Short Story

TAXI DRIVER FIRST EXPERIENCE

After walking for so long, passenger pat taxi driver to ask something. His reaction was quite unexpected. The taxi driver was so shocked to accidentally stepped on the gas deeper and nearly hit another car. Finally he was able to master the steering wheel and stopped the car on the roadside.

"Please, do occasionally do it again," said taxi driver with a pale face and holding angry.

"Sorry, I do not mean surprising. I do not think that just touching the shoulder could be so shocking you."

"The problem here, it is the first day I became a taxi driver. and you are also my first passengers."

"Oh that. Then how could you so surprised?"

"Previously, I was the driver of the hearse."

REVIEW SEMANTICS ARTICLE BY RATNA SARI (2)

REVIEW ARTICLE BY RATNA SARI

TITLE         : Semantic Field, Semantic Relation and Semantic Component

AUTHOR   : Benedict Orji Ukpabi

PAGES        : 17

1.     Demograph

The authors is a students of University of Port Harcourt, English studies Department, Faculty of Humanities. He write it on December 2014.

2.     Background

This paper discussed semantic field, semantic relation and semantic components. It characterised the semantic field of ‘motor vehicles’ in terms of semantic component and discussed the advantages and disadvantages in the use of field relations and components to describe the meaning of words.

3.     Methodology

He used methodology by library studies.

4.     Result

He solve of these question of the paper. The Question is:

a.       What do you understand by semantic field, semantic relation and semantic component?

b.      Characterize the semantic field of ‘motor vehicles’ in terms of semantic component.

c.       What advantages and disadvantages can you see in the use of field relations and components to describe the meaning of words?

Question 1: What do you understand by semantic field, semantic relation and semantic  component?

Semantic Field

Semantic field is a set of words or lexemes related in meaning; also called lexical field, field, or field of meaning. Most often, fields are defined by subject matter, such as body parts, landforms, diseases, colours, foods, or kinship relations.

The semantic field of 'water' could be divided into a number of subfields; in addition, there would appear to be a great deal of overlap between terms such as cove/harbour/bay.

There are lexical groups or components that made up semantic field :

1. Meronymy

A meronym is a word that denotes a constituent part or a member of something. For

example, apple is a meronym of apple tree; Finger is a meronym of hand.

2.      Sememe

A sememe is the name for the smallest unit of meaning recognized in semantics,

a single sememe (for example [go] or [move]) can be conceived as the abstract representation of such as verbs as skate, roll, jump, slide, skip or turn.  

Semantic Relations

Semantic relations or meaning relations are words that are semantically related to other words.

There are lexical groups or components that made up semantic relation :

1. Synonym

Synonyms usually differ in at least one semantic feature.  Sometimes the feature is:

a.       objective (denotative), referring to some actual, real world difference in the referents; example: walk, lumber, stroll, meander, lurch, stagger, stride, mince. 

b.       subjective (connotative), referring to how the speaker feels about the referent rather than any real difference in the referent itself; example:  die, pass away, give up the ghost, kick the bucket, croak.

                 2.     Antonyms

This sub-field give us definition and so many example about There are three categories of antonyms:

a.       Graded antonyms

b.      Complementary antonyms

c.       Relational antonyms

3.     Polysemy

This is a meaning relation whereby a single lexical item has several (apparaently) related

meanings.

Examples of polysemous words in English:

Mouth:

(i) as part of the body

(ii) as where rivers flow into the sea

(iii) as entrance of a cave

4.     Antagonymy

A word that can mean the opposite of itself is an antagonym.

Examples:

cleave (to cut apart)
cleave (to seal together)

5.     Homonymy

A Homonym is a word that is written and pronounced the same way as another, but which has a different meaning.

Examples of a homonym:

They look and sound the same, but are different verbs as can be seen from their forms:

Lie; lied, lied (to say something untrue)

Lie; lay, lain (to be in a horizontal position)

6.     Hyponymy/hypernymy

Hyponymy is a relation between two words in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of the other word.  Examples are : apple- fruit ; car- vehicles ; chair- furniture ; cow - animal.

Semantic Components

A semantic component is a potentially contrastive part of the meaning of a lexical unit.
Kinds of semantic components:
	Here is a table that describes some kinds of semantic components: Semantic Component Description Example Contrastive, also known as: diagnostic, distinctive, essential Distinguishes one lexical unit from another “Male” is the contrastive semantic component distinguishing man from woman, and boy from girl. Shared, also known as common Occurs in each member of a group of lexical units “Human” is a shared component for man, woman, boy, and girl. Shared, also known as common Occurs in each member of a group of lexical units ‘Animal’ is a shared component for goat, cow, dog, cat, antelope. Shared, also known as common Occurs in each member of a group of lexical units ‘Female’ is a shared component for woman, girl, mare.

Question 2: Characterize the semantic field of ‘motor vehicles’ in terms of semantic component

Motor Vehicle
Auto mobile
Motor car Cycle Jeep bike Taxi Hearse Sports car Elevator	Bus luxury bus school bus air bus            sea bus electric-conductor	Truck Tanker Wagon Tipper Bargain Wares commerce	Van Pickup van Caravan Camper Cart Railway- baggage- car	Motor Power Etc.

Looking at the diagram above, the semantic field of motor vehicle has a wide spectrum of meanings.

Question 3: What advantages and disadvantages can you see in the use of field relations and components to describe the meaning of words?

Advantages

·      In terms of a small set of semantic features one can show the similarities and differences between the senses of lexical items.

