Semantics S5
Course Description
This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts in semantics which is the analysis of natural
language meaning through a survey of major current approaches and their findings: philosophy of
language, structural semantics, lexical semantic
Course content
-Historical introduction to semantics
-denotation vs. connotation
-logic of classes
-intension vs. extension
--contextual meaning
-collocation meaning
-reference vs. sense
-paradigmatic & syntagmatic relations of sense
Componential analysis
-semantic fields
-sense relations
Recommended books:
-Leech Geoffrey N, Semantics: The Study of
Meaning. Penguin Books, 1981,
-Lyons John, Semantics: Volume 1. Cambridge
University Press, Jun 2, 1977.
-Palmer Frank Robert , Semantics: Cambridge
University Press, 1981.
Introduction
• Some philosophers were concerned with the
science of signs or semiotics.
• It includes : -syntax
-Semantics
- Pragmatics
The history of semantics
• ‘Semantics’ recent origin (19th century)
• Origin: Greek verb ‘to signify’
• Philosophers from earliest time were more
interested in what words mean than in their
syntactic function.
• -Democritos (460-370 BC) : two types of multiples
meanings
• -Aristotle (384-322BC) : word as the smallest significant
unit / two kinds of words in Language.
• ‘Semantics’ first used by Bréal (1883) was
purely a historical study.
• Neglect of semantics in modern linguistics.
• Semantics or the study of meaning was
thought to be more the concern of philosophy,
logic , and psychology.
• With the German Professor Jost Trier’s “theory
of semantic fields” semantics will trace its
new way.
• Shift of emphasis from description of historical
change of meaning towards descriptive
semantics.
• Now the question is “what is to be understood
by meaning?”
What is ‘meaning’?
• Meaning is “the sense the a word or groups of
words conveys”
• Ogden and Richards in The Meaning of
Meaning (1923) gave a list of 22 definitions of
‘meaning’
• Linguists distinguish between l
– lexical meaning e.g. ball, boy , hit
- grammatical meaning :
The boy hit the ball
Semantics is concerned with the meaning of
words, phrases and sentences.
The focus will be on words’ meaning,
Terminological illustartions
• Within semantics the most useful notion of
‘word’ is that of ‘lexeme’ as “an item of
meaning”
• ‘lexeme’ is one kind of word opposed to other
types of words
-lexemes are headwords / base forms: v. sing not
signs or infinitive without ‘to’
Types of meaning
• I. Denotative vs. Connotative Meaning
• I.1. Denotative meaning
• - relates between a lexeme and the external
world.
house

e.g. ‘girl’ denotes something “a real being”:
– “Leaving being”, “female sex”, “non-adult”
e.g.‘girl’ denotes something that is real:
– “Leaving being”, “female sex”, “non-adult”
• Denotatum and denotata
• Examples:
- The denotatum of ‘cow’ is a particular
class of animals (cow) and the individual
animals (cows) are its ‘denotata’
- The denotatum of ‘red’ is a particular
property (i.e the colour red) and its denotata are
red objects.
• Denotation relates to the philosophical
distinction between the ‘intension’ and
‘extension’ of an expression within the theory
of logic of classes’.
Logic of classes
• class: the set of individuals (objects) specified by
properties that characterize them and that are
common to all elements in a given class.
• when we mention ‘individuals’ we shall be thinking of
physical objects that belong to a specific class.
• Example: X is {a,b,c,d} X is the class whose members
are a,b,c and d class membership is symbolized as “a ϵ
X ’’
• to be distinguished from class inclusion: Y is {b,c}
class inclusion. So Y⊂ X (y is included in X) all members
of Y are included in X → Y is a subclass of X
• A class contains its members but includes its
subclasses,
• Examples:
Intension and extension
How can we define class-membership?
1- by listing their members → extensional
definition
2- by defining its intension on the basis of some
property or properties which all the members
have in common.
• The greater the extension of a term, the less is
its intension. The greater the intension of a
term, the less is its extension.
