SEMANTICS

The study of
linguistic meaning;
that is the meaning
of words, phrase or
sentences.
(1)
The word fly has
more than one
meaning in English.
The word moth does
not.
(2)
The word hide can
mean the same thing
as conceal.
(3)
The meaning of the
word fear includes
the meaning of the
word emotion, but
not vice versa.
(4)
The word sister and
niece seem to be
closer in meaning
than are the words
sister and girl.
(5)
In the sentence Jimmy Carter was
the 39th president of the united
states. The phrase Jimmy carter
and the 39th president of the united
states refer to the same person.
The phrases, however, don’t “mean”
the same thing.
(6)
In the sentence Monica believes
that’s she is a genius. She can refer
either Monica or to someone else.
However in the sentence Monica
believes herself to be a genius. She
can refer only to Monica.
(7)
If someone were to
ask you to name a
bird, you would
probably think of a
robin before you
would think of an
ostrich.
(8)
the sentences A
colorless gas is blue
and oxygen is blue
are both false, but for
different reasons.
(9)
The sentence John’s
wife is six feet tall is
neither true or false. If
John does not have a
wife.
2 Sources of Contributions to
Semantics

LINGUISTIC
PHILOSOPHY
 LINGUISTIC
• LEXICAL DECOMPOSITION
This method represents the sense
of a word in terms of the semantic
features that comprise it.
LEXICAL DECOMPOSITION

man woman boy girl

Adult + + - -
male + - + -
 LINGUISTIC
First, it explains our Second, it is easy Finally, this
intuitions as speakers to characterize the method allows us,
of English that the senses of
additional words at least in
meaning of man and
boy are closely related by adding features. principle, to
than are the meanings For example, we characterize the
of man and girl. Man
can account for sense of
and boy have the
part of the
meanings of potentiality infinite
same value for one of
stallion, mare colt, set of words with a
these features (+ male and filly simply by
), whereas man and finite number of
adding the feature semantic features .
girl do not have the (+ human), as
same value for either follows.
of these features.
 LEXICAL DECOMPOSITION

man woman boy girl stallion mare colt filly

Adult
+ + - - + + - -
Male
+ - + - + - + -
Human
+ + + + - - - -
 Several Practical
Limitations of Lexical
Decomposition .
First, linguist have
been unable to agree
on exactly how many
and which features
constitute the
universal set of
Moreover, nouns,
semantic properties.
especially concrete
nouns, seem to lend
themselves to lexical
decomposition more
readily than do other
parts of speech.
 SEMANTICS
Reporter:
JHAN PAUL E. LIBRADILLA
Philosophers, on the
other hand, have
contributed primarily
to the study of the
meaning of
sentences.
PHILOSOPHY

• Reference
• Truth
Conditions
REFERENCE
• Reference is the study of what objects
linguistic expression (i.e., words, phrases,
sentences, and so on) refers to .

Washington DC is the capital of the United

States.
• Washington DC and The capital of the United
States refer to the same entity namely
Washington DC.
TRUTH–CONDITIONAL SEMANTICS

• The study of the conditions under which a

statement can be judged true or false. C

• In actuality, much of what goes under the

name of truth conditions involves truth
relations that hold between sentences.
• For example, if the sentence Fred is 80 years
old is true, then the sentence Fred is over 50
years old is necessarily true.
The major
advantage of
both avenues
of inquiry is If we abstract away
that they have from the material
very restricted we’ve been
domains, discussing, we can
which can be divide the study of
probed in a semantics into three
reasonable areas: sense,
amount of reference, and truth.
detail.
SENSE
The study of sense
(or meaning) can
be divided into two
areas:
speaker-sense and
linguistic sense.
Speaker - Sense
Speaker-sense is the
speaker’s intention
in producing some
linguistic expression.
For example, if someone
utters the sentence Fred is a
real genius sarcastically, then
the speaker-sense in the
sentence might be Fred is
below average in
intelligence.
Linguistic-Sense The meaning of a
linguistic expression
as part of the
language.
For example, if the sentence Fred is
a real genius means literally
something like Fred has truly
superior intellect.
Then the linguistic sense is within
the domain of semantics, since it
deals solely with literal meaning and
is independent with speaker,
hearer, and situational context.
Sense Properties
and Relations
1. Lexical Ambiguity
2. Synonymy
3. Hyponymy
4. Overlap
Lexical Ambiguity
• A word is lexical ambiguous if it has more than one
sense. For example, the English noun fly is
ambiguous because it has more than one sense: an
insect, a zipper on a pair of pants, or a baseball hit
into the air with a bat.
• American history teacher which can mean either a
teacher of American History or a History teacher who
is American.
• The ambiguity here is not derive from the ambiguity of a
particular word, as in the case of fly. Neither American, nor
history, nor teacher has more than one sense. Instead the
ambiguity of American history teacher is syntactic.
SYNONYMY
• Two words are synonymous if they have
the same sense; that is, if they have the
same values for all of their semantic
features.
• For example, the pairs conceal and hide,
stubborn and obstinate, and big and
large seem to be synonymous.
HYPONYMY
• A hyponym is the word that contains the
meaning of another word: the contained
word is known as the superordinate
• For example, oak contains the meaning
of tree; therefore, oak is a hyponym of
the superordinate tree.
• In other words, a hyponym is a word
whose meaning contains all the same
feature values of another word.
OVERLAP
• Are words that have the same value for
some (but not all) of the semantic
features that constitute their meaning.
• The word sister, niece, aunt, and mother
overlap in meaning.
• The relationship of these word can be
captured by stating that part of the
meaning of each of these words.
OVERLAP

Meaning [+ human]
Meaning
of Sister [-male]
of Niece
[+kin]
 HYPONYMY & OVERLAP
HYPONYMY OVERLAP
• The meaning of the • The meaning of the
word is entirely two words intersects,
included in the but neither one
meaning of another. includes the other.

The meaning of pig is Not all sisters are

entirely included in nieces, and not all
the meaning of sow. nieces are sisters.
THANK YOU!