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SEMANTICS

Semantics is the study of meaning in language, focusing on how words, phrases, and sentences convey meaning through various relationships such as synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy. It includes compositional semantics, which examines how individual word meanings combine to form sentence meanings, and addresses semantic ambiguity, where words or sentences can have multiple interpretations. Additionally, semantics interacts with pragmatics, which considers how context and intention influence meaning.

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15 views5 pages

SEMANTICS

Semantics is the study of meaning in language, focusing on how words, phrases, and sentences convey meaning through various relationships such as synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy. It includes compositional semantics, which examines how individual word meanings combine to form sentence meanings, and addresses semantic ambiguity, where words or sentences can have multiple interpretations. Additionally, semantics interacts with pragmatics, which considers how context and intention influence meaning.

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aleja.valen808
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Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning in language, focusing on how

words, phrases, and sentences convey meaning. It examines how meaning is structured, how
it changes in different contexts, and how people understand and interpret language.

Features
1. Lexical Semantics (Word Meaning)
Lexical semantics analyzes individual words and their meanings, as well as the
relationships between words.

- Synonymy – Words with similar meanings.


• Example: big – large, start – begin

- Antonymy – Words with opposite meanings.


• Example: hot – cold, fast – slow
• Types of antonyms:
- Gradable antonyms – Can have intermediate levels (hot vs. cold, but also
warm).
- Complementary antonyms – Mutually exclusive (dead vs. alive).
- Relational antonyms – Depend on a relationship (buy vs. sell).

- Hyponymy – A relationship where a word (hyponym) is a specific type of a broader


category (hypernym).
• Example: dog (hyponym) is a type of animal (hypernym).
- Meronymy – A relationship where a word represents a part of a whole.
• Example: wheel is a meronym of car.
- Polysemy – A single word with multiple related meanings.
• -Example: run (to move fast on foot, to manage a business).
- Homonymy – Words that are spelled or pronounced the same but have different
meanings.
• Example: bat (an animal) vs. bat (a baseball bat).
2. Compositional Semantics (Sentence Meaning)
This area studies how individual word meanings combine to form the meaning of
phrases and sentences.

- Principle of Compositionality (Frege’s Principle) – The meaning of a sentence


depends on the meanings of its words and their syntactic arrangement.
• Example: "The cat sat on the mat." → The meaning is derived from the
meanings of cat, sat, and mat, as well as their structure.

- Semantic Roles (Theta Roles) – Describe the roles that words play in conveying
meaning
• Agent – The doer of the action (*John* kicked the ball).
• Theme – The object affected by the action (The ball was kicked by John).
• Experiencer – The one who experiences something (She felt happy).
• Instrument – The tool used (He wrote with a pen).
3. Semantic Ambiguity (Multiple Interpretations)
A word, phrase, or sentence can have more than one meaning.

- Lexical Ambiguity – A single word has multiple possible meanings.


• Example: "He went to the bank." → (bank = financial institution or
riverbank?)

- Structural Ambiguity – The structure of a sentence allows for multiple


interpretations.
• Example: "The old men and women left." → (Are both men and women
old, or just the men?)

- Scope Ambiguity – The interpretation depends on the order of quantifiers.


• Example: "Every student read a book." → (Did they all read the same
book or different ones?)
4. Semantics and Pragmatics (Context-Dependent Meaning)
Pragmatics focuses on how meaning is influenced by context, intention, and social
conventions.

- Literal vs. Non-Literal Meaning


• Literal: “It's raining cats and dogs." (Implies actual animals falling).
• Non-literal (idiomatic): "It's raining cats and dogs." (Means heavy rain).
• Implicature: Meaning implied but not explicitly stated.
Example: "Can you pass the salt?" → A request, not a question
about ability.
• Presupposition – Information assumed to be true in a sentence.
Example: "John stopped smoking." (Presupposes that John used
to smoke).

Feature Examples

Synonymy Begin – Start

Antonymy Happy – Sad

Hyponymy Rose (Hyponym) – Flower (Hypernym)

Run (to move quickly) – Run (to manage a


Polysemy
business

Homonymy Bat (animal) – Bat (baseball)

"I saw the man with the telescope." (Who


Ambiguity
has the telescope?)

“It's cold in here."* (Could imply "Please


Implicature
close the window."
"Her brother is tall." (Presupposes she has a
Presupposition brother.)

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