I.

Word meaning
1. Denotational meaning(nghĩa đen)

- Denotes/points out things, concept, etc.

- The core, central, referential meaning of a word found in the dictionary.

+ significative denotation: referent = a concept, abstract thing

+ demonstrative denotation: referent = an individual object

1.1 Conceptual meaning(denotative/cognitive)

Mention properties

Woman: +HUMAN, -MALE, + ADULT

Boy : +HUMAN, +MALE, -ADULT

1.2 Referential meaning

This is the ability refer to objects or things (đề cập đến 1 đối tượng cụ thể)

Eg: Can you give me a book?

2. Connotational meaning (nghĩa bóng)

- The additional meaning that the word or phrase has beyond its denotative
meaning.

How things and concepts are indicated or convey the speaker’s attitude, emotion,
evaluation, etc.

eg: lonely = alone, without company. (denotation)

= melancholy, sad. (emotive connotation)

 3. Structural meaning
3.1 Reflected meaning (Multiple conceptual meaning)
Eg: the 40th President of the US and the Great Communicator both refer to
Ronald Reagan

3.2 Collocative meaning (The meanings of which tend to occur in its

environment)

Eg: Artificial flower (hoa giả), false teeth (răng giả)

3.3Associative meaning (association with other meanings)
Eg: tall-short, right-left, …
3.4Themantic meaning (communicated by the way that speaker or writer
organise the message in term of ordering, occur, focus and emphasis.
Eg: this example has the same conceptual meaning but different
communicative meaning
+ Mr. Smith donated 50$
+ 50$ was donated by mr. Smith
4. Categorical meaning (part of speech)
The word fall into such categories as Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb,…
5. Type of lexical meaning
5.1 Direct meaning (literal meaning)
- The exactly or the first meaning of a word in the dictionary

Eg: She has a heart problem (an organ in body)

5.2 Indirect meaning (figurative/transffered meaning)

- Different from its usual meaning & create vivid mental images to readers &
listeners
Eg: She killed many animals. Does she have a heart? (Kindness – virtue of
human)
II. MEANING RELATIONSHIP

1.Polysemy

+ Primary (direct) meaning: first (most common) meaning of a word

+ Secondary (derived) meaning: other meanings of the same word.

- A single word has two or more slightly different but closely related meanings
 Eg: Heart
He got a bad heart (an organ in your chest that send blood around the body)
Heart of the matter (the central and the most important part)
2.Homonymy
- The words identical in pronunciation and/or spelling but different in
meaning
2.1 Absolutely homonyms
- Satisfy 3 condition:
+ Unrelated meaning
+ Identical in form
+ Grammatically equivalent in identical forms
Eg: Match _ a game, contest

_ a short piece of wood produce fire

II.2Partial homonyms
- Satisfy 1 or 2 condition above:

2.2.1 Full/perfect homonyms: identical in both: bark(n) vs bark(v)

2.2.2 Homophone: identical in pronunciation only: hour vs our

2.2.3 Homograph: identical in spelling only: lead /li:d/ vs lead /led/

3. Synonymy

- Same part of speech

- Similar but not identical meaning. May share denotation or connotation.

3.1 Absolute/Partial/Near synonyms

- Satisfy 3 conditions: (Rare)

+ All their meanings are identical

+ Synonymous in all contexts

+ Semantically equivalent

- Partial synonyms: not synonymous in all meanings

- Near synonyms: different in term of denotation

3.2 Semantic synonyms (differ in denotation)

Eg: glance vs look

3.2 Stylistic synonyms (differ in connotation)

Eg: Policeman vs bobby vs cop

3.5 Semantic – Stylistic synonyms (differ in both denotation and connotation)

Eg: house/ sack/ slum/ pad

3.6 Phraseological synonyms (differ in collocation)

Eg: Do vs make / tongue vs language / lift vs raise

3.7 Territorial synonyms (differ in regions)

Eg: football vs soccer

3.8 Euphemism (reduce the unpleasant/offensive effect)

Eg: Die vs R.I.P / the underprivileged vs the poor

4. Antonymy

- Same part of speech, different (written and sound) form and opposite in meanings

- Belonging the same semantic field

4.1 Proper antonym(gradable)

- Used in comparative and superlative sense (eg: good-bad)

 - Used in questions with “how” to ask about degrees (eg: How tall are you?)

