Lecture 19 semantics

INTRODUCTION
TO LINGUISTICS
LECTURE 19
D R I W O N A S I KO R A

INTRODUCTION
TO LINGUISTICS
S E M A N T I C S – T H E S T U D Y O F M E A N I N G

SEMANTICS
• Branch of linguistics dealing with the meaning of words and sentences.
• Semantics asks how we can use language to express things about the
real world and how the meanings of linguistic expressions can reflect
people's thoughts.
Semantics is the study of meaning in language, including:
The meaning of individual words (lexical semantics)
The meaning of larger units like sentences (sentential semantics)

SEMANTICS
• In linguistics, SEMANTICS is the subfield that is devoted to the study of meaning, as
inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse
(referred to as texts).
• The basic area of study is the meaning of signs, and the study of relations between
different linguistic units: HOMONYMY, SYNONYMY, ANTONYMY, POLYSEMY,
HYPERONYMY, HYPONYMY, MERONYMY, METONYMY, LINGUISTIC COMPOUNDS.
• A key concern is how meaning attaches to larger chunks of text, possibly as a result of
the composition from smaller units of meaning.
• Traditionally, semantics has included the study of sense and denotative reference, truth
conditions, argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of
all of these to syntax.

FIELDS OF SEMANTICS
• Lexical semantics – the study of linguistic meaning of words and the
meaning relationships between words
• Phrasal (sentential) semantics – the study of the meaning of the
syntactic units larger than a word
• Pragmatics – the study of how context affects meaning (how the
sentence “it’s cold in here” comes to be interpreted as “close the
windows”)

MEANING
Linguistic meaning has been studied for thousands of years.
Meaning is connected to language via:
• the lexicon
• grammar and also
• pragmatics - what we do with language
(e.g. Can you pass me the gun? Here the speaker is not asking about the
listener’s ability to pass the gun, but requesting the listener to pass the
gun)

MEANING AND THE LEXICON
• Componential analysis: meaning components within a single word
e.g. bachelor = [+male, -married] – semantic features
• Sense relations: semantic relations between words
e.g. synonymy (ask vs. request), antonymy (right vs. wrong), meronymy (ralationship
between the part and the whole (house vs. roof, wall, window, )

MEANING AND GRAMMAR
• Compositional meaning: the meaning of an expression is determined
by the meaning of its parts and the way they are put together
• (Sentential) meaning depends on the ways words are put together:
The dog killed the boy. vs. The boy killed the dog.

SEMANTICS AND SYNTAX (i.e. grammar in
its narrow sense)
• With regard to the relation between semantics and syntax, we can say that the
semantics of linguistic expressions is the output of combining words through the
syntax (i.e. rules about how words in a language are put together to form larger
linguistic units such as phrases and sentences)
• But syntax can produce ‘meaningless’ sentences
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (Noam Chomsky)

SENSE AND REFERENCE
• The philosopher Gottlob Frege drew a distinction between the sense of a linguistic
expression and its reference.
• According to Frege, sense and reference are two different aspects of the meaning.
Roughly, a term's reference is the object it refers to and its sense is the way in
which it refers to that object.
• Reference: the relation between an expression in a language and an object in the
world which it picks out (refers to)
• Reference relates words to entities in the world

SENSE AND REFERNCE
• Sense: concept determining possible meanings of an expression
• Sense is what you grasp when you understand a word
• all expressions have sense, not all have reference (e.g. the Communist
government of Britain);
• any expressions may have different senses but the same reference (e.g.
the Queen of England, Elizabeth R, Queenie)

SENSE AND REFERENCE
• The ancient Greeks identified the stars Hesperus (the first star to appear in the
evening) and Phosphorus (the last star to disappear in the morning)
• Later, Pythagoras discovered that Hesperus (the evening star) and Phosphorus (the
morning star) are really the same star (in fact, they are the planet Venus) THUS:
• the phrases ‘the morning star’ and ‘the evening star’ have different senses, but both
have the same reference – namely, the planet Venus.
• the name Mark Twain refers to Mark Twain, i.e. Samuel Clemens, the man who
lived in the U.S. and wrote satires. The name Samuel Clemens also refers to that man.
Hence the two have the same reference.

