Semantics
and Syntax
A.
Definition of Semantics
Semantics is one part of grammar; phonology, syntax and morphology are
other parts." The field of linguistics
concerned with the study of meaning in language. Linguistic
semantics has been defined as the study of how
languages organize and express meanings.
B. Definition of Syntax
In linguistics,
syntax refers to the rules about the ways in which words combine to form phrases,
clauses, and sentences. More simply,
syntax can be defined as the arrangement of words in a sentence.
Syntax is one of the major components of grammar. There are two levels of syntactic structure. They
are :
Ø The surface structure of a sentence is the final
stage in the syntactic representation of a sentence, which provides the input
to the phonological
component of the grammar,
and which thus most closely corresponds to the structure of the sentence we
articulate and hear. . .
Ø
There is another
level of syntactic structure, called deep structure, which
expresses underlying syntactic structure of sentences.
D. PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES,
TRANSFORMATION AND SEMANTIC
REPRESENTATION
Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a given language's syntax, and are
closely associated with the early stages of transformational grammar, being first
proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1957. They are used to break down a
natural language
sentence into its constituent parts, also known as syntactic categories, including both lexical
categories (parts of speech) and phrasal
categories. A grammar that uses phrase structure rules is a type of phrase structure grammar. Phrase structure
rules as they are commonly employed operate according to the constituency relation, and a grammar that
employs phrase structure rules is therefore a constituency grammar; as such, it stands
in contrast to dependency grammars, which are based on the dependency relation. Phrase
structure rules are usually of the following form:
A à B C
meaning that the constituent A is separated
into the two subconstituents B and
C. Some examples for English are as follows:
S à NP VP
NP à Det. N
N à (AP) N (PP)
The first rule reads: An S (sentence) consists of an NP (noun
phrase) followed by a VP (verb phrase).
The second rule reads: A noun phrase consists of an optional Det (determiner)
followed by an N (noun). The third
rule means that an N (noun) can be
preceded by an optional AP (adjective
phrase) and followed by an optional PP
(prepositional phrase). The round brackets
indicate optional constituents.
Beginning with the sentence symbol S, and
applying the phrase structure rules successively, finally applying replacement
rules to substitute actual words for the abstract symbols, it is possible to
generate many proper sentences of English (or whichever language the rules are
specified for). If the rules are correct, then any sentence produced in this
way ought to be grammatically (syntactically) correct.
It is also to be expected that the rules will generate syntactically correct
but semantically
nonsensical sentences, such as the
following well-known example:
This sentence was constructed by Noam
Chomsky as an illustration that phrase structure rules are capable of
generating syntactically correct but semantically incorrect sentences. Phrase
structure rules break sentences down into their constituent parts. These
constituents are often represented as tree
structures (dendrograms). The tree for Chomsky's sentence can be
rendered as follows:
A constituent is any word or combination of words that
is dominated by a single node. Thus each individual word is a constituent.
Further, the subject NP Colorless green ideas, the minor NP green
ideas, and the VP sleep furiously are constituents. Phrase structure
rules and the tree structures that are associated with them are a form of immediate constituent analysis.
In transformational
grammar, systems of phrase structure rules are supplemented by
transformation rules, which act on an existing syntactic structure to produce a
new one (performing such operations as negation, passivization,
etc.). These transformations are not strictly required for generation, as the
sentences they produce could be generated by a suitably expanded system of
phrase structure rules alone, but transformations provide greater economy and
enable significant relations between sentences to be reflected in the grammar.
An important aspect of phrase structure rules is that
they view sentence structure from the top down. The category on the left of the
arrow is a greater constituent and the immediate constituents to the right of
the arrow are lesser constituents. Constituents are successively broken down
into their parts as one moves down a list of phrase structure rules for a given
sentence. This top-down view of sentence structure stands in contrast to much
work done in modern theoretical syntax. In Minimalism[3]
for instance, sentence structure is generated from the bottom up. The operation
Merge merges smaller constituents to create
greater constituents until the greatest constituent (i.e. the sentence) is
reached. In this regard, theoretical syntax abandoned phrase structure rules
long ago, although their importance for computational linguistics seems to remain
intact.
Semantic representation
is an abstract (formal) language in which meanings
can be represented. Opinions differ about whether semantic representation is
sufficient or necessary, about its form and about how it relates to syntactic
representations. Mentalistic, representational theories of meaning claim that a
mental semantic representation is necessary to account for the fact that
language users grasp meanings. Denotational theories of meaning, on the other
hand, claim that meaning can only be explicated in terms of denotations in the
world. Semantic representation can take the form of a structure of semantic
features (in the Katz-Fodor-semantics and in Jackendoff's conceptual structure) or
formulas of a logical system. In the theory of Generative semantics,
semantic representations were identified with syntactic deep structures. In
almost all other theories, semantic representations are an autonomous level of
representation related to deep structure, surface structure and/or LF. See meaning theories.
E.
The Relation Between Syntax and Semantics
It is not easy to describe the
relation between syntax and semantics, but it is probably easy to say why that
is not easy: there are different perspectives about syntax and semantics, so
the relation depends on what you understand by form and meaning, structure and
content. If you look at the history of Chomskyan linguistics, you will find the
chapter in which a group of people were working on deep structures so much that
they actually were doing semantics and not syntax.
Syntax and
semantics both work at sentence level. Syntax has to do with the form and order
of words within the sentence. Semantics has to do with the meaning.
Syntax is language dependent, whereas the semantics remains the same if the
same sentence were expressed in another language. The distinction between syntax (sentence form) and semantics (word
and sentence meaning) is fundamental to the study of language. Syntax is the
collection of rules that govern how words are assembled into meaningful
sentences. Syntax and semantics both work at sentence
level. Syntax has to do with the form and order of words within the sentence. The
relation between syntax and semantics can clearly explain by using ambiguity in
syntax meaning (syntactic ambiguity). In English grammar,
syntactic ambiguity is the sentence that have two or more meanings. Also called structural
ambiguity or grammatical ambiguity. Compare with lexical
ambiguity (the presence of two or more possible meanings within a
single word). The intended meaning of a syntactically ambiguous sentence can often
(but not always) be determined by context.
Posted by. Nurhikmawati Mus
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