BSEE 21: LINGUISTICS

SEMANTICS
MS. ROANNE S. CASTRO, LPT
Instructor, DepTEL
 What is SEMANTICS?

Semantics is the study of the meaning of

words and sentences. It uses the relations
of linguistic forms to non-linguistic
concepts and mental representations to
explain how sentences are understood by
native speakers.
Difference of Semantics and
Pragmatics

Semantics Pragmatics

semantics pragmatics is
deals with the concerned with
conceptual the contextual
meanings of meaning
words and (hidden
sentences. meaning)
We will focus on two semantics with 2
related subfields...

Lexical semantics is the study of word meaning. It establishes

meaning to words based on their relationships to other words in
the sentence as well as their compositional structure.

Compositional semantics is concerned with how

lexical meanings are combined to form more complex
phrasal meanings.
 Examples:

1. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.

2. Is that what you mean?
3. Semantics means ‘simasiologia’ in Greek.

a. mean is the equivalent of ‘intend’

b. it means to convey a message
c. it is a translation
 Reference and Sense

Reference - The relationship

between the word and the
object or idea it represents.

Example:
When I was a kid, , the
appearance of the rainbow
puzzled me.
 “RAINBOW”
(referents)

THERE IS A PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD.

 Reference and Sense

‘when’ ‘was’, ‘the’,

‘appearance’, ‘of’, ‘a’, and
‘puzzled’

do not have real-world

referents but we could
understand their usage and
meaning (sense)
 Denotative Meaning

Conceptual or Denotative
Meaning - it refers to literal
meaning of the word which is
its primary meaning.
this meaning is neutral and
objective as opposed to the
other kinds of meanings.
 Connotative Meaning

They are referring to what it

implies or suggests—or to the
secondary meanings or
implications that are
associated with it. The
connotation of a word
depends on cultural context
and personal associations.
 Social or Stylistics Meaning

The meaning is conveyed by a

word is dependent of various
social factors or context of its use
resulting to what we call social
meaning. We consider the social
background of the speaker and
the intended receiver, their
relationship, and the context of
the expression.
 Affective or emotive meaning

The personal feelings, attitudes,

or values of an author or speaker
inferred from their words and/or
nonverbal behavior. The emotions
and feelings involved in the
communication process
significantly contribute to the
meaning of the words expressed.
 Reflected meaning

In semantics, reflected
meaning is a phenomenon
whereby a single word or
phrase is associated with
more than one sense or
meaning. It is also known as
coloring and contagion.
 Collocative meaning

Collocative meaning is the meaning

which a word acquires in the company
of certain words. Words collocate or
co-occur with certain words only e.g.
Big business not large or great.
Collocative meaning refers to
associations of a word because of its
usual or habitual co-occurrence with
certain types of words. ‘Pretty’ and
‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’.
 Thematic meaning

It refers to what is
communicated by the way in
which a speaker or a writer
organizes the message in
terms of ordering focus and
emphasis
Examples:

1) Mrs. Smith donated the first prize

2) The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith.

In the first sentence “who gave away the prize “is

more important, but in the second sentence “what
did Mrs. Smith gave is important”.

Thus the change of focus change the meaning

also. The first suggests that we already know
Mrs. Smith (perhaps through earlier mention) its
known/given information while it’s new
information.
 LEXICAL
SEMANTICS
 LEXICAL RELATIONS
Lexical relations are the ways in which words
are related to each other in a language.
Lexical relations are used to analyze the
meanings of words based on their
relationships with one another. In fact, they
are one of the ways of understanding the
meaning of words.
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
small - tiny, huge - big,
fast - quick , wealthy -
SYNONYMY - these rich
are words with
similar or very close
related meanings.
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
big-small, happy-sad,
long-short, rich-poor, hot-
ANTONYMY - these cold, true-false
are words that are
opposite in
meanings.
Kinds of Semantic Relationship

