Chapter 9: Semantics

Agents and Themes

- Agents and themes are the most common semantic roles. - Although agents are typically human ( The boy ), as in (1) below, they can also be non-human entities that cause actions, as in noun phrases denoting a natural force ( The wind ), a machine ( A car ), or a creature ( The dog ), all of which affect the ball as theme in examples (2)-(4). The theme is typically non-human, but can be human ( the boy ), as in the last sentence (5). - (1) The boy kicked the ball. (2) The wind blew the ball away. (3) A car ran over the ball. (4) The dog caught the ball. (5) The dog chased the boy.

Semantics

- Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In semantic analysis, there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on what an individual speaker might think they mean, or want them to mean, on a particular occasion.

Collocation

- a relationship between words that frequently occur together (e.g. salt and pepper )

Polysemy

- a word having two or more related meanings (e.g. foot , of person, of bed, of mountain)

Metonymy

- a word used in place of another with which it is closely connected in everyday experience (e.g. He drank the whole bottle (= the liquid))

Reversives

- antonyms in which the meaning of one is the reverse action of the other (e.g. dress-undress )

Semantic Features

- basic elements such as "human," included as plus (+human) or minus (−human), used in an analysis of the components of word meaning

Location

- location (in semantics): the semantic role of the noun phrase identifying where an entity is (e.g. The boy is sitting in the classroom )

Referential Meaning

- the basic components of meaning conveyed by the literal use of words, also described as "objective" or "conceptual" meaning - ex. It is the type of meaning that dictionaries are designed to describe. Some of the basic components of a word like needle in English might include "thin sharp, steel instrument." These components would be part of the referential meaning of needle .

Superordinate

- the higher level term in hyponymy (e.g. flower -daffodil )

Hyponymy

- the lexical relation in which the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another (e.g. "daffodil" is a hyponym of "flower" ) - Examples are the pairs: animal/horse, insect/ant, flower/rose . The concept of "inclusion" involved in this relationship is the idea that if an object is a rose , then it is necessarily a flower , so the meaning of flower is included in the meaning of rose . Or, rose is a hyponym of flower .

Prototypes

- the most characteristic instance of a category (e.g. "robin" is the prototype of " bird ")

Semantic/Thematic/Case Roles

- the part played by a noun phrase , such as agent , in the event described by the sentence - If the situation is a simple event, as in The boy kicked the ball , then the verb describes an action ( kick ). The noun phrases in the sentence describe the roles of entities, such as people and things, involved in the action. - Note that a single entity (e.g. George ) can appear in several different semantic roles.

Lexical Relations

- the relationships of meaning, such as synonymy , between words

Experiencer

- the semantic role of the noun phrase identifying the entity that has the feeling, perception or state described by the verb (e.g. The boy feels sad )

Instrument

- the semantic role of the noun phrase identifying the entity that is used to perform the action of the verb (e.g. The boy cut the rope with a razor ) - ex. In the sentences The boy cut the rope with an old razor and He drew the picture with a crayon , the noun phrases an old razor and a crayon are being used in the semantic role of instrument. *Note that the preposition with is often a clue that the following noun phrase has the role of instrument in English. *

Agent

- the semantic role of the noun phrase identifying the one who performs the action of the verb in an event ( The boy kicked the ball )

Source

- the semantic role of the noun phrase identifying where an entity moves from (e.g. The boy ran from the house )

Goal

- the semantic role of the noun phrase identifying where an entity moves to (e.g. The boy walked to the window )

Theme

- the semantic role of the noun phrase used to identify the entity involved in or affected by the action of the verb in an event (e.g. The boy kicked the ball )

Corpus Linguistics

- the study of language in use by analyzing the occurrence and frequency of forms in a large collection of texts typically stored in a computer

Associative/Emotive Meaning

- the type of meaning that people might connect with the use of words (e.g. needle = "painful") that is not part of referential meaning

Homophones

- two or more words with different forms and the same pronunciation (e.g. to-too-two )

Homonyms

- two words with the same form that are unrelated in meaning (e.g. mole (on skin) - mole (small animal))

Co-hyponyms

- words in hyponymy that share the same superordinate ( "daffodil" and "rose" are co-hyponyms of "flower" ) - ex. So, dog and horse are co-hyponyms and the superordinate term is animal , while ant and cockroach are co-hyponyms with insect as the superordinate. - Of course, it is not only words for "things" that are hyponyms. Words such as punch, shoot and stab , as verbs describing "actions," can all be treated as co-hyponyms of the superordinate term injure and the verbs bake, boil, fry and grill as co-hyponyms of the superordinate cook .

Antonyms

- words that have opposite meanings

Synonyms

- words that have similar meanings

Non-gradable Antonyms

- words which are direct opposites (e.g. alive-dead

Gradable Antonyms

- words with opposite meanings along a scale (e.g. big-small )