Name : Sri Solechah

SRN : 2211417046
Class : English Semantics 2
SUMMARY WEEK 2

TRADITIONAL TERMS IN SEMANTICS: HOMONYMY,POLYSEMY, and

SYNONYMY
A. Analysis of Meaning
The study of word meaning constitutes the more traditional approach to semantics which
can be traced back to Aristotle and assumes that it is possible to categorise words (or
concepts) according to sets of necessary and sufficient features. It is essentially
‘paradigmatic’ in nature, as it contrasts the semantic content of individual words in terms of
their individual meaning components, as we shall see further below. For that purpose, it
applies a technique known as componential analysis, which attempts to identify salient
features of meaning.
B. Synonymy
We talk of two words being synonymous when they basically express the ‘same’
meaning. This variety of different expressions may have different reasons or motivations, as
you’ll be able to see when you look at the brief list below:
common vs. learned/borrowed: buy ⇔ purchase
common vs. technical/scientific: water ⇔ H2O
‘dialectal’: autumn ⇔ fall, boot ⇔ trunk
grammatical: start ⇔ begin
C. Antonyms
Antonyms are words which have opposite meanings. 
 There are four types of antonyms: 
1.Gradable antonyms are opposites at either end of the spectrum, as in slow and fast.
2. Complementary antonyms are absolute opposites, like mortal and immortal.
3. Relational antonyms are opposites where one word describes a relationship between
two objects, and the other word describes the same relationship when the two objects are
reversed.
4. Auto-antonyms are the same two words that mean the opposite.
    For example, fast (moving quickly) and fast (stuck in place).
D. Polysemy
Polysemy is an intimidating compound noun for a basic language feature. This happens
when a lexeme acquires a wider range of meanings.
E. Homonymy
The word Homonymy  (from the Greek—homos:  same, onoma: name) is the relation
between words with identical forms but different meanings—that is, the condition of
 being homonyms. A stock example is the word bank as it appears in "river bank" and
"savings bank.“
So a homonym is sort of like two people who have the same name: called the same thing
but different. A homonym can be a word that sounds the same as something else —
like by (“near”) and buy (“purchase”) — or it can be spelled exactly the same way and
pronounced differently — like minute(unit of time) and minute (“tiny”).
F. Phonetic
Phonetics is a study of human speech as a phsycal phenomenon.
Phonetics consist of :
1. Articulatory Phonetics
How speech sound are articulated
2. Acoustic Phonetics
How speech sound are generated
3. Auditory Phonetics
How human
G. Articulation
Place of articulation
Consists of two types :
1. Active
2. Passive
Manner of articulation :
1. Stop articulation
2. Fricative
3. Approximants