Semantics

1
Semantics

• The meaning of words, phrases, and sentences,
  regardless of the context that those utterances
  are created in
• What do we mean by meaning?
• Truth value
• Synonymy
• Implication
• Contradiction
• Anomaly
• Ambiguity
• Vagueness

2
3 Types of Meaning

• Linguistic meaning
• Addresses reference and sense
• Social meaning
• Meaning is added by the social situation
• Affective meaning
• Emotional affect of linguistic units
• Linguistic meaning is often referred to as
  denotative meaning Social and Affective are
  often referred to as connotative meaning

3
Denotative

• Reference
• Meaning based upon real world objects/events
• 2 words with the same referent are coreferential
• George Bush 43rd President of the US
• Sense
• Additional information carried by a word that is
  not directly related to its referent
• Unicorn or the present king of France
• Sue Malone vs a boy named Sue

4
Connotative

• Social
• I says to him, We aint got none of that
• Yall doin ok?
• Great chow!
• Affective
• Tina is smart
• Tina is brilliant
• Tina is brainy
• Tina is a brainiac

5
Semantic Properties

• All the information that is contained in a single
  word
• Grouped into categories
• A word is either or a property
• Also known as binary semantics
• Common Semantic Properties
• Concrete, Animate, Count, Human,Female, Young

6
Word Relationships

• Hyponymy
• Part/Whole
• Synonyms
• Antonyms
• Converseness

• Homonyms
• Polysemy
• Heteronyms
• Homographs

7
Extended Meaning

• Metaphor
• Extending part of the sense of one referent to
  another referent
• My car is a real lemon

• Metonyms
• Using part of an object, or using another object
  that is closely related to it, to describe the
  whole object
• Ill give you a hand

8
Thematic Roles

• Information added to syntactical roles that help
  define the sense of a sentence
• Sentences are verb oriented
• Joan does her job
• Joan likes her job
• Joan was married to her job
• Joan impregnates her job

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Thematic Roles

• Agent
• Does an action
• Theme/Patient
• To what/whom the action is done
• Benefactor
• For what/whom an action is done
• Experiencer
• Perceives something

• Instrument
• Means to perform action
• Causative
• Natural force that causes change
• Possessor
• Possesses something
• Locative
• Where event happens
• Temporal
• When event happens