Lexical Semantics

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-203
Author(s):  
David Stringer
Keyword(s):  
Feature Selection ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Language Research ◽  
Open Class ◽  
Lexical Relations

Lexical semantics is concerned with inherent aspects of word meaning and the semantic relations between words, as well as the ways in which word meaning is related to syntactic structure. This chapter provides an introduction to some of the main themes in lexical semantic research, including the nature of the mental lexicon, lexical relations, and the decomposition of words into grammatically relevant semantic features. The mapping between the semantics of verbs and their associated syntax is discussed in terms of thematic roles, semantic structure theory, and feature selection. A review of some of the most influential findings in second language research involving both open-class and closed-class lexical items reveals important implications for classroom pedagogy and syllabus design in the domain of vocabulary instruction.

scholarly journals Lexical semantics of the verbs denoting debate in english

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-60
Author(s):  
Natalia Skrytska ◽  
Tetyana Nykyforuk
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Analytical Methods ◽  
English Language ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Methods Of Analysis ◽  
Language Research

The semantic meaning of verbs to denote controversy is culturally justified language, habits and traditions of people. The analysis of verbs for designating disputes is based on a formalized method of lexical and semantic analysis. This method explores semes, combined into lexical units, as well as connections.between them. The relevance of the study lies in the need to form new semes, as well as to determine verbs of the highest and highest degrees of polysemy, the study of monosemantic series of the lexical meaning of verbs to denote disputes in English. The purpose of the article is to study the semantics of verbs to denote the manifestation of disputes in the English language. Research methods: descriptive, analytical, methods of analysis andsynthesis. Conclusions. As a result of the research, the lexical and semantic features of verbs for designating disputes in English have been identified.

Lexical Semantics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Geeraerts
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Historical Semantics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lexical Relations ◽  
Lexical Fields

Lexical semantics is the study of word meaning. Descriptively speaking, the main topics studied within lexical semantics involve either the internal semantic structure of words, or the semantic relations that occur within the vocabulary. Within the first set, major phenomena include polysemy (in contrast with vagueness), metonymy, metaphor, and prototypicality. Within the second set, dominant topics include lexical fields, lexical relations, conceptual metaphor and metonymy, and frames. Theoretically speaking, the main theoretical approaches that have succeeded each other in the history of lexical semantics are prestructuralist historical semantics, structuralist semantics, and cognitive semantics. These theoretical frameworks differ as to whether they take a system-oriented rather than a usage-oriented approach to word-meaning research but, at the same time, in the historical development of the discipline, they have each contributed significantly to the descriptive and conceptual apparatus of lexical semantics.

scholarly journals Chapter 3. Constructional syntactic analysis

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-90
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Domestic Animal ◽  
Action Space ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Syntactic Ambiguity ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Basic Features

At this stage, a semantic-syntactic dictionary is activated, in order to supply the letter tokens with the information concerning their contextual realization and meaning proper. The list of features assigned to a word form is thus augmented by semantic and syntactic ones. Contextual realization is specified by means of subcategorization frames. Meaning is described in terms of semantic features which may or may not be hierarchically arranged. Among them, basic features are identified, e.g. ‘living being’, ‘action’, ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘quantity’, that have no direct bearing on the parts of speech. Thus, the feature ‘action’ can be assigned both to verbs and nouns. Additional semantic features make it possible to account for manifold aspects of word meaning. Thus, horse is marked both as ‘domestic animal’ and ‘vehicle’, which would be impossible in case of a strict hierarchy of features. The algorithm of syntactic analysis draws on the same basic idea as that of graphematical analysis, viz. iterative assembling of individual tokens into syntactic constructions, from local groups to larger ones until a resulting syntactic structure of a whole sentence emerges consisting of Subject-Predicate-Objects-Adverbials. Syntactic rules are ranked accordingly. The chapter illustrates the work of algorithm in a variety of cases and discusses multiple difficulties resulting from the syntactic ambiguity.

THEMATIC ROLE ASSIGNMENT IN ENGLISH SENTENCES: A QUICK GLANCE AT AN INTERFACE BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eni Maharsi
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Role Assignment

This paper examines the role of elements of English sentences by employing the approach ofthematic role assignment. The emphasis is on how the positioning of words and phrases insyntactic structure helps determine the roles that the referents of NPs play in the situationdescribed by the sentences. The results reveal that the position of an NP’s determines itsthematic role and. There is a relevance between deep syntactic structure and the assignmentof thematic roles for every NP in the sentence.