EXAMPLES:
red-color, apple-fruit,
rose-flower
HYPONYMY - these
describes a
hierarchical
relationships between
words
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
Chair is the prototype of
'furniture'
PROTOTYPE - set of Robin is the prototype of 'bird'
members of a group that
best represents the group
as a whole. it is the best
example of a category
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
write - right, meet - meat, see
- sea, pail - pale
HOMOPHONES -
words with different
spelling and meanings
have the same
pronunciation,
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
bat -bat , race - race, bark-
bark
HOMONYMS - words
with same spelling,
different meanings
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
desert - desert
Here, 'desert' as a noun
HOMOGRAPH - are means 'an isolated area' and
words that have 'desert' as a verb means 'to
leave someone in a difficult
different meanings and condition'
pronunciations but are
spelled the same.
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
POLYSEMY - Mouth (noun) → mouth of a
river, mouth of an animal,
Polysemy happens
mouth of a cave.
when a word has more
than one meaning and Light (adjective): color, not
all its meanings are heavy, not serious.
listed under one entry
in a dictionary
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
METONYMY - I drank the whole bottle. →
Metonymy is a relation 'Bottle' is a metonym for
between words in 'water/liquid'.
which a word or I swear to the crown. →
'Crown' is a metonym for 'king'
phrase is used to
and 'queen'.
represent something
else that is related to
it.
Kinds of Semantic Relationship
EXAMPLES:
CAPITONYMS - polish (make shiny) and Polish
same spelling, but (from Poland)
have different may (modal verb), May (fifth
meanings when month of the year)
march (walk in step) and
capitalized.
March (3rd month of the year)
 SEMANTIC
FEATURES AND
ROLES
 SEMANTIC FEATURES

cow the bread the dog

ANIMATE + - +

HUMAN + - -
 SEMANTIC FEATURES

cow table boy man girl

ANIMATE + - + + +

HUMAN - - + + +

ADULT + - + + +
 SEMANTIC ROLES

AGENT, PATIENT, INSTRUMENT

AGENT The one that performs the actions

Entity that is being affected by the

PATIENT
action of the agent.
entity that is used by the agent in
INSTRUMENT
doing the action
Examples:

The chicken ate the worm.

Using the net bag, he caught the chicken.

AGENT - the chicken

PATIENT - the worm
INSTRUMENT - a net bag

If the agent uses another

entity in doing the action, the
entity acts as the instrument.
 SEMANTIC ROLES

THEME AND EXPERIENCER

EXPERIENCER the entity that has the state of

feeling or perception which
receives sensory or emotional
inputs.

THEME the participate most directly affected

by an event.
Examples:

The farmer has five hens.

THEME - five hens

EXPERIENCER - the farmer

Patient is sometimes used

interchangeably with theme.
Theme changes the state;
patient does not.
 SEMANTIC ROLES

LOCATION, SOURCE, GOAL

LOCATION An entity that can fill the role of location

(in the park, at my house)

SOURCE The source or origin is from where an

entity moves from

GOAL Where it moves to.

Examples:

She walked from her house to school.

GOAL - to school
SOURCE - from her house
 SEMANTIC ROLES

RECEPIENT, TIME, PURPOSE, MANNER

An entity that can fill the role of location

RECEPIENT
(in the park, at my house)

The source or origin is from where an

SOURCE
entity moves from
Examples:

She walked from her house to school.

GOAL - to school
SOURCE - from her house
 SEMANTIC ROLES

RECEPIENT, TIME, PURPOSE, MANNER

describing WHEN the action or the even

TIME
occured.

PURPOSE The reason WHY the action is done.

MANNER HOW the action was performed

Examples:

To please Mary, John, while on his knees, gave her a

bouquet yesterday.

RECEIPIENT - Mary
TIME - Yesterday
PURPOSE - To please Mary
MANNER - while on his knees
SEMANTIC
AMBIGUITY
 SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

It adheres to the syntactic rules in English.

SUBJECT - colorless green ideas
PREDICATE - sleep furiously
But, it is obvious that something os wrong
with the sentence -- meaning aspect.
 SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
WHAT’S WRONG?
1. The noun ‘ideas’ has a semantic feature of
human that is incapable of performing the
action ‘sleep’
2. The use of adjective ‘colorless’ and ‘green.
How can something be both ’green in color’
and ‘without color’?
 SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY
The worm sneezed.
WHAT’S WRONG?
1. It has something to do with subject-verb
restriction; that is, can a worm sneezed?
 SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY
The winter killed the rocks.
WHAT’S WRONG?
1. It illustrates a verb-object restriction - that is,
can non-living nouns such as rocks be killed?
 SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY
The stallion was pregnant.
WHAT’S WRONG?
1. It illustrates an adjective-noun restriction: can
a stallion be impregnated?
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