·      Field relations and componential analysis can account for selectional restrictions imposed upon the occurrence of lexemes more explicitly

·      Field relations and components provide a wide spectrum of meaning of a lexeme thereby providing the linguistic contextual opportunity for hedging in communication.

Disadvantage(s)

Field relations and semantic components of lexical items create room for ambiguity of meaning. Finding a specific meaning of a lexeme becomes difficult except on pragmatic ground where context of usage could help to deduce the meaning of a lexeme. For example, the lexeme ‘van’, how can we know what the speaker refers to; a pickup van, a caravan, wagon, army wing, or camper? Therefore meaning of a lexical item is inconsistent and might be misleading.

5.     Strange and Weakness

Strange:

This paper is full of explanation and so many examples. The author had completed answer of that three question. I got something new about semantic in this paper beside of my previous review. Now, I know what is semantics field, relation and components. And also we got what the purpose of this learn, advantages and disadvantages used it to describe the meaning of word.  A students who is study about semantic must read this paper. You can get new understanding of semantics in here.

Weakness:

I got a little problem of some word example that is so many new word I did not know the meaning, so if you read this paper you must diligent open your dictionary. But it will help you to improve your English.

This is link of article :
https://www.academia.edu/12865362/Semantic_Field_Semantic_Relation_and_Semantic_Component

REVIEW ARTICLE ABOUT SEMANTICS

A REVIEW BY RATNA SARI

TITLE             : SEMANTICS

POST BY        : Abdullah Cglyn at Academia edu

PAGES            : 14

This article give us the material about semantics. Such as:

1. The meaning of semantics.

Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences.

It divided into three:

1. Lexical Semantics is concerned with the meaning of words, and the meaning relationships among words.
2. Phrasal or Sentential Semantics is concerned with the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word.
3.  Pragmatics is the study of how context and situation affect meaning.

2. Semantics is meaning. And meaning has two kinds. Such as: 

1.   Conceptual Meaning:  It is the type of meaning that dictionaries are designed to  describe. Such as “thin, sharp, steel instrument.”
2.   Associative Meaning  is the type of meaning that people might connect with the use of  words. They might associate it with “pain,” or “illness,” or “blood,” or “drugs”. And these  associations may different from one person to others.

3. The study of truth or truth conditions in semantics falls into two basic categories:

1.  The study of different types of truth embodied in individual sentences. Such as: taulogies, contradiction and synthetix sentences.
2.  The study of different types of truth relations that hold between sentences. Such as: entailment, contradictory and ambugity sentences

4. The Principle of Semantic Compositionality

When we become difficult or impossible to understand the meaning of a word, phrase or sentence by the meaning of its parts compositionality breaks down.  There are three that we have to know, such as:

• Anomaly : is a violation of semantic rules resulting in expressions that seem nonsense. example: “green in color.” How can sentences “green in color”?
•  Metaphors :We need to understand the individual words, the literal meaning of the whole expression, and facts about the world.  such as “the fall of the dollar,” meaning its decline in value on the world market.
• Idioms :An idiom is languages contain many idioms whose meanings are not predictable.  It have fixed meanings that must be learned.  Example: She put her foot in her mouth. We can’t change this expression as “Her foot was put in her mouth

5. Lexical Relations.

It is the relationships of meaning between words. Words are semantically related to one another in a variety of ways. Such as:

1. SYNONYMY
2. ANTONYMY
3. HYPONYMY
4. PROTOTYPES
5. MERONYMY (PARTONYMY)
6.  COLLOCATION
7. HOMOPHONES AND HOMONYMS
8. POLYSEMY

6. The study about Semantic features.

It is conceptual elements by which a person understands the meanings of words. This method represents the meaning of a word in terms of semantic features that make up the word. For example:

	Table	Horse	Boy	Man	Girl	Woman
Animate	-	+	+	+	+	+
Human	-	-	+	+	+	+
Female	-	-	-	-	+	+
Adult	-	+	-	+	-	+

7. Thematic Role.

            First,  semantic role : it is the semantic relationship between the verb and the noun phrases of a sentence, such as agent, theme, experiencer, location, instrument, goal and source. 

Second, Thematic Assignment (thematic role assignment is the syntactic elements in a sentence.

1.  Agent: the entity that performs the action.
2.  Theme is the entity that is involved in or affected by the action.
3. Experiencer is the entity that undergoes a sensory, cognitive, or emotional experience.
4. Instrument is the entity used to carry out the action.
5. Location is where the action occurs, where an entity is.
6. Source is the place/individual from which the movement of the action occurs.
7.  Goal is where the action is directed towards, the location or individual to which movement occurs.

Example:

The trainer gave the dog a treat.     The trainer gave a treat to the dog.

 Agent                      goal       theme  agent                  theme      goal

EVALUATION:

         

   This article it is good for student who wants to learn about semantics. Especially, for beginner. Because the grammar is not too difficult to understand. It is clearly with the example after the explanation. The writer also make our eyes comfortable while we are reading. He used the capital letter, space, paraghraph so good. Last, this article is simple but elegent. The contain is interesting us to dig what is semantics in generally. 

           

  But, this article so long. There are several sentence that not too important to written. Maybe it more better to the reader summarize this article to be short. And the writer not explain the function about some sub tittle. There is no preface about what he would explain to us. So, in the begin we liltle confused but after all it will be easy and interest.



THIS IS LINK AT ACADEMIA EDU : 
https://www.academia.edu/4841040/SEMANTICS_Semantics_is_the_study_of_linguistic_meaning_of_morphemes