SEMANTICS Group 3:

Henny Kholifah
(2302180005)
Fina Khiyarotun Nisa
(2302180014)
 Overview
Unit 18 - Properties of
predicates
Unit 19 - Derivation
Unit 20 - Properties of roles

Source:
Hurford, J. R., Heasley, B., & Smith, M. B. (2007). Semantics: A Coursebook. Cambridge
University Press.
 TOPICS:
A. Properties of Predicate

B. Derivation

C. Properties of Roles
 PROPERTIES OF PREDICATES

PREDICATES ARE LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS THAT CAN BE COMBINED WITH A

DESIGNATING EXPRESSION TO EXPRESS A PROPOSITION, WHILE PROPERTIES
ARE ENTITIES THAT CAN BE PREDICATED OF THINGS OR ATTRIBUTED TO THEM.
PROPERTIES GIVE MEANING TO PREDICATES, SINCE THEY ARE WHAT THE
PREDICATES REFER TO
 THE KEY PROPERTIES OF PREDICATES INCLUDE:

REFLEXIVE SYMMETRIC
TRANSITIVE
IRREFLEXIVE ASYMMETRIC
INTRANSITIVE
SYMMETRIC & ASYMMETRIC
Symmetric predicates are those that can be
reversed without changing the meaning of
the sentence, while asymmetric predicates
cannot
Given a two-place predicate P, if, for any pair of referring
expressions X and Y, the sentence XPY ENTAILS the
sentence YPX, then P is SYMMETRIC.

Example: Same is a symmetric predicate, since, for any X

and Y, X is the same as Y entails Y is the same as X. (In
other words, if X is the same as Y, then Y must be the same
as X.)
 PRACTIC
E:
(1) Do the following pairs of sentences entail each other?
Tanzania is different from Kenya
Kenya is different from Tanzania Yes / No
(2) Is different a symmetric predicate? Yes / No
(3) Does Mary is married to Hans entail Hans is married to Mary? Yes / No
(4) Is married to a symmetric predicate? Yes / No
(5) Does Mary is devoted to Hans entail Hans is devoted to Mary? Yes / No
(6) Is devoted to a symmetric predicate? Yes / No
Given a two-place predicate P, if the sentence XPY is a
CONTRADICTORY of YPX, then P is an ASYMMETRIC
predicate.

Example John is taller than Bill is a contradictory of Bill is

taller than John. Therefore taller than is an asymmetric
predicate.
 PRACTIC
E:
(1) Is John is under the table a contradictory of The table is under John? Yes / No
(2) Is under asymmetric? Yes / No
(3) Is father of as in Alphonso was the father of Benito asymmetric? Yes / No
(4) Is admire as in Jimmy Carter admires Norman Mailer asymmetric? Yes / No
REFLEXIVE & IRREFLEXIVE
Given a two-place predicate P, if for any single referring expression X
(or for any pair of referring expressions X and Y which have the same
referent, e.g. John and himself), the sentence XPX (or the sentence
XPY) is ANALYTIC, then P is a REFLEXIVE predicate.

Example: The predicate as tall as is reflexive, because whenever we

form a sentence with one referring expression as its subject and put
another with the same referent after as tall as, as in John is as tall as
himself, the result is an analytic sentence.
 PRACTIC
E:
(1) Do I and myself have the same referent in I am as old as myself ? Yes / No
(2) Is I am as old as myself analytic? Yes / No
(3) So is the predicate be as old as reflexive? Yes / No
(4) Are the capitalized predicates in the following sentences
reflexive?
(a) John’s doorkey is IDENTICAL TO itself Yes / No
(b) John LOVES himself Yes / No
Given a two-place predicate P, if for any single referring expression X
(or for any pair of referring expressions X and Y which have the same
referent, e.g. John and himself) the sentence XPX (or the sentence
XPY) is a CONTRADICTION, then P is an IRREFLEXIVE predicate.

Example The predicate is taller than is IRREFLEXIVE, because any

sentence X is taller
than Y, where X and Y have the same referent, is bound to be a
contradiction
 PRACTIC
E:
((1) Do Mary and herself have the same referent in Mary is different from herself ? Yes / No
(2) Is Mary is different from herself a contradiction? Yes / No
(3) So is the predicate is different from irreflexive? Yes / No
(4) Are the capitalized predicates in the following sentences irreflexive?
(a) Mary LOVES herself Yes / No
(b) Fred is SHORTER THAN himself Yes / No
TRANSITIVE& INTRANSITIVE
Given a two-place predicate P, if for any trio of referring expressions X,
Y, and Z the compound sentence XPY and YPZ ENTAILS the sentence
XPZ, then P is TRANSITIVE.

