UC 00902:

MEANING
IN COMMUNICATION
CONTEXT
LESSON 4:
Meaning and Lexime

WHAT IS LEXICAL SEMANTIC

Study of word is called lexicology
A collection of words is called lexicon eg.
Dictionary
Word is lexical item or lexeme
Study of word meaning is lexical semantic

HOW TO EXPLORE
LEXEME/WORD
There

are two main modes for

exploring word meaning:
in

relation to other words

in relation to the world

HOW TO EXPLORE
LEXEME/WORD
Lexical/sense

relations (meaning in
relation to other words)
Semantic

field
Synonymy & antonymy
Hyponymy & meronymy
Semantic Primes (NSM)
Componential analysis

Denotation

the world)

(meaning in relation to

LEXICAL/SENSE RELATION
While

analysis of the semantic content of an

utterance is possible using differently sized
chunks of language (phrases, sentences,
entire texts), it is common to start on the
word level and to examine words that
intuitively seem to go together. Drawing
up a map of sense relations is possible only
after developing terms to describe these
relations. Are two terms neighbors?
Opposites? Do they have a part-whole
relationship?

WHAT IS SEMANTIC FIELD?

As

has already been discussed,

semantics is concerned with meaning.
One way of defining meaning is by
looking at the relationship of a group of
terms in unison.
eyes, hands, nose, feet
green, red, purple, yellow
cut, chop, slice

WHAT IS SYNONYMY?
Synonymy

is the degree of sameness (in

regards to meaning) that two terms
share. Natural languages afford fairly
little space for complete synonyms (that
would not be economical) and accordingly,
small meaning differences exist. Buy and
purchase are an example for two nearcomplete synonyms.

WHAT IS ANTONYMS?

Antonyms are binary opposition

pairs such as happy unhappy, tall
short, young old, war peace.
Their decisive quality is that the
meaning of one term automatically
excludes the other someone who is
tall is not short and someone who is
unhappy is not happy.

WHAT IS HYPONOMY?
Hyponomy

describes hierarchical relations

between terms. If we can say that X is a kind of
Y, a hyponymous relationship exists between X
and Y. The two examples below illustrate this
kind of connection.
color
|
blue red green yellow purple white black
cook
|
toast boil fry grill roast bake microwave
In the examples, the terms color and cook are
superordinates, while the words listed below
them are their hyponyms.

WHAT IS MERONYMY?
A

part of something bigger eg names for

parts:
finger

is a meronym of hand.
Hard disc is a meronym of comuputer

WHAT IS SEMANTIC PRIMES/NSM?

Natural

Semantic Metalanguage (NSM;

Goddard and Wierzbicka 2007):
the components that linguists have
traditionally used to perform
componential analysis dont reflect
indigenous conceptualizations. For
example, componential analyses of the
terms man, woman and child typically
involve concepts for which not all
languages have words: male, female, adult.

WHAT IS NSM?

Substantives: I, YOU, SOMEONE,

SOMETHING/THING, PEOPLE, BODY
Relational substantives: KIND, PART
Determiners: THIS, THE SAME, OTHER/ELSE
Quantifiers: ONE, TWO, MUCH/MANY, SOME, ALL
Evaluators: GOOD, BAD
Descriptors: BIG, SMALL
Mental predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL,
SEE, HEAR
Speech: SAY, WORDS, TRUE
Actions, events, movement, contact: DO, HAPPEN,
MOVE, TOUCH

WHAT IS NSM?

Location, existence, possession, specification: BE

(SOMEWHERE),BE/EXIST, HAVE, BE
(SOMEONE/SOMETHING)
Life and death: LIVE, DIE
Time: WHEN/TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, A
LONG/SHORT TIME, FOR SOME TIME,
MOMENT/IN ONE MOMENT
Space: WHERE/PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, BELOW,
NEAR, FAR,SIDE, INSIDE
Logical concepts: NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF
Intensifier, augmentor: VERY, MORE
Similarity: LIKE/AS

 Words

can be analyzed and described in

WHAT
ANALYSIS?
termsIS
of COMPONENTIAL
their semantic components,
which usually come in pairs called
semantic oppositions:
"Up"

and "Down,
"plus and "minus
more or less

Binary taxonomy
Polarity
Relation

+LIVE = alive
-LIVE = dead
^SIZE = large
vSIZE = small
>PARENT = is the parent of
<PARENT = is the child of
(also bidirectional, such as sibling)

Language talks about the world, and ultimately, in

DENOTATION (MEANING IN
order to know what a word like horse or despair
RELATION
TO THEtoWORLD)
means, it is necessary
know something about the
world.
One wayof getting at the connection between
meaning and the world is to consider

truth

conditions
entailment
presuppositions
selectional restrictions
implicature
connotation
vagueness

JOURNAL 4
Give

2 examples of Synonymy in Malay and

English
Give 2 examples of Antonymy in Malay and
English
Give 2 examples of Hyponymy in Malay and
English
Give 2 examples of Meronymy in Malay and
English
Give examples of 2 words and their difference by
Semantic Primes in Malay and English
Give examples of 2 words and their difference by
Componential analysis in Malay and English