SEMANTICS

1. Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you/ 1. mean= “to intend”

2. Is that what you mean? 2. mean= “to convey a message”

3. Semantics means “simasiologia” in Greek. 3. mean= “a translation”

- SEMANTICS is the study of meaning in language. It can apply to an entire text

or a single word. It deals with the conceptual meaning of words and sentences.

- LEXICAL SEMANTICS- It is concerned with the contextual meaning of words and sentences.

- SYNONYMY- Words with very similar or very closely related meanings.

REFERENCE & SENSE

REFERENCE
- words relate to represent ideas or things.
- the relationship between the word and the object or idea it represents.
- it has a physical representation in the physical world.
E.g.: Rainbow

SENSE
- words that do not have concrete physical referents, but we are able to understand their
meaning.
- it can be said that now all words have referents, but all of them have sense.
(E.g.: I love to see a rainbow. )
s

CONCEPTUAL/DENOTATIVE
- denotative meaning, conventional or cognitive meaning
- it refers to the literal meaning of the word which is its primary meaning.
- it is the first meaning that is conveyed to people when the word is used in isolation.
Such meaning is neutral and objective.
(e.g.: Hollywood, Ball, school, or flower.)

ASSOCIATIVE/CONNOTATIVE
- These are the meanings that cannot be found in the dictionary.
- There are particular concept or connotation about words that might be not too literal, neutral
or objective.
CONNOTATIVE MEANING- a word meaning is often in influenced by the culture, historical
period, and the experience of a person.
- a words that we try to create to base on how we associate things and experiences that we had
to those words.
E.g.: Hollywood Ball
Movies, glitz Basketball,

or celebrities Athletes, Games

SOCIAL OR STYLISTIC MEANING

- the meaning conveyed by a word is dependent on various factors or context of its use resulting
to what we call SOCIAL MEANING.
-It much more focusing on the CONTEXT.
- the decoding of a message also hinges on our knowledge of stylistics and language variations.
STYLISTICS AND LANGUAGE VARIATIONS
- are the different ways on how we converse or interact on how we talk with the other people
depending upon their roles they portray in the society and depending also our relationships
towards those people.
SOME OF THE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE SOCIAL MEANING:

 Social background of the speaker

 The intended receiver
 Their relationship (the connection of the sender and the receiver.)
 Context or social circumstances of the use of the expression.
 Other sociolinguistics factors - formal, informal, colloquial, or slang and etc.

AFFECTIVE OR EMOTIVE MEANING

- Related to the social meaning of a word or sentence.
- it refers particularly to the Personal Feelings and Emotions of the speaker.
- The emotions or feelings involved in the communication process significantly contribute to the
meaning of words express.
SOME FACTORS THAT INVOLVE IN THIS ASPECT:

 Intonation
 Tone of voice
 Voice Quality

REFLECTED MEANING
- When a word or phrase is associated with more conceptual.
e.g.: Intercourse (dealing between people)
COLLOCATIVE MEANING
- the words that always go together or co-occur frequently.
e.g., Beautiful (woman)
Both words shared the same
Handsome (man) meaning. (Good loking)

- there are other words that when the collocate with other words, their combined meaning
suggests a new but altogether related meaning.
e.g., 1. Large mistake – big mistake 3. Fast meal – quick meal
2. Deep taste – rich taste 4. Big fun – great fun

THEMATIC MEANING
- refers to what is communicated by the way the writer or speaker organizes the message in
terms of focus, order, and emphasis.
(e.g., The Americans established the university in 1902.)
The university was established by the Americans in 1902
The sentence (1), ‘who established the university’ is given more emphasis than sentence (2).
In sentece number (3) & (4), it can
(e.g., John is the richest man in Cebu.) be said that, the way we order our
message also conveys that is more
The richest man in Cebu is John. important and what is not.

MEANING EXTENSION
- In identifying the semantic features of lexical items, the general process of meaning extension
should also be considered. This is because many words have figurative or metaphorical
meanings rather than (or in addition to) being literal, just like the following sentences.

 The sun shines – The sun smiled

 The wind blew – The wind whispered
 Put it into the basket – Put it into words

SEMANTICS FEATURES AND ROLES

Semantic Features - can be used in analyzing lexical items such as gender, count, or number,
person, agency, possession cues, and many others.
Feature Analysis - we will be able to identify the basic meaning of a word and predict whether
or not it is semantically compatible with other words in specific sentences.
SEMANTIC ROLES – also known as “thematic relations” pertaining to the roles words, especially
nouns and pronouns, fulfill within the situation described in a particular sentence.
PARTS IN SEMTANIC ROLES:

 AGENT – the entity that performs or does the action.