Example The King is in his counting house and his counting house is in
his castle entails
The King is in his castle. So the predicate in is transitive.
 PRACTIC
E:
((1) Are the capitalized predicates in the following sets of sentences transitive?
(a) Socrates was WISER THAN Plato and Plato
was WISER THAN Aristotle
Socrates was WISER THAN Aristotle Yes / No
(b) Mary’s cat is the FATHER OF Gill’s cat and
Gill’s cat is the FATHER OF Gerald’s cat
Mary’s cat is the FATHER OF Gerald’s cat Yes / No
Given a two-place predicate P, if for any trio of referring expressions X,
Y, and Z, the compound sentence XPY and YPZ is a
CONTRADICTORY of XPZ, then P is INTRANSITIVE.

Example John is the father of Bill and Bill is the father of Sue is
incompatible with John is the father of Sue, so father of is intransitive.
 PRACTIC
E:
Practice Are the following predicates intransitive?
(1) enemy of Yes / No
(2) dislike Yes / No
(3) grandchild of Yes / No
(4) two inches taller than Yes / No
(5) jealous of Yes / No
 TOPICS:
A. Properties of Predicate

B. Derivation
C. Properties of Roles
Unit 19-Derivation
• Terms to understand:
• Derivation
• Morpheme
• Morphology process
• Zero derivation
• Inchoative form
• Causative form
• Resultative form
• Productivity
• Suppletion
DERIVATION is the process of forming
new words according to a (fairly)
regular pattern on the basis of pre-
existing words.
Derivational Rules
• New words may be formed by combining existing
words with meaningful units smaller than words, or
with other existing words, according to derivational
patterns or rules that are part of every speaker’s
mental knowledge of the language.
• There is a special technical term used by linguists to
describe the basic components that make up derived
words.
PRACTIC
E:
Invent new English words synonymous with the following
expressions.
(1) instrument for making things blunt .........................................
(2) the property of being easy to please .........................................
(3) the process of making something
transparent ......................................... (4) having to do with
giraffes (adjective) .........................................
A MORPHEME is a minimal unit of word building that
combines a minimal unit of meaning with a minimal
linguistic form that carries this meaning.

Example:
The word MORPHOLOGICAL is an adjective derived
from this term.
Examples of morpheme:
• An existing word such as dog is a morpheme because it combines a minimal unit of
meaning (i.e. whatever it is we understand the word dog to mean) with a minimal
linguistic form, consisting of three speech sounds represented here by the letters used
to spell the word.

• A unit smaller than an actual word, such as the suffix -er in the word builder, is also a
morpheme, because it combines a minimal meaning (something like ‘an entity that
engages in the activity described by the verb that it attaches to’) with a minimal
linguistic form, consisting of the two speech sounds represented by the letters used to
spell the suffix.

• Another unit smaller than an actual word, such as the prefix re- in the word replay, is
also a morpheme, because it combines a minimal meaning (something like ‘repeat the
activity described by the verb that it attaches to’) with a minimal linguistic form,
consisting of the two speech sounds represented by the letters used to spell the prefix
A derived word formed by combining two pre-existing
words in a language is called a COMPOUND word

Example:
Bluebird, babysit, bittersweet
PRACTIC
• Divide each word in the following list into its constituent morphemes. Some words may contain only one
E:morpheme, while others may contain two or more morphemes.
• Identify whether each morpheme is a root, a prefix, or a suffix.
• Identify any derived word that is a compound.

(1) greatness (9) sincerity

(2) homework (10) revitalize
(3) unpopular (11) father
(4) windy (12) inalienable
(5) intolerant (13) unthoughtful
(6) friendships (14) sleepwalk
(7) childishly (15) clearance
(8) widen (16) sunrise
 Steps to analyze the processes of derivation

Morphological process Syntactic process Semantic process

Changing the shape Changing the part Producing a

of an existing word of speech of a
by adding a prefix
new sense
word, e.g. from
or suffix morpheme
verb to noun
to an existing root
morpheme
 ‘Zero-derivation’ is a derivation involving no morphological process at all. In
such cases a root morpheme is converted from one part of speech to another
without the addition of either a prefix or suffix to the root.

e.g: cook
Cook (agent noun) is derived from cook (transitive verb) just as painter (agent noun) is
derived from paint (transitive verb).
Classificatory labels for the various kinds of
derivation

01 02 03

Inchoative Causative Resultative

01 An INCHOATIVE form denotes the
beginning, or coming into existence, of
Inchoative some state.
 A CAUSATIVE form denotes an action
02 which causes something to happen.

