Semantic properties or meaning properties are those aspects of a linguistic unit, such as a

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

, or sentence, that contribute to the meaning of that unit. Basic semantic properties include being ''meaningful'' or ''meaningless'' – for example, whether a given word is part of a language's lexicon with a generally understood meaning; '' polysemy'', having multiple, typically related, meanings; '' ambiguity'', having meanings which aren't necessarily related; and ''anomaly'', where the elements of a unit are semantically incompatible with each other, although possibly grammatically sound. Beyond the expression itself, there are higher-level semantic relations that describe the relationship between units: these include synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy. Besides basic properties of semantics, semantic property is also sometimes used to describe the semantic components of a word, such as ''man'' assuming that the referent is ''human'', ''male'', and ''adult'', or ''female'' being a common component of ''girl'', ''woman'', and ''actress''. In this sense, semantic properties are used to define the

semantic field In linguistics, a semantic field is a lexical set of words grouped semantically (by meaning) that refers to a specific subject.Howard Jackson, Etienne Zé Amvela, ''Words, Meaning, and Vocabulary'', Continuum, 2000, p14. The term is also used in ...

of a word or set of words.

Semantic Properties of Nouns

Semantic properties of nouns/entities can be divided into eight classes: specificity, boundedness, animacy,

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

, kinship, social status, physical properties, and function. Physical properties refer to how an entity exists in space. It can include shape, size, and material, for example. The function class of semantic properties refers to noun class markers that indicate the purpose of an entity or how humans utilize an entity. For example, in the Dyirbal language, the morpheme ''balam'' marks each entity in its noun class with the semantic property of edibility, and Burmese encodes the semantic property for the ability to cut or pierce. Encoding the functional property for transportation, housing, and speech are also attested in world languages.

Semantic Properties of Nouns

Notes

See also