SENSE AND REFERENCE
• Consider characters such as Superman and Kent Clark or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde –
here these two proper names have the same referent but two different senses
• Some linguistic expressions (proper names) can have a reference but no sense – little
linguistic meaning (such as the proper name ‘Fred’), and some may have sense but no
reference (such as ‘the present King of France’),
• Consider the expression “ the president of the United States” – it has sense (the head
of the state of the USA) and reference – currently Barack Obama, but a few years ago
the reference was George W. Bush

CONNOTATION AND DENOTATION
DENOTATIVE MEANING:
• It refers to the literal meaning of a word (the “dictionary definition”).
• It can be also described as the meaning of a symbol that is shared by a group of people.
• For example, if you say the word "dog", most English speakers will point to the same type
of animal (in the dictionary, a dog is a “four-legged canine carnivore").
• Denotative meaning is what makes symbols work for communication.
CONNOTATIVE MEANING:
• It is the meaning of a symbol that is subjective, personal to an individual and not shared
is the meaning which does not appear in the dictionary).
• So saying "You’re a dog!" would imply that you were ugly or aggressive rather than
that you were canine.
• The connotative meanings of a word exist together with the denotative meanings.

LEXICAL SEMANTICS – SEMANTIC FEATURES
AND SEMANTIC RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS
LEXICAL SEMANTICS
• Semantic properties: the components of meaning of a word.
• Semantic feature: a notational device for expressing the presence or absence of
semantic properties by pluses and minuses.
• Example of componential analysis: baby is [+ young], [+ human], [– abstract].

LEXICAL SEMANTICS – SEMANTIC
CLASSES
• SEMANTIC CLASS – componential analysis – analysis of semantic features
• When we use a word, we know its meaning. This means, we know many things about the word in question. For example:
"woman" might be described by "human", and "female".
• This is the analysis of the word meaning in terms of SEMANTIC FEATURES or semantic properties.
• Semantic features can be treated as the basic elements in differentiating the meaning of each word in a language from
every other word:
...
• The + and - signs indicate whether a word is specified by a certain feature or not.
• Sometimes, features do not apply to words, as in the example: while the bachelor on the left hand represents an
young man, who naturally is male, that feature does not apply to the meaning in the middle: here we have the person
holding the university degree (both male and female). On the right, we finally have the animal bachelor: a young male
bachelor (kawaler) bachelor (licencjat) bachelor (kozioł, wpierz,
samiec)
+animated +animated +animated
+human +human -human
+male +male

LEXICAL SEMANTICS – SEMANTIC
CLASSES
• Words that share the same property belong to the same semantic class (for example the
semantic class of ‘male’ words).
• Semantic classes can share the same characteristics.
• If we look at the lexical entries for words ‘man’, ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘girl’, ‘boy’ we shall see
these words sharing or not the same features with the following sign (+ or ):
• ‘man’ (+ male + or –young +human),
• ‘father’ (+male +human+ or –young +parent),
• ‘mother’ (+female +parent +human + or-young),
• ‘girl’ (+human + young + female),
• ‘boy’ (+young + human + male).
• Other lexical entries where some proprieties are shared are: ‘father, uncle, bachelor→
+ human + adult (to the word ‘father’ we may also add +parent which distinguishes this
word from ‘uncle and bachelor’).

SEMANTIC FEATURES – SEMANTIC
CLASSES
1. (a) widow, mother, sister, aunt, maid
(b) widower, father, brother, uncle, valet
• The (a) and (b) words are [+ human]
• The (a) words are [+ female]
• The (b) words are [+male]
2. (a) bachelor, paperboy, pope, chief
(b) bull, rooster, drake, ram
The (a) and (b) words are [+ male]
The (a) words are [+ human]
The (b) words are [+ animal]
3. (a) table, stone, pencil, cup, house, ship
(b) milk, alcohol, rice, soup, mud
The (a) words are [+count]
The (b) words are [-count]
4. (a) pine, elm, sycamore
(b) dandelion, aster, daisy
The (a) and (b) words are [+plant]
The (a) words are [+ tree]
The (b) words are [+ flower]
The semantic proprieties also establish relationships between the words such as
synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homophony

