Semantics
What is semantics?
“She says I don’t listen, but I think I do. Maybe it’s just
semantics.”
Marriage and Family Counseling: Marital/Couple
Interventions
New titles aren't necessarily handed out just because an employee gains more experience
the longer they are with his company, Bullock says. "Eventually, they may be put in charge of
multiple things, but it's dangerous to be giving them a separate business card for each of
them…. We try to get away from that hierarchical structure."
"It's just semantics," says Ben Compton, president of 10-person architecture firm Architects
BC (Lexington, SC). "We really don't put much emphasis on it. What's more important is what
we can do to help bring (an employee's) career along.
“It’s just semantics” seems to mean “it’s using words
which don’t really have the meaning they should have.”
Semantic competence: native speakers know:
 the meanings of individual morphemes
 the meanings of heteromorphemic words and sentences
 relationships between meanings
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Sense vs. reference
Referent (‘extension’): what a word/phrase refers to in the
real world
Sense (‘intension’): inherent meaning of each word (of a
phrase)
‘Frege's puzzle’:
(1) The morning star is the evening star.
(same referent, different sense)
(2) Venus is Venus.
(same referent, same sense)
Suppose Venus is the evening star and also the morning
star.
Then (1) conveys information whereas (2) does not convey
(new) information.
Phrases can have sense but no (real world) referent:




the Queen of the United States
my younger sister
a unicorn
the man in the moon
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reference but not sense: many proper names (e.g. George
W. Bush)
Iconic vs. non-iconic reference
spoken languages
reference <--> sound
e.g. [hr]
onomatopoeia
signed languages
reference <--> image
e.g. HAIR in ASL
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Reference and prototypes
For many common nouns (e.g. cat, dog, university), the set
of referents appear to be clustered around a prototype:
‘bird’ (see Fig. 7.2)
There may be unclear boundaries between members of a
concept set:
‘cup’ vs. ‘bowl’
‘a few’ vs. ‘several’
Prototypical exemplars of a category are more readily
processed than atypical exemplars.
Coreference and pronoun form
reflexive pronouns
myself ourselves
yourself yourselves
himself, herself, itself
themselves
Julia asked if Aixa could excuse her.
Julia asked if Aixa could excuse herself.
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Lexical semantics
Study of the meanings of individual words (morphemes)
1. Ambiguous morphemes:
Polysemous morpheme: morpheme has two or more
related meanings
“hard” (= “difficult” or “durable”)
Cf. homophonous morphemes: same phonological
representation has two or more unrelated meanings:
“I’m going to pass.” (I’m going to succeed or I’m
going to abstain.)
Pun: ambiguous words used in different senses in parallel
syntactic construction:
‘water’: ‘pour water into, dilute with water’: Dave
watered the plants, and Rose, the drinks.
‘suggest’: ‘advise verbally, indicate’ John suggested to
Mary that she get snow tires and so did the skid.
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2. Lexicalization (and grammaticization) of concepts varies
from language to language.
 Some variation may be due to cultural and/or
geographical differences.
Witsuwit’en:
‘palm tree’
‘spouse's donation to clan’
‘polar bear’:
-ntmenq
t cas
underwater grizzly
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 Languages differ with respect to whether concepts are
expressed by one morpheme or by more than one
morpheme
Spanish
era (bueno) ‘it was’
fue (bueno)
estaba (bien)
estuvo (bien)
tstl’s
‘paper, book, cigarette, dollar bill, envelope’
‘animal’
hne
nunitshy
‘game animal’
‘fur-bearing animal’
‘aunt’
-aq’y
-pits
-thay pat
-z pat
‘aunt, mother’s sister’
‘aunt, father’s sister’
‘aunt, father’s brother’s wife’
‘aunt, mother’s brother’s wife’
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‘it’s there’
it (rigid) is there
it (deep container) is there
it (clothlike) is there
it (shallow container) is
there
it (liquid) is there
it (wet or mushy object) is
there
it (abstract or threedimensional object) is there
it (ropelike) is there
tl’o et say
tl’o et sle
et sthan
et sthan
et schoz
et sqhay
et sts
et stlh
et say
et sle
a coiled rope is there
an uncoiled rope is there
tstl’s et say
a paper is there
tstl’s et schoz an envelope is there
Witsuwit’en
et stan
(3 morphemes)
English
a rigid object is there
(5 morphemes)
et ‘there’
s- conjugation
-tan ‘rigid object is (in position)’
Synonymy
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A is synonymous with B, A and B mean the same, A can
be paraphrased by B
vomit = throw up
postpone = put off
Antonymy
The meaning of A is the opposite of or contradicts the
meaning of B. Some different types of adjectival
antonymy:
 Scalar antonyms/gradable pairs (different ends of the
same scale):
tall vs. short; hot vs. cold; big/small;
a little bit tall, sort of tall, somewhat tall
 Non-gradable antonyms:
pregnant, married, divorced:
*a little bit pregnant, *sort of pregnant, *somewhat
pregnant
Hyponyms and hypernyms
run
ballerina
rose
Seattle
is a hyponym of:
move
dancer
flower
state of Washington
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move
dancer
flower
state of Washington
is a hypernym of:
run
ballerina
rose
Seattle
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Some productive ways of forming hyponyms:
adjectival
modification:
adverbial
modification:
compounding
Japanese car
incredibly
interesting
dill pickle
is a hyponym of:
car
interesting
pickle
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Caveat re adjectival modification and hyponym creation
Non-intersection adjectives (do not necessarily entail
referent of noun with which they combine):
possible solution
alleged thief
is not necessarily a hyponym of:
solution
thief
Anti-intersection adjectives (entail negation of noun with
which they combine)
is not a hyponym of:
$100 bill
offer
the president
fake $100 bill
phony offer
the former president
Exocentric compounds:
boombox
station wagon
killer whale
is not a hyponym
of:
box
wagon
whale
instead, type of:
sound system
car
dolphin
Sentence semantics/compositional semantics
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How do the meanings of different expressions combine?