• ‘animal’ → living being that can feel and move
about (birds, dogs, fish, snakes…)
• ‘cow’ → animal , bovine, female
• Denotation involves both intension and
extension
Connotative meaning
Connotative meaning is the aspect of meaning
added to the denotation of words. It relates to
the associations that a word has above its
denotation.
examples: ‘dove’
Denotation: ‘bird’, ‘a small head’, ‘short legs’,
and ‘a cooing voice’
Connotation: peace and love
• Linguistically significant are the associations
that a word carries for a whole community or
at least for a defined group within a language
community.
• It is often said that by contrast with the
vocabulary of “scientific and technical
discourse”, the words of every day language
are charged with associations or connotations.
Reference and sense
By means of reference, a speaker indicates
which things are being talked about.
So we have two things:
1. the language
2. the thing referred to that is part of the
world
this pen” has many potential referents as
there are pens in the world
• Two points can be noted:
1. The same expressions can have variable
reference.
•
“
2. Some expressions can have a constant
reference:
↓
The application of the notions “existence” and
“reference” may be extended to include other
words representing things that do not have
physical existence.
The reference of a lexical item needs not be
precisely and fully determined in the sense that
it is not always clear whether a particular object
or property falls within the scope of a given
item.
‘hill’ and ‘mountain’ / ‘chicken’ and ‘hen’
The reference of hill overlaps that of mountain.
• It is a characteristic of languages that they
impose a particular lexical categorisation upon
the world and draw the boundaries arbitrarily
as it where at different places.
Sense
• Sense relates to the system of relationships
that holds between linguistic elements.
↓
• The sense of a word is its place in a system of
relationships which it contrasts with other
words in the vocabulary of language.
Sense vs. Reference
• Gottlob Frege introduced the distinction between sense and
reference in 1892:
Sense differs from reference in that two items may have
the same reference but differ in sense.
“The morning star is the evening star” = star Venus
referent different meaning
“The morning star is the morning star”
Husserl also distinguished between sense and reference:
“The victor of Janna” / “The looser of Waterloo”=
Napoleon
• It is also possible for an expression to have
sense without reference:
-The present queen of France is Algerian.
• Sense as a type of meaning is to be discussed within
De Saussure’s theory of signs.
• Each sign has signified and signifier.
*signified: the meaning or concepts a
signifier stands for.
*signifier: the sequence of sounds or graphic
signs by which a speaker refers to a physical
entity or abstract concepts of which he has a
mental image. Table /teibl/
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic
relations
1.The syntagmatic relations which a unit contrasts
are those which it contrasts by virtue of its
combination with other units of the same level.
• Blond & hair; bark & dog; kick & foot //
•
hard exercise
• Thus we may say:
• She has blond hair.(linear/horizontal relationship)
• The dog barks.
• He kicked his foot.
• 2. The paradigmatic relationships are
relations between forms which might occupy
the same particular place in a structure.
He walks slowly
quickly
lightly
Contextual Meaning
•
•
•
Contextual meaning is when the meaning of a word depends on the
context of use.
Examples:
Hard: 1.(contrasted with soft) not easily cut. (as hard as a rock)
2. (contrasted with easy) difficult to understand or explain
needing mental or moral effort. (a hard exercise)
3. Causing unhappiness, discomfort or pain, difficult to
endure.(have a hard time)
4. severe; harsh (a hard father)
Light adj not heavy
Light woman = frivolous
Green grass/ green eye
Collocation meaning
• Collocation is when two or more words
considered as individual lexical items used in
habitual associations with another in a given
language.
• Quirk defines collocation as “the conventional
combination and selection of lexical items
according to the expectation of the addressee”.
• We can note three collocation restrictions:
1. Some are based wholly on the meaning of the item:
green doesn’t collocate with cow→ brown cow
2. Some are based on range -a-word may be used with a
whole set that have some features in common:
pretty girl/woman/lady (female) The handsome
boy/man/husband (male)
3. Some restrictions involve neither meaning nor range:
addled eggs
rancid butter /bacon
Semantic / lexical fields
This theory is tightly related to De Saussure’s
theory of structuralism.
The value or the meaning of words depends on
their relation with other units in the system.
• De Saussure’s notion of system is the basis of
Trier’s conception of semantic fields:
“fields are living realities intermediate
between individual words and the totality of the
vocabulary; as part of a whole they share with
the words the property of being integrated in a
larger structure and with the vocabulary the
property of being structure in terms of smaller
units.”
