SEMANTICS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A.    BACKGROUND

Cognitive Linguistics is, by definition, a usage-based approach to language.Its model of language places usage at the very foundations of linguisticstructure with a linguistic sign, the form-meaning pair, argued to becomeentrenched through repeated successful use. It is this entrenchment thatrenders symbolic gestures linguistic rather than merely incidental and rep-resents the key to structure in language. Patterns of language usage acrossmany individuals can be argued to be indices of shared entrenchment.When large numbers of language users possess the same or similar en-trenchment, we can talk about grammar, that is, linguistic structure.

           

CHAPTER II CONTENT

1.      Lexical semantics Lexical Semantics is a subfield of linguisticsemantics. It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote (Pustejovsky, 1995). Words may either be taken to denote things in the world or concepts, depending on the particular approach to lexical semantics. The units of meaning in lexical semantics are lexical units, which a speaker can continually add to throughout their life, learning new words and their meanings. By contrast, one can only easily learn the grammatical rules of one's native language during a critical period when one is young. Lexical semantics covers theories of the classification and decomposition of word meaning, the differences and similarities in lexical semantic structure between different languages, and the relationship of word meaning to sentence meaning and syntax . One question that lexical semantics explores is whether the meaning of a lexical unit is established by looking at its neighbourhood in the semantic net (by looking at the other words it occurs with in natural sentences), or if the meaning is already locally contained in the lexical unit. Another topic that is explored is the mapping of words to concepts. As tools, lexical relations (defined as patterns of association that exist between lexical items in a language[1]) like synonymy, antonymy (opposites), hyponymy and hypernymy - and to a certain degree homonymy as well - are used in this field. 2.      Lexical Fields Related to the concept of hyponymy, but more loosely defined, is the notion of a lexical field. A lexical field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words. The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property. Most often, fields are defined by subject matter, such as body parts, landforms, diseases, colors, foods, or kinship relations. Internally, these may be organized as a hierarchy (e.g. royalty, military ranks), as a meronymy (e.g. body parts), as a sequence (e.g. numbers), or as a cycle (e.g. days of the week, months of the year), as well as with no discernible order. A thesaurus is generally organized according to substantive fields (although it also makes use of hyponymy and synonymy). The words which are part of a lexical field enter into sense or meaning relationships with one another. Each word delimits the meaning of the next word in the field and is delimited by it; that is, it marks off an area or range within the semantic domain. However, there may be a fair amount of overlap in meaning between words in a domain, and it is often difficult to find mutually delimiting terms. Within a domain, some words are marked, while some are unmarked; the unmarked members are more frequent, more basic, broader in meaning, easier to learn and remember, not metaphorical, and typically one morpheme or single lexical item. The marked members often consist of more than one lexical item and may denote a subtype of the unmarked member. Let's consider some examples of lexical fields. The field of "parts of the face" (see the table below, part a) is a substantive field of part to whole. Terms within the field are arranged spatially and quite clearly delimited, though there is some overlap between terms such as forehead and temple. Terms such as bridge of the nose or eyelids would constitute marked members of the field. The field of "stages of life" (see b) is arranged sequentially, though there is considerable overlap between terms (e.g. child, toddler) as well as some apparent gaps (e.g. there are no simple terms for the different stages of adulthood). Note that a term such a minor or juvenile belongs to a technical register, a term such as kid or tot to a colloquial register, and a term such as sexagenarian or octogenarian to a more formal register. The semantic field of "water" (see c) could be divided into a number of subfields; in addition, there would appear to be a great deal of overlap between terms such as sound/fjord or cove/harbor/bay. The semantic field of "clothing" (see d) is a particularly rich one, with many unmarked terms (such as dress or pants) as well as many marked terms (such as pedal-pushers or smoking jacket). The field of clothing might be organized in many different ways – by sex of wearer, by occasion of wearing, by body part covered, and so on. Finally, the field of "jewelry" (see e) would seem to include quite well-delimited terms, with a number of unmarked terms. Examples of lexical fields: (a) Parts of the Face, (b) Stages of Life, (c) Water, (d) Clothing, and (e) Jewelry   (a)   parts of the face forehead   brow   temples   nose   nostrils   bridge/tip of the nose septum   mouth   lips   eyes   eyebrows   eyelids   eyelashes   chin   cheeks   jaw   jowls     (b)   stages of life    new-born       young adult    infant       adult    nursling, suckling       grown up person    baby, babe       middle aged person    child, kid       senior citizen    toddler, tot       mature person    preschooler       aged person    youngster       senior citizen, senior    adolescent       old {lady, man, person}    youth       sexagenarian    lad/lass       septuagenarian    preteen       octogenarian    teenager, teen       nonagenarian    juvenile, minor       centenarian   (c)  water forms: ice, water, steam, vapor, sleet, rain, snow, hail bodies of water: ditch, slough, swamp, narrows, strait, inlet, bight, ___bayou, brine, deep, firth, loch, tarn, well, reservoir, firth, pool, sea, ___ocean, lake, pond, bay, inlet, estuary, fjord, sound, gulf, lagoon, ___cove, harbor water in motion: creek, river, waves, billows, stream, rain, brook, ___rivulet, tributary, spring frozen water: ice, snow, crystal, sleet, hail, icicle, iceberg, rime, ___hoarfrost, glacier gas: vapor, steam   (d)  clothing     dress (cocktail-, strapless-, shirtwaist-) gown (evening-, ball-)     Toga shift jumper smock     jumpsuit suit pantsuit sports coat     Vest pajamas nightgown smoking jacket     bathrobe tee-shirt shirt blouse     undershirt turtleneck pants/slacks trousers     shorts knickers cut-offs skorts     culottes skirt peddle-pushers bloomers     underwear panties brassière girdle     Hat cap beret tam     toque scarf headband earmuffs     Belt tie suspenders gaiters, spats     socks tights pantyhose stockings     gloves mittens muff muffler     shawl cape coat (sports-, rain-, over-, top-, lab-)     jacket parka wind-breaker anorak     sweater pullover cardigan apron   (e)  jewelry     Ring   earring     nose-ring     brooch     watch   wristwatch     pocket-watch     stud     Pin   pendant     necklace     choker     crown   tiara     bracelet     anklet     cufflinks   stick-pin     tie-clasp     belt buckle Now try to list the possible members of the following semantic fields: 1.    vocalization 2.    types of roads 3.    personality traits

