This one time I was flying out of SFO (San Francisco) and I happened to have a jar of home-

made quince preserves in my carry-on. A TSA (Transportation Security Administration) agent

stopped me, saying that the quince preserves couldn't come aboard because no gels, liquids, or

aerosols were allowed past the checkpoint. I asked him politely which of those quince preserves
were: gel, liquid, or aerosol, because they seemed a lot like fruit. His response, and I kid you not,
was "Sir, I'm not going to argue semantics with you. "
Bergen (2012)

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In semantic
analysis, there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean,
rather than on what an individual speaker might think they mean, or want them to mean,
on a particular occasion. This approach is concerned with linguistic meaning that is
shared by all competent users of the language. Doing semantics is attempting to spell out
what it is we all know when we behave as if we share knowledge of the meaning of a
word, a phrase, or a sentence in a language.
While semantics is the study of meaning in language, there is more interest in certain
aspects of meaning than in others. We have already ruled out special meanings that one
individual might attach to words or what TSA agents believe words mean, as in Ben
Bergen's story quoted earlier. That is, our main interest is in what we might describe as
the widely accepted objective or factual meaning of words and not their subjective or
personal meaning. This distinction is generally presented in terms of referential meaning
as opposed to associative or emotive meaning, such as feelings or reactions to words
that may be found among some individuals or groups but not others.
 Referential meaning covers those basic, essential components of meaning that are
conveyed by the literal use of a word. It is the type of meaning that dictionaries are
130 Semantics

designed to describe. Some of the basic components of a word like needle in English
might include "thin, sharp, steel instrument." These components would be part of the
referential meaning of needle. However, different people might have different
associations or connotations attached to a word like needle. They might associate it with
"pain," or "illness," or "blood," or "drugs, " or "thread, " or "knitting," or "hard to find"
(especially in a haystack), and these associations may differ from one person to the next.
These associations can't be part of the word's referential meaning.
One way in which the study of basic referential meaning might be helpful would be as a
means of accounting for the "oddness" we experience when we read sentences such as the
following:
The hamburger ate the boy.
The table listens to the radio.
The horse is reading the newspaper.

We should first note that the oddness of these sentences does not derive from their
syntactic structure. According to the basic syntactic rules for forming English sentences
(presented in Chapter 8), we have well-formed structures.

The hamburger ate the boy

This sentence is syntactically good, but semantically odd. Since the sentence The boy ate
the hamburger is perfectly acceptable, we may be able to identify the source of the
problem. The components of the referential meaning of the noun hamburger must be
significantly different from those of the noun boy, allowing one, not the other, to "make
sense" with the verb ate. Quite simply, the kind of noun used with ate must denote a
living or "animate" entity that is capable of "eating." The noun hamburger doesn't have
this property and the noun boy does.
reauues 131

We can also say that in addition to [ + animate], boy has the feature [+ humanl and horse
has I-human]. These examples illustrate a way of analyzing the meaning of words in
terms of semantic features.
We can then characterize which semantic feature is required in a noun in order
for it to appear as the subject of a particular verb. In this way we can predict
which nouns (boy, horse, hamburger) would fit in a sentence appropriately and
which would be odd, as in the following two. Both boy and horse would work in
the first example, only boy would work in the second, and hamburger would be
odd in both.

The ate all the food.

N [ + animate]
The is reading the newspaper.

Semantic features have been used to analyze how words in a language are (or are not) connected to
each other. Features such as [+ human] or [ + adult] can be treated as basic elements or
components of meaning in an approach called componential analysis, as illustrated with one set of
connected words in Table 9.1. If we replace [human] with [equine], we can analyze the set colt,
filly, stallion, mare in the same way.

TABLE9.1 COMPONENTIAL
ANALYSIS
132 Semantics

Words as Containers of Meaning

The approach just outlined is a start on analyzing the basic components of word
meaning, but it is not without problems. For many words in a language it may not be as
easy to come up with neat components of meaning. If we try to think of the components
or features we would use to differentiate the nouns advice, threat and warning, for
example, we may not be very successful. Part of the problem seems to be that the
approach involves a view of words in a language as some sort of "containers" that carry
meaning components. This approach seems to be too restrictive and very limited in terms
of practical use. There is more to the meaning of words than these basic types of
features.

Instead of thinking of words as containers of meaning, we can look at the "roles" they
fulfill within the situation described by a sentence. If the situation is a simple event, as in
The boy kicked the ball, then the verb describes an action (kick).
Semantic The noun phrases in the sentence describe the roles of entities, such
Roles as people and things, involved in the action. We can identify a
small number of semantic roles (also called "thematic roles" or "case roles") for these
noun phrases.