  PATIENT – the entity that is being affected by the action of the agent.
 INSTRUMENT – If the agent uses another entity in doing the action.
 THEME– also involved in the action of the verb in the sentence.
 EXPERIENCER – that has the state of feeling or perception which receives sensory or
emotional outputs.
(e.g.: The chicken ate the worm.)
agent patient
(e.g.: The farmer has five hens, using a net bag he caught the chicken.)
experiencer theme instrument

SEMTANIC ROLES OFTEN FOUND IN THE EVENT THAT IS BEING DESCRIBED:

LOCATION – an entity that can fill the role of location. (in the park, at my house)
SOURCE – is the origin is from where an entity moves from.
GOAL – a.k.a. “direction” is where it moves to.
(e.g.: She walked from her house to school.)
source goal

RICIPIENT – a person or thing that receives or is awarded something

TIME - the measured or measurable period during which an action
PURPOSE – the reason why the action is done.
MANNER – it described of how the action was performed.
(e.g.: To please Mary, John gave her a bouquet yesterday.)
purpose recipient time

If John gave it ‘while on his knees’ it fills the role of the manner.

SEMANTIC ROLE DEFINITION

AGENT The volitional causer of an event.

EXPERIENCER The experiencer of an event.
FORCE The non-volitional causer of an event
THEME The participate most directly affected by an event
RESULT The end product of an event.
CONTENT The preposition or content of a prepositional event.
INSTRUMENT An instrument used in an event.
SOURCE The origin of the object of a transfer event.
GOAL The destination of an object of a transfer event.
BENEFICIARY The beneficiary of an event.
 LEXICAL RELATIONS

- Words are categorized especially in terms of the sounds and structures that make them up.
This way contributes to the characterization of their meaning.
- The other way of characterizing their meaning is by a way of identifying its relationship to the
other words.
SYNONYMY – words with similar or very closely meaning. E.g.: small-tiny, big-huge, fast-
quick.
- these words are synonym, but their meaning is not totally the same.
Near-Synonyms – one word is much more appropriate than the other. E.g.: answer-reply.
ANTONYMY – words with opposite meaning. E.g.: big-small, happy-sad, long-short.
TWO (2) MAIN TYPES OF ANTONYMS:

 GRADABLE ANTONYMS- are those that can be used in a comparative construction.

(taller than-shorter than.)

(e: Your house is bigger than you neighbor’s house, but its smaller than other friend’s house.)

- the meaning between small and big are on a continuum, relative to the object of
discussion.

 NON-GRADABLE ANTONYMS- a.k.a. Categorical Antonyms are those where no

continuum.
(e.g.: boy-girl, dead-alive, and true-false.)

REVERSE ANTONYMS/REVERSIVES – there are neither gradable or continuous. Antonyms that

have reverse and related relationships.
(e.g.: push-pull, day-night, and borrow-lend.)

HYPONYMY – describes a hierarchical relationship between words.

- if we can say that a meaning of a words “x” is embedded in the word “y” or if x a
kind of
y, a hyponymous relationship between x and y
PROTOTYPES – is a cognitive reference point that best represents the meaning or description of
a
word or a category.
-Like the word “bird” not in terms of component features. (e.g.: it has feathers,
wings, etc.) but in terms of resemblance to the clearest or best example.
-The prototype for birds might be a “langgam pari”, dove, and etc.
- The concept of prototypes would help us explain the meaning of certain words or terms.

HOMONYMY – the same spelling but not the same pronunciation.

is the broad term use to describe words that are homophones/homographs or both.
Ex: sea (body of water), see (to watch), and row (argument), row (propel with
oars).
Homographs – literally ‘same writing’ if they are spelled similarly, with different meanings
and
regardless of pronunciations.
Homophones – If they have the same pronunciation and spelling.
Heteronyms – are subsets of homographs. They have different pronunciation but the same
spelling. (E.g.: desert (to abandon), desert (arid region), tear (to rip), tear (from the
eyes).

POLYSEMY – words that have related meaning and have the same spelling and pronunciation
are technically known as polysemy.

CAPITONYMS- some words have the same spelling but have different meanings when
capitalized.
(e.g..: polish (make shiny), Polish (from Poland), turkey (bird), Turkey (a
country).)
METONOMY – aside from Polysemy, there are another type of lexical relationship that uses a
term to stand for another word, idea, or concept.
(e.g.: Crown (refer to the king and his rule), Malacañang Palace (place for the president of the
PH).
IDIOMS – type of collocations that are made up of words in a fixed order and their meaning
cannot be taken from the sum of the individual words, unlike the regular collocations.
(e.g.: pass the back (pass the blame), piece of cake (easy), all ears on me (listen to me)