4.2 Complementary antonym(binary)

- Sự tồn tại của từ này là phủ định của từ kia

Eg: True vs False / dead vs alive

4.3 Conversive antonym(relational)

- Display symmetry (đối xứng) in meaning

- A reversal of the order of participants and their roles

Eg: Ancestor vs descendent

4.4 Directional antonym

- Dased on an opposition between motion toward or away from a place

Eg: go vs come/ up vs down/ arrive vs depart

5.Hyponymy

- Its meaning included in meaning of another word

III. SEMANTIC CHANGE (CHANGE OF MEANING/MEANING

TRANSFERENCE)
- New meaning of a word appears, some old meanings drop out of the language or
co-exist with the new ones.
 1. Narrowing of meaning
- A word has a narrow meaning from a wide range of meanings (previously)

Eg: Queen (wife - before)

(King’s wife - now)

2. Broaden of meaning
- A word broadens its range of meaning from a narrow one.

Eg: Bootlegger (an illegal dealer in liquor – before)

(any illegal dealer – now)

3. Degeneration of meaning
- A word become “worse, less nice” lower in status, …
Eg: Knave (boy - before)
(swindler, rogue – now)
4. Elevation of meaning
- A word become “nicer, better”
Eg: Minister (a servant, an attendant - before)

(head of a minister – now)

5. Figure of speech
5.1 Metaphor
- Are based on similarity and association. (dựa trên sự giống nhau)

Eg: She has a heart of stone

5.1.1 Living metaphor

- Word having unusual metaphorical sense or metaphor created and used by an
individual. Often seen in literature.

Eg: “She lent wings to his imagination”

 5.1.2 Faded metaphor
- One loses its freshness due to long & traditional use.

Eg: “Her voice is so sweet”

5.1.3 Dead metaphor

- No longer felt as a metaphor as the word’s direct meaning was completely
lost.

Eg: deadline/ blockbuster

5.2 Metonymy

- Name of one thing is changed for another name related to it. (dựa trên mối
quan hệ)

Eg: Can I drink another glass? (glass = water)

5.2.1 Place for institution

Eg: White House (president)/ Hollywood (American film industry)

5.2.2 Thing for perception

5.2.3 Object for possesor

Eg: the pen (writer)/ the sword (sodier)

5.2.4 Part for whole

Eg: the engine (a part of machine)

