SEMANTICS

(The meaning of language)

What is semantics?
 In fact, a language (an utterance) consists of its sound
pattern, morphological structure, and syntactic
organization. But there is more to language than just
form.
 In order for language to fulfill its communicative
function, an utterance must also convey a message; it
must have content.
 Speaking generally, the message or content is called
the utterance’s meaning
 the study of the meanings of language.
 the study of the relationship between signs and their
referents
 a branch of semiotics (the study of signs).
 The relationship of semantic levels of natural
languages:
LISTENER
PHONOLOGY (A)  Sounds
PHONOLOGY (A)  Sounds

DDEECCOODDI INNGG
EENNCCOODDI INNGG

SYNTAX (B)  Arrangement

SYNTAX (B)  Arrangement

SEMANTICS (C)  Thinking

SEMANTICS (C)  Thinking
SPEAKER
 Semantic Aspects
1. Lexeme as a semantic unit
2. Signs and symbols
3. Naming system
4. Concept
5. Sense and referent
• A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological
analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a
set of forms taken by a single word.
• For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran
and running are forms of the same lexeme,
conventionally written as RUN.
• Signs are events or things that direct attention or are
indicative of other events or things.
• Basically, anything that represents something else is a
sign (the association between a signifier and a
signified).
• Let's take the letter A and say it represents an ox. The
signified is the ox, what the letter A signifies. The
signifier is the letter A. The sign requires the presence
of both A and the ox. It is not, as is sometimes
believed, the letter A alone, because if it has no
signified -- if it has nothing to represent -- then the A is
nothing but itself. It is not a sign, it has nothing to say
about something other than itself. It remains a
signifier, but one that is out of work.
 Signs have direct relationship with the world (nature), while
symbols have indirect relationship with the world.
 To come to the world in symbols we have to go through the
concepts.
 Symbols are conventional.
 The sources of signs (classification of signs):
1. from the nature
2. from the animals
3. from the human beings
a. verbal signs
b. non-verbal signs
 signs from the movement of the human body
 signs from non-speech sounds
 man-made signs, e.g. traffic signs
 cultural and ritual signs, e.g. in wedding party.
• Examples of signs and symbols:

No smoking No swimming No pets

Do not enter

Upside Down Cross  Symbolizes mockery and 

rejection of Jesus. Necklaces are worn by many 
satanist's. It can be seen on Rock singers and their 
album covers.

Goat Head  The horned goat, goat of mendes, 
Baphomet, god of the  witches, the scapegoat. 
It's a Satanists way of mocking Jesus as the  
"Lamb" who died for our sins.
Symbol of purity Marriage

interpreter symbol
 There are unlimited objects, processes, events, etc.
in the world. How to name them? Individually
naming or naming in groups?
 How should a name be given? There are some
opinions:
a. The names and the objects have natural
relationship, e.g. names of historical places  Plato
b. The names must characterize the objects
(referents), e.g. names of persons  Socrates
c. The names and the objects have conventional
relationships, e.g. names of general objects 
Aristoteles
• Ogden and Richard’s semantic (semiotic) triangle: (cf. Saussure’s
concept : signifian and signifie  signifier and signified)
Concept

-----------------------------
Symbol Referent

 Stephen Ullmann’s criticism on Ogden and Richard’s triangle:

Referent does not belong to linguist’s capacity. Symbol (name)
and sense (concept) have a direct line with some possibilities:
• N C N

