Semantics

Semantics

1. Study of the meaning of language.

2. Oddness: the sentence may be correct both gramatically and syntactically, but semantically it sounds "odd" and it doesn't make any sense. Ex: The hamburger ate the boy.

3. Semantic roles

   • Agent: the one that performs the action. Ex: The boy (agent) ate a hot dog.
     • Theme: the one that is affected by the action, or the one being described. It mostly is non-human, but may be human sometimes. Ex: The boy kicked the ball (agent).
       • Instrument: What the agent uses to perform the action. Ex: I cut the cheese with a knife (instrument).
         • Experiencer: the one that has a feeling, peception or state. Ex: I (experiencer) feel sad.
           • Location: where an entity is. Ex: The book is on the table (location).
             • Goal: The objective of the action. Ex: I want to live in London (objective).
               • Source: where the entity comes from. Ex: I grabbed $20 from your wallet (source).

4. Lexical relations

   • Synonymy: words with very closely related meanings. Ex: almost/nearly.
     • Antonymy: words with opposite meanings. They can be gradable (big/small) and non-gradable (dead/alive).
       • Hyponymy: when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another. Ex: animal (superordinate), dog (co-hyponym).
         • Prototypes: forms that resemble the most a superordinate. Ex: forniture (superordinate), chair (co-hyponym).
           • Homophones: when two or more forms have the same pronunciation. Ex: meat/meet.
             • Homonyms: when a form has more than one meaning. Ex: bat (flying creature)/bat (used in sports)
               • Polysemy: when two or more words share the same form and related meanings. Ex: head (object on top of the body, top position in a company, froth on the top of a glass of beer).
                 • Word play: thanks to polysemy many sentences can be formed that would indicate different meanings.
                   • Metonymy: Using one word to refer to other as long as they are closely related. Ex: The White House announced....(instead of the President).
                     • Collocation: associating one term with the other. Ex: table/chair; hammer/nail.

5. Conceptual meaning: the one we can find in the dictionary.

6. Associative meaning: the associations we attach to a word.