Hue University

University of Foreign Languages

SEMANTICS

Lecturer: Pham Thi Nguyen Ai

September 2021
 Week 1: Basic ideas in
semantics

Semantics - the study of meaning

in language
 Activity 1

In groups, look up the word mean in any

dictionary and find out how many senses of
the word are listed there.

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (V)
to express or represent something such as an
idea, thought, or fact
e.g. - What does this word mean?
- She's kind of strange though. Do you
know what I mean?

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (V)
 used to add emphasis to what you are
saying:
e.g. -  I want you home by midnight. And
I mean midnight .
- Give it back now! I mean it.

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (V)
 to have a particular result
e.g. - Lower costs mean lower prices.

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (V)
 to intend
e.g. - The books with large print are meant for
partially sighted readers.
- They didn't mean for her to read the
letter.

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (V)
 to have an important emotional effect on
someone
e.g. - It wasn't a valuable picture but it meant a
lot to me.
- Possessions mean nothing to him.

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (Adj)
 not willing to give or share things, especially
money
e.g. - He's too mean to buy her a ring.
 unkind or unpleasant
e.g. - Stop being so mean to me!

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (Adj)
 very good
e.g. - She's a mean piano player.
  poor, dirty, and of bad quality
e.g. - He was born in the mean streets of Detroit in 1945.
(in math) a mean number is an average number
e.g. - Their mean weight was 46.5 kilos.

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 Online Cambridge Dictionary
Mean (N)
 the result you get by adding two or more
amounts together and dividing the total by
the number of amounts
e.g. - The mean of 5, 4, 10, and 15 is 8.5.

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 Activity 2
Try to paraphrase each of the following uses of
the word mean as it is employed in the
sentences below.
1. I mean to be there tomorrow.
2. Calligraphy means beautiful handwriting.
3. It wasn’t what he said but what he meant.
4. What does the German word Hund mean?
5. Those clouds mean rain.
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 Activity 3
What are the meanings of the following
sentences?
1. There are some spider webs in the ceiling.
2. Could you pass me the salt?
3. I don’t really like bananas.
4. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?
5. A bachelor is an unmarried man.

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 Basic ideas in semantics
 Sentence meaning (or word meaning) is what
a sentence or words mean
 Speaker meaning - what a speaker means (i.e.
intends to convey) when he uses a piece of
language
 The same sentences are used by different
speakers on different occasions to mean
(speaker meaning) different things

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 Semantic theory
• Semantic theory deals with semantic facts,
facts about meaning.
E.g. Alive means the opposite of dead.
If the sentence John killed Bill is true of any
situation, then so is the sentence Bill is dead.
Proper names have a different kind of
meaning from common nouns.

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