• Trier put it as:
• “fields are living realities intermediate
between individual words and the totality of
vocabulary; as part of a whole they share with
the words the property of being integrated in
a larger structure and with the vocabulary the
property of being structured in terms of
smaller units.”
Componential analysis and Semantic
features
Componential analysis aims to decompose the senses
of lexemes into minimal semantic features which are
contrastive and significant.
• The theory of semantic fields is based on the analysis
of the semantic structure of words. The meaning of
content words can at least partially be defined by
semantic features or semantic components.
• The meaning of words can be specified indicating a
“plus (+)” or “minus (-)” for the presence or absence of
all the semantic features that define the meaning of
words.
•
‘man’
•
•
•
•
[+ Human] ( to distinguish it from ‘bull’)
[+ Male ] ( to distinguish it from ‘woman’)
[+ Adult ] ( to distinguish it from ‘child’ )
The relevant sense of the lexeme ‘man’ (as opposed to that of ‘bull’,
‘woman’, and ‘child’) can be thus represented by the three features:
[+ Human] , [ + Male] , [ + Adult ] and these features are said to
constitute the componential definition of one sense of the lexeme
‘man’ which is , to some extent, a formalized dictionary definition.
A plus sign is often used to indicate the presence of a feature and a
minus sign the absence of such a feature. The lexeme ‘bull’ will thus
have, in one of its senses, the features [-Human], [+ Male], [+
Adult], ‘woman’ will have [+ Human], [- Male], [+ Adult], and so on.
• Sound /b/ as in ball [voiced , bilabial, stop]
• Sound /p/ as in pass [voiceless, bilabial, stop]
distinctive features
• In the case of such lexemes as ‘child’ which is
unmarked for sex and ‘man’ (in the sense of
[human being] which is unmarked for both sex
and adulthood, we can represent this
‘unmarking’ by the combined mark plusminus (+/-) to indicate that a certain feature
may or may not be part of the sense of that
lexeme depending upon the context.
• The meaning of boy can generally be broken
down semantically into
– boy : [+human], [+male], [-adult]
• Semantic features should be able to show the
relation between words: the difference
between ‘boy’ and ‘man’ is attributed to the
existence of [+adult]
actress
baby
girl
bachelor
mare
courage
+human
+human
+human
+human
-human
−−−− −
+female
+/−
+female
-female
+female
------------
-young
+young
+young
-young
-young
------------
+abstract
Sense relations
Synonymy
• Synonymy is referred to as “sameness of
meaning”. Two words are said to be
synonymous or synonyms of one another if
they have the same meaning.
sofa / couch
cease / stop
happy / glad
quick / fast
• English is particularly rich in synonyms:
Brotherly /
fraternal
buy
/
purchase
world
/
universe
Kingly
/
royal
/
regal
• For linguists, there are no real synonyms i.e.
no two words have exactly the same
meaning.
 Real synonymy may be observed in technical
nomenclatures or terminology.
 In medicine, two names of the inflammation
in the digestive system :
caecitis / typlitis
 In phonetics the sounds
S and Z are spirants / fricatives
P and K are stops / occlusives
• Nevertheless complete synonymy is rare in
natural languages. When we see different
words, we intuitively assume that there must
be some differences in meaning and in most
cases there is in fact a distinction even though
it may be difficult to formulate.
• Examples of some typical differences between
• Synonyms may be formulated as follows :
1) One term is more general than another:
refuse – reject
2) One term is more professional than the other:
disease - illness
3) One term is more literary than another:
passing away - death
4) One term is more colloquial than another:
turn down - refuse
The best method of delimitation of synonyms is
the substitution test. Some terms may be
interchanged in some contexts but not in others.
broad - wide
“the broadest sense” ≡ “the widest sense”
“five foot wide” not broad
“a broad accent” not a wide one
Broad and wide are near synonyms
•
liberty – freedom
“Too much liberty spoils all”
≡
“Too much freedom spoils all”
But “I am not at the liberty to tell you”
not
freedom
Liberty and freedom are near synonyms.
• A second method of finding the difference
between synonyms is by finding their
opposites.
