The document contains an agenda for a seminar on semantics and pragmatics held by Honesty Trila. The agenda includes an introduction of the presenter, a discussion of MOU and RPKPS, topics to be covered including syntax, semantics, pragmatics, levels of meaning, semantic features, semantic roles, and lexical relations. The presentation aims to provide an overview of key concepts in semantics and pragmatics for language learners.

1. Semantics
and
Pragmatics
Padang
February 23, 2022
Honesty Trila, S.Pd.I., M.Pd

2. Agenda
01 Introduction
02 MOU
03 RPKPS
04 Marks
05 Topic
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3. 01
Introduction
Honesty Trila
Email: honesty.trila@gmail.com
S1: IAIN Imam Bonjol Padang (TBI’05)
S2: Universitas Negeri Padang
Experience:
Been teaching English at IAIN (UIN) Imam Bonjol
Padang, since 2011
Currently: Asst. Prof. Dr. Martin Kustati, M.Pd
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4. 02
MOU

5. See RPKPS of Semantics and Pragmatics
A satisfied learners
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6. 03
Marks
Ana
CFO
Larissa
CFO
Roman
CTO
Federico
COO
Alejandra
CPO
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7. 04
What’s next…topic..

8. Syntax,
Semantics, and
Pragmatics
Language (Linguistics)
• Sounds; Phonology
• Form; Morphology, Syntax
• Meaning; Semantics and Pragmatics
• Semantics; The study of meaning in Language
• Pragmatics; The study of what people mean by
the language the use
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In spite of big limitations, the
study of semantics has made an
important contribution to our
understanding of how languages
work.
Words that changed their
meaning
Originally, the word “semantics”
was used to refer to what we call
“historical semantics” today. It was
about how words changed their
meaning over time.

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The word semantics did not
really catch on until the 1920s
when Richards and Ogden
published their famous
book, The Meaning of Meaning.
Today, Semantics is one of the
central areas of study in
Linguistics. After all, the whole
purpose of language is to
communicate meaning.

11. Today, we assume that
communication is the key
to language learning. Do
you agree with that?

12. Semantics plays an important
part in most branches of
Linguistics. These pictures
show how meaning can be
influenced by grammatical
(syntactic) structure.
Meaning is central importance to
language learners and teachers
because it is assumed that languages
are learned in the process of
communication.

13. What is meaning?
• (in Linguistics) what a language expresses about the
world we live in or any possible or imaginary world
• English uses the verb “to mean” to refer to a
relationship involving at least one of three different
types of thing:
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14. Example…
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When I said ‘ Dublin has lots
of attractions’ I meant Dublin,
Ireland, not Dublin, Virginia.
In Sidney, ‘the bridge’ means
the Harbour Bridge.
‘Stout’ means ‘short and fat’

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Meaning is bound up with just about
everything connected with language.
Meaning is deeply influenced by the
sound system of a language, its
grammatical structure, and the way
we use language in actual
conversations.

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For example, Phonology is the
study of the sound system of
language. Obviously, sounds
(phonemes) can distinguish
meanings: “pin” does not mean
the same as “bin” and “ship”
means something completely
different than “sheep.”

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18. Add…
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18
• Also, stress can change the meaning of words and sentences in big
ways: the word “contrast” has a different meaning depending on
whether you stress the first of the second syllable and a simple
sentence like “I didn’t eat the apple” has a different interpretation if
certain words are strongly stressed. Furthermore, tone can indicate a
question sentence rather than a declarative sentence.

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Morphology, or the internal structure of
words, influences meaning in big ways.
Here, the suffixes “-ate” and “-tion”
transform the base noun “motive” from a
noun to a verb and then back into a different
kind of noun. It’s magic!
Morphology studies the internal structure of words and how words are built up out of smaller
components. For example, adding “-ed” to a verb makes it refer to the past. Adding “-ate” to a
noun like “motive” changes it into a verb. Compound affixes such as “-boy” and “-girl” give their
meaning to words like “school-boy” and “school-girl.”

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Syntax deals with the way words combine to form larger phrases and sentences. Semantics is
concerned with how those phrases and sentences are interpreted — their meaning. For a very simple
example, take a sentence like “The rat ate the cockroach.” Then swap around the words so you get
“The cockroach ate the rat.” Clearly the meaning (interpretation) is different depending on the word
order.

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Pragmatics, like Semantics, is also concerned with the transmission of meaning through
language. However, Pragmatics investigates the meanings that expressions have in particular
situations (contexts). For example, a sentence like “It’s hot in here” carries the meaning that the
temperature is high. However, in context, it could easily be taken as a request to open the window
or turn the heater off. In other words, “It’s hot in here” implies something else, not just that the
temperature is high.
The Philosopher Paul Grice made the most
important contribution to the study of Pragmatics.
His idea was that we take meanings and then
combine these meanings with other things we know
about the world to create different meanings.

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• Stressing different
words in a sentence
can also make a
difference to how we
interpret things in
context.
Obviously, the way we stress words is an
important factor in different contexts. Go back to
the sentence “I didn’t eat the apple” and stress
different words again. Then think how the context
might change your interpretation of the sentence
depending on which words you stress.

