SEMANTICS

Definition
 Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. The focus in on
conventional meaning (knowledge shared by all competent users of a language), not personal
inferences or interpretations.
Meaning
 Referential meaning: it is the widely accepted objective or factual meaning of words, not their
subjective or personal meaning. In other words, referential meaning covers the literal use of
words. Literal meaning is the definition of a word that you can find in a dictionary.
For example: hospital (an institution where the sick and or injured are given medical or surgical
treatment)
 Associative or emotive meaning: it refers to the feelings or reactions to words that may be found
among some individuals or groups.
For example: hospital (pain, illness, covid, fear, life, death)
Referential Meaning
 Semantic features: Identification of the  Componential analysis: Here we analyse the
components of the referential meaning of a basic components of meaning in a noun.
noun. Both are  [human] → boy, girl, man, woman
agents
The girl ate the apple  [equine] → colt, filly, stallion, mare
[+animate]
The filly ate the apple  Colt → + equine, - adult, - female
The girl read a book → only the girl  Filly → + equine, - adult, + female
[+human] can be an agent here  Stallion → + equine, + adult, - female
 Mare → + equine, + adult, + female

Problem: If we treat word as containers of meaning, how do we account for objects or abstract nouns?
Semantic Roles (thematic roles)
 Instead of treating nouns as containers of meaning, it is more practical to assign roles to them.
Types of Semantic Roles
 Agent: it is the entity performing the action. E.g. The boy broke the window.
 Agents are typically human, but they can also be a natural force, a machine, or a creature.
E.g., The tornado destroyed the window.
 Theme: it is the entity involved in or affected by the action.
E.g., The window was broken by the boy.
 When we use the verb to be to describe the NP, that NP is a theme, not an agent.
E.g., The window was new. → descriptive
 When the NP is used to designate an entity as having a feeling, perception or state, it carries the semantic role of
experiencer. This happens because the verbs involved do not describe actions but states. So, the NP is not an agent.
E.g., The woman knows three languages.
Types of Semantic Roles
 Location: it provides information about where in, on, or at.
E.g., The pencil (theme) is (descriptive be) on the table (location).
 Source: it provides information about where from.
E.g., Lizzy (agent) borrowed the book (theme) from Daniel (source).
 Goal: it provides information about where to.
E.g., She (agent) handed the book (theme) back to Daniel (goal).
Lexical Relations
 Instead of treating words as containers or thematic roles, we can refer to them by establishing
relationships with other words.
Synonymy
 Two or more words with very closely related meanings (hard/difficult). They can often replace
each other in sentences. However, on many occasions a word might be appropriate but not its
synonym (collocations → heavy metal but not strong metal; regional differences → lift (UK),
elevator (US); or formal → enquire vs informal → ask).
Antonymy
 There are three types of antonyms:
 Gradable (opposites along a scale) E.g., I might be shier but cleverer. E.g., This chair is closer
than the other one, which is further.
 Non-gradable (direct opposites) E.g., alive/dead; true/false; free/busy.
 Reversives (one is the reverse action of the other) E.g., dress/undress; button/unbutton.
Hyponymy
 When the meaning of a word is included in the meaning of another. The idea is that if an object
is a bus, then it is necessarily a vehicle. So, the meaning of vehicle is included in the meaning of
bus:
 Superordinate (high level) → vehicle
 Co-hyponyms (two or more words share the same superordinate term) → car, bus,
motorbike (types of vehicle)
 With verbs → kiss, hug, caress (love)
 Prototypes: It is the characteristic instance of a category. E.g., robin for bird
Homophones and Homonyms
 Homophones: Two or more written forms
that have the same pronunciation.
E.g., piece/peace; break/brake; sun/son; I/eye
 Homonyms: When one form (written or spoken) has two or
more UNRELATED meanings. You can find them in different
entries in a dictionary.
E.g., bank (financial entity) vs bank (river)
bark (woofing of a dog) vs bark (tree cover)
 Polysemy: When two or more words have the same form and
related meanings. You can find in a single entry with
numbered meanings in a dictionary.
E.g., head (department, bottle); foot (bed, mountain); mouth
(volcano, cave)
Wordplay
 We use homophones, homonyms and polysemy to create a humorous effect.
Why do we tell actors to break a leg? Because every play has a cast.
Yesterday I saw a guy spill all his Scrabble letters on the road. I asked him, “What’s the word on
the street?”
How does Moses make tea? He brews (Hebrews)
Metonymy
 A relationship between words based on a close connection.
 Container-contents relation (bottle/water; can/cola). For example, “I drank the whole can” = “I drank all the cola in
the can”.
 Whole-part relation (car/wheels; employer/white collar). For example, “do you like my new wheels” = “Do you like
my new car?”
 This whole-part relation is known as synecdoche in Linguistics when we to use the part to refer to the whole. For
example, “Many faces showed up when half the shop was on sale.”
 Representative-symbol relationship (Queen/crown; peace/white dove). For example, “A white dove was released as a
symbol of peace.”
 Metaphors can also be symbolic. For example, “Your teeth are so white. The pearls of your mouth astound me”.
Here, “pearls” are the symbol of “teeth.”
Collocation
 A relationship between words that frequently occur together.
 This relationship is studied using corpus linguistics. A corpus is a large collection of texts,
spoken or written, typically stored as a database in a computer. We can look for specific words,
extract a set of examples in context and arrange them in concordance lines.
 A concordance is a listing of each occurrence of a word (or phrase) in a corpus, along with the
words surrounding it. The word being studied is described as the keyword in context.
Source
Yule, George. (2020). The Study of Language (7th Edition). CUP