Since meaning in language is so complex, there are actually different theories used within semantics, such as formal semantics, lexical semantics, and conceptual semantics. Semantics play a large part in our daily communication, understanding, and language learning without us even realizing it.įor example, in everyday use, a child might make use of semantics to understand a mom’s directive to “do your chores” as, “do your chores whenever you feel like it.” However, the mother was probably saying, “do your chores right now.” It influences our reading comprehension as well as our comprehension of other people’s words in everyday conversation. Noun: A special type of flower that is famous for its beautiful shape and smell, usually given on romantic occasions e.g.Semantics involves the deconstruction of words, signals, and sentence structure. we rose from our seats when the President walked in. Verb: This is the irregular past simple form of the verb ‘to rise’, which means to move upwards e.g. Verb: To have a good time or do a specific activity (play sport, play a musical instrument) e.g. We’re going to Broadway to watch that famous play! Noun: A performance by actors usually shown in theatres e.g. We’ve been working all morning, let’s take a coffee break. Noun: A recess or pause in an activity, usually used as time to relax e.g. I broke my watch I need to get it repaired. Verb: To damage or change something so that it no longer works e.g. If you don’t tie your shoelaces you will trip and fall! Verb: This is the action of joining two things together by using a knot or band e.g. Our company policy is for men to wear a shirt and tie to business meetings. Noun: You most commonly come across this noun very often – a tie is the very common item of clothing that men wear around their neck with a shirt and suit e.g. Noun: The noun ‘bark’ is what we call the outer covering of a tree e.g. The dog must be hungry! He keeps barking! Verb: The verb ‘to bark’ is the sound a dog makes e.g. There are many instances where you cannot avoid using a word that seems identical to another, different word, for example, read and read: They look exactly the same, but the pronunciation changes the tense completely! And that’s not where it ends!Įnglish words can have different meanings depending on the part of speech – The word ‘keep’ can be a verb or a noun, and the word ‘fancy’ could be an adjective or a verb depending where you’re from!Īs a student this makes the English language seem impossibly frustrating and confusing! Take a look at the image that shows how many different ways we can use common words like ‘run’ and ‘take’! Below that you’ll find 6 more handy words that have more than one meaning: Having a ready database of homonyms, homophones and homographs is essential to communicating properly in English. In English we often use words that sound exactly the same to express totally different concepts, these are called homophones. We also use words that have the same spelling but have different meanings depending on the context, these are called homonyms. And if that’s not confusing enough, we also have homographs – which are words that have the same spelling, but different pronunciation (and meaning). Sounds like a lot right? But it's actually way more, if you consider that many words have multiple meanings. Over a million words make up the English language.
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