23. What is
Semantics?
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The study of meaning is called
Semantics
Semantics comes from the ancient
Greek wordsemanticos, an adjective
meaning ‘relating to sign’, 0ne of the
original uses of sign is as a medical
term for symptoms that underlying
disease.

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Dictionary definition
Mental Images
Meaning and Preferences
Meaning and Truth
Meaning and Language Use

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Mental images of Semantics: a graphic in one’s
mind of a referent (when I say ‘table’, you draw a table in your mind); usually
a prototype or standard of the referent

26. Meaning and
Preferences
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• semantic preference generally remains relatively
closely tied to the phenomenon of collocation. As
we have seen, it describes a phenomenon
whereby a particular item x collocates frequently,
not with another item y, but with a series of items
which belong to a semantic set. (Partington, 2004,
p.150)
• Ex: red: about color
• Large: has quantity and size
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27. Meaning
and
Language
use
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The study of meaning of words, phrases, and
sentences.
Lexical semantics (words and meaning
relationship among words)
Phrasal/sentential semantics (syntactic units
larger than a word)
What a speaker conventionally means
(objective or general meaning)- not what he is
trying to say (Subjective or local meaning)

28. Level of Meaning
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Word meaning
Sentence
meaning
Utterance
meaning

29. Let see the
difference
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Oh, great!
Word meaning:
Oh > interjection
Great. Very good
Sentence meaning:
It is very good.
Words and sentence meaning are the literal meaning

30. Now let’s
see
sentence
meaning
VS
utterance
meaning
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A: Oh, Great!
B: What? You don’t like it?
Utterance meaning=
Sentence meaning in context

31. Local
Example
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L: Can you help us to close
the door? But from the
outside.
S: May I come in?

32. Are Sentence
meaning and
Utterance
meaning
always
different?
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A: Can you come here?
B: Sure! ( come to A)
A: Can you come here?
B: Sure! (Showing that he has
lots of work to do)

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Three types of semantics analysis:
Words as ‘containers’:Semantics features
‘roles’ they fulfill:Semantics roles
‘relationship’ with other words:lexical relation
How can we describe the meaning of
different words?

34. Semantic
Features
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Syntactically correct sentences
but semantically odd:
• - The hamburger ate the man
• - My cat studies linguistics
• - The table listens to the radio
This relates to the conceptual
components of the words
‘hamburger, cat, and table’
not-> human

35. Semantic Features
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Semantic properties: The components of meaning
of a word.
A notational device for expressing the presence or
absence of semantic properties by pluses (+) and
minuses (-).
Example of componential analysis:
• babyis [+ young], [+ human], [– abstract].

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Table Horse Boy Man Girl woman
Animate - + - -
Human - - + +
Female - - - -
Adult - + - +
Semantic Features
Table; (-animate), (-human)
Horse; (+Animate)

37. Identify the features
(1)
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1.(a) widow, mother, sister, aunt, maid
(b) widower, father, brother, uncle, valet
• The (a) and (b) words are
• The (a) words are
• The (b) words are
2.(a) bachelor, paperboy, pope, chief
(b) bull, rooster, drake, ram
• The (a) and (b) words are
• The (a) words are
• The (b) words are (+animate)
(+human)
(+male)
(+male)
(+female)
(+human)

38. Identify
the
features
(2)
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3.(a) table, stone, pencil, cup,
house, ship
• The (a) words are
• The (b) words are
(b) milk, alcohol, rice, soup,
mud
4.(a) pine, elm, sycamore
• The (a) and (b) words are
• The (a) words are
• The (b) words are
(b) dandelion, aster, daisy
(+flower)
(+tree)
(+plant)
(-count)
(+count)

39. Semantic
roles
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Words are described according to
the roles they fulfill with the
situation described in a sentence.
• The boy kicked the ball
• verb> indicates action
• Boy: performs the action (agent)
• Ball: undergoes the action (theme)
The NPs describe the role of
entities (people or things) involved
in the action, i.e. they have certain
semantic (or thematic) roles.

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Agent= the entity that performs the action
Theme= the entity that undergoes the action
Experiencer= one who perceives something
Instrument= an entity used to perform an action
Location= the place from which an action originates
Source= the place from which an action undergoes
Goal= the place where the action is directed
Semantic Roles

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Jhonis writingwith a pen
Marysawa mosquitoon the wall
The childrenran fromthe playgroundtothe pool
The boy opened the door with a key
The dog bit the stick
With a stick, the man hit the dog
Semantic Roles
instrument
agent
theme
experiencer
goal
location
agent source

42. Lexical
relations
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What is the meaning of ‘big’?
• ‘large’ or the opposite of ‘small’
What is the meaning of ‘daffodil’?
• A kind of flower
Analysis in term of lexical relations- explain the
meaning in terms of the relationship with other words
• Synonymy
• Antonymy
• Hyponymy
• Prototype
• Homophones and homonyms
• polysemy

43. Summary
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44. 05
Closing
Thank You
honesty.trila@gmail.com
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