LEXICAL FIELDS
There are always words in a language that seem to belong together more than others.
Consider the following words:
• hammer, tongs, screwdriver, cutter, saw
All of these have something in common: they are tools.
These words with "something" in common belong to the same lexical field.
Other lexical fields:
• Emotions: angry, happy, sad, nervous, mad, anxious, pleased
• Relatives: brother, sister, uncle, aunt, grandmother.
• Furniture: chair, table, bed, stool

THEMATIC/SEMANTIC ROLES
• Apart from the semantic features of words also semantic roles (sometimes called
‘thematic roles’) are examined.
• Semantic roles describe the way in which words are used in sentences and the
functions they fulfill.
– the entity that performs an action is known as AN AGENT,
– the entity involved in an action is called THE THEME (OR ‘PATIENT).
– when an agent uses an entity in order to do something this entity is called AN
INSTRUMENT.
– when a person in a sentence does not perform any action, but only has a
perception, state of feeling then the role is described as EXPERIENCER.

MAJOR THEMATIC RELATIONS
• Agent: the entity who deliberately performs an action
HARRIET BROKE THE WINDOW WITH A BASEBALL BAT.
Bill ate his soup quietly.
• Theme: the entity undergoing a change of state or transfer
Bill kissed Mary
• Patient: undergoes the action and has its state changed. (Sometimes used
interchangeably with theme)
The falling rocks crushed the car.

• Experiencer: the entity perceiving something - receives sensory or emotional input:
HARRIET HEARD A NOISE.
The smell of lilies filled Jennifer's nostrils.
• Source: where the action originated
HARRIET TOOK THE BASEBALL BAT FROM THE CLOSET.
The rocket was launched from Central Command.
• Goal: what the action is directed towards:
HARRIET PUT THE BASEBALL BAT IN THE CLOSET,
The caravan continued on toward the distant oasis.
• Location: where the action occurs:
Johnny and Linda played carelessly in the park,
HARRIET WORKED IN HER OFFICE.

• Instrument: the entity used to carry out an action
Jamie cut the ribbon with a pair of scissors.
• Natural Cause/ACTOR: mindlessly performs the action
An avalanche destroyed the ancient temple.
THE WIND BROKE THE WINDOW.
• Beneficiary: the entity for whose benefit the action occurs
I baked Reggie a cake.
• Recipient: a special kind of goal associated with verbs expressing a change in ownership,
possession.
I sent John the letter.

• Measure: the extension on some dimension (size, time, price)
HARRIET WORKED IN HER OFFICE FOR FIVE HOURS.
• Stimulus: the entity perceived
HARRIET HEARD A NOISE.
• Time: the time at which the action occurs
The rocket was launched yesterday.
• There are no clear boundaries between these relations.
• For example, in "the hammer broke the window", some linguists treat hammer as
an agent, some others as instrument, while some others treat it as a special role
different from these.

LEXICAL RELATIONS
• synonymy
• antonymy
• polysemy
• homonymy
• homophony
• homography
• heyperonymy
• hyponymy
• retronymy
• meronymy
LEXICAL RELATIONS – relations that exist between the meanings of expressions (words,
sentences) in natural languages.
The most important lexical relations are:

SYNONYMY
• Words that sound different but have the same (or almost the same) meaning are synonyms.
– start, begin.
– Apathetic, phlegmatic, passive, sluggish, indifferent
– Sofa, couch
• Degree of similarity depends on number of semantic properties that two words share:
– almost/nearly
– big/large
– broad/wide
– buy/purchase
– car/automobile
– couch/sofa
– freedom/liberty
• There are no perfect synonyms – the use of the word may depend on the context, formal or informal use:
– What was his reply/answer?
– Sandy had only one correct answer/*reply on the test. (here reply is the wrong word and cannot be used in this context)
– My father purchased a large automobile/ My dad bought a big car.

