Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language. Semantics is perhaps the most difficult part of the grammar of a language to learn. Language is arbitrary. It is arbitrary because the relationship between forms and their meanings are sometimes can not logically proved.
Trang 2What is “semantics”?
Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language.
Semantics is perhaps the most difficult part of the grammar of a language to learn.
Trang 3Although a form can have more than one meaning, there is always a primary or original meaning that is express.
The original meaning of a form in a language is normally called “denotation”.
With respect to words (lexical terms), the primary (original) meaning is the meaning that we can find in a dictionary
E.g
Rose The flower of a rose brushWhat is
Trang 4Beside, there are additional meaning, which is know as “connotation”.
With respect to words, connotation or additional meanings of a word are not listed in a dictionary; and therefore we can not find them in a dictionary.
Trang 5Conceptual meaning refers to the linguist function of the word, that provides its meaning
E.g Money
Money: It’s an object (or series of them) that allow people to buy goods
Trang 6The Semantic Features are ‘categories’ that allow us to classify the meaning of a word
They are usually represented with a headword and using the symbols ‘+’ and ‘-’ to say if the word contains that feature.
There is no list of semantic features We need the context to create one.
Trang 9The boy kicked a ball
In that sentence, the person who executes the action is called AGENT The agent in that sentence is the boy
The THEME is the object or person that is directly affected or described by the action In this case a ball
Trang 10The boy cut his hair with the scissors
In this example, we can notice that there is a tool that helps the Agent to perform the action That is the semantic role of
INSTRUMENT
He felt sad about cutting his hair
When the action is related to a feeling, a state or perception, the agent takes the name of EXPERIENCER
Instrument &
Trang 11The keys are next to the vase.
She brought some souvenirs from France.Marco travels to Merida tomorrow.
In the first sentence the text in blue marks the
semantic role of Location
In the second, the semantic role of Source
In the third one, the semantic role of Goal
Location, source and
Trang 12Not just the semantic roles provide a meaning to the words, phrases or sentences Sometimes
Trang 13POLYSEMY
Polysemy is the state or phenomenon in which the words that have more than one meaning In other words, it can be described as multiple meanings of words The words are considered to be related etymologically.
The concrete form of polysemy is called “polysemy”.
E.g.
Plain Simple (e.g English is extremely plain subject).With nothing added/ not decorate in anyway (e.g This blouse is too plain)
Simple (e.g English is extremely plain subject).
Trang 14SYNONYMY
Synonymy is the state or phenomenon in which
the words that sound different (different in pronunciation) but have the same or identical meaning as another word or phrase.
Trang 15ANTONYMY
Antonymy is the state or phenomenon in which the words have the sense relation which involve the opposite of meaning.
The concrete form of antonymy is called “antonym” (opposite).
The word pairs of antonym can be divided into several types:
•Implicitly gradable pairs (graded antonym)
•Complementary pairs (complementarity)
Trang 16a Implicitly gradable
pairs
Graded antonym refers to the words related to the object they modify The words themselves do not provide an absolute scale.
E.g
Big >< smallGood >< badFast >< slowYoung >< old
Thus, when we say that “a fly is bigger than another” we imply that “big” is to be understood in the context of “flies”.
Trang 17a Implicitly gradable
pairs
Another characteristic of certain pairs of gradable antonyms is that one is marked and the other is
unmarked.
The unmarked member is the one used in questions of degree.
We ask: ordinarily, “how high is the mountain?” (NOT “How low is it?”)
We answer, “ten thousand feet high”, but never “ten thousand feet low”, EXCEPT humorously or ironically or the topic of the conversation is the conversation is the particular context.
Trang 18b
Complementary pairs
Complemetarity refers to the existence of pairs that the denial of one, implies the assertion of the other.E.g Male >< femaleAlive >< deadPresent >< absentawake >< asleep
Thus, if one is not male, then one is certainly female, if one is not present, the he/she must be absent, and so on…
Incomparable objects
Trang 19Related to complementary pairs, sets of terms like colors or numbers where the assertion of one member implies the negation of all the others.
Thus, if we have a set of such as:
√ X X X X
Trang 20c Relational pairs
Converseness refers to the pair of words
that display symmetry in their meaning.
If X give Y to Z, then Z receives Y from X
Trang 21Other commonly relational pairs are:buy >< sellpush >< pullgive >< taketeach >< learndoctor >< patient
Trang 22HYPONYMY
Hyponymy is the state or phenomenon that
show the relationship between more general term (lexical representation) and the more specific instances of it.
Trang 23E.g
The lexical presentation of:
Red, yellow, green, blue, black is [+color]Thus we can say that: “red” is a hyponym of “color” and so on …
Sometimes there is no single word in the language that encompasses as set of hyponyms.
E.g
Clarinet, guitar, piano, trumpet, violin are hyponyms because they are “musical instruments”, but there is not a single word meaning “musical instrument” that has these words as its hyponyms.
Trang 24The relationship between the general term and the specific instances is often be described using a hierarchical diagram, called “taxonymy”.
Trang 25SUMMARY
Semantics is the study of meaning.
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple related meanings.
Synonymy is a word with the same or similar meaning of another word.
Antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings.
Hyponym is a word