SEMANTICS

Lect. Cristina Niculescu, PhD.

Academic year 2022/2023, Winter Semester
Semantics
• Gr. “sema” (sign)
• study of the meaning of a linguistic unit or a sentence

• the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. The two
main areas are logical semantics, concerned with matters such as
sense and reference and presupposition and implication, and lexical
semantics, concerned with the analysis of word meanings and
relations between them.
• the meaning of a word, phrase, or text (Oxford Languages)
Semantics - one of the richest and most fascinating parts of
linguistics

• questions that semanticists might ask:

• What are meanings — definitions? ideas in our heads? sets of objects in the world?
• Can all meanings be precisely defined?
• What explains relations between meanings, like synonymy, antonymy (oppositeness), and so on?
• How do the meanings of words combine to create the meanings of sentences?
• What is the difference between literal and non-literal meaning?
• How do meanings relate to the minds of language users, and to the things words refer to?
• What is the connection between what a word means, and the contexts in which it is used?
• How do the meanings of words interact with syntactic rules and principles?
• Do all languages express the same meanings?
• How do meanings change?
Semantics and Semiotics

• Ferdinand de Saussure: the study of linguistic meaning is a part of

semiotics

• the relationship between a signifier and its signified

https://youtu.be/0JtJu9HdQVM
Semiotics: WTF? Introduction to Saussure, the Signifier and Signified

https://youtu.be/SlpOaY-_HMk
Semiotics analysis for beginners!
The Semiotic Triangle

three main terms:

-language

-the world

-the human mind

Basic Concepts. Metalanguage
• language about languange
• WORD – the basic unit of language

(Crystal, D. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 6 th edition. Blackwell Publishing)

• LEXEME

• External resources:
https://youtu.be/Fww1u6eNwxc
https://youtu.be/GuVUapHs2sk
https://prezi.com/u5xcbizr9x6i/definition-of-the-word-and-lexeme-and-its-relation-lexical/
• UTTERANCE: an actual instance of saying (or writing or . . . ) something

• SENTENCE: an abstraction, the type of what was said

(1) Caesar invades Gaul.

• PROPOSITION: a further abstraction, normally ignoring some non-literal meaning

(2) Invade (Caesar, Gaul)

• INFORMATION STRUCTURE: what part of a proposition is emphasized

• (3) Caesar invaded Gaul
• (4) Gaul was invaded by Caesar
• (5) It was Gaul that Caesar invaded
• (6) It was Caesar who invaded Gaul
• MEANING - the English word ‘meaning’ is rather vague
- the general notion of a lexeme’s meaning is between its sense and its referent (or reference)

• SENSE – the sense of a lexeme may be defined as the general meaning or the concept underlying the word;
~ a dictionary entry for the word in question

• REFERENCE/REFERENT – a word’s referent = the object which it stands for on a specific occasion of use

The queen has fallen off the table.

A. The evening at Buckingham Palace in 2009 ->
- the referent of the word queen = Her Majesty, Elizabeth II
- the referent of the word table = a particular piece of English royal furniture
B. Queen Margrethe of Denmark ->
- the words queen and table have different referents: Margrethe and the Danish one

On each of the occasions this sentence is uttered, there is one and only one referent of each word.

https://youtu.be/_NtVeofqUKA
SEM113 - Reference
- a word’s referent is the particular thing, person, place, etc. which an expression stands for on a
particular occasion of use, and it changes each time the word is applied to a different object or
situation in the world
The referents change each time we talk about a different queen, or a different table.

• DENOTATION – the entire class of objects, etc., to which an expression correctly refers

• CONNOTATION – aspects of meaning which do not affect a word’s sense, reference or denotation,
but which have to do with secondary factors such as its emotional force, its level of formality

police officer – cop

brat – child
toilet – rest room
incident – accident

• https://youtu.be/9c_5OW2wM4Q
 INFORMATION THEORY
• Language has many uses, only one of which is to convey information, but surely transferring
information is important

• We can measure information in a limited, technical, and very useful sense

• Think of a signal being transmitted from a source to a destination, possibly
with noise in the channel
• Measure information in bits:
the number of yes/no questions needed to determine a term
• Context can help decoding due to mutual information

• How can we get our message across efficiently and safely

• Optimal encoding can make the transmission efficient
Frequent expressions should be short
• Redundant encoding can make the transmission robust
So we can understand even with noise
MEANING, THOUGHT, REALITY
• REFERENTIAL REALITY:

• direct relationships between expressions (words, sentences) and

things in the world (realist view)
REPRESENTATIONAL VIEW

• how relationships between expressions (words, sentences) and things in the

world are mediated by the mind (cognitive linguistics)
 NAMES

• The description theory: Names are like short hands for descriptions: William
Shakespeare = “the playwright who wrote Hamlet”

• The causal theory: Names begin with some event of naming (e.g. a christening) before
becoming commonly accepted. William Shakespeare = “the guy other people call
William Shakespeare”

• https://youtu.be/xqSW2EBy56s
Week 6, Kripke: Arguments for the Causal Theory

• https://youtu.be/kI6gaP937jM
Causal Theory- Evans (2020)
Mental Representations
• Divide meaning into
-reference: the relation to the world
-sense: the rest of the meaning

• Introduce concepts
- Classic view is to represent by Necessary and Sufficient Conditions:
definitional view of meaning bachelor is:
an unmarried male adult.

