AN INTRODUCTION

SEMANTICS

SEMANTICS

• The term “semantics’ is a recent addition to English Language (1948)

• Taken from the word Greek noun sema which means sign or signal, and verb semaino which means signal or mean.

• The study of meaning (Matthews/Aitchison)• The study of meaning in a language (Hurford &

Heasley)• The study of meaning communicated through

language (Saeed)• The focus is to analyze speaker’s semantic knowledge• Definition Theory (this theory would simply state that

to give the meaning of linguistic expression, we should give definition of meaning of words

IN GIVING DEFINITION, WE FACE ISSUES OF

• Circularity Metalanguage•Making sure that the definitions are exact. Thus, it relates with linguistic knowledge (the meaning of words) & encyclopedic knowledge (about the way the world is) compare speaker’s knowledge with dictionary•What it means in a context pay attention in conventional & literal meaning

MEANING

• The word mean can be applied to the speakers/authors in sense of ‘intend’ and to words and sentences in a different sense, in a sense of ‘equivalent to’• Thus, meaning can be categorized into

Speaker meaning (What the speaker intends to convey

Sentence Meaning (or Word Meaning) (What is a sentence/words means)

• In semantics, there is a focus on what the words conventionally means rather than what a speaker want the words to mean in a particular situation.

ILLUSTRATION OF SPEAKER MEANING

Husband: “When I go next week, I’m taking the car”

Wife : “Oh. Are you? I need the car here to take the kids to school”

Husband: “I’m sorry, but I must have it. You’ll have to send them on the bus”

Wife : “That’ll be nice for the family. Up at the crack of dawn, and not be home till mid-evening! Sometimes you are very inconsiderate”

Husband: “Nice day”

ILLUSTRATION OF SENTENCE/WORD MEANING

“.. that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents.”

“Certainly”, said Alice.“And only one for birthday present, you know. There’s glory for you!”“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’, “Alice saidHumpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell

you. I meant there is a nice knockdown argument for you.”“But Glory doesn’t mean a nice knockdown argument, “Alice objected.“When I used a word, “Humpty dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “It

means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”“The question is, “said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so

many different things.”“The question is,” said humpty dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s

all.”

WORD MEANING & SENTENCE MEANING

• Knowing a language, especially one’s native language, involves knowing thousands of words. The mental storage of these words is lexicon.• The important difference of word meaning and sentence meaning is productivity.•Rules for sentence formation must be recursive & the sentence meaning is compositional