CHAPTER 10: SEMENATICS

 Semantics - The study of the Example: The hamburger ate the

boy.
meaning of words, phrases and
 Semantic Role - Relations, also
sentences. ~ Conventional meaning
known as semantic roles, are the
conveyed by the use of words and
various roles that a noun phrase
sentences of a language.~
may play with respect to the action
 Conceptual and Associative
or state described by a governing
Meaning
verb, commonly the sentence's
 Conceptual Meaning literal use of
main verb.
a word. (dictionary definition of
 Agent and Theme
words)
Agent : “The boy kicked the ball”
e.g. needle : thin , sharp, steel,

instrument. In our example sentence, one role

 Associative Meaning is the idea, is taken by the noun phrase. The

connection what that specific word boy as the entity that performs the

brings to you. action.

e.g needle : pain, doctor, illness,… Example:

etc. Theme

 Semantic Features “The boy kicked the ball”

Another role is taken by the “the

- Linguistic meaning of a word is
ball” as the entity that is involved in
proposed to arise from contrasts
or affected by the action. Which is
and significant differences with
called the theme (or sometimes the
other words.
‘patient’)
 Theme can also be an entity (the  Instrument and Experiencer
If an agent uses another entity
ball) that is simply being described
in order to perform an action,
(not performing an action) as in
that other fills the role of instrument
“the ball was red”.
Examples:
Agent and Theme
1. The boy cut the rope with old razor.
Agents are typically human (the
2. He drew the picture with a crayon.
boy), they can also be non human

entities that caise action. When a noun phrase is used to

designate an entity as the person

Examples: The winds, A car, The dogs.
who has a feeling, perception or
All of the examples affect the ball
state, it fills the semantic role of
as a theme
experiencer.
Examples:
Examples:
1. The wind blew the ball.
1. The boy feels sad.
2. The car run over the ball.
2. Did you hear that noise?
3. The dog caught the ball.

The theme is typically non human,

 Location, source and goal
but can be human (the boy). - On the table, in the room, are
example of location.
Example: The dog chased the boy
- From chicago, from california, are
In fact, the same physical entity can
example of source.
appear in two different semantic - To new orleans is an example of
goal.
roles in a sentence.
  They can often, though not always,

be substituted for each other in

sentences. For example, What was

his answer? or What was his reply?

 Lexical Relations with much the same meaning.

 In everyday talk, we often explain Hyponymy or inclusion is the

more specific words
the meanings of words in terms of
(e.g., daisy and rose) and the
their relationships. If we are asked broader term (flower) .
the meaning of conceal, we might
 Other examples of synonyms are:
say, "It's the same as hide", or give
— almost/nearby, big/large,
the meaning of shallow and it is
— broad/wide, buy/purchase,
"the opposite of deep" or the
car/automobile
daffodil as "a kind of flower”. We
 We should keep in mind that the idea
are characterizing the words by its
of 'sameness' of a meaning used in
relationship to other words. The
discussing synonymy is not
lexical relations we have just
necessarily 'total sameness'.
exemplified above are synonymy,
There are many occasions when one
antonymy and hyponymy.
word in appropriate in a sentence,

but its synonym would be odd. For

 Synonymy
example, Sandy had only one

 Two or more words with very closely answer correct on the test, the word

related meanings are called reply would sound odd.

synonyms.
FORMAL vs. INFORMAL USES — The negative of one member of a

gradable pair does not necessarily

 In synonymy, synonymous form
imply the other. My car isn't old,
may differ in terms of formal versus
doesn't necessarily mean My car is
informal uses. For example, My
new.
father purchased a large automobile

has the same meaning with My dad NON-GRADABLE ANTONYMS

bought a big car but the second

 Also called 'complementary pairs'.
version sounds more casual or
Comparative constructions are not
informal than the first.
normally used. Also, The negative of

Antonymy one member of a non-gradable pair

does imply the other member.

 Two forms with opposite meanings
 My grandparents aren't alive
are called ANTONYMS.
does mean My grandparents
 Some examples of Antonyms are:
are dead.
— alive/dead, big/small, fast/slow,

happy/sad Other non-gradable antonyms:

 Antonyms usually divided into two

— male/female, married/single,
main types:
true/false

GRADABLE ANTONYMS
REVERSIVES

Can be used in comparative constructions

 We can use the "negative test" to

For example: identify non-gradable antonyms in a

language, we usually avoid

— I'm bigger than you and A pony
describing one member of an
is smaller than a horse.
 antonymous pair as the negative of  “ English speakers use the phrase

the other. true feelings when they want to give

 'undress' can be treated as the the meaning of reluctance to

opposite of 'dress' it does not express deeply felt emotions”

mean ‘not dress’ (Sinclair, 2003: 148)

