Transcript Lecture_3

Assessment of
Semantics
Semantics
Introduction:
• Definitions:
– Semantics: is the study of the meaning of words and word
combinations
– Lexeme is the minimal unit of vocabulary
– Lexicon is the mental dictionary
Introduction Cont’d:
• Types of meaning:
– Lexical meaning (Lexical semantics)
• refers to the meaning of individual words , more specifically, lexemes
– Referential meaning (relational semantics)
• refers to the relation between semantic categories in an utterance
– Non-literal meaning
• Word’s relation not to their usual referents but to some characteristic
of those referents
Referents (class of beings, objects, events, or characteristics the
meaning of word applies to)
Lexical Meaning
• Organization of vocabulary:
– means how we learn, store, and access words
– Semantic fields and semantic subfields theory
• Overextension & underextension
• Context-bound words
• Development of definitional meaning
Lexical Meaning
What is it
e.g.
reason
overextension
A lexical item
used to refer to
a larger
category of
objects
Apple for plate
and another
rounded object
Incomplete
acquisition
of semantic
features
underextension
A use of word
for only a
subset of the
referents in the
adult category
Car for cars only
moving on the
street, not for
cars standing still,
pictured cars...etc
Limited
experience
Lexical Meaning Cont’d:
– Overextension:
• Occurs in normally developing children between the
ages of 1;1 and 2;6 yrs
• Disappears by the age of 3 yrs
• Understanding lexical meaning
– Child’s first understanding of single words is context
bound. (i.e. words are understood only if they pertain to
present, familiar, and perceptually salient objects)
• Development of definitional meaning
– Giving sensory properties or function e.g. banana
is to eat
– Giving categorical membership e.g. banana is a
fruit (starts at 7 years of age)
– Adult-like definition e.g. a banana is a fruit that
has a thick yellow skin when ripe. (starts at 10
years of age)
Relational Meaning
• Utterances may be analyzed in terms of grammatical or
semantic categories
–ex: The boy kicked the ball
Utterance
Clause elements
Semantic elements
The boy
Subject
Actor
kicked
Verb
Dynamic
the ball
Object
Goal
Utterance
Clause elements
Semantic elements
The ball
Subject
Goal
Was kicked
Verb
Dynamic
The boy
Object
Actor
Relational Meaning Cont’d:
•studies the meaning of vocabulary in different
contexts
–Linguistic situations not situational context
(situational contexts: refers to the situation in which the
utterance occurred and its function)
•Also called sentence meaning, grammatical
meaning and semantic functions
Relational Meaning Cont’d:
•The first systematic analysis of the relational meaning of
words –case grammar-was done by Fillmore (1968)
•Case grammar : is the semantic role of case of nouns in
relation to other elements in the sentence.
•The cases include:
– Agentive
• The animate instigator of action  “Sam cut the bread”
– Instrumental
• The force or object causally involved in a state or action  “ The knife cut
the bread”
– Dative
• The animate being affected by the state or action  “ Harry pushed Joe”
Relational Meaning Cont’d:
• Case grammar Cont’d:
– Factitive
• The object or being resulting from a state or action “She baked brownies”
– Locative
• The location or spatial orientation of a state or action  “ I ate at home”
– Objective
•
The referent whose role depends on the meaning of the verb “ She hit the
ball”
• Semantic relations:
• Include nouns and other word classes
– agent+action (car go)
– action+object (throw ball)
– agent+object (mommy soup)
– X+dative (throw daddy)
– X+locative (baby chair)
(X is any variable; Dative is the recepient)
• Semantic-syntactic relations:
• refers to the interrelationship between the syntactic role that a
particular word fills in the utterance and its semantic role.
• Like categories that:
• represent a relationship between two referents
– e.g. Possession : people and the objects within their domain (baby cap)
• Identify ways in which events can be related to each other
– e.g. Causality : cause-and-effect relationship expressed with because
Non-literal Meaning
• Metaphor
• Idioms
• Proverbs
Word Retrieval and Word
Learning
• Is word-finding problem a word retrieval or a
word learning problem?
• Requirements of vocabulary acquisition
– Understand item’s conceptual attributes – i.e. which
semantic field it belongs to, which contexts it can be
used in , …etc
– perceive and produce its phonological form
– Store the information in memory
• Symptoms of having a word retrieval problem
– The use of initial speech sounds or silent
articulatory gestures preceding the target word
– Giving semantic information
– Self correcting
– Gesturing
– Frustration gestures
Assessing Semantics
• The other aspects of language
• Which type of meaning to assess?
Assessing Lexical Meaning
• Vocabulary comprehension and expression
– BPVS  British Picture Vocabulary Scale
– PRISM-L Profile in Semantics-Lexicon
• semantic fields
• type & token
– Type refers to the no. of different vocabulary items used by
a subject
– Token refers to the no. of examples of that particular items
– Vocabulary checklists
Assessing Lexical Meaning Cont’d:
• Semantic analysis of a language sample
– The different use of words
– Words deficits (when a word is replaced by another
one)
– Absence of any word class
• Elicitation procedures
– Alternative referents
– Definitions
– Games
– Set ups
Assessing Abstract Relational
Meaning
• PRISM-G PRISM-Grammar
– (shows e.g. which clausal elements are being used by
the subject and in what combinations)
• BLADES The Bristol Language Developmental
Scales
– Looks at three aspects of language: functions, sentence
meaning, and syntax
Assessing Abstract Relational
Meaning Cont’d:
• Semantic analysis of a language sample
– Types of relational meaning used (e.g.
possession, location relation)
• Elicitation procedures
– Following directions that will require the
comprehension of various relational meanings
– Story re-telling by choosing a story that
includes several kinds of relations
– Metalinguistic excersizes
Assessing Word Retrieval
•
Assessing Word Retrieval
– Picture naming (nouns - verbs)
– Sentence completion
– Naming an object from a given description
– Naming the category of a group of objects
– Looking at the substitutions produced by the child
•
Assessing word learning
– Teaching a new word in a naturalistic context and
examining it later
Children with Semantic
Impairments
• Extended use of semantic strategies
• Confusion of polar position e.g. high,low
• Word retrieval problems
• Word deficit
• Semantic-pragmatic difficulty