“Subject-predicate predicate sentences” in modern Mandarin Chinese: A Cardiff Grammar approach

Linguistics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei He
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Syntactic Structures

AbstractThis study investigates “subject-predicate predicate sentences” (“S-P P sentences”) in modern Mandarin Chinese from a Cardiff Grammar approach with the aim of answering three main questions: (i) What is/are the functional syntactic structure(s) of the sentences to be considered in the study? (ii) What is/are the semantic motivation(s) for the structure(s)? (iii) What is/are the contextual constraints on the structure(s)? The study is guided by three basic principles: (a) language is multifunctional; (b) meaning is primary while form is the realization of meaning; and (c) different strands of meaning are realized by a single syntactic structure. Further, the study utilizes the concepts of Theme and Subject within the Cardiff Grammar in order to analyze and discuss the generally acknowledged seven types of “S-P P sentences”. The results show that only one type is truly S-P P and another type only in one sense, whereas no other types can be categorized as such. All the syntactic structures are conditioned by a different set of distinctive semantic features and contextual factors.

scholarly journals Word meaning access: The one-to-many mapping from form to meaning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
Distributional Information ◽  
Current Context ◽  
The One

This chapter focuses on the process by which stored knowledge about a word’s form (orthographic or phonological) maps onto stored knowledge about its meaning. This mapping is made challenging by the ambiguity that is ubiquitous in natural language: most familiar words can refer to multiple different concepts. This one-to-many mapping from form to meaning within the lexicon is a core feature of word-meaning access. Fluent, accurate word-meaning access requires that comprehenders integrate multiple cues in order to determine which of a word’s possible semantic features are relevant in the current context. Specifically, word-meaning access is guided by (i) distributional information about the a priori relative likelihoods of different word meanings and (ii) a wide range of contextual cues that indicate which meanings are most likely in the current context.

Lexical Semantics without Thematic Roles

Language ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 238
Author(s):  
Edwin Battistella ◽  
Yael Ravin
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Thematic Roles

scholarly journals Is children's acquisition of the passive a staged process? Evidence from six- and nine-year-olds' production of passives

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 991-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE MESSENGER ◽  
HOLLY P. BRANIGAN ◽  
JANET F. McLEAN
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Role Mapping ◽  
Transitive Actions

ABSTRACTWe report a syntactic priming experiment that examined whether children's acquisition of the passive is a staged process, with acquisition of constituent structure preceding acquisition of thematic role mappings. Six-year-olds and nine-year-olds described transitive actions after hearing active and passive prime descriptions involving the same or different thematic roles. Both groups showed a strong tendency to reuse in their own description the syntactic structure they had just heard, including well-formed passives after passive primes, irrespective of whether thematic roles were repeated between prime and target. However, following passive primes, six-year-olds but not nine-year-olds also produced reversed passives, with well-formed constituent structure but incorrect thematic role mappings. These results suggest that by six, children have mastered the constituent structure of the passive; however, they have not yet mastered the non-canonical thematic role mapping. By nine, children have mastered both the syntactic and thematic dimensions of this structure.

Conciliating States and Locations: Towards a More Comprehensive and In- Depth Account of the Spanish Copula Estar

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ma. Eugenia Mangialavori
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Integrative Analysis ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Selectional Restrictions ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Spatial Domains ◽  
Structural Analogy ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Copular Clauses

AbstractThe case of estar may reveal how different proposals of study have failed to grasp grammatically relevant semantic features shared by its occurrences. The results of this study indicate that an integrative analysis of estar clauses would account not only for the consistent lexical properties observed - comprising (a)analogous lexical-syntactic structure predicting possible copular complements, (b)analogous selectional restrictions and (c)interpretative effects -, but also for the complementary distribution of two aspectually nontrivial verbal alternations (ser / estar and estar / haber). Our proposal lays on the standard syntactic structure of copular clauses - assumed to embrace locative clauses, against what traditional Spanish grammar suggests - in combination with (i) the structural analogy between estar’s alternative complements (APs and PPs) and (ii) the understanding of states as abstract spatial domains (be at). Thus, the eventual differences between clauses like ‘estoy triste’ and ‘estoy en casa’ could be accounted for by virtue of the semantic / syntactic properties of the lexical head selected.

Semantic Models and Translating

Target ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kussmaul
Keyword(s):  
Word Meaning ◽  
Semantic Feature ◽  
Feature Analysis ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
The Core ◽  
Semantic Models ◽  
Structural Semantics ◽  
Semantic Feature Analysis

Abstract This paper examines the relevance of three semantic models for translation. Structural semantics, more specifically semantic feature analysis, has given rise to the maxim that we should translate "bundles of semantic features". Prototype semantics suggests that word-meanings have cores and fuzzy edges which are influenced by culture. For translation this means that we do not necessarily translate bundles of features but have to decide whether to focus on the core or the fuzzy edges of the meaning of a particular word. Scenesand-frames semantics suggests that word meaning is influenced by context and the situation we are in. Word-meaning is thus not static but dynamic, and it is this dynamism which should govern our decisions as translators.

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