Meaning
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences. Referential meaning is basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed by literal use of a word. Associative or emotive meaning is feelings or reactions to words that may be found among some individuals or groups but not others. A phrase can be syntactically good, but semantically odd.
Semantics Features
Semantic features are the basics elements used in an analysis of the components of word meaning. The identification of these semantic features as component of the meaning of a word is called componential analysis. An example is seen below:
| feature | boy | girl | man | woman |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| human | + | + | + | + |
| adult | - | - | + | + |
| female | - | + | - | + |
In text this could be written as:
| The _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is reading the newspaper. |
| The N [+ human] is reading the newspaper. |
| The problem with componential analysis is that the approach involves treating words as a “container” that carries meaning components. This can be seen as too restrictive and very limited in terms of practical use. |
Semantic Roles
Semantic roles, also known as thematic roles, are the part played by a noun phrase, such as agent, in the event described by the sentence. An agent is the entity that performs the action while the theme also called patient is the entity involved in or affected by the action. The theme can also be an entity that is being described. If an agent uses another entity to perform an action the entity is called an instrument, this is often shown by the inclusion of the word with. When a NP is used to designate an entity the person who has a feeling, perception, or state it fills the semantic role of experiencer.
Entities can also take on the role of location (where it is), source (where it’s from), or goal (where it moves to).
| Mary | saw | a fly | on the wall |
| EXPERIENCER | THEME | LOCATION | |
| She | borrowed | a magazine | from George. |
| AGENT | THEME | SOURCE |
Lexical Relations
Lexical relations is the relationship of meaning, such as synonymy (conceal/hide), antonymy (shallow/deep), and hyponomy (pine/tree) between words.
Synonymy are words that are closed related in meaning. Their forms can differ in formal vs informal uses. Antonyms are words with opposite meanings and are divided into three types:
- gradable - opposite along a scale (eg. large/small, fast/slow), remember that a negative of one member of a gradable pair does not necessarily imply the other (eg. My car isn’t old ≠ My car is new)
- non-gradable - direct opposites also known as complementary pairs (eg. male/female, true/false)
- reversives - one is the reverse action of the other (eg. enter/exit, raise/lower)
Hyponymy are words where one forms is included in the meaning of another (eg. animal/horse or flower/rose). Terms in these hierarchies can be superordinate meaning higher level terms, or if they share the same superordinate term they can be called co-hyponyms. The characteristic instance of a category is called the prototype. Prototype can be used to describe the meaning of words without using component features but in terms of resemblance to clearest example (eg. prototype bird is robin not penguin or emu).
Homophones are words with two or more different written forms but same pronunciation. There are also homonyms which are words where one form (written or spoken)has two or more unrelated meanings. They are words that have separate histories and meaning, but have accidentally come to have the identical form.
Polysemy is a word having two or more related meanings (eg. foot - of person, of mountain, of bed). In a dictionary the word will have a single entry with a numbered list of the different meanings. If it is not polysemous (that is to say the words are homonyms) they will be separate entries.
Metonymy is when a word is used in place of another with which it is closely associated with in everyday experience (eg. the President ≈ the White House, the King ≈ the Crown, the bottle ≈ the liquid in the bottle).
Collocation
Collocation is the relationship between words that frequently occur together (eg. salt and pepper, or you know what I mean). Corpus linguistics is the study of language in use by analyzing the occurrence and frequency of forms in a large collection of texts. Concordance is a listing of each occurrence of a word of phrase in a corpus along with the words surrounding it.
Study Questions
- What semantic feature must a noun have in order to be used in this sentence? [+ human]
The ____________ were discussing what to do.
- Using semantic features, how would you explain the oddness of these sentences?
a) The television drank my water. - Drink requires a subject with the feature [+ animate], the noun television has the feature [- animate].
b) His dog writes poetry. - Writes requires a subject with the feature [+ human], the noun dog had the feature [- human].
- What phrase is used more often instead of “thematic roles” and what other term is used instead of “theme” in the semantic analysis of noun phrases? Semantic roles and patient.
- What kind of opposites can be identified via the “negative test”? Non-gradable antonyms.
- How it the term “prototype” used in semantics? A prototype is characteristic instance of a category.
- Identify the roles of the seven noun phrases in this sentence:
With her new golf club, Anne Marshall whacked the ball from the woods to the grassy area near the hole and she suddenly felt invincible.
| Noun phrase | Role |
|---|---|
| her new golf club | instrument |
| Anne Marshall | agent |
| the ball | theme |
| the woods | source |
| the grassy area | goal |
| the hole | location |
| she | experiencer |
- Which of the following words are co-hyponyms? Cabbage and turnip.
ant, cabbage, insect, plant, turnip, vegetable
- What is the basic lexical relation between each pair of words listed here?
| Words | Relation | Words | Relation | Words | Relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| assemble/disassemble | antonymy (reversives) | dog/schnauzer | hyponymy | move/turn | hyponymy |
| damp/moist | synonymy | furniture/table | hyponymy | peace/piece | homophony |
| deep/shallow | antonymy (gradable) | married/single | antonymy (non-gradable) | pen/pen | homonymy |
- Which of the following opposites are gradable, non-gradable, or reversive?
| Words | Relation | Words | Relation | Words | Relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| absent/present | non-gradable | fail/pass | non-gradable | fill it/empty it | reversive |
| appear/disappear | reversive | fair/unfair | gradable | high/low | gradable |
- What is the lexical relation between the English words swallow (= a small bird) and swallow (= make food or drink go down the throat)? They are homonyms.
- What is the hierarchical relationship in the meaning of this set of words: All but disease are co-hyponyms, while disease is a superordinator.
bronchitis, disease, influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis
- Are the bold words in these sentences best described as examples of polysemy or metonymy?
a) The pen is mightier than the sword. Metonymy because the word is being used in place of another that it is closely related to.
b) I had to park on the shoulder of the road. Polysemy because the words are related in meaning.
c) Yes I love those. I ate a whole box on Sunday. Metonymy because the word box is being used in place of those.
d) The bookstore has some new titles in linguistics. Metonymy because the word titles is being used in place of books.
e) Computer chips created an important new technology. Polysemy as chips is related to chips in meaning.
f) I’m going to sure your ass! Metonymy bcause the word ass is being used in place of the individual.
g) I think that kind of music was called new wave. Polyemy as the word is closely related in meaning.
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