semantics chapter 2 saeed

THE STUDY OF MEANING

Semantics

What is meaning?

I went to the store this morning. All dogs are animals. a. You are too young to drink. b. You are not old enough to drink. a. Harold spent several years in northern

Tibet. b. The unmarried woman is married to a

bachelor. My toothbrush is happy. I saw her duck.

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Referential, social, and affective meaning Referential meaning One way of defining

meaning is to say that the meaning of a word or sentence is the person, object, abstract notion, event, or state to which the word or sentence makes reference.

Social meaning The level of meaning that we rely on when we identify certain social characteristics of speakers and situations from the character of the language used.

Affective meaning The emotional connotation that is attached to words and utterances.

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semantics chapter 2

Denotation and connotation

We can see that meaning is not a simple notion but a complex combination of several aspects: referential meaning (the real-word objects or concepts described by language); social meaning (what the language users feel about the topics discussed).

The referential meaning of a word or sentence is frequently called denotation in contrast to connotation which includes social and affective meaning.

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Word meaning, sentence meaning and utterance

meaning Content words—principally nouns, verbs,

adjectives, and adverbs—have meaning in that they refer to concrete objects and abstract concepts; are marked as being characteristics of particular context and convey information about the feelings and attitudes of language users.

Function words—principally prepositions and articles that also carry meaning

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semantics chapter 2

LEXICON

The lexicon can be viewed as a compendium of all the words of a language. The study of words is called lexicology.

Words are sometimes called as lexical items or lexeme.

Lexical semantics is primarily concerned with word meanings.

How do we classify these relationships? Hyponymy Synonymy Antonymy Polysemy vs. homonymy Extension, such as methaphorical extension vs. Intension

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What do we know about the lexical system in English? 1. denotation and connotation 2. Meaning relations among words a. Syntagmatic relations She is collecting stamps. He keeps smiling. b. Paradigmatic relations ~ lexical

relations synonyms, antonyms, hyponymy,

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Sentences, utterances, and Propositions A sentence is neither a physical event nor

a physical object. It is conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of language.

A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind the various realizations in utterances and inscriptions.

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SENTENCE MEANING

It depends on individual words that make it up. The meaning of the sentence could be the sum

of the meaning of its words. Sentences are not tied to a particular time and

place. Sentences are tied by grammatical rules. Consider these examples: a. It will be great. b. They reviewed what they had studied last

night. c. We are learning Semantics now.

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semantics chapter 2

Utterances

An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that person.

An utterance is the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word.


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Utterance Meaning

It can be in the form of word, phrase, or sentence.

Utterances are tied to a particular time and place.

Consider these: a. Shut up! b. cannot c. oops! d. next…

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semantics chapter 2

Proposition (1)

It is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs.

True propositions correspond to the facts but false propositions do not correspond to facts.


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Proposition (2)

The simplest type of proposition consists of an argument and a predicate (what is ‘said’ about the argument).

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Cont’

In the proposition ‘Pete is tall’, ‘Pete’ is the argument and ‘(is) tall’ is the predicate. Some predicates need more than one argument to form a complete proposition: ‘like’, for instance, requires two (‘Pete likes Liz’) and ‘give’ requires three (‘Pete gave Liz a present’).


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Proposition (3)

Predicates may be described as one-place, two-place or three-place according to the number of arguments they take. A proposition has a truth value, that is, it is either true or false.


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Proposition (4)

It is not a linguistic expression, nor is it tied to any particular linguistic expression.

The same proposition may be expressed by different linguistic means, and a given sentence may be used to express different propositions on different occasions.


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Proposition (5)

The proposition is what is asserted in a statement, what is questioned in a question (Is Pete here?) and what is denied in a negation (Pete is not here).


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Proposition (5)

A proposition is an abstraction that can be grasped by the mind of an individual person. In this sense, a proposition is an object of thought because thoughts are usually to be private, personal, mental processes, whereas propositions is accessible to different person: different individuals can grasp the same proposition.

The Monday Club deposed Mrs. Thatcher. Or Mr. Thatcher was deposed by The Monday Club.


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Pragmatics vs. Semantics (1) Pragmatics is defined as another

branch of linguistics that is concerned with meaning.

Pragmatics and semantics, both, are concerned with the speaker’s ability to use the language meaningfully.


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Pragmatics vs. Semantics (2) Semantics is mainly concerned with

the speaker’s competence to use the language system in producing meaningful utterances and processing (comprehending) utterances produced by others, the chief focus of pragmatics is a person’s ability to derive meanings from specific kinds of speech situations.


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Pragmatics vs. Semantics (3) Deriving meaning from the speech

situations means to recognize what the speaker is referring to, to relate new information to what has gone before, to interpret what is said from background knowledge about the speaker and the topic of discourse, and to infer or to fill in information that the speaker takes for granted and does not bother to say.


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Examples

Jim: Would you like to go dancing tomorrow night?

Barbara: We have guests coming out of town.Instead answering yes or nor as the question

demands,Barbara answers it by no but in implicit way.

Barry: How did you do on exam? Laura: I think I’ll just drop this course.(Implicit meaning is I cannot do it.)


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Summary (1)

Denotation ~ referential meaning Connotation

social meaning and affective meaning The term used for written language is sentence

while it is for the oral language is utterance. Sentence must be in a good structure but

utterance can be a chunk of a sentence or a sentence itself.

Pragmatics is different from semantics to some extents.

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Summary (2)

Proposition can be formed by constructing a simple sentence which consists of one argument and one predicate.

The term argument and predicate is used in Semantics in which it is different from when you discuss subject and predicate. Hence, it helps you to get more understanding in learning a language. It is to know which is form and meaning.


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References

Kreidler, Charles W. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. Routhledge: London

Cruse, Alan. 2006. A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh University Press Ltd: Edinburgh

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semantics chapter 2 saeed

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