Causative
e.g.:
Open (transitive verb) is the causative form corresponding to open
(intransitive verb). If one opens a door, for example, one causes it to
open (in the intransitive sense of open).
 A RESULTATIVE form denotes a state
03 resulting from some action.
e.g:
Resultive Broken (used as an adjective) is the resultative form corresponding
to break (transitive verb). The state of being broken results from the
action of breaking.
A derivational process is completely
PRODUCTIVE if it can be used to produce
an existing derived word from EVERY
appropriate source word.
Adverbial -ly is more productive than female -ess.

Nominal -ness is more productive than nominal -y

Adjectival -y is more productive than adjectival -ine.

SUPPLETION is a process whereby, in irregular and idiosyncratic cases,
substitution of a MORPHOLOGICALLY UNRELATED form is associated
with the specific semantic and/or syntactic processes normally
accompanying a morphological process.

Example: Bad – worse is a case of suppletion.

PA RT I C I PA N T
ROLES
 Semantically (Meaning of Sentences)
• AGENTS • EXPERIENCER
• AFFECTED • THEME
• INSTRUMENT

Grammatical Position
Participant • SUBJECT
• OBJECT
Roles • COMPLEMENT

Semantic Litterature
• LOCATION
• BENEFICIARY
 Participant Roles: Semantically (Meaning of Sentence)

1. AGENT
THE ‘AGENT IS THE DOER’ OR CARRYING OUT THE ACTION.

2. AFFECTED
THE AFFECTED PARTICIPANT IS THE ‘UNDERGOER’ OF THE ACTION OR EVENT (NOT
USUALLY A PERSON, ALTHOUGH IT MAY BE), IN MANY CASES THE THING.

3. INSTRUMENT
THE INSTRUMENT IS THE THING/MEDIUM BY MEANS OF WHICH
THE ACTION IS CARRIED OUT.
Example:

John opened the door with the key

AGENT AFFECTED INSTRUMENT

Example:
The key opened the door
The key = Instrument
The door = Affected

The door opened

The door = Affected
 Practice
(1) Identify the Agents in the following sentences.
(a) A burglar ransacked my house
(b) My mother’s Imari bowl was broken by a thief

(2) Identify the Affected objects (or persons) in the

following:
(a) Muriel dealt the cards carefully to each player
(b) The tree was felled by a single blow from Paul’s axe

(3) Identify the Instruments in the following:

(a) Seymour sliced the salami with a knife
(b) Hamish used a screwdriver to open the tin
 Participant Roles: Semantically (Meaning of Sentence)

4. EXPERIENCER
THE EXPERIENCER IS TYPICALLY A PERSON WHO IS MENTALLY AWARE OF, PERCEIVES,
OR EXPERIENCES THE ACTION OR STATE DESCRIBED BY THE SENTENCE, BUT WHO IS
NOT IN CONTROL OF THE SITUATION.

5. THEME
THE THEME PARTICIPANT IS A THING OR PERSON WHOSE LOCATION IS DESCRIBED, OR
A THING OR PERSON THAT IS PERCEIVED BY AN EXPERIENCER.
Example:
Napoleon saw Josephine
Napoleon = Experiencer
Josephine = Theme

The children heard the loud noise

The children = Experiencer
The loud noise = Theme
 Practice
(1) Identify the Experiencers in the following:
(a) Janice became sick when she heard the news
(b) The thunder was heard by everyone

(2) Identify the Themes in the following:

(a) My computer is sitting on that desk
(b) Jack saw a play last week
 Participant Roles: Grammatical Position

• SUBJECT– preceding main verb

• OBJECT– immediately following the main verb
• COMPLEMENT – after the verb, but not immediately, often after a
preposition
Example:
John opened the door with the key

John = Subject
The door = Object
with the key = Complement
 Participant Roles: Semantic Literature

1. LOCATION
The role of locationis played by any expression referring to the place
where the action described by a sentence takes place.

2. BENEFICIARY
The beneficiary is the person for whose benefit or to whose detriment
the action described by the sentence is carried out.
PRACTIC
E:(1) Identify the Locations in the following sentences:
(a) It is windy in Edinburgh
(b) I’m meeting Dick at Waverley Station
(c) Tallahassee is humid in summer

(2) Identify the Beneficiaries in the following:

(a) Ruth knitted Bryan a sweater
(b) Alan was sent a special offer from the Reader’s Digest
(c) Glenn bought a micro-computer for his son
Thank's For Watching