18/04/2011

Semantics

1. Definition of semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In semantics analysis we focus on what words conventionally mean and not on what is intended to be conveyed by the speaker.

Traditional semantics emphasizes the objective and the general meaning rather than the subjective and the local.

Linguistic semantics deals with the conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences of a language.

Compositional semantics or prepositional semantics.

2. Meaning

Conceptual representation

Sense or intention

Linguistic unit Extralinguistic reality

Reference of extension

Conceptual vs. associative

1. conceptual meaning- covers the basic, essential components of meaning which are conveyed by the literal use of a word e.g. “needle”- thin, sharp

2. associative meaning- what people tend to associate with conceptual meaning of a given word, e.g. “needle”- painful, “stick teacher”- good for my child. This type of meaning is often used by poets and advertisers and is not treated as part of the conceptual meaning.

3. Description of meaning

Methods of description

1. semantics features

2. semantics roles

3. lexical relations

Ad.1. Semantic features

Semantics help us understand why certain syntactically perfect sentences are in fact hardly ever used in a language, or at least they sound odd:

“The hamburger ate the man!”

In order to explain this problem linguistics (TG followers) started to analyze the components of these sentences into sets of semantics features.

This approach is however full of problems:

• love

• advice

What is it? You can't think of semantics features.

1. it's difficult to come up with a framework of components e.g. love, advice etc.

2. less prototypical examples of a given category are treated as not belonging to the category at all

3. words in a language are perceived as a sort of `container” carrying meaning.

Ad.2. Semantic roles

Instead of analyzing the words into features we may observe what roles they play in a sentence.

Noun phrases typically play the following roles:

• AGENT- the entity that performs the action, it can be a human, a machine or a creature

• THEM- the entity that is involved in or affected by the action or an entity that is simply being described. The theme can be human or appear in two different semantics roles “Tom kicked himself”.

• INSTRUMENT- if an agent uses another entity in performing an action

Semantics roles:

• Experiencer- the entity that has a feeling or a perception of a state

• Location- where the entity is in the description of an extent

• Source- where an entity moves from

• Goal-where the entity moves to

“I admired her concert in the park.”

Her concert- theme

In the park-location

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