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Semantics Review

This document provides an overview of key concepts in semantics including: 1. Denotation vs. connotation and speaker vs. sentence meaning. 2. Linguistic units like utterances, sentences, propositions, and references. 3. Relations like anaphora, cataphora, synonymy, paraphrase, hyponymy, homonymy, polysemy, antonymy, and ambiguity. 4. Different types of sentences like generic, equative, analytic, synthetic, and contradictory.

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HUYEN NGUYEN THI KHANH
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179 views23 pages

Semantics Review

This document provides an overview of key concepts in semantics including: 1. Denotation vs. connotation and speaker vs. sentence meaning. 2. Linguistic units like utterances, sentences, propositions, and references. 3. Relations like anaphora, cataphora, synonymy, paraphrase, hyponymy, homonymy, polysemy, antonymy, and ambiguity. 4. Different types of sentences like generic, equative, analytic, synthetic, and contradictory.

Uploaded by

HUYEN NGUYEN THI KHANH
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Semantics

1. Denotation and connotation


2. Speaker (intended) meaning and sentence (literal) meaning
3. Utterance, sentence, proposition
4. Reference ( variable, constant)
5. Sense
6. Referring expression, referent
7. Predicate, degree of a predicate (zero-place, one-place, two-place, three-place)
8. Argument, predicator
9. Deixis, anaphora, cataphora
10.Synonymy, paraphrase
11.Homonymy, polysemy
12.Hyponymy, entailment
13.Antonymy (gradable, binary, relational)
14.Ambiguous sentences (lexically/structurally)
15.Generic, equative, analytic, synthetic, contradictory
sentences
Utterance, sentence, proposition
Reference
Anaphora is a rhetorical device that features repetition of a word
or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences, phrases, or clauses.
Anaphora works as a literary device to allow writers to convey,
emphasize, and reinforce meaning.
Ex: Here are some examples of conversational anaphora:
•“Go big or go home.”
•“Be bold. Be brief. Be gone.”
•“Get busy living or get busy dying.”
•“Give me liberty or give me death.”
Cataphora:
The use of a linguistic unit, such as a pronoun, to refer ahead to another unit,
for example, the use of him to refer to John in the sentence Near him, John saw a
snake.
Sense relations:
Synonymy: is the relationship between two predicates that
have the same use. (Hurford et al., 2007)
Paraphrase: a sentence which expresses the same
proposition as another sentence is a paraphrase of that
sentence. (Hurford et al., 2007)
Hyponymy:
Hyponymy:
When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of
another, the relationship is described as Hyponymy.
Superordinate = higher terms
Same Superordinate = co-hyponyms
Ex: dog, horse are co-hyponyms, animal is superordinate.
Homophony:
When two or more different forms have the same
pronunciation, they are described as homophones.
Homonymy
Homonyms are words of one form has two or more unrelated
meanings
There are two types of entailment:
1. One way entailment

2. Two way entailment


Polysemy: is a relation in which a single word has “two or
more slightly different but closely related meanings.
Antonymy

Classification:
1. Binary/ complementary antonymy is a relation in which
two members of a pair of antonyms are mutually exclusive
and cannot be used in a comparative or superlative sense.
Ex: single ≠ married; alive ≠ dead
2. Gradable antonymy is a relation in which two members of a
pair of antonyms are gradable. (Palmer, 1981) and can be used
in questions with how to ask about degrees.
Ex: between “hot” and “cold” there are three intermediate
terms i.e warm, tepid/ lukewarm and cool.
3. Relational/converse antonymy
when two members of a pair of relational antonyms display
symmetry in their meaning.
Ambiguity
Sentence types
Sentence types
Final Exam:

True-False sentences
Fill in the blanks
Multiple choice questions
Exercises related to sense relations, sentence types, semantic
relations, ambiguity

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