Semantics &
Pragmatics
Studying Meaning in Form and in Context
Types of Meaning
O Word meaning (Lexical semantics)
Chien is French for ‘dog’.
How do you say ‘leg’ in Spanish?
Either pierna or pata.
O Sentence meaning (Structural semantics)
The mailman bit the dog.
I saw the man with the telescope.
O Meaning in context (Pragmatics)
Your room is real messy. [Said by friend ↔ parent]
To the airport. Fast.
Sense versus Referent
O The phrase Barack Obama refers to
O The phrase the US president refers to
yet
O The two phrase have different senses:
Barack Obama: ‘name of a guy’
US president:
‘the commander in chief’
Shifting Referents
O Pronouns like I, you, he, she, it, we, and they
may refer to different entities any time they
are used.
Lexical Semantics
Word meanings can be captured in different
ways:
O By a dictionary definition
“a feathered vertebrate animal: a member of the
second class (Aves) of the great Vertebrate group”
O By a prototypical image
[i.e., not a duck, penguin or
albatross]
O By a list of semantic features
Semantic Features
O Semantic features capture systematic
relations between the meanings of words:
Man Boy Girl Woman Bachelor
[human]
[adult]
[male]
[married]
+
+
+
o
+
+
o
+
o
+
+
o
+
+
+
-
The -nyms
Another way to captures systematic meaning
relations between words:
O Synonyms
Same meaning
O Antonyms
Opposite meaning
O Hyponyms
Subclass of a category
O Homonyms
Look & sound the same
O Homophones Sound the same
O Homographs Spelled the same
fall, autumn
up, down
dog, poodle
bark, bark
pear, pair
tear, tear
Synonyms
O Examples: car - automobile
fall - autumn
buy - purchase
O There are no complete synonyms.
different style/register (spit - expectorate)
different dialects
(bucket - pail)
different evaluation
(thrifty - stingy)
different collocations (sour milk - *sour butter)
near synonyms
(loose - inexact - free - lax)
Antonyms
O Complementary pairs: [negate each other]
dead – alive, present – absent, male – female
O Relational opposites:
[symmetrical endpoints]
doctor – patient, teach – learn, parent – child
O Gradable pairs:
[more or less]
young - old, big - small, poor - rich
[Intermediate terms: hot > warm > cool > cold]
small elephant
big ant
Hyponyms
O Subtypes of a class
[There are all kinds of dogs, all kinds of pasta, …]
O Poodle
O Schnauzer
O Dachshund
O Retriever
O Terrier
O Akita
O Husky
O …
Hyponyms 2
O Expert categories versus “common sense”
categories
http://comefishpanama.com/best-fishing-months/
Hyponyms 3
O Multiple levels:
plant > tree > fir > pine
Hyponyms 4
O Missing words
Category
Male
Female Non-adult
Sheep
Dog
Cat
Giraffe
ram
?
tomcat
?
ewe
bitch
?
?
lamb
puppy
kitten
?
Homonyms
O Accidental look-alikes, no special meaning
relation at all.
O Examples:
- flour, flower
- to, two, too
- She can’t bear children.
1‘She can’t have kids.’ 2‘She can’t tolerate kids.’
O Polysemy: One word with many meanings
- mouse
Polysemy: Cell
Denotation & connotation
O Denotation: Sense of a word.
O Connotations:
- Emotional shadings and attitudes towards a word.
- May differ from person to person.
- What is your attitude toward the following:
cop
police officer
whistleblower
informant
priest
Blow that whistle!
Learning goals for semantics
O Lexical vs. structural semantics; pragmatics
O Sense vs. referent; shifting referents
O Capturing word meaning (by dictionary
definition, by prototypical image, by
semantic features)
O The Nyms (synonym, homonym, antonym,
hyponym)
O Denotation vs. connotation