Dr.

Daphne LJ Huang
Department of English Language, Literature and Linguistics
Providence University

Semantics
The meaning of language
Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams (2014)
Chapter 4
Introduction
• What is meaning?

• Word meaning
Bear - Meanings of a word
Sofa/couch - Meanings between words

• Sentence meaning
Jack saw a man with a telescope
Jack put off the meeting/ Jack put the meeting off
• What is semantics?

• Semantics - the study of the linguistic meaning of

morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences
Lexical semantics – meanings of words and the
meaning relationships among words
Phrasal/sentential semantics – meaning of
syntactic units larger than the word
Pragmatics – how context affect meaning
• Our knowledge of the language includes our
syntactic knowledge as well as our knowledge
about meaning.

• Syntax and semantics have to work together.

Sentence meaning
• Our linguistic knowledge that permits us to
determine whether a sentence is true or false.
• Truth-conditional semantics (compositional
semantics)
• Declarative sentences
- Jack swims/Jack kissed Laura  true or false (truth
value)
• Truth
• Entailment and related notions
• Ambiguity
Truth conditions
• True conditions of sentences
 Sentence meaning can be true or false.

(1) All kings are male. Meaning of ‘king’?

(2) All bachelors are married.

Meaning of ‘bachelor’?
 true?
• Jack swims
false?
• Knowing the meaning of a sentence means
knowing under what circumstances it would be
true or false according to your knowledge of the
world, namely its truth conditions.

• Most sentences are true or false in a given

situation. ( Not ALWAYS true or ALWAYS false)
• A restricted number of sentences are always true
regardless of the circumstances.  tautologies
- Circles are round.
- A person who is single is not married.

• Some sentences are always false.  contradictions

- Circles are square
- A bachelor is married
Entailment
• Entailment is talking about relation between two sentences.

(1a) Jack swims beautifully  true

(1a) entails (1b)
(1b) Jack swims  true of false?

(2a) Ruth is a wealthy psychiatrist.

(2b) Ruth is a psychiatrist. (2a) entails (2b)

• Entailment
• One sentence entails another if whenever the first sentence is
true the second one is also true.
• Entailment goes only in one direction.
• Negating both sentences reverses the entailment.
(1a) Jack doesn’t swim.
(1b) Jack doesn’t swim beautifully.

(2a) Ruth is not a wealthy psychiatrist.

(2b) Ruth is not a psychiatrist.
• Your own example of entailment?
Homework (5/3)
1. Come up with three sets of examples showing
entailment.
2. Come up with three examples of tautologies.
3. Come up with three examples of contradictions.
Other meaning relations
• Synonymous (paraphrases)
Two sentences are synonymous if they are both
true or false.
(a) Jack put off the meeting
(b) Jack postponed the meeting
 Two sentences are synonymous if they entail
each other.
• Contradictory
Two sentences are contradictory if, whenever one is
true, the other is false. There is no situation in
which they are both true or both false.
(a) Jack is alive.
(b) Jack is dead.
 Two sentences are contradictory if one entails
the negation of the other.
EXAMPLES?
Ambiguity
• Structural ambiguity: the sentence is associated with
two different phrase structures, each corresponding to
a different meaning.
- The boy saw the man with a telescope

• Lexical ambiguity: when at least one word in a phrase

has more than one meaning
- You’re still young. (1) Young of age
(2) Inexpert

• Our knowledge of lexical and structural ambiguities

reveals that the meaning of a linguistic expression is
built on the words and its syntactic structure.
Lexical ambiguity
• A word belongs to two or more lexical categories
• Example ‘round’
Adjective
1. the round table
2. to round the corner Verb

3. dance in a round Noun

4. come round and see us Adverb

5. he walked round the room

Preposition
• Come up with four examples of lexical ambiguity:
two in Chinese and two in English
Compositional semantics
• Grammar contains semantic rules that combine the
meanings of words into meaningful phrases and
sentences.

• Principle of compositionality states that the

meaning of a sentence is the sum of its parts.

