Semantics

Semantics

Is concerned with the aspects of meaning that are given by words and grammar

Sense and reference

There are two parts in finding meaning in words.

Sense- the idea of the thing

Reference- the thing itself

Lexeme

Object- Table: inanimate object, four legs, flat top.

Jumping: action, springing off the ground.

Abstract word naming

concept difficult to define (love)

extinct word naming

relation to something that doesn’t exist anymore

Opaque word naming

words like ‘know’ or ‘have’ that have different meanings in different contexts.

Meaning

can be any of the following:

an itrinsic property of something.

other words related to that word in a dictionary.

the connotations of a word

what the speaker refers to

what the hearer thinks is being reffered to.

(Sense) Synonymy

Relatedness of meaning two words which are similar but different extentions.

(Sense) Antonymy

Graded differences or ungraded differences. (opposites)

(Sense) Hyponymy

Categories within categories (Superordinate terms and Subordinate terms

Word fields

words aquire their meaning through their relationships to other words within the same word feild: Sports words etc.

Componentoal Analysis

the analysis of words through structured which are given as ‘present’, ‘absent’, or ‘indifferent with reference to feature’.

man= [+male], [+mature] woman= [-male], [+mature] boy= [+male], [-mature] girl=[-male], [-mature].

Semantic networks

a knowledge structure that depicts how concepts are related to one another and illustrates how they interconnect.

Prototype Theory

to find the exemplar of the group of objects

Meaning postulates

a way of stipulating a relationship between the meanings of two or more words.

Diachronic Semantics

why do English ‘sober’ and German ‘Sauber’ mean different things evem through they seem to be related.

Lexical semantics

the relation between the words and their meanings, including how they combine to form phrases and sentences.