The Analysis of Semantics

Agin Daya Sintanu (AAA118032)

Elinda Rosa Charolin (AAA118045)
Gilang Wahyu Rosyadie (AAA118052)
Jessica Berliana Nanyan (AAA118028)
Joseph Putra Yona (AAA118038)
Mikhael Bertipo Hidik (AAA118036)
Rajana Aprianda Sirait (AAA118054)
Syahri Ramadhan (AAA118043)
Vincencius Eko Danang Nugraha (AAA118046)
Yohanes Yongky Fernando (AAA 118048)
What is Semantic?

Semantics is the systematic study of meaning,

and linguistic semantics is the study of how
languages organize and express meanings.
 Conventional vs Social and Affective
Meaning

Beagles are a breed of dogs Conventional Meaning

Hey Stan, how are you?

Social and Affective
Meaning
Linguistics is really cool!
Refference
Reference is a relation between objects in which one object designates,
or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object.
The first object in this relation is said to refer to the second object. It is
called a name for the second object. The second object, the one to
which the first object refers, is called the referent of the first object. A
name is usually a phrase or expression, or some other symbolic
representation. Its referent may be anything – a material object, a
person, an event, an activity, or an abstract concept.
Refference

In semantics, reference is generally construed as the relationships

between nouns or pronouns and objects that are named by them. Hence, the word "John" refers
to the person John. The word "it" refers to some previously specified object. More example:
 Barack Obama
 Berlin, Alexanderplatz
 Sally's cat
 These old CDs
The Kinds of Refferents

The entities that we refer to are of different kinds and

a language may have ways of recognizing different
kinds of referents, different reference classes. Three
kinds of differences in referents are: concrete and
abstract; unique and non-unique; countable and
non-countable.
 1. Unique and non-unique referents
We swam in Lake Ontario.

We swam in a lake.

Both of the underlined noun phrases are referring expressions. They

might have the same referent, but a lake can refer to various bodies
of water whereas Lake Ontario always refers to the same body of
water.
 2. Concrete and Abstract Referents.
Lexemes such as dog, door, leaf, stone denote concrete objects, which can be seen or touched; the objects denoted
by lexemes like idea, problem, reason, knowledge are abstract; they cannot be perceived directly through the
senses. This is not a linguistic difference in itself; there is nothing in the pronunciation of raisin and reason, for
instance, that indicates which lexeme has an abstract denotation and which has a concrete one. But lexemes with
different kinds of denotation generally occur in different kinds of utterances and then may have different effects on
other lexemes.

the key to the front door the key to success

a bright light a bright future

Here the lexemes key and bright have literal meanings when they occur
in concrete contexts and figurative meanings in abstract contexts.
 3. Countable and non-Countable Referents

Noun phrases in English, as in other European languages, are either countable or

non-countable. Both countable and non-countable noun phrases may be concrete
or abstract. Concrete countable expressions refer to items that are separate from
one another, like apples, coins, pens and toothbrushes, which can ordinarily be
counted one by one. Abstract countable phrases have such nouns as idea, problem,
suggestion. Non-countable phrases, if their references are concrete, have three
kinds of reference. Some refer to continuous substances, such as apple sauce, ink,
mud and toothpaste, which do not consist of natural discrete parts. Others name
substances that consist of numerous particles not worth counting, like sand and
rice. A few non-countables are like furniture, jewelry, luggage, collections whose
parts have quite different names. Then there are abstract non-countables such as
advice, information, beauty, which are treated, in the English language, as
indivisible.
The Dimension of Meaning

There are 7 topics in The Dimension of Meaning

 Denotation and Conotation
 Extension
 Homophone
 Homonyms
 Polysemy
 Lexical Ambiguity
 Semantics Anomaly
Denotation & Connotation
The terms denotation and connotation are useful to separate the
literal, value-neutral and restricted sense of an expression from its
figural, cultural or associative meanings. For example, the word pig
simply denotes a specific animal, but the connotation of the term is
often negative and it can be used in a figurative way, for example, to
describe a person. The connotation of a term depends on the usage
community's values and beliefs, whereas denotation does not.
Extension

