Chapter 1:

Definitions & Word

Meaning
 phonetics
sound
s phonolog
y
morpholo
Linguistic structur gy
s
es syntax

semantic
s
meaning
s pragmati2
cs
What is semantics?
• Semantics is the study of
meaning in language.
• Creating common
meanings helps everyone
understand each other.

3
Semantics & Pragmatics
• Semantics is closely related
to Pragmatics.
• Pragmatics deals with
meaning of a language in
use in different situation
contexts.

4
 Semantics & Pragmatics
Semantics Pragmatics
meanings meanings
encoded in the derived or
structure of the deduced from
language language used
in a particular
occasion, in a
particular
context 5
Semantics & Pragmatics
• Semantic meaning is context-free
whereas pragmatic meaning is
context-dependent.
• A: Would you like a piece of cake?
• B: I’m on a diet.
- semantic meaning: ‘I want to lose
weight by eating the food which is
not rich in fat, sugar, etc.’
- pragmatic meaning: ‘I don’t want
any piece of cake’ or ‘I’m afraid that I
have to refuse your invitation.’
6
Semantics & Pragmatics
• A: Do you like the wine I picked
out?
• B: It’s Italian, isn’t it?
– semantic meaning: ‘Is it right
that the wine is made in Italy?’
– pragmatic meaning: ‘I don’t
like the wine you picked out.’

7
Semantics & Pragmatics
• She hasn’t taken a shower.
(She has not taken a shower
today.)
• He was so tired that he could
sleep for days.
(He is really tired.)
• I like you a lot. Semantic
meaning? Different Contexts?
Pragmatic meaning?
• Do likewise for He’s alive. 8
 Mark each of the following
statements true or false
TRU FALS
E E
1.Alive means the opposite of ☺
dead.

2. Buy has an opposite meaning of

☺
sell
3. Ceasar is and is not a ☺
meaningful English sentence.
4. Ceasar is a prime number is ☺
nonsensical.
5. Ceasar is a man is nonsensical ☺ 9
 Mark each of the following
statements true or false
TRU FALS
E E
6. Both of John’s parents are
married to aunts of mine is
in a sense contradictory, ☺
describing an impossible
situation
7. If the sentence John killed
Bill is true of any situation,
then so is the sentence Bill is ☺
alive. 10
 Mark each of the following
statements true or false
TRU FALS
E E
8. If someone says, “Can you
pass the salt?”, he is normally
not asking about his hearer’s
☺
ability to pass the salt, but
requesting the hearer to pass
the salt
9. If someone says, “I tried to ☺
buy some rice”, his hearer
would normally infer that he 11

had actually failed to buy rice.

 Semantics & its possible
included aspects
• “Semantics is a technical term
used to refer to the study of
meaning, and since meaning is
part of language, semantics is
part of linguistics.”
• Three main aspects are
commonly considered:
word meaning (lexical meaning)
sentence meaning
utterance meaning. 12
 Semantics & its possible
included aspects
• The meaning of remarried can be
analyzed in three different levels:
– At the word level, remarried may
be regarded a set of the four
following semantic features:
[+human], [±male], [+used to be
married], and [+married again] 13
Semantics & its possible
included aspects
- At the sentence level:

He is not remarried: [+married

again] is informative, i.e. it is the
part of the statement.

