Semantics
- 2. 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.
- 3. Conceptual meaning covers those basic essential components of meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of a word. For Example : Some of the basic components of a word like needle in English might include “ thin sharp steel instrument”.
- 4. 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.
- 5. 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.
- 6. Words are not just a “containers” of meanings . They fulfill different “roles” within the situation described by a sentence. Eexample: 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.
- 7. 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. 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.
- 8. 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’. The theme can also be an entity that is simply being described, for example,The ball was red. 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.
- 9. 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. In “writing with a pen” or “eating with a spoon” the phrases “a pen” and “a spoon” have the semantic role of instrument.
- 10. 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.
- 11. 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”.
- 12. 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
- 13. 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.
- 14. When two or more different written forms have the same pronunciation, they are described as “Homophones”. For example: Bare – Bear, Meat – Meet, Flour – Flower Sew – So.
- 15. Homonyms are words which have quite separate meanings, but which have accidentally come to have exactly the same form. The term homonym is used when one form written or spoken has two or more unrelated meanings. For example: 1- bank= (of a river) bank= (financial institution) 2- bat= (flying creature) bat= (used in sports) 3- race= (contest of speed) race= (ethic group)
- 16. 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.
- 17. Any Question??