What are the rules for determining the meanings of
syntactic phrases and morphologically complex words?
 Principle of Compositionality/Frege's Principle:
Sentence meaning is determined by morpheme meaning
and syntactic structure:
Rose loves Dave
vs.
Dave loves Rose
Structural ambiguity follows from the Principle of
Compositionality.
 Anomaly: meanings cannot be combined. Anomalous
phrase: syntactically well-formed but semantically illformed.
The ducks amused the pond (inanimate objects cannot
be amused)
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously (colorless vs.
green; green idea; sleep furiously)
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 Idioms and sayings/proverbs
Have compositional (literal) meaning as well as
unpredictable (idiomatic) meaning:
literal meaning
to spill the
beans
to kick the
bucket
to split hairs
to put one’s
foot in one’s
mouth
at large
idiomatic meaning
reveal a secret
die
insist on minute
detail
say something
stupid, regrettable,
insensitive
not in custody
other lexical items: V particle, noun phrases
‘go down’
‘occur’ (important or dangerous event)
‘run up’ ‘incur large expense’
‘dead end’
‘termination of street with no connection to
another street’
‘black market’ illegal trading
Witsuwit’en
y ste
literal meaning
idiomatic meaning
he/she stays home she is pregnant
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he/she likes your
smell
c’t’xwts’y bird pack
il
the devil fought
lyap tat
with his wife
p yininye
nyzil udily
he/she is used to
you
large wet
snowflake
there was a hail
storm
Semantic relations
Entailment
If X entails Y, then whenever X is true Y must also be true.
Dave ran a marathon.
Entails: Dave ran.
(If it is true that Dave ran a marathon then it is true that
Dave ran.)
Last night I did the dishes and cleaned out the cat box.
Entails: I did the dishes.
Nixon resigned.
Entails: Somebody resigned.
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Entailment and synonymy
Mutual entailment = complete synonymy
Suppose ‘postpone’ is synonymous with ‘put off’
If
The student put off doing the homework. entails
The student postponed doing the homework.
and
The student postponed doing the homework. entails
The student put off doing the homework.
Then
The student postponed doing the homework.
is synonymous with
The student put off doing the homework.
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Is it possible to predict when one sentence entails another?
Factive verbs
Some factive verbs: be sorry, stop, regret.
Factive verbs entail the truth of their complements.
I’m sorry you were late. entails
You were late.
I regret the incident. entails
There was an incident.
When did you stop beating your wife? entails
You were beating your wife.
Compare other complement taking verbs:
I think the party is over. does not entail
The party is over.
Entailment and sense vs. reference
If unequal sense, entailment may or may not follow
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the president of UW = McCormick (same referent, unequal
sense)
‘I want to be the president of UW’ does not entail
‘I want to be McCormick’
Dictum de Omni
What are the conditions under which a term can be
replaced with a more general term (hypernym)?
If sentences X and Y differ only in that X contains a
hyponym (special case) of Y, then X generally entails Y.
Dictum de Omni:
Given A (statement asserted to be true)
and A contains a hyponym of B
then it is possible to conclude B
Dave ran entails Dave moved.
I live in Seattle entails I live in the state of Washington.
Rose bought a Japanese car. entails
Rose bought a car.
Dave ate a dill pickle. entails
Dave ate a pickle.
But ‘enjoy’??
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enjoy short lectures
doesn’t entail
enjoy all lectures
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Dictum de Nullo
What are the conditions under which a term can be
replaced with a more specific, hyponomous term?
Dictum de Nullo:
Given A (statement asserted to be true)
and A contains a hypernym of B
then it is possible to conclude B
Syntactic conditions under which Dictum de Nullo applies
instead of Dictum de Omni:
 Negative sentences
 Conditional sentences
 Universal quantifiers (‘all’, ‘every’)

Negative sentences
‘Bill Gates doesn't live in Seattle.’ entails (by DdN)
‘Bill Gates doesn't live in Ballard.’
Notice:
‘Bill Gates doesn't live in Seattle.’ does not entail (by DdO)
‘Bill Gates doesn't live in Washington.’
 Conditional sentences
If Bill bought a sports car, then it must be a nice car.
entails (by DdN)
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If Bill bought a German sports car, then it must be a nice
car.
If Bill bought a sports car, then it must be a nice one.
does not entail (by DdO)
If Bill bought a car, then it must be a nice car.
 Universal Quantification
Setting: watching a Nutcracker (performed by child and
adult dancers)
The audience applauded all the dancers./The audience
applauded every dancer.
entails (by DdN)
The audience applauded all the children.
The audience applauded all the children.
does not entail (by DdO)
The audience applauded all the dancers.
Semantics summary
Semantics overlaps with other subfields of linguistics:
 morphology (morpheme = paired phonological
representation and semantic representation)
 syntax (ambiguous sentences, anomalous sentences)
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Semantic competence
Meaning: sense vs. reference
prototype
Lexical semantics
cross-linguistic variation in pairing meaning with
phonological representation
Compositionality Principle
idioms, anomaly
Meaning relations: synonymy, antonymy, entailment
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