Agent and Theme

In our example sentence, one role is taken by the noun phrase The boy as "the entity that
performs the action," technically known as the agent. Another role is taken by the ball as
"the entity that is involved in or affected by the action," which is called the theme (or
sometimes the "patient"). The theme can also be an entity (The ball) that is simply being
described (i.e. not performing an action), as in The ball was red.
Agents and themes are the most common semantic roles. Although agents are typically
human (The boy) , as in (I) below, they can also be non-human entities that cause
actions, as in noun phrases denoting a natural force (The wind), a machine (A car), or a
creature (The dog) , all of which affect the ball as theme in examples (2)-(4). The theme
is typically non-human, but can be human (the boy), as in the last sentence (5).
(1) The boy kicked the ball.

(2) The wind blew the ball away.

(3) A car ran over the ball.

(4) The dog caught the ball.

(5) The dog chased the boy.

Instrument and Experiencer
If an agent uses another entity in order to perform an action, that other entity fills the role
of instrument. In the sentences The boy cut the rope with an old razor and He drew the
picture with a crayon, the noun phrases an old razor and a crayon are being used in the
semantic role of instrument. Note that the preposition with is often a clue that the
following noun phrase has the role of instrument in English. A related use of with is
explored in Task G, and noun phrases marked as instruments in another language
(Lakhota) can be found in Task H, both on page 143.
When a noun phrase is used to designate an entity as the person who has a feeling,
perception or state, it fills the semantic role of experiencer. If we feel, know, hear or
enjoy something, we are not really performing an action (hence we are not agents). We
are in the role of experiencer. In the first sentence below, the experiencer (The woman) is
the only semantic role. In the second example, the question is asking if (you) had the
experience of hearing the theme (that noise) ,

The woman feels sad

Did you hear that noise?

Location, Source and Goal

A number of other semantic roles designate where an entity is in the description of an

event. Where an entity is (on the table, in the room) fills the role of location. Where the
entity moves from is the source (from Chicago) and where it moves to is the goal (to
New Orleans), as in We drove from Chicago to New Orleans. When we talk about
transferring money from savings to checking, the source is savings and the goal is
checking. (Other examples are presented in Task I, page 144.)
All these semantic roles are illustrated in the following scenario. Note that a single
entity (e.g. George) can appear in several different semantic roles.
Mary saw a fly on the wall.
EXPERIENCER THEME LOCATION

She borrowed a magazine from George.

AGENT THEME SOURCE

She squashed the bug with the magazine.

AGENT THEME INSTRUMENT.

She handed the magazine back to George.

AGENT THEME GOAL

"Gee thanks, " said George.

AGENT
Not only can words be treated as containers of meaning, or as fulfilling roles in events,
they can also have " relationships" with each other. In everyday talk, we often explain
the meanings of words in terms of their relationships. If we are asked the meaning of the
word conceal, for example, we might simply say, "It's the same as hide, " or give the
134 Semantics

meaning of shallow as "the opposite of deep," or the meaning of pine as "a kind of tree."
In doing so, we are characterizing the meaning of each word, not in terms of its
component features, but in terms of its relationship to other words. This approach is used
in the semantic description of language and treated as the analysis of lexical relations.
Lexical The lexical relations we have just exemplified are synonymy
(conceal/hide), antonymy (shallow/ deep) and hyponymy
Relations (pine/tree).

Synonymy

Two or more words with very closely related meanings are called synonyms. They can
often, though not always, be substituted for each other in sentences. In the appropriate
circumstances, we can say, What was his answer? or What was his reply? with much the
same meaning. Other common examples of synonyms are the following pairs:

almost/nearly big/large broad/wide buy/purchase cab/taxi

car/automobile couch/sofa doctor/physician freedom/liberty
handbag/purse hard/difficult sweat/perspire
We should keep in mind that the idea of "sameness" of meaning used in discussing
synonymy is not necessarily "total sameness, " and it is best to think of these pairs as
"close synonyms. " There are many occasions when one word is appropriate in a
sentence, but its synonym would be odd. For example, whereas the word answer fits in
the sentence Sandy had only one answer correct on the test, the word reply would sound
odd. Although broad and wide can both be used to describe a street in a similar way, we
only talk about being in broad agreement (not wide) and in the whole wide world (not
broad). There are also regional differences in the use of synonymous pairs, with candy,
chips, diaper and gasoline in American English being equivalents of sweets, crisps,
nappy and petrol in British English.
Synonymous forms may also differ in terms of formal versus informal uses. The
sentence My lather purchased a large automobile has virtually the same meaning as My
dad bought a big car, with four synonymous replacements, but the second version sounds
much more casual or informal than the first.
Lexical Relations 135

