Chapter six
Smantics
What is semantics?
• Semantics is defined as the study of
meaning. However, it is not the only
linguistic discipline that studies meaning.
• Semantics answers the question “what
does this sentence mean”. In other words,
it is the analysis of conventional meanings
in words and sentences out of context.
Reference and sense(1)
• Linguistic expressions stand in a relation to the world.
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There are two aspects of meaning.
Reference is the relation by which a word picks out or
identifies an entity in the world. But the referential
theory fails to account for certain kinds of linguistic
expression.
Some words are meaningful, but they identify no entities
in the real world, such as the words dragon, phoenix,
unicorn, and mermaid.
It is not possible for some words to find referent in the
world, such as the words but, and, of, however, the, etc.
Reference and sense(2)
• Speakers of English understand the meaning of
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a round triangle although there is no such graph.
Sense is the relation by which words stand in
human mind. It is mental representation, the
association with something in the speaker’s or
hearer’s mind. The study of meaning from the
perspective of sense is called the
representational approach.
Classification of lexical meanings
(1)
• Referential meaning (denotative meaning) –
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central meaning of words, stable, universal
Associative meaning – meaning that hinges on
referential meaning, less stable, more culturespecific
Connotative meaning – the communicative value
an expression has by virtue of what it refers to,
embraces the properties of the referent,
peripheral
Classification of lexical
meanings (2)
• Social meaning (stylistic meaning) – what is
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conveyed about the social circumstances of the
use of a linguistic expression
Affective meaning – what is communicated of
the feeling or attitude of the speaker/writer
towards what is referred to
Reflected meaning – what is communicated
through association with another sense of the
same expression
Classification of lexical meanings (3)
• Taboos
• Collocative meaning – the
associated meaning a word
acquires in line with the meaning
of words which tend to co-occur
with it
Lexical sense relations (1)
• Synonymy
• Synonyms are words which have different forms but
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similar meanings.
Dialectal synonyms – lift/elevator, flat/apartment
Synonyms of different styles – gentleman/guy
Synonyms of different registers – salt/sodium chloride
Synonyms differing in affective meaning – attract/seduce
Synonyms differing in collocation – beautiful/handsome,
able/capable
Lexical sense relations (2)
Synonyms are frequently used in speaking
and writing as a cohesive device. In order
to avoid repetition the writer/speaker
needs to use a synonym to replace a word
in the previous co-text when he/she wants
to continue to address that idea. The
synonyms together function to create
cohesion of the text.
Lexical sense relations (3)
• Antonymy
• Antonyms are words which are opposite in
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meaning.
Gradable antonyms – pairs of words opposite to
each other, but the positive of one word does not
necessarily imply the negative of the other. For
example, the words hot and cold are a pair of
antonyms, but not hot does not necessarily mean
cold, maybe warm, mild or cool. Therefore, this
pair of antonyms is a pair of gradable antonyms.
Lexical sense relations (4)
• Complementary antonyms – words opposite to each
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other and the positive of one implies the negative of the
other: alive/dead
Reversal (relational) antonyms – words that denote the
same relation or process from one or the other direction:
push/pull, up/down, teacher/student
Antonymy is frequently utilized as a rhetorical resource
in language use. Oxymoron and antithesis based on
antonymy. Gradable antonyms may give rise to fuzziness.
Lexical sense relations (5)
• Homonymy
• Homonyms are words which have the same form, but different
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meanings.
Homographs – words which are identical in spelling, but different in
meaning and pronunciation: tear [ ] (v.)/tear [
] (n.)
Homophones – words which are identical in pronunciation, but
different in spelling and meaning: see/sea
Full homonyms – words which are identical in spelling and
pronunciation, but different in meaning: bear (v. to give birth to a
baby/to stand)/bear (n. a kind of animal)
Rhetorically, homonyms are often used as puns.Syntactic categories
Lexical sense relations (6)
• Polysemy
• A polyseme is a word which has
several related senses.
• Polysemy is based on the intuition of
native speakers as well as the
etymology or history of words.
Lexical sense relations (7)
• Hyponymy
• Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion.
• Tiger, lion, elephant and dog are
hyponyms of the word animal. Words like
animal are called superordinates.
• This kind of vertical semantic relation links
words in a hierarchical work.
Componential analysis
• Componential analysis is the approach that
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analyze word meaning by decomposing it into its
atomic features. It shows the semantic features
of a word.
Examples:
Man: +HUMAN +MALE +ADULT
Boy: +HUMAN +MALE –ADULT
Father: +HUMAN +MALE +ADULT →PARENT
Daughter: +HUMAN –MALE 0ADULT ←PARENT
Words and concepts (1)
• Categorization
• Categorization refers to the process by which
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people use language to classify the world around
and inside them.
It is fundamental to human cognition.
In the past two decades cognitive psychologists
and cognitive linguistics have gained new
insights into the nature of categories.
Words and concepts (2)
• Prototypes
• A prototype is a set that has typical,
central features. Others are peripheral
features, which are not typical but related.
• Hierarchies
• Conceptual network
Sentencial sense relations –
semantic relations of sentences(1)
• Sentences may be related in sense. I will
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illustrate sense relations within and between
sentences.
Tautology: The bachelor is unmarried.
Contradiction: The bachelor is married.
Inconsistency: John is single./John is married.
Synonymousness: John broke the glass./The
glass was broken by John.
Entailment: The meeting was chaired by a
spinster./The meeting was chaired by a woman.
Sentencial sense relations –
semantic relations of sentences(2)
• Presupposition: Sam has returned the
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book./Sam borrowed the book.
These semantic relations are found within or
between meaningful sentences. There are
sentences which sound grammatical but
meaningless. These sentences are said to be
semantically anomalous. For example:
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
The pregnant bachelor killed some phonemes.
Metaphors (1)
• From rhetorical device to cognitive device
• The classical view sees metaphor as a kind of
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decorative in addition to ordinary language, a
rhetorical device that makes language use
colourful.
Another view of metaphor, which has become
more influential in the past two decades, holds
that metaphors are a cognitive device. Metaphor
is an essential element in our categorization of
the world and our thinking process.
Metaphors (2)
• Cognitive linguistics has shown that metaphor is
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not an unusual or deviant way of using language.
The use of metaphor is not confined to literature,
rhetoric and art. It is actually ubiquitous in
everyday communication.
The components of metaphors
Target domain – tenor
Source domain – vehicle
Metaphors (3)
• Features of metaphors
• Metaphors are systematic.
• Metaphors can create similarities between
the two domains involved.
• Metaphors are also characterized by
imaginative rationality.