SEMANTICS, Fall 2021/2022 Dr.

Najib Ismail Jarad

3.3 Sense Relations

Meaning is more than denotation and connotation.

What a word means depends in part (not wholly), on what words it occurs with, in longer
language expressions:

 Words or lexemes have different senses (meanings).

1. The mason inserted a stone in the wall. [Mason= builder].

2. The jeweler inserted a stone in the ring.

 The meaning that a lexeme has because of these associations is the sense of that lexeme.

o John walked. = [it’s okay to say it].

o An hour elapsed. = [it’s okay to say it = Elapsed cooccur with hour, any expression with
time].
o John elapsed. = [it’s not okay to say].
o An hour walked. = [it’s not okay to say].
o Bright: = It could mean (Shinning) & (Intelligent).

 Senses are affected by syntactic or longer linguistic expression.

1. The tires left a mark on the road. = [Visible traces]

2. You need a punctuation mark here. = [Written or printed symbol]
3. He got a good mark on the final exam. = [An exam score]
4. She hit the mark every time. = [Target]
5. The mark of a good diplomat is the ability to negotiate. = [Indication of some quality]

 All of them have different senses.

1. The school is in King Faisal Street. = [The building]

2. The girls love their school. = [The institution]
3. The school will visit the museum. = [The pupils]
4. Working abroad is a hard school for anyone. = [Opportunity]
5. I saw a large school of fish in the pond. = [Group]
6. The school of generative linguistics was initiated by Noam Chomsky. = [Theoretical
Approach]
7. Standard language is learned by schooling.

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SEMANTICS, Fall 2021/2022 Dr. Najib Ismail Jarad

 These examples show that words have different senses (meanings) when companied with other
sentences.
Good meal: Tasty, enjoyable, pleasant.
Good knife: Sharp, easy to use.
Good car: Reliable, comfortable.
Good typist: Quick, accurate.
Good person: Honorable, honest.
Good child: Well-behaved, obedient.
Good teacher: Competent, friendly.
Good party: Enjoyable, pleasant.
Good friend: Close, dear, valued.
Good weather: Fine, fair, clear, cloudless

 Sense is the meaning of any lexeme within a particular context.

o Walk, Elapse.
o Professor Jones has a rather large library.
o The library is at the corner of Wilson and Adams Street.

1. A window broke = became broken.

2. Tom broke a window = caused to be broken.
3. A window was broken by Tom.

1. Mary burned the cake.

2. The cake was burned by Mary (Passive).
3. The cake burned.

1. A happy child, a happy family = [Human] who enjoys happiness.

2. A happy accident, a happy experience; [Event] = that produces happiness.
3. A happy story, a happy report = [Discourse] containing a happy event or events.

 The meaning of a lexeme is, in part (not wholly), its relation to other lexemes of the language.
Each lexeme is linked in some way to numerous other lexemes.

 There are two types of linkage:

1. Syntagmatic relation: refers to the mutual association of two or more words in a sequence
so that the meaning of each lexeme is affected by others. (Horizontal relation).

2. Paradigmatic relation; refers to a relation of choice. (Vertical relation).

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 SEMANTICS, Fall 2021/2022 Dr. Najib Ismail Jarad

Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Relations

Lexeme: The term lexeme was first proposed by John Lyons (1977) to avoid complexities
associated with the vague term "word".

a. Go, goes, going, went, gone = [They’re all different forms of the same lexeme].

b. Put up with (tolerate), kick the bucket (die), a dog in the manger (selfish person) =
[they’re all idioms, they’re treated as one lexeme because they all mean one thing].

A lexeme is a minimal unit that can take part in referring or predicating. All lexemes of a language
constitute the lexicon of the language and all the lexemes that you know make up your personal
lexicon.

Syntagmatic relation is the mutual association of two or more words in a sequence so that the
meaning of each is affected by others.

1. (The) ______ girl ______ seem(s) all right. [In brackets (definite article) = (the) is optional
what follows it, is a noun].

2. They must ______ eat ______ (it). [Model = (must) should be followed by a verb].

3. They must ______seem ______ good. [Seem = we need a linking verb]

4. The ____ old ____man seems very ____ happy ____. [2 adjectives]

5. The old man told his story ______ slowly____. [Adverb]

Paradigmatic relation is a relation of choice.

 The judge was cautious. [Adjective = can be replaced with any other, the relation is
vertical]

[arbitrary]
[wise]
[tired]

 The little girl fell into the pond.

Boy jump into the swimming pool.

Cat drowns into the sea.
Dog

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 SEMANTICS, Fall 2021/2022 Dr. Najib Ismail Jarad

Lexical and Grammatical Meanings

The sentence meaning is made up of two things: the lexical and the grammatical meaning.

The following sentence is meaningful, we have a subject and a predicate:

 A (Indefinite Article) dog (S) barked. (P)

Referring expression activity

Referring expression, it’s a piece of language that is used as if it’s linked to something outside
language.

The use of any language expression generally involves naming or referring to some entity and
saying.

The sentence also has several kinds of grammatical meanings:

 Statement vs question: A dog barked (S); Did a dog bark? (Q).

 Affirmative vs negative: A dog barked (A); A dog didn't bark (N).

 Past vs present: A dog barked (Pa); A dog barks (Pr).

 Singular vs plural: A dog barked (S): Some dogs bark (P).

 Indefinite vs definite: A dog barked (Ind): The dog barked (Def).

Grammatical meanings are expressed in various ways:

1. The arrangement of words (referring expression before predicate).

2. By grammatical affixes such as; [-s] attached to the noun 'dog’, or the [-ed] attached to
verb.

3. By grammatical or function words like; [do, does, did, not, a, the, some, any...]

Referring expressions (N) and predicates (V) have lexical meanings while grammatical
morphemes and function words express grammatical meaning.