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Semantic

Homonymy refers to words that are spelled or sound the same but have different meanings. Some examples of homonyms provided are tale/tail and bear as a verb/noun. Other concepts discussed include polysemy, synonymy, hyponymy, derivation, word meaning, propositions, illocution, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

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40 views

Semantic

Homonymy refers to words that are spelled or sound the same but have different meanings. Some examples of homonyms provided are tale/tail and bear as a verb/noun. Other concepts discussed include polysemy, synonymy, hyponymy, derivation, word meaning, propositions, illocution, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

Uploaded by

Siti Faizah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ANSWER

1. Homonymy refers to two unrelated words that look or sound the same. Two or more
words become homonyms if they either sound the same (homophones), have the same
spelling (homographs), or if they both homophones and homographs, but do not have
related meanings. So, Homonymy is a relation that holds between two lexemes that
have the same form but unrelated meanings. Homonyms are the words that have same
phonetic form (homophones) or orthographic form (homographs) but different
unrelated meanings. The ambiguous word whose different senses are far apart from
each other and are not obviously related to each other in any way is called as
Homonymy. Words like tale and tail are homonyms. There is no conceptual
connection between its two meanings. For example the word ‘bear’, as a verb means
‘to carry’ and as a noun it means ‘large animal’. An example of homonym which is
both homophone and homograph is the word ‘fluke’. Fluke is a fish as well as a
flatworm. Other examples are bank, an anchor, and so on. Homophony -
Homophony is the case where two words are pronounced identically but they have
different written forms. They sound alike but are written differently and often have
different meanings. For example: no-know, led-lead, would-wood. Homograph -
Homograph is a word which is spelled the same as another word and might be
pronounced the same or differently but which has a different. For example, Bear-bear;
Read-read. So, when homonyms are spelled the same they are homographs but not all
homonyms are homographs.
Polysemy is the existence of several meanings for a single word or phrase. In other
words it is the capacity for a word, phrase, or sign to have multiple meanings. A
large semantic field. Polysemy is a pivotal concept within the humanities, such
as media studies and linguistics. So, a word becomes polysemous if it can be used to
express different meanings. The difference between these meanings can be obvious or
subtle. It is sometimes difficult to determine whether a word is polysemous or not
because the relations between words can be vague and unclear. But, examining the
origins of the words can help to decide whether a word is polysemic or homonymous.
A polyseme the phenomenon of having or being open to several or many meanings.
When a word has several very closely related senses or meanings. Polysemous word
is a word having two or more meanings. For example, foot in: - He hurt his foot; -
She stood at the foot of the stairs. A well-known problem in semantics is how to
decide whether we are dealing with a single polysemous word or with two or more
homonyms
Synonymy is the semantic qualities or sense relations that exist between words
(lexemes) with closely related meanings. It is a relation between individual senses
of words, so that a single word typically has different sets of synonyms for each of its
senses. Synonymy may also refer to the study of synonyms or to a list of synonyms.
For example, coat has different synonyms for its senses ‘outer garment’ (e.g., jacket)
and ‘covering layer’.
Hyponymy is a sense relation in semantics that serves to relate word concepts in a
hierarchical fashion. So, hyponymy is a relation between two words in which the
meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other word. The lexical
relation corresponding to the inclusion of one class in another is hyponymy.
Examples are: apple- fruit; car- vehicles; tool- furniture; cow - animal. The more
specific concept is known as the hyponym, and the more general concept is known as
the hypernym or superordinate. Apple is the hyponym and fruit is the superordinate /
hypernymy. Hyponymy is not restricted to objects, abstract concepts, or nouns. It can
be identified in many other areas of the lexicon. The verb cook has many
hyponyms. Word: Cook, Hyponyms: Roast, boil, fry, grill, bake. The verb colour
has many hyponyms. Word: colour. Hyponyms: blue, red, yellow, green, black
and purple. Hyponymy involves the logical relationship of entailment. Example:
‘There is a horse’ entails that ‘There is an animal”. Hyponymy often functions. In
discourse as a means of lexical cohesion by establishing referential equivalence to
avoid repetition.
2. The derivation is the process of creating a new morpheme or word. The new, derived
word is related to the original word, but it has some new component of meaning to it,
and often it belongs to a new category. One of the most popular ways that English
derives new words is by affixing a derivational morpheme to a base. For an
instance, if we begin with a verb that describes an action, like teach and we add the
morpheme –er, we derive a morphologically complex noun, teacher is refers to the
person who does the action, teaching. Derivation is the word formation process in
which a derivational affix attaches to the base form of a word to create a new word.
Affixes, which include prefixes and suffixes, are bound morphemes. Morphemes are
the smallest linguistic unit of a language with semantic meaning. Bound morphemes,
unlike free morphemes, cannot stand alone but must attach to another morpheme such
as a word. For example, the following two lists provide examples of some common
prefixes and suffixes with definitions in English. a- – without, not co- – together.