1. 1 more accustomed to denying our

Other common examples:
true feelings, avoiding reflection
— enter/exit, pack/unpack,
and
lengthen/shorten, raise/lower,
2. 2 we try to communicate our true
tie/untie
feelings to those around us, and we

are
 Collocation
3. 3 the ability to express our true
 Frequently occurring together
feelings and creativity because we
Examples: are

— Hammer- Nail 4. 4 we appease others, deny our true

— Table- Chair feelings, conform, I suspected the

— Butter – Bread 5. 5 more of us in there, of our true

feelings, rather than just ranting on

CORPUS LINGUISTICS

 CORPUS is a large collection of texts,

Hyponymy Also known as relationship
spoken or written, typically stored
between words. It is when the meaning of
as a database in a computer.
one form is included in the meaning of
 84 occurrences of the phrase “ true
another, the relationship is described as
feelings” in a corpus.
hyponymy. Also, when we consider

hyponymous connections, we are

essentially looking at the meaning of - Can be defined as one form

words in some type of hierarchical (written or spoken) having

relationship. multiple meanings that are all

related by extensions.

 Prototypes
e. g . head => top of your body /

An area where individual experience can top of a glass of beer / top of a

lead into substantial variation and people company

may disagree over the categorization of a

 Word Play
word just like avocado and tomato if they - “The activity of joking about the

are either a fruit or vegetable. Another meanings of words, especially in an

example of it is when we say chair as an intelligent way”

example of a furniture instead of saying - The manipulation of language (in

bench or stool. particular, the sounds and

meanings of words) with the intent

 Homophones and Homonyms
to amuse.
Homophones is two or more different
Ex: Tongue twister, Verbal Humor
written forms have the same

pronunciation but different meanings.  Metonymy

While homonyms is when one form, either
The relatedness of meaning found in
written or spoken, has two or more
polysemy is essentially based on
unrelated meanings.
similarity.

 Polysemy
There is another type of
When we encounter two or more words relationship between words
with the same form and related meanings. based simply on a close
 connection in everyday

experience.

Examples: bottle/water. Can/juice.

Car/wheels. House/roof. King/crown. the

president/the white house.

Example: -He drank the whole bottle.

- He drank the liquid, not the glass

object.

Many examples of metonymy are highly

conventionalized and easy to interpret.

However, other examples depend on

ability to infer what the speaker has in

mind.

Examples: Get your butt over here.

This sentence is easier to understand if

you used informal talk in U. S.

The strings are too quiet.

It is easier to understand if you are

familiar with orchestral music.

Making sense of such expressions

depends or context, background

knowledge and inference.

Study Questions (Ericka Mae Lor)  (d) married / single antonymy (non-
gradable)
1. How many ‘prototype’ used in
semantics?  (e) move /run hyponymy
 The prototype is the characteristic  (f) peace / piece homophony (or
instance of a category, as in the homophones)
case of "robin" being the clearest
example, or prototype, of the
category "bird" for many American 5. Which of the following opposites are
English speakers. gradable, non-gradable or reversive?
2. Using semantics features, how would  (a) absent / Present non-gradable
you explain the oddness of these
 (b) appear / disappear reversive
sentences?
 (c) fail / pass non-gradable
(a) The television drank my water
 (d) fair / unfair gradable
 The verb drink requires a subject
with the feature [+animate] and the  (e) fill it / empty it reversive
noun television has the feature [-
 (f) high / low: gradable
animate].
(b) His dog writes poetry
6. Are these underlined words best
 The verb write requires a subject
described as examples of polysemy or
with the feature [+human] and the
metonymy?
noun dog has the feature [-human].
 (a) The pen is mightier than the
3. Identity the semantics roles of the
sword.
seven noun phrases in this sentence
 (b) I had to park on the shoulder of
With her new golf club, Anne Marshall
the road.
whacked the ball from the woods to
grassy area near the hole and she  (c) Yes, I love those. I ate a whole
suddenly felt invincible. box on Sunday!
 Instrument (her new golf club),  (d) The bookstore has some new
Agent (Anne Marshall), Theme (the titles in linguistics.
ball), Source (the woods), Goal (the
 (e) Computer chips created an
grassy area), Location (the hole),
important new technology
Experiencer (she)
(a) metonymy
4. What is the basic lexical relation
(b) polysemy
between each pair of words listed here?
(c) metonymy
 (a) damp / moist synonymy (d) metonymy
(e) polysemy
 (b) deep / shallow antonymy
(gradable)
 (c) furniture / table hyponymy
Research task (Sophia Nicole Cabardo)

A.) What is the connection between an

english doctor called Petter Mark Roget
and the study of lexical relations?

— Dr. Roget was the first person to

compile and publish a thesaurus of English
words and phrases in 1852. He was a
medical doctor and wrote many papers
on physiology.

B.) Difference between metonymy and

metaphor.

— In metonymy, the association of the

word is based on contiguity, while in a
metaphor; the substitution is based on
similarity. If metaphor can be used to
define the transference of relation
between set of things to another,
metonymy is used to define a word.