Antonymy

Two forms with opposite meanings are called antonyms. Some common examples are
the pairs:

alive/dead big/small buy/sell enter/exit fast/slow happy/sad hot/cold

long/short male/female married/single old/new raise/lower rich/poor
smart/stupid true/false
 Antonyms are usually divided into three main types, "gradable" (opposites along a
scale), "non-gradable" (direct opposites) and "reversives" (one is the reverse action of the
other). We can use gradable antonyms in comparative constructions involving adjectives,
as in these underlined examples: I'm smaller than you and slower, sadder, colder, shorter
and older, but luckily quite a bit richer. Also, the negative of one member of a gradable
pair does not necessarily imply the other. For example, the sentence My car isn't old
doesn't have to mean My car is new.
With non-gradable antonyms (also called "complementary pairs"), comparative
constructions are not normally used. We don't typically describe someone as deader or
more dead than another. Also, using the "negative test," we can see that the negative of
one member of a non-gradable pair does imply the other member. That is, My
grandparents aren't alive does indeed mean My grandparents are dead. Other non-
gradable antonyms are the pairs: male/female, married/single and true/false.
Although we can use the "negative test" to identify non-gradable antonyms in a
language, we usually avoid describing one member of an antonymous pair as the
negative of the other. For example, while undress can be treated as the opposite of dress,
it does not mean "not dress." It actually means "do the reverse of dress." Antonyms of
this type are called reversives. Other examples are enter/exit, pack/unpack,
lengthen/shorten, raise/lower, tie/untie. (See Tasks C and D, page 142.)

Hyponymy

When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another, the relationship is
described as hyponymy. Examples are the pairs: animal/horse, insect/ant, flower/rose.
The concept of "inclusion " involved in this relationship is the idea that if an object is a
rose, then it is necessarily a flower, so the meaning of flower is included in the meaning
of rose. Or, rose is a hyponym of flower.
When we investigate connections based on hyponymy, we are essentially looking at
the meaning of words in some type of hierarchical relationship. Try to think quickly of a
basic meaning for each of these words: banyan, parakeet, terrier, turnip. You can check
Figure
9.1 to see if your meaning included hyponymy.
living thing
136 Semantics

dog pine

fir

schnauzer yorkie

Figure 9.1 Hyponymy

Looking at the examples in Figure 9.1, we can say that "horse is a hyponym of
animal ," "ant is a hyponym of insect" and "turnip is a hyponym of vegetable." In these
three examples, animal, insect and vegetable are called the superordinate ( = higher
level) terms. We can also say that two or more words that share the same superordinate
term are co-hyponyms. So, dog and horse are co-hyponyms and the superordinate term is
animal, while ant and cockroach are co-hyponyms with insect as the superordinate. Or
schnauzer and yorkie are co-hyponyms, with terrier as one superordinate and dog as
another at a more general level.
The relation of hyponymy captures the concept of "is a kind of," as when we
give the meaning of a word by saying, "a schnauzer is a kind of dog. " Sometimes
the only thing we know about the meaning of a word is that it is a hyponym of
another term. That is, we may know nothing more about the meaning of the word
yorkie other than that it is a kind of dog (also known as a Yorkshire terrier) or that
banyan is a kind of tree.
Of course, it is not only words for "things" that are hyponyms. Words such as punch,
shoot and stab, as verbs describing "actions," can all be treated as co-hyponyms of the
superordinate term injure and the verbs bake, boil, fry and grill as co-hyponyms of the
superordinate cook. For a lot of people, microwave has become another one.
Prototypes

While the words canary, cormorant, dove, duck, flamingo, parrot, pelican and robin are
all equally co-hyponyms of the superordinate bird, they are not all considered to be
equally good examples of the category "bird." According to some researchers, the most
characteristic instance of the category "bird" is robin. The idea of "the characteristic
instance" of a category is known as the prototype. The concept of a prototype helps
explain the meaning of certain words, like bird, not in terms of component features (e.g.
"has feathers," "has wings "), but in terms Of resemblance to the clearest example. Thus,
we might wonder ifostrich or penguin should be hyponyms of bird (technically they
are) , but we have no trouble deciding about sparrow or pigeon. These last two are much
closer to the prototype.
Given the category label furniture, we are quick to recognize chair as a better example
than bench or stool. Given clothing, people recognize shirts quicker than shoes, and
given vegetable, they accept carrot before potato or turnip. It is clear that there is some
general pattern to the categorization process involved in prototypes and that it determines
our interpretation of word meaning. However, this is one area where individual
experience can lead to substantial variation in interpretation. People may disagree over
the categorization of words like avocado or tomato and treat them as co-hyponyms of
both fruit and vegetable in different contexts.