• C N1 N2 N3 C1 C2 C3
Types of Meanings
a. Lexical meanings: the meanings which can be
looked up in the dictionary as the basic meanings;
lexical meanings are recognized through our
senses, e.g. house, love, run, sad, etc.
b. Grammatical meanings: the meanings which can
be recognized because of the grammatical
processes such as affixation, reduplication,
compounding, sentencing, etc. For example, The
headmaster beheaded his wife’s head
c. Contextual meanings: the meanings which can be
understood in terms of the context, e.g. I think you
know the head of English Department.
Seven types of meanings by Geoffrey Leech:
1. Conceptual meaning logical, cognitive, or denotative
or sense content
What is communicated by virtue of what
2. Connotative language refers to
meaning
What is communicated of the social
3. Stylistic circumstances of language use
meaning
What is communicated of the feelings and
Associative 4. Affective attitudes of the speaker or writer
meaning
What is communicated through association
5. Reflected with another sense of the same expression
meaning
What is communicated through association
6. Collocative with words which tend to occur in the
meaning environment of another word
What is communicated by the way in which
7. Thematic meaning the message is organized in terms of order
and emphasis
Examples of words having reflected meanings:
1. Bang (have sexual intercourse with female)
2. Bone, bicho, cock, dick, dipstick, doodle, dork,
dingus, hammer, horn, knob, joint, joystick,
meat, pecker, peter, pork, prick, putz, schlong,
tool, whang, wick  male sexual organ
3. Come
4. Box, ass, bearded clam, beaver, crack, cunt,
futz, hair pie, hole, manhole, meat, muff, piece,
pussy, slit, snatch, twat  female sexual organ
 Sense (Meaning) Relation

 Synonymy ( syn = the same/with, onoma = name )

Synonymy is the state of being a synonym.
Synonymy is a special case of a semantic
implication, namely a symmetrical semantic
implication between propositions.
Synonyms are different words with identical or at
least similar meanings. Words that are synonyms
are said to be synonymous, for examples:
a. The words car and automobile are synonyms
b. If we talk about a long time or an extended time,
long and extended become synonyms.
 Hyponymy (hypo = include, inclusion, inclusive;
onoma = name)

• In linguistics, a hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic

range is included within that of another word. For example,
scarlet, vermilion, carmine, and crimson are all hyponyms of
red (their hypernym), which is, in turn, a hyponym of colour.
• Hyponyms are a set of related words whose meaning are
specific instances of a more general word (so, for example,
red, white, blue, etc., are hyponyms of colour).
• Hyponymy is defined as an asymmetrical semantic
implication where the sense of one proposition, say P1,
semantically implies the sense of another, say P2, but the
sense of P2 does not imply that of P1.
Antonymy (gradable opposites) / Antonymy (anto = opposite;
onoma = name)
• Antonymy is a relation holding between a proposition and its
negation.
• The semantic relation that holds between two words that can (in a
given context) express opposite meanings
• Most of the relative predicates may bear certain other kinds of
antonymy: comparative, superlative,
• For general example, “A is married” is antonymous with “A is not
married”
• Co-hyponyms are antonymous.
• Antonymy may hold certain relative predicates: tall vs short; hot vs
cold; happy vs sad.
• Relative predicates bear certain kinds of semantic relationship to
one another. Take for example hot vs cold. For any Y of which it can
properly be said Y is hot, then it is not the case that Y is cold.
Polysemy ([pəˈlɪsəmɪ] or [ˈpɒlɪˌsɛmɪ]) (from the Greek
πολυσημεία = "multiple meaning")
• Polysemy is a kind of ambiguity.
• Polysemy is the property of an expression with more
than one meaning (two or more related meanings / all
possible senses).
• A polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple, related
meanings.
• A word is judged to be polysemous if it has two senses
of the word whose meanings are related.
• Since the vague concept of relatedness is the test for
polysemy, judgments of polysemy can be very difficult
to make.
Homonymy (homo = similar, the same; onoma =
name)
• Homonymy is a relation between two or more
etic expressions that have the same form but a
different meaning.
• A complete homonyms have the same
pronunciation and spelling, e.g. Bank, Can, Lead.
• Homonymy is a kind of ambiguity and is a
bilateral relation.
• Homonymy is not limited to words; morphemes, phrase, and
sentence may show homonymy, e.g.
a. His wants are few vs. He wants for nothing. (morpheme
level)
b. see vs. sea; no vs. know (word level)
c. the shooting of the hunter (phrase level)
d. Flying planes can be dangerous. (sentence level)
• Homonymy branches into homophony (sameness of sounds
only) and homography (sameness of spelling only), e.g. *
present – present
* tale – tail
* sea – see
* no – know
* rite – right
• Answer these questions:
1. What is semantics?
2. Define lexeme and sign? give examples
3. What is hyponymy? give examples
4. What is lexical meaning?
THANK YOU