The Last Part of Pure Linguistics: Semantics
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There are some
definition of semantics,
Semantics is the study of meaning
|
Lyons (1977)
|
Semantics is the study of meaning in
language
|
Hurford & Heasley (1983)
|
Semantics is the study of meaning
communicated through language
|
Saeed (1997)
|
Semantics is the part of linguistics
that is concerned with meaning
|
Löbner (2002)
|
Linguistic semantics is the study of
literal, decontextualized, grammatical meaning
|
Frawley (1992)
|
Linguistic semantics is the study of
how languages organize and express meanings
|
Kreidler (1998)
|
So, Linguistic semantics is the study of how
languages organize and express meanings. Semantics is part of grammar.
The meaning of
a complex expression is determined by:
• the meanings
of its parts,
• the way in
which those parts are combined
Example: A
cat chased a small rat.
A small rat
chased a cat.
The Architecture of Meaning
Ø
Lexical Semantics
1.
Hyponym:
word x is a hyponym of word y if the sets of referents of x is always in the
set of referents of y.
• example: the set of poodles is always in
the set of dogs
2.
Hypernym: the converse of hyponym
• example: above, ‘dogs’ = hypernym,
‘poodles’ = hyponym
3.
Synonyms:
words that seem to have the same meaning
• example: ‘couch’ vs. ‘sofa’
4.
Antonyms:
words that seem to have opposite meanings
Three types of antonyms:
a.
Complementary
à single -
married, dead - alive
• mutually exclusive
b. Gradable à cold - cool - warm - hot, wet - dry
• can modify with ‘very’, ‘a little’, etc.
c. Converse à above / below, give / receive,
buy - sell
• reciprocal relationship between words • relationship
x entails existence of relationship y
Ø
Compositional
Semantics
•
Deals with phrasal and sentence meaning.
•
Non-idiomatic meanings are compositional in that they combine the meanings of
smaller units.
There
are 3 kinds of compositional semantics, like:
1. Entailment
2. Presupposition
3. Thematic
roles
REFERENCES:
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