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PRESENTED TO: Honorable Mr.Nazir Malik.

.Muhammad Atif Rafiq--

.Muhammad Zeeshan--
.Gulraiz Qadir Gulfam--
.Muhammad Kashif Shahbaz--
.Muhammad Abu Bakkar--

DEPARTMENT OF S.S&H.
UNIVERSITY OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY, LAHORE.

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What is semantics?-------ATIF
History of Semantics.-------ZEESHAN
What is meant by Linguistic and Speaker’s meanings? &
Theories of Meaning--------GULRAIZ
Lexical Semantics.-----KASHIF
 Types of Sense Relations.----ABUBAKKAR

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Semantics is the study of meanings of words,
phrases and sentences.

In semantic analysis there is always an

attempt to focus on what the words
conventionally mean, rather than on what a
speaker might want the words on a particular
occasion.

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It has also been of concern

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Many, if not all, philosophical problems can be
solved by the study of ordinary language.

For linguists logic is the most cherished area

of philosophy .

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Interest of Anthropologists

Language as an essential part of the cultural and

behavioral patterns of the people.

Interest of Semantists
To study the kinship relations of many societies.

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Inception of psycholinguists
 Concerned with the process of production and
reception of language following behaviorists
approach.

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 Michel Bréal (1883):
la sémantique (meaning
on the verbal level)
 widening of meaning
 narrowing of meaning
 Bréal and Pierre de
Coubertin (marathon
1896)
 Lady Welby’s theory of
Significs
 Korzybski’s“Gen.SemTheor
y” more general and
organismally fundamental.
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 (Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913

Cours de linguistique générale :1916 •

Langue and parole •
diachronic vs. synchronic study of •
language
Substance and structure •
“A theory of signs - „Semiotics •
sign: signifiant + signifié •

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Semantics Grammar Phonetics

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WORLD WAR 1

1965

1960
.Semantic was not respectable Added to
Grammar

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It was noted earlier that semantics was first
used to refer to the change in meaning.
Bloomfield an American Linguist in 1933 noted a
number of types, each given a traditional name.

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 Narrowing-------meat--------food

Widening--------bird---------nestling

Metaphor--------bitter--------biting

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Metonymy (nearness in space or time)
Jaw---------cheek
Synecdoche (whole or part relation)
Town------fence
Stove------heated room
Hyperbole (stronger to weaker meaning)
Astound----------strike with thunder
Litotes (weaker to stronger relation)
Kill----------torment

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Degeneration
Knave-------boy
Elevation
Knight-------boy

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MEANING ?

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Structurlist’s view not to deal with it
or
Rely on it at all.

 Beauty 1,2,3
 Love 1,2,3
 Goodness 1,2,3

Meaning is variable and not to be taken for

granted

Loretto Todd 18
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Linguistic
Meaning

Speaker’s
Meaning

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Adrian akmajian
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Akmajian
.

For Example : Some of the basic components of a

word like needle in English might include “ thin
sharp steel instrument”.

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In associative meaning you may have
‘associations’ or ‘connotations’ attached to a
word,
 For example : like needle which lead you to
think of ‘painful’ whenever you encounter the
said word.
This ‘association’ is not treated as a conceptual
meaning of needle.

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When linguists investigate the meaning of
words in a language they are normally
interested in characterizing the conceptual
meaning and less concerned with the
associative meaning of words.

 poets and advertisers are very interested in using

terms in such a way that their associative meanings
are evoked.

 For example: In the adv. of Pepsi “Generation Next”

or in Zong adv. “Sub Keh Do”.
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Adrian akmajian
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Adrian akmajian
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Deals with the relation between Linguistic
expression and what it refers to.

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Adrian akmajian
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Adrian akmajian
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Adrian akmajian
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Adrian akmajian
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Adrian akmajian
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Adrian akmajian
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How does semantic approach help us to
understand the nature of language?
 It might be helpful as a means of accounting for the
‘oddness’ which we experience when we read English
sentences such as the follows:
 For example:
 1- The hamburger ate the man.
 2- My cat studied linguistics.
 3- A table was listening to some music.

Above sentences are syntactically right but

semantically odd.

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According to some basic syntactic rules for
forming English sentences we have well
structured sentences.
The hamburger ate the man
NP V NP

 This sentence is syntactically good, but semantically odd.

Since the sentence “The man ate the hamburger” is
perfectly acceptable.

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The kind of noun which can be subjects of the
verb ‘ate’ must denote entities which are
capable of eating.

The noun ‘hamburger’ does not have this property

and man has.

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 Table Cow Girl Woman Boy Man

Animate - + + + + +

Human - - + + + +

Male - - - - + +

Adult - - - + - +

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The _______ is reading a book.

 Here the noun should be (+Human),

who qualifies reading.

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 Words are not just a “containers” of meanings. They fulfill
different “roles” within the situation described by a sentence

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 For example: If the situation is a simple event
such as The boy
kicked the ball
 The verb ‘kicked’ describes an action.

 The noun phrases ‘The boy’ and ‘the ball’ describe

the roles of entities such as people and things
involved in the action.

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George Yule
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 The entity that performs the action is
technically known as “agent”.

 For example:
The boy kicked the ball.

 As in the sentence one role is taken by the boy

and the boy performs the action, so it is agent.

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 Although agents are typically human, they
can also be non-human forces, machines or
creatures.

 For example:
 The wind blew the ball away.
 The car ran over the ball.
 The dog caught the ball.

