BÀI GIẢNG DẠNG VĂN BẢN (SCRIPT)

Môn học: Ngữ nghĩa- Ngữ dụng học

Week 1

Unit 3 and Unit 4: Semantic Properties/Features - Lexical/Semantic Field

Slide Nội dung

Hello again everyone. Welcome to part 2, week 1 of Semantics and Pragmatics
1. course.

In this part, we are going to talk about semantic features and semantic fields.
2. Now we continue with semantic features first.

Semantic features
You can look at the picture here. Who you can see in this picture? A father and
a boy. What does a father mean? All of us know the meaning of “father”.
“Father” is human, male, of course.
3. “Father” is male, mature, parental, and paternal. Parental relates to being a
father. You can see here [+human], [+male] , [+mature], [+parental] and
[+paternal], they are different features of the word “father”. They give the
meaning of the word “father” so they are called semantic features.

3. SEMANTIC FEATURES
We have definitions of semantic features. Semantic features/components/
4.
properties: are the smallest units of meaning in a word.
We identify the meaning of a word by its semantic features.
 [+animal ]
[+ bird]
[+ common domestic fowl]
[+ fully grown]
5.
[+ female]
You look at these semantic features, can you guess the meaning of the word?
This is a hen.

Semantic properties: The components of meaning of a word.

Semantic feature: A notational device for expressing the presence or absence
of semantic properties by pluses [+] and minuses.[-]
6. Now we going to have more detail about semantic properties. Semantic
features or properties are the components of meaning of a word

Oh, do you like the picture? Can you give me some semantic features of a
7. word “baby”? Here we see that the baby [+young] [+human].

Here is an insect with two wings and six legs. It is a fly.

8.

Now we going to discuss some characteristics related to semantic features.

1.A word meaning contains
9. PRIMITIVE SEMANTIC FEATURES
[+animate], [+ human], [+ male] [+female]
and OTHER SEMANTIC FEATURES
 [+ parental], [+ paternal]
Primitive semantic features, they are important features, the most important
features. Other features added to meaning of the word.
Can you complete the sentence here?
We identify the meaning of a word according to its______________features
first; and then with the assistance of its_______
In order to understand the meaning of a word we need to understand the
primitive semantic features and then other semantic features.

2.The same semantic feature may be found in the meaning of different words.
Father, mother, son, daughter, teacher, baby
What common semantic feature do these words share?
They are all [+ human].
Mother, daughter, hen, bitch, swine …
What semantic feature do these words share?
10. They are all [+female].
Doctor, engineer, teacher, physicist, chemist, tailor, hairdresser
What semantic feature do these words share?
[+professional]
Mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, grandparent, aunt, uncle
What semantic feature do these words share?

The next characteristic is

3. The same semantic feature may be found in words of different parts of
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speech. Do you remember the parts of speech? They are Nouns, Verbs,
Adjectives, Adverbs etc.
 Ex: [+female] is part of the noun mother, the adjective pregnant, the verb
breast-feed. They share the same semantic
[+educational] is a semantic feature of the noun teacher, the adjective
educated, the verb teach.

Because we know the semantic properties of words, we know when two words
are antonyms, synonyms or homonyms, or are unrelated in meaning.
We can take the two words to see what semantic features they share.
12.
pretty & beautiful
Are they 100% the same? Not really. They are about 85% the same. They are
synonyms.
We can see semantic features of the words

Child [+human], [-mature],[+ male] [+innocent]

Aunt [+human], [+mature],[+ female] [+father/mother’s sister]

Hen [+animate], [+bird],[+ fowl] [+fully grown] [+ female]

We talked about semantic features of hen before.

Oak [+plant], [deciduous tree],[+ tough hard wood]

13.
Flower [part of a plant], [+colored],[+ usually good smelling

bloom] [+fruit or seed is developed]

Actress [+human], [+professional artistic],[+ female]

[+perform a role]

Do you know any actresses?

