© Dr. Khader T. Khader. -Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. -It is the study of meaning communicated through language

©Dr. Khader T. Khader

-Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences .

-It is the study of meaning communicated through language.

Semantics ( Greek)

Sema (n.) = sign tics = science Semain (v.) = mean, signify

-In Semantic analysis, there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean, on what a speaker might want the words to mean on a particular occasion.

-Linguistic Semantics deals with the conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences of a language .


What is “Semantics?”Semantics is the study of meaning that is

used to understand human expression

through language .

Semantics is perhaps the most difficult part of the grammar of a language to learn. The reason is because, basically, meanings in a language are indefinite/undetermined.


Remember that language is arbitrary (one of the characteristics of languages). It is arbitrary because the relationship between forms and their meanings are sometimes cannot logically proved.


Although a form can have more than one meaning, there is always a primary or original meaning that is expresses. The original meaning of a form in a language is normally called “denotation”. With respect to words (lexical terms), the primary (original) meaning is the meaning that we can find in a

dictionary. Example :“Rose” “A garden plant with thorns

on its stem and pleasant-smelling flowers, or a flower from this plant .” ©Dr. Khader T. Khader

Besides, there are additional meaning, which is known as

“connotation”With respect to words, connotation

or additional meanings of a word are not listed in a dictionary; and therefore we cannot find them in a dictionary. Normally, a person expresses a connotative meaning through a word, phrase, clause or sentence based on certain characteristics of the entity or event

that he/she is referring to .Example: one may call a beautiful

girl a “rose” or a “lily.” ©Dr. Khader T. Khader

-We will have to concentrate on the meanings of words ( or lexical items, as they are usually called by semantics), without ignoring the more complicated study of the meaning of sentences.

-We will limit ourselves to the descriptive (or literal) meanings of words (usually called denotation) and ignore the emotive meaning (usually called connotation).

e.g.: the literal meaning of the word pig= animal, and ignore the fact that any angry man may use it with reference to a policeman.

-Briefly, what we will discuss in the introductory course is to highlight some of the approaches to the study of meaning which will be of some use to the students in their further

linguistic career .


One point that should be emphasized here is that word- meaning, as we mentioned earlier, is arbitrary .

Lexical & Grammatical Meaning:-When we talk about meaning, we are talking about the

ability of human beings to understand each other when they speak. This ability is to some extent connected with grammar.

-No one could understand: “hat one the the but red green on bought tried Hazem”

While:“Hazem tried on the red hat but bought the green one”

causes no difficulties.

-Yet there are numerous sentences which are perfectly grammatical, but meaningless.


-The most famous example is Chomsky’s sentences:“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”

*Similar other examples are: -The tree ate the elephant.

-The table sneezed. -My cat learns linguistics .


-A linguist has to take into account at least two different types of meaning : lexical meaning and grammatical

meaning .

-Full words have some kind of intrinsic meaning. They refer to objects, actions and qualities that can be identified in the external world, such as table, banana, sleep, eat, red.

-Such words are said to have lexical meaning. Empty words have little or no intrinsic meaning. They exist because of their grammatical function in the sentence.For example :and is used to join items ,

or indicates alternatives,of sometimes indicates possession.

-These words have grammatical meaning.


-Grammatical meaning refers mainly to the meaning of grammatical items.

-Because of its complexity, grammatical meaning is extremely difficult to study. As yet, no theory of semantics has been able to cope with it adequately .

-But the study of lexical items is more manageable .


Semantic Features:

An approach to the study of word- meaning is similar to the distinctive features (distinguish one sound from

another).

We look at lexical item which is basic to semantic features.

Let us take the features:+animate -animate

+human -human+adult -adult+male -male

And find out how they can distinguish lexical items such as: table, cow, girl, woman, boy, and man from each other .


tablecowgirlwomanboyman

animate-+++++

human--++++

male----++

adult---+-+

Semantic feature can be treated as the basic features which are involved in differentiating the meanings of each word in the language from every other word.

From features analysis, you can say at least part of the basic meaning of the word boy in English involves the components ( +human, +male, -adult)


Lexical Relations:

Another quite common and useful way of analysing vocabulary is the study of such lexical relations as:

PolysemyHomonymySynonymyAntonymy or (oppositeness) And hyponymy


Polysemy:

Polysemy or poly semantic is generally defined as “ having several meanings, all derived from the basic idea or concept” (Dictionary of linguistics 1954)

Relatedness of meaning accompanying identical form is technically known as polysemy, which can be defined as on form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings which are all related by extension.