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 The entity that is involved in or affected
by the action is technically known as
“theme”.

 For example: The boy kicked the ball.

 In this sentence “ball” is the theme

because it is affected by the action
performed by the ‘agent’.
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 The theme can also be an entity that is simply
being described.
 example, The ball was red.


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 The theme can also be human. Indeed the
same physical entity can appear in two
semantic roles.

 For example: The boy kicked himself. Here boy is

agent and himself is theme.

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 If an agent uses another entity in performing an
action, that other entity fills the role of
instrument.
 For example:
She hit the bug with the magazine.


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In “writing with a pen” or “eating with a
spoon” the phrases “a pen” and “a spoon”
have the semantic role of instrument.

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 When a noun phrase designates an entity
as a person who has a feeling, a perception
or a state, it fills the role of Experiencer.

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 If we see, know or enjoy something, we do
not perform any action. In this way we are in
the role of Experiencer.
 For example:
Did you enjoy that song?

The Experiencer is “you” and theme is

“that song”.

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 When an entity is in the description of the
event then it fills the role of Location.
 (on the table, in the room etc).

 For example:
Mary saw a mosquito on the wall.
In this sentence “on the wall” is location.

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 Where an entity moves from is the Source and
where it moves to is the Goal.

 For example: When we talk about transferring

money from ‘savings’ to ‘checking’, the source is
“savings” and goal is “checking”.

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Words are not only the ‘containers’ or
as fulfilling ‘roles’. They can also have
‘relationships’. We describe the
meanings of words in terms of their
relationships.

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For example
 meanings of word ‘conceal’ might be same as ‘hide’.
 The meaning of ‘shallow’ as ‘the opposite of deep’.
 meaning of ‘daffodil’ as ‘it is a kind of flower’.

 In doing so we are characterizing the meaning

of a word not in terms of component features,
but in terms of relationship to other words.

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 Sense Relations

Synonym Antonym Hyponym

y y y

Homophon Homonym
Polysymy
y y

Metonym
Collocation
y
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Sameness of meaning.
 Synonyms are two or more forms with same sense,
which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable
in sentences.
 For example: broad=wide, hide=conceal,
almost=nearly, cab=taxi, liberty=freedom,
answer=reply
There is a degree of closeness in meaning.
Strict and loose synonymy
Synonymy like all sense relations is context
dependent.
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Synonymy is context dependent
For example: Cathy had only one ‘answer’
correct in the test. Its near synonymy
would ‘reply’ would sound odd
Absolute synonymy
i) Interchangeability in all contexts
ii) Identity in both cognitive and emotive
import

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Inclusion of meaning
 When the meaning of one form is included in the
meaning of another, the relationship is described as
hyponym. For example: Daffodil= Flower, dog=
animal, poodle= dog, carrot= vegetable, banyan=
tree.
 For example: If any object is a daffodil, then it is
necessary a flower, so the meaning of flower is
included in the meaning of daffodil. Daffodil is
hyponym of a flower.
Inclusion of a more specific term in a more
general term.
Taxonomies

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Division of lexical items to their component
parts is known as componential analysis.
Lions and Tigers: wild animalness.
Man woman child
Bull cow calf
Rooster hen chicken
Drake duck duckling
Stallion mare foal
Ram ewe lamb

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Two forms with opposite meanings are called antonyms.
 For example: quick=slow, big=small, long=short,
rich=poor, happy=sad, hot=cold, old=young,
male=female, true=false, alive=dead.
 For example: quick=slow, big=small, long=short,
rich=poor, happy=sad, hot=cold, old=young,
male=female, true=false, alive=dead
Oppositeness is of three types:
i)Complementarity:
single: married and male: female

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Antonyms of this class are gradable e.g big
and small ,old and young, good and bad.
The comparison may be explicit or implicit
E.g our house is big OR our house is bigger
than yours.
Antonymy also depends upon context.
Antonymy and complementarity

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Oppositeness that exist between words such
as “buy and sell” and “husband and wife”

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 Homonyms are words which have quite separate
meanings, but which have accidentally come to
have exactly the same form.
Two or more meanings associated with the
same form.
Bank: Bank of a river
Bank: for the deposit of money
Homonyms are separate entities.
HOMOGRAPHY:
Orthography is at variance with phonolgy
“Lead” him away and “lead” of the phone.

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When two or more different written forms
have the same pronunciation, they are
described as “Homophones.
For example: Bare – Bear,
Meat – Meet,
Flour – Flower,
Pail – Pale,

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If a word has multiple meanings, that is called
polysemic.
Relatedness of meaning accompanying identical
form is technically known as polysemy.
For example: The word “head” is used to refer
to the object on the top of our body, on top of a
glass of beer, on top of a company or
department.
Another word “foot” has multiple meanings such
as foot of a person, of bed, of mountain etc.
Difference between polysemy and homonymy?

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There is another type of relationship between
words based simply on a close connection in
everyday experience. That close connection
can be based on a container- contents relation
(bottle- coke; can- juice), a whole- part
relation (car- wheels; house- roof) or a
representative- symbol relationship (king-
crown; The President- The White House).

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Frequently occurring together is known as
collocation. Words tend to occur with other
words.
 For example: If you ask a thousand people what
they think when you say ‘hammer’, more than
half will say ‘nail’, if you say ‘table’ they will
mostly say ‘chair’ and for ‘butter- bread, for
needle- thread, for salt- pepper.
 Some collocations are joined pairs of words such
as salt and pepper or husband and wife.

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