Syntax & Semantics for beginners Free Slides for presentation By Syed Muhammad Saadan Kaka Khel

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Group Members
• Hamza Khan (Leader)
• Shahrukh Khan
• Wasif Ali
• Sheraz Khan
• Syed Muhammad Saadan Kaka Khel

2. 2
Semantics
• Word meaning
• Importance of semantics
• Semantics roles
Syntax
• Ambiguity
• Recursion
• Tree Structure
Presentation Topics

3. What is Semantics?
 Semantics is the study of meanings in words,
phrases and sentences.
 In semantics there is always an attempt to focus on
what the words conventionally means, rather than
on what a speaker might want the words on a
particular occasion.
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4. Meanings of a Word
 Conceptual meanings: In Semantics, conceptual
meaning is the literal or core sense of a word. Also
called denotation or cognitive meaning.
For example: “Needle” – thin sharp steel instrument.
 Associative meanings: In Associative meaning you
may have ‘association’ or ‘connotations’ attached to
a word.
For example: “Needle” – Pain, Blood, Hard to find.
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5. Conceptual vs Associative meanings
 When linguist investigates the meaning of words in a
language they are normally interested in
characterizing the conceptual meaning and less
concerned with associative meaning of words.
 However, poets and advertisers are very interested
in using terms in such a way that their associative
meanings are evoked.
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6. Importance Of Semantics
 “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” is a sentence
composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book
Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that
is grammatically correct, but semantically wrong.
 Semantics gives us the ability to know if a sentence
is correct in terms of meanings.
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7. Semantic Roles
 Words are not just “containers” of meanings.
They fulfill different “roles” within the situation
described by a sentence.
For example: If the situation is a simple event
Such as,
The boy kicked the ball
The verb ‘kicked’ describes an action.
 The noun phrase ‘The boy’ & ‘the ball’ describe the roles of
bodies such as people and things involved in the action.
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8. Semantic Roles
 Agent: The entity that perform the action is technically
known as “agent”.
For example: The boy kicked the ball.
• Agents are usually humans, they can also be non humans
forces, machines or creatures
For example: The wind blew the ball away
 Theme: The entity that is involved in or affected by an action
is technically known as “theme”.
For example: The boy kicked the ball.
• In this sentence “ball” is the theme because it is affected by
an action performed by the ‘agent’.
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9. Semantic Roles
 Experiencer: If a person feels something in a noun
phrase, He/She fills the role of an experiencer.
 If we see, know or enjoy something, we do not
perform any action. In this way we are in the role of
experiencer.
For example: Did you hear that noise?
The experiencer is“you” and the theme is “that noise”.
 Source: Place/ location from which something
moves.
For example: The baby crawled from the kitchen to the door.
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10. Semantic Roles
 Goal: Place to which something moves.
For example: He threw a stone at me.
 Instrument: A thing that an agent uses to
implement an event.
For example: Someone cut the bread with a knife.
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11. Lexical Relations
Words are not only the ‘containers’ and fulfilling ‘roles’. They can
also have ‘relationships’.
 Synonymy refers to words that are pronounced and spelled
differently but contain the same meaning.
Example: Happy, joyful, glad
 Antonymy refers to words that are related by having the
opposite meanings to each other.
Example: Dead, alive
 Homonymy refers to the relationship between words that are
spelled or pronounced the same way but hold different
meanings.
Example: bark (the sound of a dog) and bark (the skin of a tree).
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12. What is Syntax?
 The arrangement of words and phrases to create well formed
sentences in a language.
 The word “Syntax” originally comes from Greek and literally
means “putting together” or “arrangement.”
 Rules for proper arrangement of words in English
Grammar/Syntax
S + V + O
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13. What is Syntax?
 Syntax is not about meaning! Sentences can have no sense
and still be grammatically correct
 Incorrect sentence should be marked with a star (*).
For example:
He eats a car.
- nonsense, but grammatically correct .
*Car a eats he.
- Grammatically incorrect.
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14. Ambiguity
 The Property of having two or more meanings.
 Structural ambiguity: A “sentence/phrase” that has two or
more than two meanings.
For example: I saw a man with a telescope.
(Who has the telescope, me or the man?)
 Lexical ambiguity: A “word” that has two or more than two
meanings.
For example: We saw her duck.
(We saw her pet animal.)
(We saw her bend to avoid something.)
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15. Recursion
 In syntax ‘recursion’ is the repeating of something in a
sentence.
We can repeat Noun Phrase (NP) in a sentence as long as it
makes sense.
For example: The gun was on the table.
Adding another NP (near the window) & (in the bedroom)
The gun was on the table near the window in the bedeoom.
 Putting sentences inside other sentences/phrases.
For example: I helped him
Adding “She knew” in the upper sentence.
She knew that I helped him.
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16. Tree Diagram
 Tree diagram provides us a visual representation of a
sentence structure.
 Symbols used in tree diagram
Sentence – S Adjective – Adj
Noun Phrase – NP Adverb - Adv
Verb Phrase – VP Preposition – Prep
Prepositional Phrase – PP Article - Art
Noun – N Verb - V
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17. Tree Diagram
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You may ask any question
you have in your mind.
Thank You!