Before we look into the importance of semantics in any given language, particularly English, we look forward to What semantics is?
Sementics is the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with study of meaning and use of words and phrases.
The importance of semantics is, it clearly highlights the logical meaning behind a word or phrase in written or spoken language, which English consisted.
What are some examples of semantics in English? While there are many semantics, we will be looking for the most used semantics in English language. Here are the list of 21 of them:
Derivation(origin): The origin of a word. Example: “algebra” is originated from the arabic name “Al jebr” or “Al Jabr”, meaning “reunion of broken parts,”
Synonym: Words related, relevant, broad, specific and exact in terminology.
Accent variation(s): Manner words are pronounced in different accents. Organization (in US English); Organisation (in UK English).
Antonym: Word with Opposite meaning. Examples "Go’' is the opposite of “come” and vice versa.
Hypernysm: a word that names a broad category that includes other words. “Primate” is a hypernym for “chimpanzee” and “human.”
Hyponyms: a word of more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it. For example, spoon is a hyponym of cutlery.
Homonym: each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings and origins. E.g: Lie and Lying
Homograph: each of two or more words spelled the same but not necessarily pronounced the same and having different meanings and origins. E.g: Air (noun) or Heir (noun
Homophone: Homophones sound the same but have different meanings and have different spellings too. Examples: Altar and Alter; Berth and Birth; Cast and Caste.
Heteronym: Heteronym a words that have the same spellings and sound different. Examples in sentence: “I wound a bandage around my wound”; “The chair was so close to the door we couldn’t close it”; “Don’t just give the gift; present the present”.
Heterograph: Heterographs are words that have different spellings but sound the same. Some common examples are: Paws and pause, son and sun, need and knead, blew and blue.
Polysemy: A polyseme is a word or phrase with different, but related, senses. E.g: “get” is a good example of polysemy — it can mean “procure,” “become,” or “understand.”
Capitonym: A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning (and sometimes pronunciation) when it is capitalized. E.g: Turkey (the country) and turkey (the bird) August (the month) and august (distinguished) Catholic (of the Roman Catholic faith) and catholic (diverse, broad-based).
Synophone: are words that have different meanings, different spellings, and sound similar but not the same. Examples: So, ball and bawl would be heterographs, while ball and bell would be synophones.
Meronym: a term that denotes part of something but is used to refer to the whole of it, e.g. faces when used to mean people in I see several familiar faces present.
Holonym: Definitions of holonym. a word that names the whole of which a given word is a part. “Login to see the codebrim’ and `crown’.
Spoonerism: is a speech error in which the speaker switches the initial consonants of two consecutive words. If you say “bunny phone” instead of “funny bone,” you’ve uttered a spoonerism. “Jelly beans” becomes “belly jeans.” “Son, it is now kisstumary to cuss the bride.”
Acyrologia: Acyrologia denotes the use of a word with a wrongful semantic value which occurs when someone uses an improper word and ignores a more appropriate one; for example, if someone says: ‘snout’ of a person rather than saying ‘face’ of a person.
Malapropism: the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with an amusing effect (e.g. ‘dance a flamingo ’ instead of flamenco ).illiterate him quite from your memory" (instead of “obliterate”), “he is the very pineapple of politeness” (instead of pinnacle) and “she’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile” (instead of alligator).
Misnomer: a wrong or inaccurate use of a name or term. E.g: It’s a misnomer to call it “tennis elbow.” I got it playing golf.
Autantonym | Contronym | Antagonym: is a word with multiple meanings (senses) of which one is the reverse of another. For example, the word cleave can mean “to cut apart” or “to bind together”.
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