Transcript Semantics - Francisco Perlas Dumanig
Slide 1
Semantics
Dr. Francisco Perlas Dumanig
Slide 2
What is semantics?
Semantics - the study of meaning in human language.
Four major topics in semantics:
1. The nature of meaning.
2. Some properties of the conceptual system underlying meaning.
3. The contribution of syntactic structure to the interpretation of sentences.
4.The role of non-grammatical factors in the understanding of utterances.
Slide 3
What is semantics?
Semantics – the study of meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences.
Morphemes - a meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further
divided
Example: in, come, -ing, forming incoming
Word - is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or
pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning)
Examples: walk, book, write
Phrase - is two or more words that do not contain the subject-verb pair necessary to
form a clause. Phrases can be very short or quite long.
Examples: in the garden, at the office
Sentence – is a word or group of words that has a complete thought.
Example: He comes to class on time.
Slide 4
Semantics
Lexical semantics - deals with the meaning of words, and the
relationship among words.
Sentential/phrasal semantics - deals with the meaning of syntactic units
larger than the word.
Slide 5
Semantics
- is the study of word meaning and sentence meaning abstracted away from the context of use.
- it is an attempt to describe and understand the nature of the knowledge about meaning in their
language that people have from knowing the language.
Example: Hold out your arm. That’s it.
Note:
You need to know the meaning of the expressions arm, your arm, hold out, that’s, it.
hold out – denotes an action
arm – denotes a part of a person
your arm – denotes “arm of the person being spoken to”
that – denotes something which is obvious to whomever is addressed
it - denotes that has been recently spoken about
Slide 6
Expression
• is any meaningful language unit or sequence of meaningful units, from a
sentence down: a clause, a phrase, a word, or meaningful part of a word.
Slide 7
What is Pragmatics?
Pragmatics
- is the study of how context affects meaning.
- is about the interaction of semantic knowledge with our knowledge of the world,
taking into account the contexts of use.
Example: Hold out your arm. That’s it.
Refer to the detailed explanation on page 2, paragraph 3.
Slide 8
Semantics versus Pragmatics
• See Table 1.1 on page 3
Slide 9
Differences between Semantics and
Pragmatics
• Utterances and sentences
• Stages of interpretation
Utterances – are the raw data of linguistics. Each utterance is
unique, having been produced by a particular sender in a specific
situation.
• Sentence – is the abstract linguistic object on which an utterance
is based.
Semantics
Dr. Francisco Perlas Dumanig
Slide 2
What is semantics?
Semantics - the study of meaning in human language.
Four major topics in semantics:
1. The nature of meaning.
2. Some properties of the conceptual system underlying meaning.
3. The contribution of syntactic structure to the interpretation of sentences.
4.The role of non-grammatical factors in the understanding of utterances.
Slide 3
What is semantics?
Semantics – the study of meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences.
Morphemes - a meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further
divided
Example: in, come, -ing, forming incoming
Word - is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or
pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning)
Examples: walk, book, write
Phrase - is two or more words that do not contain the subject-verb pair necessary to
form a clause. Phrases can be very short or quite long.
Examples: in the garden, at the office
Sentence – is a word or group of words that has a complete thought.
Example: He comes to class on time.
Slide 4
Semantics
Lexical semantics - deals with the meaning of words, and the
relationship among words.
Sentential/phrasal semantics - deals with the meaning of syntactic units
larger than the word.
Slide 5
Semantics
- is the study of word meaning and sentence meaning abstracted away from the context of use.
- it is an attempt to describe and understand the nature of the knowledge about meaning in their
language that people have from knowing the language.
Example: Hold out your arm. That’s it.
Note:
You need to know the meaning of the expressions arm, your arm, hold out, that’s, it.
hold out – denotes an action
arm – denotes a part of a person
your arm – denotes “arm of the person being spoken to”
that – denotes something which is obvious to whomever is addressed
it - denotes that has been recently spoken about
Slide 6
Expression
• is any meaningful language unit or sequence of meaningful units, from a
sentence down: a clause, a phrase, a word, or meaningful part of a word.
Slide 7
What is Pragmatics?
Pragmatics
- is the study of how context affects meaning.
- is about the interaction of semantic knowledge with our knowledge of the world,
taking into account the contexts of use.
Example: Hold out your arm. That’s it.
Refer to the detailed explanation on page 2, paragraph 3.
Slide 8
Semantics versus Pragmatics
• See Table 1.1 on page 3
Slide 9
Differences between Semantics and
Pragmatics
• Utterances and sentences
• Stages of interpretation
Utterances – are the raw data of linguistics. Each utterance is
unique, having been produced by a particular sender in a specific
situation.
• Sentence – is the abstract linguistic object on which an utterance
is based.