Extension An expression's extension is the sum

of all senses and referents to which it applies.
For example, the extension of the term man is
roughly 50% of the world's population; the
extension of Mike's friend would include
whomever Mike is friends with
 Sense Relation
The relationship of meaning is very close to its conflict with the meaning of denotation and
connotation. Many words can be refuted but can also help connotations for example:
 Meja hijau →denotasi: meja yang berwarna hijau →konotasi: pengadilan
 Tangan kanan →denotasi: bagian atas tubuh manusia yang berpangkal pada bahu sebelah
Kanan →konotasi:seseorang kepercayaan atasannya
The use of words depends on the user and their compatibility. Some verbs can be used with
different functions, Example :
1. A window broke-Tom broke a window : Disini terjadi kesamaan pada jendela yaitu patah,
namun broke pada kalimat pertama bermakna menjadi patah, dan pada kalimat kedua broke
bermakna patah dikarenakan oleh Tom.
2. Housework : bermakna pekerjaan rumah seperti: menyapu, mengepel, mencuci mobil dll
Homewok : bermakna pekerjaan rumah tapi seperti: tugas dari kampus/sekolah.
Homophones

Homophones
The word homophone is made from two combining forms:
 homo- (from the Greek word homos, meaning "same")
 -phone (from the Greek word phone, meaning "sound" or
"voice")

 (noun): one of two or more words with the same pronunciation

but different spellings and/or meanings (for
example weak and week)
 Classification of Homophone

• identical in sound form but

different in spelling and meaning

Piece
Part separated from something

Peace
A situation without war conflicts
Usually homophones are in groups of two (our, hour), but
occasionally they can be in groups of three (to, too, two) or even
more.

bear (noun: large, heavy animal with thick fur)

bear (verb: tolerate, endure)
bare (adjective: naked, without clothes)

 Now let's hear a sentence where we have all five words with their different
meanings:
 Our bear cannot bear to be bare at any hour.
Homonymy

 Greek homonymy – homos “the same”

onoma “name”

Two or more words identical in sound form and spelling,

or in one of these aspects, but different in meaning,
distribution and (in many cases) in origin
 Classification of homonyms

• identical in sound form and spelling but

different in meaning .

Note that homonyms are characterized by the fact that they look the same superficially,
but are actually unrelated. Usually the etymology of a word is key in determining
whether it is a homonym.
Bat = a piece of wood with a handle, made in various shapes and
sizes, and used for hitting the ball in games such as baseball
Bat = an animal like a mouse with wings, that flies and feeds at
night (= it is nocturnal ).
 
Polysemy
The word polysemy comes from :
 poly-( from the Greek words πολυ-,  “many”)
 sêma ( from the Greek Word σήμα, “sign” )

polysemy describes individual word with multiple and

distinct senses (polysemes) or Polysemy is the
existence of several meanings for a single word or
phrase
Classification of polysemy
the same word which has many related meaning

Book
 A bound collection of pages
  A text reproduced and distributed (thus, someone who has read the
same text on a computer has read the same book as someone who had
the actual paper volume)
  To make an action or event a matter of record (e.g. "Unable to book a
hotel room, a man sneaked into a nearby private residence where
police arrested him and later booked him for unlawful entry.")
Present
 right now, the current moment
 a gift
  to show or display (e.g. "Michael was next to
present")
 to be physically somewhere (e.g. "Stephen was
present at the meeting")

In other words it is the capacity for a word, phrase, or

sign to have multiple meanings in a large semantic field.
Polysemy is a pivotal concept within the humanities,
such as media studies and linguistics.
Lexical Ambiguity

Ambiguity happens when words, phrases or sentences have more than one meaning. In
structural ambiguity the same sequence of words has two or more meanings.

The boy saw the man with a telescope

Lexical ambiguity arises when at least one word

in a phrase has more than one meaning.

The fisherman went to the bank

Semantics Anomaly

Anomaly is a violation of semantic rules resulting in expressions that

seem nonsense. The semantic properties of words determine what other
words they can be combined with.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Dark green leaves rustle furiously.

Semantics Anomaly

Other English “sentences” make no sense at all because they include “words” that have no
meaning; they are uninterpretable. They can be interpreted only if some meaning for each
nonsense word can be dreamt up.

Twas brillig and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

(Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”)

Semantics Anomaly

Semantic violations in poetry may form strange but interesting aesthetic images, as in Dylan
Thomas’s phrase a grief ago. Ago is ordinarily used with words specified by some temporal
semantic feature:

a week ago *a table ago

an hour ago but not *a dream ago

a month ago *a mother ago

 SEMANTICS ROLES
Semantic roles describe 'who does
what' in a relatively basic way
(someone affects someone else,
someone benefits from an action).
 