There are some categories of  relationship meaning of words :

1.      Synonyms

Synonyms are words with the same or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greeksyn (σύν) ("with") and onoma (ὄνομα) ("name"). An example of synonyms are the words begin and commence. Likewise, if we talk about a long time or an extended time, long and extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:

"a widespread impression that... Hollywood was synonymous with immorality"

Synonyms can be any part of speech (such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or prepositions), as long as both words are the same part of speech. Here are more examples of English synonyms:

• verb
• "buy" and "purchase"
• adjective
• "big" and "large"
• adverb
• "quickly" and "speedily"
• preposition
• "on" and "upon"

Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance, pupil as the "aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with student. Likewise, he expired means the same as he died, yet my passport has expired cannot be replaced by my passport has died.

In English, many synonyms emerged in the Middle Ages, after the Norman conquest of England. While England's new ruling class spoke Norman French, the lower classes continued to speak Old English (Anglo-Saxon). Thus, today we have synonyms like the Norman-derived "people", "liberty" and "archer", and the Saxon-derived "folk", "freedom" and "bowman". For more examples, see the list of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English.

Some lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology, orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason: feline is more formal than cat; long and extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a long arm is not the same as an extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of euphemisms.

2.      Antonyms

An antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings. Each word in the pair is the antithesis of the other. A word may have more than one antonym. There are three categories of antonyms identified by the nature of the relationship between the opposed meanings. Where the two words have definitions that lie on a continuous spectrum of meaning, they are gradable antonyms. Where the meanings do not lie on a continuous spectrum and the words have no other lexical relationship, they are complementary antonyms. Where the two meanings are opposite only within the context of their relationship, they are relational antonyms.

3.      Gradable antonyms

A gradable antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings where the two meanings lie on a continuous spectrum. Temperature is such a continuous spectrum so hot and cold, two meanings on opposite ends of the spectrum, are gradable antonyms. Other examples include: heavy, light; fat, skinny; dark, light; young, old; early, late; empty, full; dull, interesting.

4.      Complementary antonyms

A complementary antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings, where the two meanings do not lie on a continuous spectrum. There is no continuous spectrum between push and pull but they are opposite in meaning and are therefore complementary antonyms. Other examples include: dead, alive; off, on; day, night; exit, entrance; exhale, inhale; occupied, vacant; identical, different.

5.      Relational antonyms

A relational antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite meanings, where opposite makes sense only in the context of the relationship between the two meanings. There is no lexical opposite of teacher, but teacher and pupil are opposite within the context of their relationship. This makes them relational antonyms. Other examples include: husband, wife; doctor, patient; predator, prey; teach, learn; servant, master; come, go; parent, child.

In linguistics, a hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic field^[1] is included within that of another word, its hypernym (sometimes spelled hyperonym outside of the natural language processing community^. In simpler terms, a hyponym shares a type-of relationship with its hypernym. For example, scarlet, vermilion, carmine, and crimson are all hyponyms of red (their hypernym), which is, in turn, a hyponym of colour.^[2]

6.      Hypernymy

Hypernymyis the semantic relation in which one word is the hypernym of another. Hypernymy, the relation in which words stand when their extensions stand in the relation of class to subclass, should not be confused with holonymy, which is the relation in which words stand when the things that they denote stand in the relation of whole to part. A similar warning applies to hyponymy and meronymy.

In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings.^[1] Thus homonyms are simultaneously homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of their pronunciation) andhomophones (words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of their spelling). The state of being a homonym is called homonymy. Examples of homonyms are the pair stalk (part of a plant) and stalk (follow/harass a person) and the pair left (past tense of leave) and left (opposite of right). A distinction is sometimes made between "true" homonyms, which are unrelated in origin, such as skate (glide on ice) and skate (the fish), and polysemous homonyms, or polysemes, which have a shared origin, such as mouth (of a river) and mouth (of an animal).

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

            Lexical Semantics is a subfield of linguisticsemantics. It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote .Words may either be taken to denote things in the world or concepts, depending on the particular approach to lexical semantics.

A lexical field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words. The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property. Most often, fields are defined by subject matter, such as body parts, landforms, diseases, colors, foods, or kinship relations. Internally, these may be organized as a hierarchy (e.g. royalty, military ranks), as a meronymy (e.g. body parts), as a sequence (e.g. numbers), or as a cycle (e.g. days of the week, months of the year), as well as with no discernible order. A thesaurus is generally organized according to substantive fields (although it also makes use of hyponymy and synonymy).

REFERENCE

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