Homophones and Homonyms

When two or more different (written) forms have the same pronunciation, they are
described as homophones. Common English examples are:
bare/bear flour/flower meat/meet pail/pale pair/pear
right/write sew/so to/too/two
We use the term homonyms when one form (written or spoken) has two or more
unrelated meanings, as in these examples:
bat (flying creature) - bat (used in sports) mole
(on skin) - mole (small animal) pen (writing
instrument) - pen (enclosed space) race (contest
of speed) - race (ethnic group) sole (single) -
sole (part of foot or shoe)
The temptation is to think that the two types of bat must be related in meaning. They
are not. Homonyms are words that have separate histories and meanings, but have
accidentally come to have exactly the same form.
 Collocation 139

Metonymy

The relatedness of meaning found in polysemy is essentially based on similarity. The

head of a company is similar to the head of a person on top of and controlling the body.
There is another type of relationship between words, based simply on a close connection
in everyday experience. That close connection can be based on a container-contents
relation (bottle/water, can/juice), a whole—part relation (car/wheels, house/root) or a
representative—symbol relationship (king/crown, the President/the White House). Using
one of these words to refer to the other is an example of metonymy.
It is our familiarity with metonymy that makes it possible for us to understand He
drank the whole bottle, although it sounds absurd literally (i.e. he drank the liquid, not
the glass object). We also accept The White House has announced . . . or Downing Street
protested . . . without being puzzled that buildings appear to be talking. We use
metonymy when we talk about filling up the car, answering the door, boiling a kettle,
giving someone a hand or needing some wheels. (See Task F, page 142, for more.)

One final aspect of our knowledge of words, and how they are used, has nothing to do
with any of the factors considered so far. As mature speakers of a language, we all know
which words tend to occur with other words. If you ask a thousand people what they
think of when you say hammer, more than half will say nail. If you say table, they'll
mostly say chair, needle elicits thread and salt elicits pepper. One way we seem to
organize our knowledge of words is simply on the basis of collocation, or frequently
occurring together.
In recent years, the study of which words occur together, and their frequency of
cooccurrence, has received a lot more attention in corpus linguistics. A corpus is a large
collection of texts, spoken or written, typically stored as a database in a computer. Those
doing corpus linguistics can then use the database to find out how often specific words or
phrases occur and what types of collocations are most common. Some of the most
common collocations are actually everyday phrases which may consist of several words
used together, as in I don't know what to do (six words), you know what I mean (five
words) or they don't want to (four words). See Task G page 257 in Chapter 16, for more
examples.
We can also look into the corpus for specific words, extract a set of examples in
context and arrange them in concordance lines, as illustrated in Figure 9.2.
140 Semantics

Concordance

A concordance is a listing of each occurrence of a word (or phrase) in a corpus, along

with the words surrounding it. The word being studied is described as the "key word in
context" (KWIC). In the examples presented in Figure 9.2, from Taylor (2016: 112), the
key word is sarcastic. From these examples, it is clear that sarcastic conveys an
evaluation of behavior, with a range of negative terms (e.g. abusive, condescending,
hateful) accompanying it. By far the most common collocate is the word rude, indicating
that being sarcastic is frequently evaluated as a form of impoliteness, with an
interpersonal meaning, adding to the referential meaning in the dictionary.

I can't without being a bit sarcastic or rude. I'll simply photocopy and submit 2
to me — I mean if they were being sarcastic or rude, I think I would have noticed
3 don't wish to come across as rude, sarcastic or condescending. It does make
4 someone who is hotheaded rude sarcastic tactless won't give an inch etc. All your
words
5 become more and more sarcastic, rude, whatever, until I respond. He's with some
6 words like rude, abusive and sarcastic keep cropping up when people deal with
them
7 what comes out of her mouth is rude, sarcastic and downright mean it's hard to cope
8 demonstrative and hateful, rude, sarcastic and aggressive, I have very little
support
9 customer service was very rude and sarcastic. Finally we had enough and said we
10 giving them an acerbic or sarcastic response is rude unless they were snarling
in
Figure 9.2 Concordance lines

Research of this type provides more evidence that our understanding of what words
and phrases mean is tied to the contexts in which they are typically used. We will look at
other aspects of the role of context in the interpretation of meaning in Chapter 10.