3. The other component of sentence meaning is word meaning, the individual meanings


of the words in a sentence, as lexical items. The concept of word meaning is a familiar
one. There is no necessary congruity between the structural and lexical meanings of a
word. We can observe a congruity of these meanings, for example, in the word cat,
where both structural and lexical meaning refer to an object. But often the structural
and lexical meanings of a word act in different or even diametrically opposite
directions. For example, the structural meaning of protection refers to an object,
while its lexical meaning refers to a process; and conversely, the structural
meaning of (to) cage refers to a process, while its lexical meaning refers to an
object.

4. In linguistics and philosophy, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence,


where "meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all
sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the non-linguistic
bearer of truth or falsity which makes any sentence that expresses it either true or
false. It refers exclusively to the non-linguistic meaning behind the statement. It can
generally be used to refer to some or all of the following: The primary bearers of truth
values (such as "true" and "false"); the objects of belief and other propositional
attitudes (i.e. what is believed, doubted, etc.); the referents of "that"-clauses, for
example: "It is true that the sky is blue" and "I believe that the sky is blue" both
involve the proposition the sky is blue; and the meanings of declarative sentences.
Illocution is an act performed by a speaker by virtue of uttering certain words,
as for example the acts of promising or of threatening. Illocution are variable to the
proposition of the locution depending on the context as well as. Example: ‘It is cold
in here’ could either be a request or an offer to close the window.
5. Morphology is the study of words and helps linguists understand the structure of
words by putting together morphemes. Morphemes are the minimal units of words
that have a meaning and cannot be subdivided further. A morpheme is the smallest
grammatical, meaningful part of language. There are two different types of
morphemes that form the basis of the words they structure. They are known as a free
morpheme and a bound morpheme. A free morpheme is a single meaningful unit of a
word that can stand alone in the language. An example of a free morpheme is
"bad", and an example of a bound morpheme is "ly." It is bound because although
it has meaning, it cannot stand alone. It must be attached to another morpheme to
produce a word.
Syntax is the grammatical structure of sentences. The format in which words and
phrases are arranged to create sentences is called syntax. By rearranging just one word
in the sentence, a varied syntax is formed. Each is grammatically correct and
acceptable English language form. Example: The boy jumped happily.
Semantics means the meaning and interpretation of words, signs, and sentence structure.
Semantics largely determine our reading comprehension, how we understand others, and even
what decisions we make as a result of our interpretations. Semantics can also refer to the
branch of study within linguistics that deals with language and how we understand
meaning. This has been a particularly interesting field for philosophers as they debate the
essence of meaning, how we build meaning, how we share meaning with others, and how
meaning changes over time. One of the central issues with semantics is the distinction
between literal meaning and figurative meaning. With literal meaning, we take
concepts at face value. For example, if we said, 'Fall began with the turning of the
leaves,' we would mean that the season began to change when the leaves turned
colors. Figurative meaning utilizes similes and metaphors to represent meaning
and convey greater emotion. For example, 'I'm as hungry as a bear' would be a
simile and a comparison to show a great need for sustenance.

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