Demonstrating

Semantic
Knowledge
Can speakers clearly
define all the words
they know?
 Abigarrar  Combine diverse
colors with bad
effect

 Craso
 Thick or fat
Transmit thoughts,
feelings and
intentions

Understand what
others say
 Possesion of vocabulary

 Howto produce every item in their

vocabulary

 How to recognize each pronunciation made

by other speakers
1. Charlie hit the books yesterday
2. Mateo vive muy lejos
3. The books Charlie yesterday
4. Lejos vive muy
1. Anomaly
 is the phenomenon that a sentence,
though grammatical, is meaningless because there is
an incompatibility in the meaning of the words.

 Speakers know if something is or is not

meaningful in their language

 Examples 3, 4 are anomalous

 1. Mary has been learning English since 2015
 2. Mary started studying English 4 years ago

 3. Se fue la luz debido a una tormenta eléctrica

 4. Una tormenta eléctrica provocó un apagón
2. Paraphrase
 To express the meaning of something written or spoken using
different words, especially to achieve greater clarity.
 Basically, you are writing something in your own words that
still expresses the original idea.

 Speakers usually agree when two sentences

have the same meaning and when they do not
He has tons of stuff to throw away.

_____________________________
He needs to get rid of a lot of junk.
She bought some bananas last week
Brought/ took / purchased

I forgot what happened yesterday

dismissed from mind / can’t understand /
can’t believe
 3. Synonyms
It is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same
as another word or phrase in the same language, for
example shut is a synonym of close.

 Speakers usually agree when two words

have the same meaning in a given context
 Andy set off the city two week ago
 Arrived/ come/ left

 Karla perdió sus llaves dentro del carro

 Arrojó/ dejó / encontró
4. Antonyms

Speakersusually agree when two words

have opposite meanings in a given contex
1. Nobody goes to that restaurant
2. That restaurant is cheaper
3. That restaurant is too crowded
4. There are good dishes at that restaurant
5. Contradictory
It is a sentence or idea that says two things that
cannot both be true.

 Speakersrecognize when the meaning of one

sentence contradicts another one
 1.Jorge tiene 20 años, el nunca ha viajado
al extranjero con su esposa

 2.
Jorge se casó el año pasado cuando aún
era muy joven

 3.Jorge quiere viajar a Europa ahora que

está soltero

 4. Jorge es joven y ama a su esposa

1. House/ car / roof/ structures

2. Powerful / Solid /Weak / Hard

6. Semantic feature
Speakers usually agree when the
common element of meaning shared
by given words but not by one of
them, it is called semantic feature
 1. I saw someone on the hill with a telescope

Did you use a telescope to see someone on the hill

or did you see someone on the hill holding a
telescope?

 2. Alison no quiere a su vecina porque es muy envidiosa.

¿Quién es envidiosa, Alison o su vecina?

7. Ambiguity

Itoccurs when some sentences have

double meanings, they can be
interpreted in two ways
Sarah gave a bath to her dog wearing a dress.

_____________________________

_____________________________
 1. Would you like a cup of coffee?

 Hi / no thanks / Yes, I could

 My parents don’t like the noise from the

traffic and…

I don’t too/ I don’t either / Me too

8. Adjacency pair
 Itis composed of two utterances by two
speakers, if the second is obviously related to
the first, they constitute an adjacency pair

 When a question and an answer, or any two

utterances can go together in a conversation,
and the second is obviously related to the
first.
 Mi hermana estudia literatura española
 Mi hermana conoce muchos autores españoles

 His listening skills are not good enough in order

to get the FCE
 His listening skills are deficient in order to get
the FCE
9. Entailment
It is the relationship between two sentences where the
truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B). For
example, the sentence (A) The president was assassinated.
entails (B) The president is dead.

 Speakers are aware that two statements may be related in

such a way that if one is true, the other must also be true

 These pairs of sentences are examples of entailment

 1. Karla haven’t had problems with his computer
since she sent it to get fixed
 2. There is a person called Karla
 3. Karla has a computer
 4. There is a fixed computer which belongs to
Karla
 5. Karla damaged her computer
10. Presuppositions
 Speakers know that the message transmitted in one
sentence may presuppose other pieces of knowledge

 Therefore the meaning of sentence 1 presuppose that is

expressed in sentence 2-5

 These presuppositions don’t establish the truth of anything