Semantics

Raith Zeher Abid

 Semantics
• What is semantics?
– The study of meaning in human language (O’Grady et
al, 1996)
– Is (the study of) the way in which language encodes
meaning (i.e. the CORE MEANINGS of words and the
PROPOSITIONAL STRUCTURE of word
combinations) (Hall, 2005).
– The study of the meaning of words, phrases and
sentences (Yule, 2010).
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• Meaning:-
– It can be separated into two subdivisions:-
 Conceptual meaning: covers those basic, essential
components of meaning that dictionaries are designed to
describe.
• For example: the word needle.
Associative meaning: the type of meaning that people
might connect with the use of words.
• For example: the word needle.
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• Semantic Features:-
– Basic elements involved in differentiating the meaning of
each word in a language from every other word.
• For Example:
Table Horse Boy Man Girl Woman
Animate - + + + + +
Human - - + + + +
Female - - - - + +
Adult - + - + - +
Inanimate + - - - - -
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• Semantic roles:-
– Instead of thinking of words as containers of meaning, we can look at
the roles they fulfill within the situation described by the sentence.
– Example: The boy kicked the ball.
 Kick: describes the action of kicking.

 The boy: the doer of the action (Agent).

 The ball: the object affected by the doer’s action (Theme).

• Other Examples:
– The flood killed several tourists.
– The student solved the puzzle.
– I eat Sushi.
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• Instrument:-
– An entity used by the agent to perform an action.
 For instance: The teacher drew the diagram with a marker.
• Experiencer:-
– When the verb signifies mental activity, as in, feelings,
perception, or state.
– In this category, the agent is an experiencer of a mental
state.
– For example:-
 I fear the future.
 I think of you everyday.
 I hate my linguistics teacher.
 I saw you last week.
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• Other semantic concepts:
– Location: Where an entity is.
– Source: Where an entity moves from.
– Goal: Where it moves to.
• Examples:-
– Mary saw a fly on the wall.
– She borrowed a magazine from George.
– She squashed the bug with the linguistics book.
– She handed the magazine back to George.
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• Lexical Relations:-
– Words are not only perceived as containers of meaning or have a
fulfilling roles in events, they also have relationships with each
other (Yule, 2010).

– Synonymy: words or expressions that have the same meanings

in some or all contexts (O’Grady et al., 1996).

– E.g., almost/nearly; big/large; broad/wide; buy/purchase; car/

automobile.

– Although several synonyms are compatible in meaning and

usage, differences tend to occur.
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• Incompatible synonyms within the same sentence (as in,
answer/reply)

– Ali had only one answer wrong in the test.

– Ali had only one reply wrong in the test*.

• Formal and informal implementation.

– My father purchased a large automobile.

– My dad bought a big car.

• The second version sounds more casual than the first one.
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• Antonym: words or phrases that are opposites with respect to some
components of their meaning (O’Grady et al., 1996).

• The forms with opposite (Yule, 2010)

• E.g. Alive/dead; big/small; happy/sad; long/short;
single/married
• Antonyms are divided into two types:-
– Gradable: Two antonyms related in such a way that more of one
is less of the other.
– E.g. warm/cool: more warm is less cool, and vice versa.
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• Non-gradable: Two antonyms related in such a way
that the negation of one is the meaning of the other.
– E.g. alive means not dead.

• Hyponymy: Words whose meanings are specific

instances of a more general word.
– E.g. red, white, and blue are hyponyms of the word color;
triangle is a hyponym of polygon.
– Color and polygon are called superordinate
– Red, white, and blue are called co-hyponyms.
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 Semantics

• Prototypes: Best exemplars of a concept (O’Grady,

1996).
• The idea of “characteristic instance” of a category is
known as a prototype (Yule, 2010).
• E.g. A robin is the best example of a bird.
• People might disagree on considering tomato or avocado
as fruits rather than vegetables.
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• Homophones: When two or more different (written)
forms have the same pronunciation.
– E.g. Too/two; pail/pale; right/write; flour/flower
• Homonyms: One form (written or spoken) has two or
more unrelated meanings.
– Bank can be a financial institution or side of a river
– Bat can be a flying creature or an object used in sports
• Polysemy: The situation in which a word has two or
more related meanings.
– Bright means intelligent and shining
– Head means the part on top of our bodies or the one who is
on top of a company or a department.
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• Metonymy: The use of one word refers, inevitably, to
another word.
• The close connection can be based on container-
content relation (bottle/water), a whole-part relation
(car/wheel), or a representative-symbol relation
(king/crown; president/white house).
• Collocation: when words frequently occur together,
then they collocate with each other.
• E.g. addled/egg, Hammer/nail, table chair.
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Explain the semantic ambiguity of the following sentences.
a) He waited by the bank.
b) Is he really that kind?
c) The long drill was boring.
d) He saw that gasoline can explode.
The following newspaper headlines may be lexically or structurally
ambiguous, or both. Provide the paraphrases showing you
comprehend all the meanings.
a) Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case.
b) Farmer Bill Dies in House.
c) Lung cancer in women mushrooms.
d) Miners Refuse to Work after Death.
e) Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies.