SEMANTICS

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SEMANTICS

• The study of meaning

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SEMANTICS

• semantics started with the diachronic study of
  word meaning
• today semantics extended to combinations of
  words
• sentence
• text
• pragmatics (speech act theory)

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Types of Semantic Change

• narrowing of meaning
• e.g. meat in M.E. food
• widening of meaning
• e.g.virtue originally only male quality
• ameliorative change
• e.g. PC vertically challenged
• pejorative change
• e.g. idiot originally rich, single man, odd,
  eccentric

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Causes of Semantic Change

• object changes, word remains the same
• phonetic change
• lætan zulassen
• lettan hindern ? these two words collapsed
  ?let? new word to hinder
• proper names change into common words
• e.g. xerox, kleenex

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Semantic Relations

• The semantic triangle (Odgen and Richards 1923)

concept/signifié
referent/thing/ object/chose
symbol/form
? no direct relationship
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Lexical Relations

• polysemy
• e.g. single
• homonymy
• e.g. bank (river bank, financial institution)
• synonymy
• e.g. hide - conceal

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Lexical Relations

• antonymy
• e.g. big small
• hyponymy
• European (hyperonym)
• Austrian
• Styrian (hyponym)