
sentence semantically equivalent to it, although they have different syntactic structure.
Ex: John showed the pictures to me.
=> John showed me the pictures.
AMBIGUITY is the property of having two or more distinct meanings or interpretations.
It can be caused by factors such as homonymy, polysemy, lack of sufficient context.
1. Structural ambiguity: It is the ambiguity that some phrases and sentences exhibit when their
(constituent) syntactic structure can be interpreted in more than one way.
Ex: We need more intelligent leaders.
We need leaders that are more intelligent.
We need more leaders that are intelligent.
2. Lexical ambiguity: It is the ambiguity that some sentences exhibit when they contains words
that can be interpreted in more than one way (those words are either homonymous or polysemous
words).
Ex: We can fish.
To be able to; to have the ability to do something (homonymy).
To preserve food, fruit, liquid,…By putting them in a sealed can (a metal container).
3. Metaphorical ambiguity: It is the ambiguity that some metaphorical or idiomatic sentences
exhibit because they may be interpreted in their literal meaning or in their non-literal meaning.
Ex: John is a snake in the grass.
John is the name of a snake that is in the grass.
John is a deceitful who pretends to be a friend.
SEMANTIC FEATURES are properties that are part of word meanings and reflect our knowledge
about what words mean.
Ex: buy-sell
1. Sharing: changing in possession.
2. Differing: the direction of change.
Ex: The assassin killed John.
=> The semantic features of the word “assassin” include that assassin must be human and kill
important people.
SEMANTIC FEATURES AND GRAMMAR
Semantic features of Nouns
1. In English, the feature “female” is sometimes indicated by the suffix – ess.
Ex: tigress, actress, princess.
2. Count nouns can be enumerated and pluralized, preceeded by the indefinite determiner “a”
and by the quantifier “many”.
Ex: a dog, many dogs.
3. Mass nouns which cannot be enumerated and pluralized, occur with the qualifier “much” or
without any determiner.
Ex: Much furniture is poorly made.
John loves spaghetti.
Semantic features of Verbs
1. Verbs also have semantic features as part of their meaning.
Ex: Darken cause to become dark
Kill cause to die
Uglify cause to become ugly
2. Verbs can either events or states.
Ex: John kissed Mary (event).
John likes oysters (state).
3. Expression such as ever, anymore, have a red cent (negative polarity items) require “not”
elsewhere in the sentence.
Ex: Mary will ever smile.
cf. Mary will not ever smile.