A classical example for how semantic roles function is
passive voice:

John hugged Sue (active)

Sue was hugged by John (passive)  
 Valency Zero
- It is raining.
 
The sentence above has the verb rain, and the
subject is it, but it doesn’t name anything. The
sentence has a subject because English requires a
subject, but this subject does not correspond to
anything in the underlying proposition.
 Valency One
- He sleeps.

The sentence above has the verb sleep and a subject

He. A lot of verbs are like sleep: they have a subject
but no object. They are intransitive verbs or, in our
terminology, one-argument predicates.
 Valency Two
- Chris is making an omelet.

The sentence above has the verb make,

most verbs take a subject and an object;
they are two-argument predicates, they
are Chris and Omelet.
 Some Changes In Valency
Some predicates can be used in a sentence that has two
arguments and in another sentence that has only one
argument.

Example:
I walk on the road.
I’m walking.
 Semantic Features

Semantic features represent the basic conceptual

components of meaning for any lexical item. An
individual semantic feature constitutes one
component of a word's intension, which is the
inherent sense or concept evoked.
Here's the example :
John likes basketball
''The table likes basketball
The dog run across the field
''The refrigerator ran across the field

the action described (like and run) can't be made and performed by
non-living things such as tables and refrigerators.
  John The table The dog The refrigerator

Animate + - + -
   John The table The dog The Lemonade
refrigerator
Animate + - + - -
Human + - - - -
Canine - - + - -
Liquid - - - - +

Humans are generally the subject of verbs such as like, adore,

hate and consider, some kind of dog is generally the subject of
the verb bark and some form of liquid generally the direct
object of the verb drink.
 ''Dana's mother has no children
''The empty bucket is full
''The meeting will take place three years ago

We can generally explain semantic anomaly via some kind of

feature mismatch. In the examples above, the mismatch
occurs in different places: +mother and +no children do not
match, +empty and +full are not compatible and +future
event +past event do not work together.
Lexical relations

 DEFINITION: 
 A lexical relation is a culturally recognized pattern of association that exists between lexical
units in a language.

 WHY IT’S IMPORTANT?

 Not only can words be treated as ‘ containers’ or as fulfilling ‘roles’, they can also have
‘relationships’. In every day talk, we frequently give the meanings of words in terms of their
relationships.
synonym

 Definition: 
 A synonym is a relationship between two or more lexical units which have identical core 
semantic components .
 Example
 The rock is large.
 The rock is big.
 The train traveled fast.
 The train traveled rapidly.
antonym

 Two sentences that differ in polarity like these are mutually contradictory. If one is true,
the other must be false.
 Example
 The television is on now.
 The television is off now.
 Mr Adams is an old man.
 Mr Adams is a young man.
Hyponym and hypernym

  A hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic field is more specific than its
hypernym. And hypernym are word that refer to broad categories or general concepts.
 Example
 Fish (salmon, tuna,shark)
CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS

While the abovementioned descriptions are use to describe sense relations, conceptual
metaphor is a model that aims to explain how human cognition deals with certain aspects of
meaning. Based largely on ideas put forth by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their book
Metaphors We Live By, a conceptual metaphor is an expression from ordinary language in
which the meaning associated with a target domain is drawn from a source domain that is
(subconsciously) perceived as sharing certain traits of the target (TARGET is SOURCE).
Three Overlapping Categories of Conceptual Metaphors

Cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have identified three overlapping
categories of conceptual metaphors:
 An orientational Metaphor is a metaphor that involves spatial relationships, such as
up/down, in/out, on/off, or front/back.
 An ontological Metaphor is a metaphor in which something concrete is projected onto
something abstract.
 A structural Metaphor is a metaphorical system in which one complex concept (typically
abstract) is presented in terms of some other (usually more concrete) concept.
Example: TIME is MONEY

 You're wasting my time.

