Chapter 9: Semantics
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences,
with the attempt to focus on the conventional meaning, not on the
individual speaker’s one. So, semantics is concerned with the objective not
the subjective meaning in any language.
Conceptual and Associative Meanings
Conceptual meaning is related to those basic, essential components of
meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of a word. It is the meaning
that dictionaries usually describe. The meaning of Needle, for instance,
involves components such as “thin, sharp, steel instrument”.
However, some people associate the word “needle” with meanings like
“pain; illness; blood; drugs; thread; sewing; hard to find; beautiful dress;
etc.”. These associations differ from one person to another; and they are
not part of its conceptual meaning. So, we speak about associative
meaning which is the type of connotations and associations attached by
people to a certain word depending on personal experience.
Semantic Features
The type of the basic conceptual components of meaning
would be helpful in explaining the oddness of a sentence like: -
The hamburger ate the boy.
This sentence is well-formed syntactically( NP V NP), but ill-
formed semantically. The oddness is made because the
components of the conceptual meaning of the noun
“hamburger” differ significantly from those of the noun “boy”.
As an action, “eating” requires a subject which is able of eating;
“hamburger” is not able, but “boy” is.
Sematic feature analysis is a procedure for analysing the
meaning of words in terms of features such as +animate, -
animate; +human, -human; +female, -female, that can be
treated as basic elements for differentiating the meaning of the
words from the meaning of any other word in the language.
Semantic Features: Continued
In this way, we may say that some of the basic features of the
meaning of a word like “girl” involve [+human; +female; -
adult].
In this way, we will be able to predict which noun is
appropriate in a syntactic frame, and which is not. So, we will
be able to avoid semantic oddness. Consider:
The……………………..is reading a newspaper.
The noun should have the feature [+human], and any noun
which does not have this feature will result in semantic
oddness.
However, this approach is not without problems, because not
all nouns can be differentiated exactly in this way. Think
about nouns such as “threat, advice, warning”.
Semantic Roles
Nouns can be differentiated according to the roles or functions
they carry out within an event represented in a sentence.
Agent is the entity that performs the action.
Theme is the entity that is involved in or affected by the action
(EX1); it is entity that is imply described (Ex2)
Ex1: The boy (agent) kicked the ball (theme)
Ex2: The ball (theme) is red.
Instrument is an entity used by the agent to perform an action.
Ex3: The boy (agent)drew the picture with a crayon
(instrument).
Sematic Roles: Continued
Experiencer is the person that simply sees, knows, watches, or is
being described as having a certain state.
Ex4: We (Experiencer) know the answer.
He (Experiencer) feels sad (Or He is sad).
Location is the place in which an action or an entity is described (Ex5).
-Ex5: George (agent) put the book (theme) on the table (location).
Source is the place from which an entity goes or moves (Ex6).
Goal is the place to which an entity goes or moves(Ex6).
-Ex6: We (agent) drove from Chicago (source) to New York (goal).
Lexical Relation Analysis
Lexical relation analysis is the characterisation of the meaning of a word not in
terms of its component features but in terms of its relation with other words.
Synonymy is when words have similar or very closely related meanings (big=large;
wide=broad; cab=taxi).
Sameness of meaning is necessarily total, as when a word is appropriate in a
sentence but its synonym is not. And, synonyms may differ in being formal or
informal.
Antonyms are words with exactly opposite meanings (big X small; wide X narrow;
buy X sell).
Gradable antonyms (big X small) are those which are opposite on a scale; they can
be used in comparative constructions (bigger than; smaller than), and the negative
of form does not necessarily mean the other. For instance, (my car is not old) does
not mean ( my car is new).
Non-gradable antonyms “complementary pairs” (dead X alive) are direct
opposites. They can not be used in comparative constructions, and the negative
form of one of one of them does mean the other. For instance, we cannot say
(deader than…); and when we say ( Somebody is not alive) we mean that (He\She
is dead) .
Lexical Relations: Continued
Hyponymy is when the meaning of a word is included in the meaning of another
(animal\ dog; flower\ rose). Here, the meaning of flower is included in the meaning
of rose; that is, if something is a rose, it should be a flower. Or we say, a rose is a
hyponym of flower.
Consider Fig. 9.1: A superordinate (higher level) term is the one which includes all
sub-ordinate terms, as when “animal” includes “horse, dog, and snake”. These three
are called co-hyponyms, which are the words which share the same superordinate
term.
Prototypes: Sometimes, a number of creatures are called birds, but are they all real
birds? Think of “penguins” or “bats”. Therefore, a prototype is “the most
characteristic example of a certain category or type”. That is, we try to explain the
meaning of a word not in terms of its component features, but in terms of its
resemblance to the clearest example. For instance, in furniture, we more quickly
recognise chairs than stools. However, personal experience can lead to great
differences in interpreting some terms as belonging to certain prototypes. People
may disagree over whether to categorise tomatoes or avocados as fruits or
vegetables. In different contexts, people treat both tomatoes and avocadoes as co-
hyponyms of both fruits and vegetables.
Lexical Relations: Continued
Homophones are a group of words or affixes which are written differently
but pronounced in the same way, such as “right+rite+write; knight+night;
see+sea”.
Homonyms are words which are written and pronounced in the same way,
but they have different unrelated meanings, such as “bank (money
reservoir) and bank (side of river)”.
Polysemy is the relation between two or more words which have related
meanings, such as foot which means (1 human body part; 2 base of
mountain). The relatedness of meaning here is seen as similarity in form,
position, or function.
Metonymy is a type of meaning relation based on a close connection in
everyday experience, as in “container=contents (bottle=water; can=juice),
whole=part (car=wheels; house=roof), or representative=symbol
(king=crown; President=White House). So, we can understand “He ate a full
plate”.
Collocation is a lexical relation depending on what terms tend to occur
more frequently together. For instance, hammer tends to occur with nails,
butter with bread, thread with needle, and so on.