Examples are the word head, used to refer to the object on top of your body, on top of a glass of Pepsi , on top of a company or departmentOr foot ( of person, of bed, of mountain)Or run (person does, water does, colors do)



Homonyms:

Identical in form ( i.e. spelling and pronunciation) but different in meaning.

They are ambiguous words whose different senses or meanings are far apart from each other and not obviously related to each other in any way.

e.g:.BankA bank of a river.

A commercial bankA bank of seats


Synonymy:

One sense with several names is synonymy, that is, two items are synonymous they have the same sense.

Lexical items can be regarded as synonymous if they can be interchanged without altering the meaning of an

utterance :

e.g :.broad- wideHide- concealAlmost- nearlyCab- taxiLiberty- freedomAnswer- reply


It should be noted that the idea of “sameness of meaning” used in discussing synonymy is not necessarily

“total sameness.”

There are many occasions when one word is appropriate in a sentence, but its synonym would be odd .


Antonymy, complementarity and converseness :

Antonymy :

is the relation of oppositeness in pairs of lexicaal items where the assertion of one implies the denial of the other.

For example:big and smallLittle and muchFew and many


Complementarity :

is the relation of oppositeness in pairs of lexical items where the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other and the assertion of the one implies the denial of the other.

Thus, James is not married implies James is single;James is married implies James is not single.

In the case of those terms for which lyons reserves the term ‘anatomy’ (e.g.: good- bad ; high- low), only the second of those implications holds James is good implies the denial James is bad, but James is not good does not imply the assertion of James is bad.


Converseness:

The third sense- relation which is frequently described in terms of “oppositeness” is that which holds between buy and sell or husband and wife.


Hyponymy:

Hyponymy is frequently referred to as “inclusion” or “classification.”

For example:-The meaning of red is included in the meaning of blood.

-The meaning of rose is said to be included in the meaning of flower and so on.

The way of examining vocabulary is to note the ways in which a language classifies units. In English, for example, dogs and cats are classified as domestic animals. Lions and Tigers are classified as wild animals.

Both domestic and wild animals are classified together under the general heading of animals .


Animals and human beings both come under the heading of animate beings.

Animals

Wild Domestic dogs & cats

Animate beings

Animal Human

Domestic Wild

Cats & Dogs Tigers &Lions


You should, in fact, represent the relationships between a set of words such as: animals, ant, banyan, carrot, cockroach, creature, daffodil, dog, flower, horse, insect, pine, plant, snake, tree and vegetable as a hierarchical diagram in the following way:

Living things

Creature Plant

Animal Insect Vegetable Flower Tree

Horse dog snake cockroach ant carrot daffodil banyan pine

From this diagram, we can say that ‘horse’ is a hyponym of animal or that ‘ant’ is a hyponym of insect .


Ambiguity

Sentences can be ambiguous. i.e. can be interpreted in two different ways with two different meanings, for two reasons:

1 -The two possible meanings of the sentence may be due to the different structures permitted by the rules of syntax/

grammar, rather than to an ambiguous word; e.g:.

-The children drew five squares and triangles.-I can’t stand old men and women.

2 -The ambiguity may be due to ambiguity of the meaning of the lexical item in the context of a specific sentence ; e.g:.

-She cannot bear children.-The qadi married my sister .

IDIOMSIDIOMS An idiom is a group of words in which

the meaning cannot be explained in terms of the habitual meanings of the words that make up the piece of

language .Idioms are similar in structure to

ordinary phrases except that they tend to be frozen in form and do not readily enter into other combinations or allow the word order to change.


Idioms involve the non-literal use of language and they can be categorized as follows:

Alliterative Comparisons :Dead as a dodoفاقد لإلحساس

Fit as a fiddleفي حالة صحية جيدة Noun Phrases:

A blind alleyطريق مسدود

A close shave نجاة بأعجوبةA red letter dayيوم ال ينسى


Preposition PhrasePreposition Phrase At sixes and sevens

بال نظام أو ترتيب خماس

بسداس By hook or by crook بأية

وسيلةVerb + Noun Phrase :

Kick the bucket (die ) Spill the beans ( reveal a secret )


Verb+ Preposition PhraseVerb+ Preposition PhraseBe in cloverلتكن في راحة تامة Be in the dog house ال خطوة لديك Be between a rock and a hard place

بين المطرقة و السندانVerb + Adverb :

give in يستسلم

Put down يثبت قدميه


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© Dr. Khader T. Khader. -Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. -It is the study of meaning communicated through language