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Semantics studies meaning in language, which is limited to the meaning of linguistic expressions. It concerns how signs are interpreted and what information they contain. An example is the meaning of words provided in dictionary definitions by giving synonymous expressions or paraphrases, like defining the meaning of the term ram as adult male sheep. [22]
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously (Noam Chomsky): example that is grammatically correct but based on semantic combinations that are contradictory and therefore would not normally occur. Hold the news reader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers. [26]
For an epistemic modal like English must or might, this set is understood to contain exactly those worlds compatible with the knowledge that the speaker has in the actual world. Assume for example that the speaker of sentence (4) above knows that John just bought a new luxury car and has rented a huge apartment.
Lexical semantics also explores whether the meaning of a lexical unit is established by looking at its neighbourhood in the semantic network, [7] (words it occurs with in natural sentences), or whether the meaning is already locally contained in the lexical unit. In English, WordNet is an example of a semantic
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the English language and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article , discuss the issue on the talk page , or create a new article , as appropriate.
Semantic decomposition allows any given lexical item to be defined based on minimal elements of meaning, which are called semantic features. The term semantic feature is usually used interchangeably with the term semantic component. [9] Additionally, semantic features/semantic components are also often referred to as semantic properties. [10]
However, this approach does not make predictions for some examples with inverse scope (wide scope in object position). For example, everyone loves someone. When there is no scope interaction in the relevant portion of the sentence, making either choice shows no difference in semantics. A short time later, May suggested a different idea.
Conceptual semantics is a framework for semantic analysis developed mainly by Ray Jackendoff in 1976. Its aim is to provide a characterization of the conceptual elements by which a person understands words and sentences, and thus to provide an explanatory semantic representation (title of a Jackendoff 1976 paper).