• The meaning of an expression is composed of the

meanings of its parts and how they are combined
structurally.
Compositional semantics

• Jack swims
referent

Semantic rules: the meanings of the individual

words can be summarised as
Word Meanings
Jack refers to the individual Jack
swims refers to the set of individuals that swim
• Semantic Rule I
If the meaning of NP is a member of the meaning of VP,
then S is TRUE, otherwise it is FALSE.
Jack swims

• Semantic Rule II
The meaning of [VP V NP] is the set of individuals X such
that X is the first member of any pair in the meaning of
V whose second member is the meaning of NP.
Jack kissed Laura
Word Meanings
Jack refers to the individual Jack
Laura refers to the individual Laura
kissed refers to the set of pairs of individuals X and Y such that X
kissed Y.
When compositionality goes awry
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
• Time is money
• Put his foot in his mouth

• Metaphors
• Idioms
Lexical semantics (word meanings)
• Theories of word meaning
- Reference
Jack  proper name; NP; Jack the person is the
referent

- Sense
Meaning includes both reference and something extra.
winter
Donald Trump
baby Vs.
dog The American President
Lexical relations
• Words are semantically related to one another in a
variety or ways.

- Synonyms
Words or expressions that have the same meaning in
some or all contexts.
(1a) He’s sitting on the sofa.
(1b) He’s sitting on the couch.
(2a) Mary is content with Mark’s decision.
(2b) Mary is happy with Mark’s decision.
• The idea of ‘sameness’ of meaning is not ‘total
sameness’.

• There are no perfect synonyms – that is, no two

words have exactly the same meaning.

• Synonymous forms may differ in terms of formal

and informal uses.
3(a) My father purchased a large automobile.
3(b) My dad bought a big car.
English Latin

Manly Virile

Heal Recuperate

Send Transmit

Go down descend

Homework: Find two pairs of synonyms and discuss the

similarities and differences in terms of meaning and use.
- Antonyms
Words that are opposite in meaning.

happy sad

[+emotional state] [+emotional state]

[+positive] [-positive]
Complementary pairs (non-gradable antonyms)
Words whose meanings exclude the possibility of co-
existence and are not context-dependent. ‘either-or’
alive/dead present/absent

Comparative constructions are not normally used

*John is more dead than Harry.

The negative of one member of a complementary pair does

imply the other member.
My grandparents aren’t alive = My grandparents are dead.
Gradable pairs
Words holding an opposite relationship to one
another to varying degrees based on context.
big/small hot/cold • Among the antonyms, one is marked
and the other unmarked.

The negative of one member of a gradable pair

does not necessarily imply the other.
My car isn’t old = My car is new
Relational opposites
Words that are defined in reference to each other.
‘If X is the husband of Y, then Y has to be the wife of
X’
employer employee
teacher pupil
• Come up with two examples for each type
- Synonyms
- Complementary pairs (antonyms)
- Gradable pairs (antonyms)
- Relational opposites (antonyms)
• In English there are several ways to form antonyms.
- un-
likely/unlikely
able/unable
- non-
conformist/nonconformist
- in-
dress (v.) VERSUS undress (v.)
tolerant/intolerant Does ‘undress’ mean ‘not dress’?
 Reversives
discreet/indiscrete
• Homonyms (homophones)
Words that have different meanings but are pronounced the same 
ambiguity
I’ll meet you by the bank.
bare bear
Where did you pick the [flaʊɚ]?
meat meet
sew so
• Polysemy right write
Words that have multiple meanings that are related conceptually or
historically
finger
diamond
foot (of person, of bed, of mountain)
• Hyponyms  Hierarchical relationship
A word whose semantic field is included within that of
another word
red/white/blue > colour words
lion/tiger/leopard > felines

- The relationship of hyponymy is between the more

general term (colour) and the more specific instances
of it (red).
General hyponym
Red is a hyponym of color.
animal dog
Lion is a hyponym of feline.
dog poodle
Vegetable carrot
Semantic features
• Words and morphemes have meanings.
• Semantic properties are pieces of information of
the words on which speakers of the language agree.
tigress hen aunt maiden woman +FEMALE

• Words have a semantic property are in a semantic

class.
Semantic features
• A basic set of semantic features or properties are
part of word meanings and that reflect our
knowledge about what words mean.
girl/woman
boy/man
table horse boy man girl woman
animate - + + + + +
human - - + + + +
female - - - - + +
adult - + - + - +
 +human

Set (1) person woman doctor boy engineer baby

Set (2) doe lady sister mare her

+female

Set (3) girl actress woman aunt wife widow

+human
Set (4) child baby puppy kitten +female

+animate
+young
• Decomposing the meanings of words into semantic
features can clarify how certain words relate to
other words.
big/red?
buy/sell  relational opposites
• Semantic features interact with morphology and
syntax. These effects show up in both nouns and
verbs.