ANTONYMY
• Antonyms: words that are opposites in meanings, e.g. hot & cold.
• Gradable antonyms (opposites along a scale) – used as/in comparative
constructions:
– Big/small, old/new, fast/slow
– My car isn’t old – My car is new.
• (negative of one member of the gradable pair does not necessarily imply the other)
• Tiny, small, medium, large, huge, gigantic - “not tiny” doesn’t mean “gigantic”.
• Non-gradable antonyms – complementary pairs – male/female, dead/alive,
married/single, true/false
• They are not used in comparison (*deader, *more dead)
• The negative of one pair IMPLIES the other: my parents are dead = they are not alive.
• Reversives (meaning – do the reverse action): enter/exit, lengthen/shorten,
raise/lower, tie/untie

POLYSEMY
• Polysemous word: a word which has two or more related meanings, e.g. ‘bright’:
‘shining’; ‘intelligent’
– head – on top of your body, of the company, on top of a glass of beer
– foot – of a mountain, of person, of bed
– run – person does, colours do, water does
• Polysemous words have one entry in a dictionary (and are (rather) related
etymologically)
• Homonyms have separate entries (bank – bank i brzeg rzeki, pupil – uczeń i źrenica,
bat – pałka i nietoperz, mole – znamię i kret, race – wyścig i raca)
• Two forms can be homonyms, and one of these can have polysemous meanings:
– Date – pl. daktyl/ date – pl. data/ date – pl. randka – homonyms
– Date (point in time, person we meet, an appointment) – polysemous relation

HOMONYMY, HOMOPHONY,
HOMOGRPAHY
• HOMONYMY: a word which has two or more entirely distinct meanings, e.g.
club: ‘a social organization’; ‘a blunt weapon’.
• One form has two or more unrelated meanings – and it has separate entries in
a dictionary
bank, race, bat, mole, pupil
• HOMOPHONY: different words pronounced the same but spelled differently,
e.g. two and too.
bare/bear, flour/flower, meat/meet, right/write, pail/pale
• HOMOGRAPHY: different words spelled the same but pronounced differently,
e.g. minute and minute.

HYPERONYMY
• Hyperonymy concerns the semantic relation of lexical SUPERORDINATION
• a hyperonym is the opposite of the homonym – the hyperonym is the higher
element which other hyponyms are subject to.
• hyperonymy reflects a hierarchy:
• e.g. FRUIT is a HYPERONYM, or superordinate term of APPLE, PEAR, PLUM etc.,
because the transition from APPLE to FRUIT, is accompanied by the
generalization of meaning.
• a superordinate relation has some similarities to various logical and semantic
relations:
part - whole (e.g. nose – head);
generals vs. specifics (living being – human being), or
the so called “elements-of-relation” (book - library).

HYPONYMY
• HYPONYMY: words whose meanings are specific instances of a more general
word,
• e.g. isosceles (równoramienny) and equilateral (równoboczny) are hyponyms of
the word triangle.
• The HYPONYM is the reverse term to hyperonymy and shows the semantic relation of
SUBORDINATION.
• e. g. APPLE is a HYPONYM to FRUIT, because apple has a more specific and more
precise meaning than fruit.
• APPLE; PEAR; PLUM are hyponyms only to FRUIT, as a general term (not to
VEGETABLES), but also to PLANTS, which is a general term – hyperonym - for
hyponyms: FRUIT, VEGETABLES; TREES, etc.

HYPONYMY
• Examples
– Rose is a hyponym of flower – rose is a kind/type of flower
– Animal/dog, vegetable/carrot, flower/rose, insect/spider
– Animal – superordinate term, dog – subordinate term
– Cockroach/spider are co-hyponyms of an insect
• In other words hyponyms belong to one semantic class i.e. these are sets of
words sharing a feature
– [+color]: white, red, green…
– [+feline]: lion, tiger, leopard…
– musical instrument: guitar, piano, violin…

MENTONYMY, RETRONYMY,
MERONYMY
• METONYMY: a word substituted for another word with which it is closely associated,
e.g. diamond for a baseball field.
– Queen – crown, bottle-water, can-juice, the president – the White House
• RETRONYMY: an expression that would once have been redundant, but which societal
or technological changes have made non-redundant, e.g. silent movies  movies 
silent movies.
• MERONYMY: denotes a constituent part of, or a member of something. That is,
– X is a meronym of Y if Xs are parts of Y(s), or
– X is a meronym of Y if Xs are members of Y(s).
– For example, 'finger' is a meronym of 'hand' because a finger is part of a hand.
– Similarly 'wheel' is a meronym of 'automobile'.

Lecture 19 semantics

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