https://youtu.be/IUdx7JW4ZLg
Critical Thinking #5: Necessary & Sufficient Conditions
Prototype Theory
• Some members of a category are more typical and more salient than other members of
the same category. (Rosch)
• Membership is not just IN/OUT but graded most noticeable or important
• Members may share some attributes but not all
• Categories are culture dependant
• Concepts are organized in groups around a prototype
• These have typical members (remembered as exemplars)
• Prototypes have characteristic features
• Some categories (concepts) seem to be more psychologically basic than others: basic
level categories (BLCs)
• ∗ You only need to store detailed knowledge about BLCs
• ∗ Other things are then compared to them
• ∗ Makes it quicker and easier to compute similarities and differences
Prototype Theory
developed by Eleanor Rosch

“According to prototype theory, instances of a natural concept are defined by their resemblance to
a prototype (2) that is a best or most typical example of the concept, sharing the maximum
number of features (1) or attributes with other instances and a minimum number with instances of
other concepts. Thus a prototype consists of characteristic features rather than defining
properties, and according to this interpretation concepts have indistinct boundaries and may be
represented by fuzzy sets. If an item is clearly similar to a prototype, as table is to the
prototypical furniture, then it is likely to be perceived as belonging to the concept, whereas if it is
somewhat (but not entirely) dissimilar to the prototype, as carpet is to furniture, then it may be
unclear whether or not it belongs to the concept.”
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100351197

“Prototype theory, as developed by Rosch, has had repercussions in two main areas of linguistics: lexical semantics and syntax.
Word meanings are the names of categories, and the meanings of many words display characteristic prototype effects
(fuzziness of category boundaries, degrees of representativity of category members). Further areas of application have been
semantic change, and the structure of polysemy networks. The prototype approach does, however, encounter problems in
connection with theories of semantic compositionality. Linguistic constructs, such as syntactic and lexical categories, also
display prototype effects. The application of prototype theory to the study of parts of speech and syntactic constructions has
been especially fruitful.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/prototype-theory

Further reading: Daniel Alberra - Prototype Theory in Cognitive Linguistics (pdf)

Basic Level Categories
• Some categories (concepts) are more basic than others
• maximize the number of attributes shared by members of the category
• minimize the number of attributes shared with other categories

• They have various properties

Pictures of objects are categorized faster at the basic level
Basic level names are used more often in free-naming tasks
Children learn them earlier
Basic-level names are more common in adult discourse
Basic-level categories are common in different cultures
Basic level names tend to be short, usually represented by a single word
Basic-level names tend to be common in compound nouns
Linguistic Relativity
• The language we think in makes some concepts easy to express, and some concepts hard

• The idea behind linguistic relativity is that this will effect how you think

• Do we really think in language?

We can think of things we don’t have words for
Language under-specifies meaning

• Maybe we store a more abstract representation the language of thought or Mentalese

• https://youtu.be/kq7uRUDGhXg
• Steven Pinker's Mentalese
Words and Meaning

• word - slippery to define: orthographic, phonological, conceptual

definitions
• lexeme base - (uninflected) form of a word (or multi-word expression)
• vagueness - having an underspecified meaning
• ambiguous - having more than one possible meaning
• content word - with a denotation (typically open class : lexical word)
• function word - no denotation (typically closed class: grammatical
word, structural word)
Senses and Relations
• Polysemous: having multiple meanings
➣ this implies that words are somehow divided into senses
➣ presumably we remember them: so we have an inventory
➣ if there is no mechanism for extension then this is a fixed sense inventory
➣ how we generate meaning dynamically is a great research topic

• Monosemous: having just one meaning

• Homonyms: words unrelated meaning; grammatically equivalent; with identical forms; words with diverse
meanings, that are spelt and sound the same
bear (animal) vs. bear (withstand)
bank (of river) vs. bank (of finance)

• https://youtu.be/YrSOOj0BL8U
Semantic Relations
“How are you doing?” I would ask.
“Ask me how I am feeling?” he answered.
“Okay, how are you feeling?” [. . .]
“I am very happy and very sad.”
“How can you be both at the same time?” I asked in all seriousness, a girl of
nine or ten.
“Because both require each others’ company. They live in the same house.
Didn’t you know?”
Terry Tempest Williams, “The village watchman” (1994)
Semantic Relations

• synonymy - all meanings identical; in all contexts; descriptive and non-

descriptive
Some words will have multiple meanings
(homonyms) so they may have different sets of
synonyms depending on the sense of the word.
• hyponymy - is-a, kind-of: supertype hypernym; subtype hyponym
• meronymy - part-whole: part meronym; whole holonym
Semantic Relations

• antonymy -complementary, gradable, reverse, converse, taxonomic sisters

Antonyms can be gradable (on a continuum, e.g.
hot/cold), complementary (one or the other, e.g. alive/dead)
or relational (e.g. doctor/patient, predator/prey).

• member-collection - member of a group (tree-forest)

• portion-mass - element of stuff (grain-rice)
• domain - used in a specific domain
 Practice
• Read each set of synonyms below. Do the words mean exactly the same thing? Use a dictionary to look
up each word, and then explain the difference between them.

• 1. beautiful/attractive 11. rich/well‐to‐do

• 2. just/objective 12. optimistic/starry‐eyed
• 3. funny/hysterical 13. valid/legitimate
• 4. happy/upbeat 14. anemic/fragile
• 5. diligent/enterprising
• 6. honest/trustworthy
• 7. lazy/lackadaisical
• 8. mean/bad‐tempered
• 9. sociable/warm
• 10. rich/affluent
Practice
• John Saeed (2003).
Introducing Linguistics.
Pp. 63-83

Check your decisions

against the dictionary!
Practice