 This gadget will save you hours.
 I don't have the time to give you.
 How do you spend your time these days?
 Etc.
Five Tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

In Conceptual Metaphor Theory, metaphor is not "a decorative device, peripheral to language
and thought." The theory holds instead that conceptual metaphors are "central to thought, and
therefore to language." From this theory, a number of basic tenets are derived:
 Metaphors structure thinking;
 Metaphors structure knowledge;
 Metaphor is central to abstract language;
 Metaphor is grounded in physical experience;
 Metaphor is ideological.
Mappings

Understanding one domain in terms of another requires a predetermined set of

corresponding points between the source and target domains. These sets are known
as "mappings." Think of them in terms of a road map. In conceptual linguistics,
mappings form the basic understanding of how you got from Point A (the source) to
Point B (the target). Each point and movement forward along the road that eventually
brings you to the final destination informs your travel and also gives meaning and
nuance to the journey once you've arrived at your destination.
The Semantics of
Morphological Relations
Formal Processes of Derivation

 Addition : some lexemes are formed combining by morphemes, e.g : armchair, busybody
 Mutation : Change of vowel, change of consonant or both and by change of stress e.g :
Proud -> Pride, Believe -> Belief, Choose -> Choice.
 Conversion or zero change : The simple change of a word of one class to another with no
formal alliteration eg : clean, dry, equal (adjective also verb)
 Substraction (or reduction) : By removing parts of certain lexemes new lexemes are
formed (acronym and clipping)
Semantics Processes in Derivation

 Noun represent entities ; Verb represents activities ; adjective representS qualities or

characteristic
 When a verb converted to a noun, the nounmay refer to concrete entity –a person, objector
place associated with what the verb signifies.
 When a verb is derived from a noun, an entity becomes a predicate an entity or status
losing its quantifiable nature but becoming part of a tense - aspect system
 A noun or verb converted to an adjective gives a word that names a quality associated with
some entity.
1. Verbs formed form nouns

a. Transfer meanings
 Roger painted the wall ->put paint on the wall
 Susan peeled an apple > remove the peel from an apple
 We're bottling wine ->putting wine in bottle
 They're mining coal -> removing coal from mine
b. Effective meanings

 The accident crippled my friend -> cause him to be a cripple

 She babies her husband -make him like acripple baby.
c. Instrumental meanings

 Harry locked the door -> use the lock with respect to the door
 Lucy penned the note -> use a pen to write adoo note
d. Vehicular meanings ( instrument+ transfer)

 Sandra is skating from here to the corner ->move (oneself) on skate

 The company is trucking from the mine to the factory-> move (something) by truck
2. Verbs from Adjectives

 Causative ex: Ella dried the dishes -> Ella caused the dishes to be dry
 Inchoative ex: The towels dry -> The towels become dry.
3. Verbs from verbs

 Repetitive (prefix re-)ex: re-write, re-capture, re-tell

 Reversive ('undoing' prefix, namely un-,deor dis-)ez: fold - unfold, lock unlock
 Privative (remove or detach N)ex: arm- disarm, cover - uncover, load -unload
4. Adjectives derived from verbs

 Active - subjective (-ing) ex: amusing, charming, interesting

ex: this book is boring (to me)
 Passive objective (-ed, -en) ex:amused, broken, interested
ex: I am bored (with / by this book)
5. Adjectives derived from nouns

 The adjective means "like N", ex: childish ->like a child

 The adjective means "having (some quantityof) N, affected by N, displaying N", ex:
muddy having mud
 Some adjectives mean "leading to N, likely to produce N" ex: healthful -> leading to
(good)health
 6. Adjectives derived from adjectives

 Tendency -> has a suffix-ish with the meaning "partially, tending toward". ex: bluish, oldish, yellowish
 Negative -> has a prefix to indicate the negative or change the suffix-ful, -less. Ex: unfinished, uneasy,
painless, etc
7. Nouns derived from verbs

 Action nouns, ex: the bus arrived promptly the prompt arrival of the bus
 Effect nouns, ex: George replied to our letter- George's reply to our letter
 Agent/ instrument nouns, ex: Harry drives -Harry is a driver
 Affected nouns, ex: somebody employs Harry- Harry is employee
 Place nouns, ex: the ship anchor here this isan anchorage
 8. Nouns derived from adjectives

 Abstract nouns -> a way of treating the quality as a thing, ex: depth, warmth, width, kindness, literacy
 Characterized nouns -> places characterized by what the adjective represents, ex: absentee, rapids, shallows
9. Nouns derived from nouns

 Place nouns -> where the basic noun is to be found,ex: fishery, hermitage, orphanage
 Person nouns -> labels for humans associated with whatever the basic noun signifies, ex:
mountaineer, islander, New Yorker.