LINGUISTICS

Semantics
By: Fourth Group

EZRA SISILYA YAHDINI NAILA SARAH AZIZAH ALRID AULIN

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SEMANTICS
The study of the linguistic
meaning of morphemes, words,
phrases, and sentences.

SEMANTICS
X

Lexical Semantics Phrasal Semantics

concerned with the meanings of concerned with the meaning of
words and the meaning of syntactic units larger than the
relationships among words. word.
 We are not free to change the
meanings of words freely
because if we did we can't
communicate with anyone.
All the speakers of a language

LEXICAL
share a basic vocabulary.

SEMANTICS
Dictionaries are filled with words
and their meanings. We are a
walking dicitonaries because we
know the meanings of thousands
of words. Our knowledge of
information about words and
morphemes is called the lexicon.
 Semantic
Properties

The components of meanings of words. For example, the semantic property "human"
can be found in many words such as parent, doctor, baby, professor, widow, and
aunt. Other semantic properties include animate objects, male, female, countable
items and non-countable items.
Semantic Property Verbs Having It

Motion Bring, fall, walk, run

Contact Hit, touch

Creation Build, make

Sense See, hear, feel

 Evidence for Semantic
Properties

Intended Utterance Actual Utterance (Error)

when my gums bled when my tounges bled

he came too late he came too early

Felix was young Felix was early

Semantic Properties and the Lexicon

The lexicon is the part of the grammar that contains the knowledge
that speakers have about individual words and morphemes,
including semantic properties.
Semantic classes may intersect, such as the class of words with the
properties "female" and "young". The words girl and filly are
members of this class.
One way of representating semantic properties is
by use of semantic features. Semantic features
are a formal or notational device that indicates
the presence or absence of semantic properties by
pluses and minuses.

Woman Father Mare

+female +male +female

+human +human -human
-young +parent -young
+equine
 HOMONYMS AND
POLYSEMY

Homonyms are different words that are pronounced

the same, but may or not be spelled the same.
Example
to, too, and two
Polysemy is a word has multiple meanings that are
related conceptually or histiorical.
You will find in dictionary words with more than one
definition.
Example
bear, guard, and music.
 SYNONYMS ANTONYMS

Antonyms is a word that has the

Synonyms is a word, morpheme, or opposite meaning of another word.
phrase that means exactly or nearly There are several kinds of antonyms.
the same as another word, morpheme, There are:
or phrase in a given language. complementary pairs
FOR EXAMPLE : Alive/dead present/absent
She forget her handbag Gradable pairs
She forgot her purse Big/small hot/cold
Opposite pairs
Give/ receive teacher/pupil
Hyponyms
Hyponyms are words that are the
specific examples of a general
word.
Example
Red, white and blue are all
hyponyms of colours.
Metonyms
Metonyms are substitutes for the
object that is meant, the name of
an attribute or concept associated
with that object.
Example
jork used for athlete. Washington
used for American government,
crown used for monarcy
Retronyms is a new name for something
that already exists in order to distinguish
the initial version from the new version.
RETRONYMS
example
At first all "guitar" was "acoustic guitar",
but the advent of "electric guitar" made it
necessary to add the word "acoustic" to
distinguish the old guitar from the new
version. Proper names are different from most words in
the language in that they refer to a specific
object or entity, but usually have little meaning,
or sense, beyond the power of referral.
example
If I say Mary Smith is coming to dinner my

PROPER NAMES spouse understands Mary Smith to refer to our

friend Mary Smith, and not to one of the dozens
of Mary Smiths in the phone book.
 Phrase and Sentence
Meaning
The Principle of Compositionality states that the meaning of a phrase
or sentence depends both on the meaning of its words and how those
words are combined structurally.

Example :

John loves Mary with Mary Loves John

Visiting relatives can be boring

Some of the semantic relationships we observed between words are

also found between sentences.

Example :

They ran the bill up

They ran up the bill
Phrasal Meaning
Noun-centered Meaning
Red Balloon
The semantic rule to interpret the combination red balloon adds the
property "redness" to the properties of balloon.

If we add the article the to form the red balloon, the expression means "a
particular instance of a balloon that is red"

Large Balloon
The phrase large balloon would be interpreted differently because
part of the meaning of large is that it is a relative concept
The semantic rules for adjective-noun combinations are complex

A good friend A false friend An alleged murderer

a kind of friend not any kind of friend unspecified murderer

Exemplars of class Truth of "An Adj X is an X"

of Adjective (e.g. A red ball is a ball)

good, red, large, ...

True

false, counterfeit, phony, ... False

alleged, purported, putative, ... Undetermined

The semantic rules for Noun Phrases that contain Prepositional Phrases

The house with the white fence

The semantic rules for prepositions indicate that two objects stand in a
certain relationship determined by the meaning of the particular preposition
As nearly always, the meanings center on the head of the phrase

In Noun Compound, the final noun is generally the head.

Example : doghouse, housedog, etc.

Adjective-Noun : whiteboard, software, etc

Verb-Noun : washing machine, workshop, etc
Noun- Adjective : headstrong, truckful, etc
Noun-Verb : spoonfeed
 Sence and Reference
There are other parts of sense and reference
Proper names but have meaning over and above their
ability to refer
Knowing the meaning of certain = The name "Sue"
noun phrases means knowing how Two different proper names but the same referent
to discover what objects the noun = Superman and Clark Kent
phrases refer to.

The mason put the red

brick on the wall

Proper nouns that have reference but no sense or vice

versa.
= The present king of France is bald
By the year 3000, our descendants will have left Earth.
 Phrasal Meaning
Verb-centered Meaning
The verb determines the number of objects The noun phrase subject of a sentence and
and limits the semantic properties of both the constituents of the verb phrase are
its subject and its object. semantically related in various ways to the
Example : verb. The relation depend on the meaning
Find of the particular verb.
Put
Thematic Roles Example :
Agent The boy found a red brick
Theme
Location The noun phrase within a verb phrase
Goal whose head is the verb "put" has the
Source relation of theme and goal.
Instrument Example :
Experiencer Put the red brick on the wall
Causative The boy put the red brick on the wall
Possessor
 Thematic roles in sentences that are
paraphrases and not paraphrases

The dog bit the stick The boy opened the

The stick was bitten door with the key
by the dog The key opened the
door
The door opened
Thematic roles in other language
German
This hotel forbids dogs
In diesem Hotel sind Hunde verboten
( in this hotel are dogs forbidden )

The Theta Criterion

The boy opened the door with the key

Open, V, ___, NP, PP (Agent, Theme, Instrument)

Who will Bill kiss?

Kiss, V, ___, NP (Agent, Theme)

*The boy opened the door with the key with a lock -pick
 Sentential Meaning
The "Truth" of The Sentence Entailment
- The declaration of independence was signed in
- Corday assasinnated Marat
1946
Marat is dead
- The declaration of independence was signed in
1945
Contradiction
Paraphrase
- Elizabeth II is Queen of England
- The horse threw the rider Elizabeth II is a man
- The rider was thrown by the horse

- Every person in this room speaks two languages

- Every two languages are spoken by every person
in this room
 Pronoun
and
Jane bit herself
Coreferentiality

Events Versus States

Events
John ate oysters Jane said that herself slept
Oysters were eaten by John
States
John likes oysters
? Oysters are liked by
John