•
Deep will overlap with profound
in “deep sympathy” “profound sympathy”
but not where it is opposed to superficial,
“deep water” where its opposite would be
“shallow water” not *profound water
Polysemy
• Polysemy is a case when one word has two or
more different meanings. The noun board for
example may mean :
– a thin plank
– a tablet
– a table
– A person sitting at the council table
Sources of polysemy
• 1) Shifts in application: they are noticeable in
the use of adjectives since these are apt to
change their meaning according to the noun
they qualify.
• Handsome has been used in the course of
history in the following senses, grouped
according to the noun to which they refer:
• Persons: - apt/skilled/ clever/ beautiful
• Concretes : Easy to handle/ of fair size/ample
• Conducts : brave/ generous
• The three chief senses of today are:
“beautiful” “generous”
“considerable” and “ample”
• 2) Specialization of social milieu: Polysemy of a
word arises also through a kind of lack of verbals.
• Paper : -the materiel in general
-legal or official document
-newspaper
-a set of examination questions
-a communication read or sent to a
learned society
• 3) Figurative language
A word can be given a figurative meaning without
losing its original one.
eye : -organ
-the opening through which the water of a
fountain wells up
-a hole aperture in a needle or tool
-in architecture: the centre of any part “the eye
of a dome”
Homonymy
• Homonymy is commonly defined as two or more words that
have the same form but different in meaning. They may have
the same or different spelling.
• tail - tale /teil/ (homophones)
• maid – made /meid/ (homophones)
• to – too- two /tu/ (homophones)
• Bank- bank / bank - bank (homophones and
homographs)
Hyponymy
• Hyponymy is a sense relation between words such that the
meaning of one is included in the meaning of the other.
• Hyponymy is usually referred to as inclusion.
vegetable superordinate
potato
tomato
cabbage
virtue
honesty
patience
cucumber co-hyponyms
superordinate
prudence gratitude
co-hyponyms
• Lexical gaps
• The relation of hyponymy is not always
systematic.
?
white red black
scarlet
vermilion
blue
crimson
Incompatibilty
• The relation that can hold /be established between words
with similar but contradictory meanings. Thus the word rose
in the sentence.
This is a rose
is incompatible with other lexical items in the semantic field of
‘flower’ such as:
‘tulip’, ‘daisy’, ‘marguerite’, ‘jasmine’, ‘iris’
• Incompatibility is then based on
contradictoriness.
• If someone says I am sitting on a chair, this
will implicitly deny
I am sitting on a stool or settee or armchair
Antonymy
• Antonymy is one type of oppositeness of
meaning.
• Alive-dead weak-strong over-under
• The relation of antonymy is not uniform; there
are different types of antonymy.
Gradable opposites
•
•
•
•
Gradable involves comparison:
Narrow - wide
small-large tall-short hot-cold
These adjectives may be subject to comparison:
“A is as hot as B” or “A is hotter than B” → this depends on the
gradability of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’.
• Between hot and cold there is a continuous scale of values
such as ‘warm’ ‘cool’ or ‘tepid’.
• ‘very narrow’ or ‘very wide’ or ‘the road is wider or
narrower’
•
‘how wide is the road?’ ‘how large is the room?’
Ungradable opposites
• Ungradable antonyms are words which come in pairs and
between them there are no relevant possibilities.
Single-married
dead - alive same-different
• Ungradable pairs of antonyms involve the relation of
complementarity.
• It is the characteristic of such ungradable pairs of lexical items
that the denial of one implies the assertion of the other:
John is not married implies John is single
John is not single
implies John is married
Relational Opposites/converses
• Another kind of opposites is relational opposites. One
member of the opposites refers to the converse relation
referred to by the other.
• Over-under:
• If the book is over the table, then the table is under the book.
• Give-receive:
• If Mary gave chocolate to Bill, then Bill received chocolate
from Mary.
• A relation exists between the antonyms such that the one is
the converse of the other.
• Two kinds of converses:
• 1) grammatical converses acting as normal
lexical converses:
Comparative form:
A’s house is bigger than B’s house → B’s house is
smaller than A’s house
Active / passive form:
A called B → B was called by A
• 2) Lexical converses
 Temporal: before- after
A came before B → B came after A
 Spatial : in front of - behind
A is in front of B → B is behind A
 Social relationship :
mother-son / husband-wife / doctor - patient
Mary is John’s mother → John is Mary’s son