Chapter 9 : Semantics

                         -The study of words, phrases, and sentences' meanings is known as semantics. Semantic analysis always makes an effort to concentrate on the meaning that words typically convey rather than what a specific speaker may believe or wish the words to convey at a given time.

Meaning

        Semantics is the study of meaning in language, focusing on different aspects of meaning. The two primary types of meaning are referential meaning and associative meaning.

Referential Meaning

        Referential meaning refers to the widely accepted, objective, or factual meaning of words, rather than their subjective or personal meaning.

Associative Meaning (Emotive Meaning)

        Associative meaning, also known as emotive meaning, encompasses the feelings or reactions that words evoke in certain individuals or groups, which may not be universally shared.

             Example: "Needle"

    - Referential Meaning: A thin, sharp, steel instrument.

    - Associative Meaning: Pain, illness, blood, drugs, thread, knitting, or something hard to find.

Semantic Oddness

        A sentence can be syntactically correct but semantically strange. For instance, consider the sentence: "The hamburger ate the boy."

 Example:

    - Syntactically Correct: "The book read the girl."

    - Referential Meaning: This sentence follows proper grammatical structure.

    - Associative Meaning: Despite being grammatically correct, it is semantically nonsensical because a book cannot perform the action of reading, just as a hamburger cannot perform the action of eating.

-Semantic Features:

        -A component or attribute of meaning that a noun needs to possess in order to function as a subject. An element of this type could be as broad as "animate being," with plus (+) or minus (-) signs to indicate different parts of a word's meaning. As an illustration:

    --Words as Meaning Containers: There are some issues with the method that was just described. We might not be very effective if we try to come up with the elements or characteristics we would use to distinguish between the nouns advice, threat, and warning, for instance. This is due to their overly constrictive and severely limited understanding of words as "containers" that convey meaning components.

Semantic Roles

        Semantic roles refer to the functions that entities fulfill within the context of a sentence. For example, in "The boy kicked the ball," the verb "kick" describes an action. The noun phrases in the sentence denote the roles of the entities involved in the action. These roles include:

- Agent: The entity performing the action, e.g., "The boy."

- Theme: The entity involved in or affected by the action, e.g., "the ball."

- Instrument: An entity used by the agent to perform an action, e.g., Mary drew a painting with "her pen."

- Experiencer: A noun phrase indicating the entity that experiences a feeling, perception, or state, e.g., The woman "feels sad."

- Location: The place where an entity is located in the event description, e.g., "on the table," "in the room."

- Source: The origin from which an entity moves, e.g., We drove "from Chicago" to New Orleans.

- Goal: The destination to which an entity moves, e.g., We drove from Chicago "to New Orleans."

Lexical Relations

        Words can be understood not only by their meanings or roles in events but also through their relationships with other words. For example, the word "conceal" can be defined as "the same as hide," and "shallow" can be described as "the opposite of deep."

Types of Lexical Relations

        - Synonymy: This refers to two or more words with very similar meanings.

  - They can often replace each other in sentences (e.g., "What was his answer/reply?"), though not always (e.g., "Sandy had only one answer/reply correct on the test").

  - There are regional differences (e.g., "candy, chips, diaper, and gasoline" vs. "sweets, crisps, nappy, and petrol") and variations in formality (e.g., "My father purchased a large automobile" vs. "My dad bought a big car").

        - Antonymy: This involves words with opposite meanings and is usually divided into three main types.

          -Gradable Antonyms: These are opposites along a scale and can be used in comparative constructions involving adjectives (e.g., "I’m smaller than you and slower, sadder, but luckily quite a bit richer"). The negative of one member does not necessarily imply the other (e.g., "My car isn’t old" doesn’t have to mean "My car is new").

          - Non-gradable Antonyms: These are direct opposites and are not typically used in comparative constructions (e.g., we don’t describe someone as more "dead" than another). Examples include "male/female," "married/single," and "true/false." The negative of one member implies the other (e.g., "My grandparents aren’t alive" means "My grandparents are dead").

          - Reversives: These involve one word being the reverse action of the other. Unlike simple negation, reversives imply an opposite action (e.g., "undress" as the opposite of "dress" means "do the reverse of dress," not simply "not dress").

        --Hyponymy is when the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another like the pairs of animal/horse, insect/ant, flower/rose.

Prototype

The prototype concept refers to the idea of a "typical example" within a category.

- Example: While parrot, pelican, and robin are all co-hyponyms under the broader category of "bird," they are not equally seen as representative examples of a bird. The prototype concept clarifies the meaning of certain words based on their similarity to the most typical example, rather than their individual features.

- Individual Variation: This concept demonstrates how personal experiences can lead to different interpretations and categorizations. For instance, there may be debates about whether an avocado or a tomato is categorized as a fruit or a vegetable, as they can be considered co-hyponyms in both categories depending on the context.

Summary

- Prototypes: Ideal examples of a category that help define word meanings based on similarity to the most typical instance.

- Variation: Personal experiences can cause different interpretations and categorizations, as seen with words like avocado and tomato, which may be classified as either fruits or vegetables in various contexts.

This understanding of meaning highlights how our perception of categories is often influenced by prototypical examples, leading to variations in interpretation based on individual and cultural experiences.

-Homonyms: when one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings.

 Polysemy

Polysemy refers to a single form (written or spoken) having multiple related meanings. For example, the word "head" can mean the object on top of your body, the froth on top of a glass of beer, the person at the top of a company or department, or the leader of a school.

 Metonymy

Metonymy involves meanings based on a close connection in everyday experience. For instance, "He drank the whole bottle" sounds absurd literally but actually means he drank the liquid inside the bottle, not the bottle itself.

Word Play

Homophones, homonyms, and polysemy form the basis of much word play, often used for humorous effect.

- Example 1: In the nursery rhyme "Mary had a little lamb," we typically think of a small animal. However, in the comic version "Mary had a little lamb, some rice, and vegetables," we think of a small portion of meat. The polysemy of "lamb" allows for these two interpretations.

- Example 2: The joke "Why is 6 afraid of 7?" is funny because of the homophones involved (7 "ate" 9), which plays on the sound similarity between "eight" and "ate."