14
Semantics & its possible included
aspects
- At the utterance level within the
particular context of the following
conversation when remarried
occurs in B’s response, it is the
word that helps the utterance
presuppose that pastors are allowed
by rule to get married and implicate
that the pastor was once married.
A: ‘How is the pastor?’
B: ‘He is remarried.’ 15
Semantics features (đặc điểm ngữ
nghĩa)
(= semantic properties/semantic components)
1. Definition:
• Semantic features are the smallest units
of meaning in a word. [Richards et al,
1987:254]
• We identify meaning of a word by its
semantic features.
Ex1: father [+human], [+male],
[+mature], [+parental], [+paternal]
Ex2: flower [+part of a plant], [+colored],
[+usually good-smelling],
[+bloom/blossom], [+fruit or seed is
developed]
16
Ex3: drive [+motion], [+operate],
Semantics features
2. Characteristics
• Some semantic features need not be
specifically mentioned.
• If a word is [+human] it is automatically
[+animate].
• This generalization can be expressed as a
redundancy rule: a word that is
[+human] is [+animate].
If mother is [+human], it is therefore [-
inhuman]
If mother is [+female], it is therefore [-
male]
If mother is [+mature], it is therefore [- 17
immature]
Semantics features
• Different words may share the same
semantic features.
Ex1: doctor, engineer, teacher,
physicist, chemist, tailor, hairdresser,
etc. all share the same semantic
feature [+professional].
Ex2: mother, father, son, daughter,
brother, sister, grandparent, aunt,
uncle, etc. are all [+kinship].
18
 Semantics features
• The same semantic feature can occur
in words of different parts of speech. In
other words, words of different parts of
speech may share the same semantic
feature.
• [+female]  the noun mother, the
verb breast-feed and the adjective
pregnant.
• [+educational]  the noun school,
teacher, textbook, etc. and in the
19
verbs teach, educate, instruct.
 Semantics features
• Two sentences that are grammatically
correct and syntactically perfect but
semantically anomalous.
– My brother is an only child.
– The bachelor is pregnant.
• Noam Chomsky’s famous classic
example:
– Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously.
20
Semantics features

“…we know the semantic

properties of words, we know
when two words are antonyms,
synonyms or homonyms, or are
unrelated in meaning.”

21
Componential analysis
• Componential analysis is “an
approach to the study of meaning
which analyses a word into a set of
meaning components or semantic
features.”
e.g. boy [+human], [+male], [-adult]
man [+human], [+male], [+adult]
Thus man is different from boy
basically in one primitive semantic 22
Componential analysis

• Componential analysis is applied

to a group of related words
which may differ from one
another only by one or two
semantic features.

23
Identify the semantic features in each
of the following words.
• Actress
[+human], [+female],
[+professionally artistic], [+perform
a role]
• Police officer
[+human], [±male], [+member of
the police force], [+disciplined]
• Beauty
[+attractive feature], [+combination
of shape, color, behavior, etc.],
[+giving pleasure to senses]
24
Identify the semantic features in
each of the following words.
• Doe
[+animate], [+deer, reindeer, rabbit or
hare], [+fully grown], [+female]

• Bachelor
[+human], [+mature], [+male],
[+stay single]

• Fly (v)
[+motion], [+through air or space],
[+fast], [+wings or a means of 25
transport]
Identify the semantic features in
each of the following words.
• internship
• skill
• cv
• application
• table
• chair
• fan

26
Complete the set of semantic features
of the following nouns using + or -

Nouns huma female young

n

actress
baby
girl
bachelor
mare 27
Complete the set of semantic features
of the following nouns using + or -

Nouns huma femal young

n e

actress + + +/-
baby + +/- +
girl + + +
bachelor + - -
28
 Complete the set of semantic features
of the following nouns using + or -

Nouns Common Coun Animat Huma Abstra

t e n ct

Table

John
Sincerit
y
Concept
Mankind 29
Nouns Common Coun Animat Huma Abstra
t e n ct

Table
+ + - - -
John
- - + + -
Sincerit
+ - - + +
y

Concept
+ + - - +
Mankind
+ - + + + 30
Exercise 1 (pp15-18) –
Tô Minh Thanh

31
Semantic/ Lexical Field
(Trường ngữ nghĩa)
1. Definition
• A semantic field is “the organization
of related words and expressions into
a system which shows their
relationship to one another.”
[Richards et al, 1987:53]
• A semantic field can also be defined
as “a set of words with identifiable
semantic affinities.” [Finegan,
1994:164]
32
Semantic/ Lexical Field
Ex1: the semantic field of kinship
terms: father, mother, brother,
sister, uncle, aunt, etc.
Ex2: the semantic field of
adjectives describing human
emotional states: angry, sad,
happy, exuberant, depressed,
afraid, etc.
Ex3: the semantic field of drinking
vessels: cup, mug, tumbler, wine
glass, beer glass, etc. 33
Semantic/ Lexical Field
2. Ways of organizing semantically similar
items into semantic fields
(a) Items related by topics:
types of fruit: apples, oranges…
pieces of furniture: table, seats…
terms of color: blue, yellow…
(b) Items similar in meaning
ways of cooking: steam, stew, roast…
ways of looking: gaze, glance, peer,
squint…
ways in which a liquid escapes from its
container: drip, leak, ooze…
34
Semantic/ Lexical Field
(c) Terms describing people
whose weight is below normal:
thin, bony, skinny, scrawny,
emaciated, raw-boned…

(d) Items which form pairs of

antonyms: long/short,
approve/disapprove, upstairs/
downstairs, etc.

