Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
OBJECTIVES
O GENERAL OBJECTIVE:
meaning
O Lexical meaning
O Sense relations between sentences
O Analysis of meaning
General guidelines
O Class participation (20%)
O Group work (20%)
O 3 Reaction papers (30%)
O Final project:
Texts.
O Semantics a coursebook, James R.
Hurford
CUP
Semantics: A Coursebook
, SECOND EDITION
196.29.172.66:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456
789/2595/1/Semantics.pdf
c._kreidler_introducing_english_semanticsbookfi.org_2.p
bok:978-1-4020-4485-4.pdf
bok:978-1-4020-5857-8.pdf
What is semantics?
O Get in groups
O Read the document given
O Write down your own definiton
O Define Semantics
O What does Semanticsx imply?
O What do we have to know?
O What are the most important elements?
What is Semantics?
O Semantics is the study of meaning in language, which
through language.
of view
O It deals with the meaning of words (lexical semantics).
O And how meaning of sentences (compositional
semantics) is derived from words.
What is meaning?
O get in groups
O Find out about the theories of meaning
O How many theories?
O Define each theory
Meaning
O To understand language
O the meaning of words and of the
to something
O the meaning cannot be obserbed
O It does not have any location
O No mind, objects
O no physical features
O No resemble between sound and meaning
O Arbitrariness
O Indirect realtion of words
O Ideas vs words
Meaning
O Conceptual vs. associative meaning
O Denotative vs. connotative meaning
O conceptual/denotative= literal use of the
word.
O Associative/ connotative= different
associations with the conceptual meaning
O E.g. needle= thin, sharp, steel, instrument is
associated with pain, blood or illness
O Other examples: night- rose?
What is Semantics?
O The study of meaning of words, phrases,
and sentences.
O Lexical semantics (words and meaning
Semantic features
O roles they fulfill
Semantic roles
O relationship with other words
lexical relation
Semantic features
O Syntactically correct sentences but semantically odd.
O The hamburger ate the man.
O My cat studies linguistics.
O The table listens to the radio
not human.
Semantic Features
O Semantic properties: The components of meaning of
a word.
O Meaning as collection of properties/features typically
with two possible values (+ / -)
O Example of componential analysis:
baby is [+ young], [+ human], [+animate]
Semantic Features
[+ human]
[+ male]
[+ human]
[+ animal]
Semantic roles
O Words are described according to the roles
Semantic Roles
O Agent= the entity that performs the action
O Theme= the entity that undergoes the action
O Experiencer= one who perceives something
O Instrument= an entity used to perform an action
O Location= the place where the action happens
O Source= the place from which an action
originates
O Goal= the place where the action is directed
Semantic roles
O John is writing with a pen
agent
instrument
experiencer
theme location
agent
source
O The boy opened the door with a key
O The dog bit the stick
O With a stick, the man hit the dog.
goal
Lexical relations
O What is the meaning of big?
O Large or the opposite of small
O What is the meaning of daffodil?
O A kind of flower
O Analysis in terms of lexical relations- explain the
Synonymy
O Synonymy: words that have the same meanings or
Antonymy
O Antonymy: words that are opposites in meaning,
O Types
O Gradable= not absolute, question of degree
O Hot & cold small & big
O Non-gradable:
O Dead & alive asleep & awake
E.g.
happy/sad
present/absent
married/single
fast/slow
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
synonym
antonym
synonym
synonym
antonym
Synonym
Synonym
Antonym
synonym
Hyponymy
O Hyponymy: Words whose meanings are
animal.
Hyponymy
Prototypes
O Canary dove duck flamingo parrot-
robin
bird
O The best example that belongs to a bird
is robin, but what about ostrich and
penguin?
O Prototype: Characteristic instance
O Furniture chair is a better example
than bench or stool.
O Clothing shirts more than shoes
Polysemy
O Polysemy: A word which has multiple
top of a company.
O Foot of a body and of a mountain and of
the bed or chair.
O Run a person runs, the water runs
Metonymy
O What do you think about these sentence?
O He drank the whole bottle.
(container-content)
O The White House announced. (king-crown)
O I gave her a hand. (whole-part)
O A word substituted for another word with which
Collocation
O Words tend to occur with other words.
O E.g. table/chair
O Butter/bread
O Salt/pepper
O Hammer/ nail