5.2.5 Place for event

Eg: Boston harbor

5.3 Ambiguity
- The fact of something having more than one possible meaning, therefore
possibly causing confusion.
5.3.1 Structural ambiguity
- A sentence is considered structurally ambiguous when its structure permits
more than one interpretation.
Eg: We watch the hunters with binocular.
5.3.2 Lexical anbiguity
- Any ambiguity resulting from the ambiguity of a word.
Eg: We are in the bank
6. Anomaly
- A violation of semantic rules to create nonsense
Eg: The bachelor is pregnant
7. Hyperbole
- “An exaggerated statement that is made for special effect and is not meant to
be taken literally”.
Eg: I invited million of (=a lot of) people to my party
8. Litotes
- The use of deliberately gentler, milder, or weaker statements to express
something in a controlled way.
Eg: I don’t think I would agree with you (=I disagree with you)
- An expression of litotes is usually an “ironical understatement, especially
using a negative to emphasize the contrary
Eg: It’s not bad (=It’s fine)
9. Irony
- The “expression of one’s meaning by saying the direct opposite of one’s
thoughts in order to be emphatic, amusing, sarcastic”
Eg: What a lovely day it was! Everything I had went wrong. (=bad day)
 10.Euphemism
- The use of pleasant, mild or indirect words or phrases in place of more
accurate or direct ones.
Eg: Gabage man = sanitation engineer
IV. SEMANTIC FIELD
- The organization of related words and expressions into a system which shows
their relationship to one another = defined as “a set of words with identifiable
semantic affinities”.
Eg: The semantic field of kinship terms: father, mother, brother, sister, uncle,
aunt, …
V. REFERENCE, REFERENT & SENSE
- The reference of a word or a linguistic expression is the relationship between
that word or expression. (Quy chiếu) (word vs world)
Eg: the reference of Peter’s house is the relationship between this English
noun phrase and the house that belongs to Peter.
- Referent: An object or an entity in the real world or in the world of your
imagination that is talked about. (Vật quy chiếu)
Eg: the house, the dog, …
- Sense: of a word or a linguistic expression shows the internal relationship
between that word or expression and others in the vocabulary of a language.
(word vs word)
Eg: Dog chases cat (have sense) but dog is human (have no sense)
 VI.SENSE OF RELATIONS
1. Substitutional
- Relations of those existing between members of the same grammatical
category
Eg: My boy is handsome/pretty
Handsome, pretty =same grammatical category(adj used to describes person’s
appearance)
2. Combinatorial
- Relations held between items of different grammatical categories
Eg: A beautiful girl
Relation between N and Adj (not interchangeable)
3. Hyponymy (hierarchical relation) quan hệ thứ bậc
- A include x, y
Eg: A(superordinate) Flower
x, y(hyponyms) rose, tulip
4. Meronymy (part – whole relation)
- X is part of Y, Y is part of Z, then X described as part of Z
 Eg: Seed is part of Fruit, Fruit is part of Plant, Seed is part of Plant
5. Semantic field
Eg: Color: blue, green, yellow, …
6. Paraphase
- Relationship whether two propositions have the same truth conditions
Eg: Dog chases cat => Cat is chased by dog
7. Contradiction
- Relationship whether a proposition must be false because of the meanings of
words involved.
Eg: He is both young and old.
VI.SENTENCE MEANING
1. PROPOSITION
- Understood as the meaning of the sentence
- Independent of any particular language
- Can be expressed in different sentences
- Is something abstract but meaningful
Eg: John ate an apple  An apple was eaten by John
1.2 Feature
(1) Proposition bear truth value (A proposition is either TRUE or FALSE, so
not all sentences express propositions)

Eg: - Where are you going? not show true or false

-Don’t do that.
(2) Proposition form a complete thought (Must have S and Predicate)
Eg: Althought John confessed to the crime
Anything that begins to exist no proposition
If Harry goes to the store
 2. Thematic meaning

2.1 Truth condition

- The conditions satisfied it be either TRUE or FALSE

Today is Sunday (2/2/2023 False but 5/2/2023 True)
3. Function of sentence

3.1 Representational function

a) Experiential function (chức năng truyền tải thông tin)

eg: John invited Mary to go to the theater last night

b) Logical function (liên kết thông tin dựa trên sự công bằng)

eg: I came, and she left

3.2 Interpersonal function (chức năng liên nhân)

- Establish and maintain social relations

Eg: Hello/ Thank you so much

- To influence people behavior and get things done

Eg: Could you give me a drink(request)
Don’t do that (warning)
- To express speaker’s feeling, opinion, attitude or the assessment of the
representational content
Eg: What she said maybe right/ This is probly right.
3.3 Textual function
- Give text coherence and cohesion
VIII.MODALITY
- What the speaker is doing with the whole proposition
- Semantic information associated with the speaker’s attitude or
opinion about what is said
Eg(1): You must be very tired
Eg(2): It is likely that she has made a mistake
Modality= Semantic
Mood = Grammar
1. Type of modality
1.1 Epistemic modality (tình thái nhận thức/ chân ngụy)
- Indicate the degree of commitment ny a speaker to what he or she
says (the extent to which the truth of a proposition is possible) (mức
độ cam kết thông tin nói ra)
Eg: She is likely to be late
1.2 Deontic modality (tình thái đa nghĩa/ chức phận)
- Is concerned with action rather than with belief, knowledge, or truth.
(mức độ hành động hơn là nghĩ)
Eg: You ought to help him