THE STUDY OF MEANING: SEMANTICS

5.1. Word, sentence, and utterance meaning.

5.1.1. Meaning of word and sentences
- Word: a single unit of language that has meaning and can be spoken or written
+ Content words: words with specific meanings (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs)
+ Function words: words don’t have concrete meanings (conjunctions, determiners,
prepositions, pronouns auxiliary verbs, modals, qualifiers, question words.)
- Sentence: a set of words expressing a statement, a question or an order, usually
containing a subject and predicate.
5.1.2. Meanings of utterances

In linguistics, an utterance is a unit of speech.

In phonetic terms, an utterance is a stretch of spoken language that is preceded by

silence and followed by silence or a change of speaker.

Ex: Would you please be quiet?, spoken with a polite rising intonation, might be
described as a sentence, or as a question, or as a request.

5.2. Lexical semantics

- Lexical semantics is an academic discipline concerned with the meaning of words

and the meaning of relationships among words.

- A lexical item is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain of words that forms
the basic elements of a language's lexicon.

Ex: The mouse ran across the floor – an animal

I always use the touch pad – never the mouse. – a computer device

5.2.1. Semantic field

- Semantic field: a lexical set of words grouped related by meanings that refers to a
specific subject (word field, lexical field, field of meaning, and semantic system)
Ex: colors:

1. Blue, red, yellow, green, black, …

2. Lavender, scarlet, indigo, royal blue,…
 (1) words are more usual than words (2), so (1) are called less marked
words, (2) are called more marked words. Often, a less marked word
consists of only one morpheme, in contrast to more marked words. Less
marked terms are also often broader in meaning than more marked terms.

5.2.2. Types of relationships between words

5.2.2.1. Hyponymy

- Hyponym is a term used to designate a particular member of a broader class. In

general, there are a number of hyponyms for each superordinate.

Ex:

Superordinate Tree
Hyponyms Bark, Leaf, Branch

5.2.2.2. Part/ whole relationships

- The whole-part relationships is an association between a lexical unit representing

a part and a lexical unit representing its corresponding whole.

Whole Part
House Roof, wall
Head Eyes, mouth, nose

5.2.2.3. Synonymy

- Synonymy is a term for a word with the same or nearly the same meaning as
another word.

Ex: He had a difficult decision to make. - He had a hard decision to make.

The same as before, the substitution of difficult with hard does not change the
sentence's meaning (the description of the decision).
5.2.2.4. Antonymy

- Antonyms are pairs or groups of words that are notionally opposite in meaning.

- Two types of antonymy:

+ Gradable antonyms define words that are at the opposite ends of a spectrum with
some gradation between the two extremes.

Ex: hot – cold, high – low, young – old

+ Non gradable antonyms are a kind of antonymy that explains an either-or

relationship between the opposite word pairs.

Ex: true – false, yes – no, yes – no

5.2.2.5. Converseness

- Converseness: pair of words that refer to a relationship from opposite points of

view

Ex: employer – employee

Agent – client

Uncle – nephew

5.2.2.6. Polysemy and homonymy

- A word is polysemy if it can be used to express different meanings. The

difference between the meanings can be obvious or subtle.

Ex: The newspaper got wet in the rain.

The newspaper fired some of its editing staff

- Two or more words are homonymy if they either sound the same (homophones),
have the same spelling (homographs), or both, but do not have related meanings.

- Two types of homonymy: homography (same written form) and homophony

(same spoken form)
Ex: homography: bow, tear, record

Homophony: sea – see, knight – night

5.2.2.4. Metaphorical extension (derived meaning)

5.3. Function words and categories of meaning

- Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are content parts of speech. Function words
are words that exist to explain or create grammatical or structural relationships into
which the content words may fit. Words like "of," "the," "to," they have little
meaning on their own.

5.3.1. Tense and modality.

- Tense: A tense is a form of the verb that allows you to express time. Past, present,
and future are the three main types of tenses.

- Modality is about a speaker’s or a writer’s attitude towards the world. A speaker

or writer can express certainty, possibility, willingness, obligation, necessity and
ability by using modal words and expressions.

+ Modal verb: can, could, may, might, need to, ought to, be able to, …

+ Modal words and expressions: possible, possibility, clear, certain, certainly, …

5.3.2. Reference

- Reference deals with the relationship between language and the real world.
Ex: Have you seen any dogs in the park last night? – nonreferential
Last night I saw a dog in the park. – referential

5.3.3. Deixis

- Deixis: the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or
person when talking.

Ex: "Last week I flew over there for a quick visit."

 Time, speaker, place
5.4. Semantic roles and sentence meaning

- A semantic role is a linguistic concept that refers to the underlying relationship

between a predicate and its arguments. These roles typically include the agent (the
doer of the action), the patient (the entity affected by the action), the theme (the
entity that undergoes a change), the experiencer (the entity that experiences a
psychological or emotional state), and other roles that represent the participants in
a sentence. Semantic roles help to explain the meaning of a sentence by describing
the relationships between the verb and its arguments.

5.4.1. Agents and patients

- The agent is the person/thing which performs the action, while the patient is the
person/thing affected by the action.

Ex: The theft broke down the door.

Agent Patient

The door was broken down by the theft.

Agent Patient

5.4.2. Experiencers

- Experiencer: the semantic role of a noun phrase that indicates the perceiver of the
action or state of affairs specified by the verb.
Ex: The boy was warm.
The fly annoys the boy.
5.4.3. Instruments and causes

- Instrument: the semantic role of an inanimate thing that an agent uses to

implement an event.
Ex: To reach the place, we should take a boat down that river.

 The word a boat has the role of instrument because it describes how the
agent visits the place.
- Cause: a relationship that something happens and brings about a change of state.

Ex: She was hit by a ball.

5.4.4. Recipients, benefactives, locatives, temporals

- Benefactive is the living entity that benefits from the action of the verb.

Ex: I bought a gift for my brother.

 My brother benefits from the action of buying a gift.

- Recipient is the living entity that physically receives something from the agent.

Ex: I gave my employer some documents.

- Locative is the place where the action takes place.

Ex: The book is on the table.

- Temporal is when an event or action takes place.

Ex: I have an important appointment on Saturday.

5.5. Semantic roles and grammatical relations