C.) What is markedness?

— Description in linguistics and social

sciences, markedness is the state of
standing out as unusual or divergent in
comparison to a more common or regular
form.
 DEIXIS
CHAPTER 11 Deixis are words that can't be interpreted
at all if we don't know the context.
PRAGMATICS - Pragmatics is a
systematic way of explaining language Ex: here and there, this or that, now and
use in context. then, yesterday, today or tomorrow
— How utterances are used. as well as pronouns as you, me, she,
him, it, them
Interpreting what the speaker means
For example: you'll have to bring it back
The study of “ invisible” meaning, or
tomorrow because she isn't here today.
how we recognize what is meant when it
isn’t actually written That sentence is impossible to know the
meaning of if you don't know the speaker,
Study of the invisible meaning and
what is it, who is she, when is tomorrow?
how we recognize what is meant even
when it isn't actually said or written. Deixis means pointing via language

Interpretation of the meaning of a We use deixis to point to things: it, these,

sign, what we think the writer this, boxes
intended to communicate.
person deixis - people; him, them those,
idiots
spatial deixis - here, there, near that
CONTEXT
temporal deixis - now then, next week
What kind of context words are placed in.
REFERENCE
It can be linguistic context, also called co-
text. Words themselves don't refer to anything!
PEOPLE REFER!
The surrounding co-text has a strong
effect on what we think a word is Reference: an act by which the
meaning. speaker/writer uses language to enable
the listener/reader to identify something.
This is useful when words are homonyms.
We can also refer to things when we're not
We base our understanding on the words
sure of ( the blue thing, Mr.Kawasaki)
context.
REference is an act by which the
It can also be physical context. If we see
speaker uses language to enable the
the word "bank" on the side of a building
listener to identify something.
we understand that there is a financial
institution and not the shore of a river
there. It may be PN, N, NP, Pron,
Physical context-> BANK We can even use expressions as the blue
thingy over by the window, as reference if
Linguistic context-> co-text
we don't know its name We talk about.
I'm sitting in a bank. vs. I'm going to the Inference, anaphora and presupposition
bank for cash.
 INFERENCE Ex:
When we don't know the name of the Your brother is home
person or thing we are reffering to and we
Why did you arrive late?
make up a name. Like when a waiter asks
the other waiter "Where is the Salad There is a presupposition that in the first
sitting" He doesn't mean that a salad is sentence the person has a brother and in
sitting somewhere, he means the person the second, he or she was late.
that ordered a salad
SPEECH ACTS
Ex: requesting/ commanding/
ANAPHORA questioning/ informing
When we refer back to N or NP • We can define a speech act as the action
performed by a speaker with an
Ex: We saw a video with a puppy. The
utterance.
puppy started to, it went outside.
Example:
This is an anaphora run
• I’ ll be here at five.
A puppy is the antecedent
You are not just speaking, you are the
The puppy and it are anaphoric
speech act of ‘promising’
expressions
DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS
We usually make a distinction between
how we introduce new referents (a
puppy) and how we refer back to them
(the puppy, it)
a puppy - antecedent
the puppy, it - anaphoric expressions
We usually use certain syntactic
We use anaphora to maintain reference structures with the functions listed beside
PRESUPPOSITION them in the following table

When we use a referring expression like • When an interrogative structure such as

"this, he or Jenifer" we usually assume Did you..?, Are they..?, Can we....? is
that our listeners can recognize which used with the function of a question, it is
referent is intended. described as a direct speech act.

Presupposition is a large-scale
assumption about what our listeners • When we don’t know something and we
already know ask someone to provide the information,
When the speaker or writer assumes that we usually produce a direct speech
the listener or reader knows what he (Can you ride a bicycle?
means with expressions like this, he or
Shakespeare.
 POLITENESS
In the study of linguistic politeness, the
most relevant concept is ‘face’
•Your face, in pragmatics, is your public
self-image. This is the emotional and
social sense of self that everyone has
and expects everyone else to recognize.
Politeness can be defined as showing
awareness of and consideration of
another person’s face.

If you say something that

represents a threat to another
person’s self image, that is called a
face-threatening act.

Ex: Give me that paper!

behaving as if you have more social
power than the other person.
If you don’t actually have that power
(your mom, a military officer), then
you are performing a face-threatening
act.
 If you say something that lessens the
possible threat to another’s face, it can
be described as a face-saving act.

• Indirect speech act (Could you pass me

that paper?) removes the assumption of
social power.

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE FACE

Negative and positive face
Negative face: the need to be
independent, free from imposition
 A face-saving act that emphasizes
a negative face will show concern
about imposition:
• I’m sorry to bother you...
• I know you’re busy but...
• If you’re free,...
Positive face: the need to be connected,
to be a member of the group
 A face-saving act that emphasizes
a person’s positive face will show
solidarity and draw attention to a
common goal:
• Let’s do this together...
• You and I have the same problem, so