Overview of semantics

Chapter 6 Lesson 1
 Lexical Semantics-deals
Semantics divided with the individual
into two subfields: meaning of words.
Compositional
Semantics-is concerned
with how lexical
meanings are combined
to form more complex
phrasal meanings.
Reference and Sense
The relationship between the word and the
object or idea it represents is called reference.
Example:
When I was a kid, the appearance of a
rainbow puzzled me. The word rainbow in
particular has a physical representation to the
physical world. That colorful thing (rainbow)
that we can see arching in the sky is the
reference being referred to in our sentence.
The words when was, was, the, appearance,
of, a, and puzzled do not have real word
referents, but we can understand their usage
or meaning. This additional element of
meaning is called sense. Therefore it can be
said that not all words have referents, but all
of them have sense.

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Conceptual or Denotative
meaning
Conceptual meaning is also called
denotative meaning, conventional or
cognitive meaning. It refers to the literal
meaning of the word which is its primary
meaning.
Example:
The word “Hollywood” if you think of
Hollywood as an area in Los Angeles
considered as the US entertainment capital,
then you are thinking of conceptual meaning
of the word.
Associative or Connotative meaning
Connotative meaning is relatively unstable because word
meaning is often influenced by the culture, historical, period
and the experience of the individual. Relies on emotional sense
depending on the perspective.
Example:
“Buaya” In Indonesia can means reptile and the other means
man who is cheating on his wife/girlfriend.

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SOCIAL OR STYLISTIC
MEANING
The meaning conveyed by a word is
dependent on various social factors or
context of its resulting to what we call
social meaning.
Example:
The word “Home” can have many use
also like domicile (official),
residence(formal), abode (poetic),
home (ordinary use).

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Affective or emotive meaning
Affective meaning is related to the social meaning of a word or sentence
but this aspect of meaning refers particularly to the personal feelings and
emotions of the speaker, including the attitude of the listener towards the
speaker or vice-versa.
Example:
Let us consider the word “fire” and its affective meaning:
The word “fire” can carry various affective meanings based on context. In
some contexts, it might evoke positive emotions like warmth, coziness,
and comfort when associated with a fireplace in a cozy setting. However,
in other contexts, it can have negative affective meanings, such as fear,
destruction, and danger, when associated with a raging forest or house fire.

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Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning are words that always go together or co-
occur frequently. Because of this, a word requires meaning on
the account of the meaning of the other words which always
occur around it.
Example:
‘Pretty’ and ‘handsome’ indicate ‘good looking’.
However, they slightly differ from each other because of
collocation or co-occurrence. The word ‘pretty’ collocates with
– girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers, etc.
On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with –
‘boys’ men, etc. so ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’. While
different kinds of attractiveness, hence ‘handsome woman’ may
mean attractive but in a mannish way.
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Thematic meaning
Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way a writer or
speaker organizes the message in terms of order, focus, and emphasis.
Example:
Examine the following sentence by identifying what idea is emphasized in
each.
1. The Americans established the university in 1902.
2. The university was established by the Americans in 1902.
In sentence (1), ‘who established the university’ is given more emphasis
than In sentence (2).

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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)
being literal, just like the
following sentences.
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Example: PERSONIFIED/
METAMORPHICAL:
Literal:

THE SUN SMILED

THE WIND BLEW THE WIND WHISPERED

Meaning
extension
PUT IT ON THE BASKET
PUT IT INTO THE WORDS
REPORTERS:

FORREST ANGEL D. HAMOC​ ELOISA JANE MATARO