 Here are semantic features of
Tiptoe [motion], [+walk],[+on toes]
Drive [+motion], [+direct],[+ related to a vehicle]
14.
Beauty [+attractive features], [+combination of shape, color, behavior],[+
giving pleasure to senses]

Semantic features are presented in square brackets.[+] or [-]

Fly
Police officer
15.
Computer
Honesty

stallion [+animate], [+horse],[+ fully grown][+male] [+for breeding]

house [+thing], [+place for human habitation],[+closely related to a family or

16. its life]

chalk [+thing] [+limestone] [+soft] [+white or colored] [+for writing or

drawing]

1. (a) widow, mother, sister, aunt, maid

(b) widower, father, brother, uncle, valet
The (a) and (b) words are [+ human]
The (a) words are [+ female]
17.
The (b) words are [+ male]
2. (a) bachelor, paperboy, pope, chief
(b) bull, rooster, drake, ram

The (a) and (b) words are [+ male]

 The (a) words are [+ human]

The (b) words are [+ animal]

3. (a) table, stone, pencil, cup, house, ship

(b) milk, alcohol, rice, soup, mud
The a and b words [+noun]
The (a) words are [+count]
The (b) words are[+uncount]
18.
4. (a) pine, elm, sycamore
(b) dandelion, aster, daisy
The (a) and (b) words are [+plant]
The (a) words are [+tree]
The (b) words are [+flower]
• Can you put the following items into groups?
19. I give you two minutes to do that.

Are your groups the same as ours?

Tool: hammer, nails, scissors, knife, file.

Color: red, blue, purple, yellow, pink, green, vermilion.

20.
Vessel: cup, glass, jug, wineglass, plastic cup.

Motion: run, crawl, walk, swim.

Sport: boxing, football, badminton, weightlifting, motor-racing, karate.

 We now continue with lexical or semantic field. A semantic field or a lexical
field is the organization of related words and expressions into a system which
show their relationship to one another. That means the members of a semantic
field have relationship with one another.
It is a group of words sharing the same semantic property/feature/component.
21.
We can say that a semantic or lexical field is a group of words grouped by their
meaning.
Studying the semantic or lexical field will help you to find the mood or the
deeper meaning of a text.

We look at some examples here.

Semantic fields: sets of semantically similar items
Items related by topics
22.
Fruit: apples, oranges, grapes, bananas etc.
Clothing: shirts, pants, shorts, hats etc.
Color: green, red, blue, purple, pink etc.
Items which are similar in meaning
Ways of cooking: stew, boil, fry, steam, roast etc.
23. Ways of walking: limp, tiptoe, stalk etc.
Ways of looking: stare, peer, glance, squint etc.

Items grouped as an activity or a process

• Do housework: clean the room, do washing, iron clothes prepare the
24. meal etc.
• Do research: make hypotheses, collect data, analyze data, get results,
come to a conclusion.
 Here we have a list of related words
You can see the A words and the B word
The A words are bachelor, father, mother, baby, uncle, sister.
They belong to a semantic field called “human”. “Human” can cover the
meaning of bachelor, father, mother, baby, uncle, sister. A bachelor is a human,
a mother is a human, a father is a human.
25. “Human” is an upper word which covers the lower words like bachelor, father,
mother, baby, uncle, sister. We call that upper word (B) Hypernym
/ˈhaɪpə(r)nɪm/
Bacherlor, father, mother, baby, uncle, sister. They are lower words
and they are called Hyponyms (A) /ˈhaɪpəʊnɪm/
The relationship between the A and the B words is called hyponymy.

Hyponym (hạ danh) is a word ‘whose referent is totally included in the referent
of another term. (hypo- means below) (Finegan. 1994:165).
Hypernym (thượng danh) is a word whose referent covers all the referents of
its hyponyms. (hyper- means above).
26. Hyponymy is one-way relation between hyponyms and hypernym so that
A (hyponym) is a kind of B (hypernym). We can say:
A bachelor is a kind of human. Not: A human is a kind of bachelor.
A boy is a kind of human. Not: A human is a kind of boy.

We have just finished units 1, 2, 3, 4 in which we talked about definitions of

27. semantics, sentences, utterances, and propositions, semantic features and
semantic/lexical field. Could you please give us a definition of semantics,
 distinguish between sentences and utterances, meaning of sentences and
meaning of utterances? How can we understand the meanings of words and the
relationships of related words?
Please finish all the excercises required and contact me if you have any
questions or concerns. Thank you.

Thank you for you attention. Good bye and see you again soon!
28.