Semantics Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language.

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.

SEMANTICS Hua Thi Hoai Thu (Autumn) MA student LSPU, Siniloan Campus What 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. Language is arbitrary. It is arbitrary because the relationship between forms and their meanings are sometimes can not logically proved. Although 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 Rose The flower of a rose brush The flower of a rose brush What is “semantics”? Beside, 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. Normally, a person expresses a connotative meaning through a word, phrase, clause or sentence based on certain characteristics of the entity or event that he/she is referring to. E.g. One may call a beautiful girl a “rose” or a “lily” One may call a beautiful girl a “rose” or a “lily” What is “semantics”? Conceptual 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 Associative meaning deals with the concepts that we add to the original word E.g. Money Money: Rich, job, to work, tired, coin, poor, etc. Conceptual and associative meaning  The 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. Semantic features Click to edit Master text styles Second level Third level Fourth level Fifth level Man Woman Girl Table Horse Boy Semantic features The semantic roles are properties that the noun phrases have according to their meaning inside the sentence The semantic roles are: Agent Theme Instrument Experiencer Location Source Goal Semantic roles The 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 Agent & theme The 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 & experiencer [...]... 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... hierarchical diagram, called “taxonymy” HYPONYMY 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 or phrase whose semantic field is included within that of another word Summary ... Statesman 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) ANTONYMY •Relational pairs (converseness) Graded antonym refers to the words.. .The keys are next to the vase She brought some souvenirs from France Marco travels to Merida tomorrow Location, source and goal 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 Not just the semantic roles provide a meaning to the words, phrases or sentences Sometimes meaning comes... Related 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 When we say: “this is green”, for instance, it means that it is not yellow, brown, red or blue yellow green red b Complementary pairs Brown blue Converseness refers to the pair of words that display symmetry in their meaning. .. related to the object they modify The words themselves do not provide an absolute scale E.g Big >< small Good >< bad Fast >< slow Young >< 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” Another fact dealing with this type is that “a small elephant” for example, is much bigger than “a big mouse” a Implicitly gradable pairs Another... particular context Thus, “high” is the unmarked member of “high/low” a Implicitly gradable pairs Complemetarity refers to the existence of pairs that the denial of one, implies the assertion of the other E.g Male >< female Alive >< dead Present >< absent awake >< asleep b Complementary pairs Thus, if one is not male, then one is certainly female, if one is not present, the he/she must be absent, and... Hyponymy is the state or phenomenon that show the relationship between more general term (lexical representation) and the more specific instances of it The concrete forms of sets of word (the specific instances) are called “hyponymy” HYPONYMY E.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... from the semantic relationships that are built Synonymy Antonymy Hyponymy Prototypes Lexical relations Homophones and Homonyms Polysemy Word-play Metonymy 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. .. Simple (e.g English is extremely plain subject) With nothing added/ not decorate in anyway (e.g This blouse is too plain) 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 The concrete form of synonymy is called synonym E.g Small = Little Big = large Mother and father = parents SYNONYMY . SEMANTICS Hua Thi Hoai Thu (Autumn) MA student LSPU, Siniloan Campus What is semantics ? Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression through language. Semantics. in a dictionary E.g. Rose Rose The flower of a rose brush The flower of a rose brush What is semantics ? Beside, there are additional meaning, which is know as “connotation”. With respect to. beautiful girl a “rose” or a “lily” One may call a beautiful girl a “rose” or a “lily” What is semantics ? Conceptual meaning refers to the linguist function of the word, that provides its meaning.