35
Semantic/ Lexical Field
(e) Items which form pairs or trios of
synonyms: smart/intelligent/bright,
conserve/preserve/safeguard,
fix/repair/mend…
(f) Items grouped as an activity or a
process:
- do the housework: clean the room,
do the washing, iron the clothes…
- do research: make hypotheses,
collect data, analyze data, suggest
solutions,…
- write a paragraph?
- write an essay? 36
 Semantic/ Lexical Field
(g) Items classified according to
sex - male: waiter, tiger, actor…
- female: waitress, tigress, actress…
lion? bachelor?
age: toddlers, adolescence, teenagers,
grow-ups, adults, middle-aged people,
elderly people, old people…
age and sex:
horse stallion dog dog
mare bitch
foal puppy
37
38
Find the semantic field
1. of birds:
penguin, peacock, owl, dove, canary
(hoàng yến), robin, sparrow, duck, toucan,
pheasant (trĩ), ostrich, parrot, etc.
2. of house:
detached, semi-detached, bungalow,
terrace, thatched cottage, flat, skyscraper,
communal house, villa, etc.
3. of flowers:
cherry, lilac (tử đinh hương), carnation,
night lady, rose mallow, gerbera, jasmine,
gladiolus (lay-ơn), orchid, lily (bách hợp),
apricot, henna, daisy, tulip (uất kim
hương), forget-me-not(lưu ly), etc.
4. of music? of art? of people? 39
Lexical gaps

“The absence of a word in a

particular place in a lexical
field of a language” is called a
lexical gap. [Richards et al,
1987:164]

40
Lexical gaps

stallio
n

horse

mare foal

41
Lexical gaps

billy-
goat

goat

nanny-goat kid

42
Lexical gaps
ra
m

sheep

ewe lamb

43
Lexical gaps

male giraffe

giraffe
femal
e baby
giraff giraff
e e
44
Lexical gaps

stag

deer

hind, fawn
doe

45
Lexical gaps

rooste
r
chicke
n

hen chick

46
Lexical gaps

dog

do
g

bitc puppy
h
47
Lexical gaps

tomca
t

cat

kitte
cat
n

48
Lexical gaps

bird

? nestling

49
Lexical gaps

snak
e

? snakelet

50
Lexical gaps

frog

tadpol
? e

51
Lexical gaps

bull

cow calf

52
Lexical gaps
• A child who has lost his parents is an
orphan. So what about a parent who
has lost a child?
• You refers to singular and plural
personal pronouns.
• work – worker (personal.n)

• cook – cooker (personal.n)?

53
Meaning postulates
• A meaning postulate is a formula
expressing some aspect of the sense of a
predicate.

• It can be read as a proposition necessary

true by virtue of the meaning of the
particular predicates involved.

54
Meaning postulates

e.g. man = human being

This example expresses the fact that man is
a synonym of human being. It is a
generalization covering anything to which
the predicate man is applied.

55
Meaning postulates

• man → male

• man → adult
• man → human being
• woman → female
• woman → adult
• woman → human being
56
Meaning postulates
• If something swims, then it must be
in a liquid.
(x) swims (x) in a liquid
(x) metal (x) a concrete object
(x) open (x) not closed
(x) close (x) not far
• One headed arrow: only true in one
direction
• Two headed arrow: true in both
directions 57
Express the meaning relationship
between teacher and student in the
following postulate.
(X) teacher (y) (Y) student (x)
• If X is Y’s teacher, then Y is X’s
student.
• If Y is X’s student, then X is Y’s
teacher.
58
 Online Materials

• http://
www.nutramed.com/language/syntax
_semantics.htm
• http://
www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/m
eaning-semantics-and-pragmatics

59
The End

60