• Semantic features of nouns

count nouns
mass nouns
• Semantic features of verbs
Verbs have semantic features as part of their
meaning.
Cause is a feature of verbs such as darken, kill,
uglify.
Argument structure
• The argument structure of a verb is part of its
meaning and is included in its lexical entry.
a) John smiled
b) John found Mary
c) John gave Mary a book
 NP
• Intransitive: ________ arguments
• Transitive: ________ arguments
• Ditransitive: ________ arguments
Thematic roles
• The NP arguments in the VP are semantically
related in various ways to the verb. The relations
depend on the meaning of the particular verb.
1) The boy rolled a red ball.
agent theme/undergoer
 thematic roles

• Thematic roles express the kind of relation that

holds between the arguments of the verb and
the type of situation that the verb describes.
2) The boy threw the red ball to the girl
agent theme goal

Professor S awaked Harry Potter with his wand

source experiencer instrument

3) John sold the book to Mary

4) Mary bought the book from John

 Thematic role assignment (theta assignment) is connected to

syntactic structure.
• Our knowledge of verbs includes their syntactic
category, which arguments they select, and the
thematic roles they assign to their arguments.
The dog bit the stick
The stick was bitten by the dog

• The uniformity of theta assignment dictates that

the various thematic roles are always in their
proper structural place in deep structure.
Exercise – Thematic roles
(1) The boy opened the door with the key

(2) The key opened the door

(3) The door opened

For more online exercises, see

http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Semantics/Sema
nticsidentifythematicroles#vips_7536
Definition
• Agent – the argument that carries out the action of a verb
• Jack kissed Jill.

• Experiencer – the argument that undergoes an emotion or

perception with the senses
• Jill was tired of being kissed.

• Theme – the argument that undergoes the action of a verb

• Jack kissed Jill.
• Jill pushed Jack down the hill.

https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/an-introduction-to-semantics/
• Recipient – the argument that receives anything as a result of the
action of the verb
• Jack sent flowers to Jill as an apology.

• Goal – the direction towards which the action of a verb moves

• He decided to go to Hawaii for a break.

• Source – the direction from which the action of a verb moves

• He checked out some books from the library to take on vacation.

• Instrument – the object with which action of a verb is carried out

• Jill called Jack with her cell phone.

https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/an-introduction-to-semantics/
Exercise – Semantic Properties of Words

•What are the semantic properties

of the words:
+human
a. woman – girl +female

+human
b. mother – father +parent

c. sister – brother +human

+child
+sibling
• What are the semantic properties of the
words:
d. car – bicycle – motorcycle – bus – truck
+vehicle
+model of transportation

e. cat, dog, goldfish, parakeet, hamster

+animal
+domestic animal
Exercise - Hyponyms
1. Sedan, coupe, hathback, convertible,
SUV, minivan = hyponyms of the
words CAR
2. Daisy, primrose, carnation, rose =
hyponyms of the words FLOWER
3. Hammer, screwdriver, drill, pliers =
hyponyms of the words TOOL
4. Hyponyms of the word APPLIANCE =
stove, fridge, freezer, etc.
5. Hyponyms of the word FRUIT =
strawberry, apple, orange, etc.
6. Hyponyms of the word FURNITURE =
sofa, bed, coffee table, etc.
Exercise - Synonyms
• Explain the difference between each
synonym:
a. Student = one who is learning
b. Pupil = one who is under the tutelage of
a famous instructor
c. Carry = to move while supporting
d. Tote = to carry by hand
• Explain the difference between each synonym:
a. Child = a young person especially between infancy
and youth
b. Kid = a young person; often used as a generalized
reference to one especially younger or less
experienced
c. Slept = to rest in a state of sleep
d. Napped = to sleep briefly especially during the day
Exercise - Homonyms
• Homonym pairs:
a. bear (animal) and bear (carry)
b. lean (thin) and lean (rest against)
c. lap (to drink with tongue) and lap (a
circuit)
d. miss (unmarried woman) and miss (to
overlook)
Homophones:
a. arc - curve
ark – Noah’s boat
b. ate – chewed up and swallowed
eight – number after seven
c. bare - uncovered
bear – grizzly animal
d. cent – penny coin
sent – did send
Exercise - Antonyms
• What kind of antonyms are these:
a. True/False: Gradable / Relational
b. Bright/Dark: Gradable
c. Over/Under: Relational
d. Married/Single: Relational
e. Doctor/Patient: Relational
f. Stop/Go: Relational
g. Tall/Short: Gradable
h. Buy/Sell: Relational