semantic

                             Semantics

Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions. The language can be a natural language, such as English or Navajo, or an artificial language, like a computer programming language. Meaning in natural languages is mainly studied by linguists. In fact, semantics is one of the main branches of contemporary linguistics. Theoretical computer scientists and logicians think about artificial languages. In some areas of computer science, these divisions are crossed. In machine translation, for instance, computer scientists may want to relate natural language texts to abstract representations of their meanings; to do this, they have to design artificial languages for representing meanings.

Semantic relationships between words

      Modern studies of semantics are interested in meaning primarily in terms of word and sentence relationships.  Let's examine some semantic relationships between words: 

•    Synonyms 

 are words with similar meanings.  They are listed in a special type of dictionary called a thesaurus.  A regular dictionary lists words according to form, usually in alphabetical order; a thesaurus lists words  according to meaning.  Synonyms usually differ in at least one semantic feature.  Sometimes the feature is objective (denotative), referring to some actual, real world difference in the referents: walk, lumber, stroll, meander, lurch, stagger, stride, mince.  Sometimes the feature is subjective (connotative), referring to how the speaker feels about the referent rather than any real difference in the referent itself: die, pass away, give up the ghost, kick the bucket, croak.  There tend to be very few absolute synonyms in a language.  Example: sofa and couch are nearly complete synonyms, yet they differ in their collocability in at least one way: one may say couch potato, but not *sofa potato.  
      One type of synonym is called a paronym.  Paronyms are words with associated meanings which also have great similarities in form: proscribe/ prescribe,  industrial/ industrious,  except/accept,  affect/effect.  Many errors in speech and writing are due to mixups involving paronyms.
      

• Antonyms

  are words that have the opposite meaning.  Oppositeness is a logical category