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Outline

Title
Abstract
Semantics and Other Related Disciplines
Approaches to the Study of Semantics
Summary
Componential Analysis
Background to Componential Analysis
Componential Analysis of Meaning
Linguistic Basis for Componential Analysis
Contributions to the Study of Meaning
Strengths and Weaknesses of Componential Analysis
Limitations
Overview
Learning Objectives
References
All Topics
Languages and Linguistics
Semantics

AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE ON SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS

Profile image of Rajendran SankaravelayuthanRajendran Sankaravelayuthan

Abstract

The aim of the subject of study is to give a brief introduction to semantics and pragmatics. Semantics is the study of meaning. More precisely it is the study of the relation between linguistic expressions and their meanings. Pragmatics is the study of context. More precisely it is the study of the way context can influence our understanding of linguistic utterances. The term semantics simply means the study of meanings. The study explores how meaning in language is produced or created. Semantics not only concentrates on how words express meaning but also on how words, phrases and sentences come together to make meaning in language. To start with, you will be motivated to focus on the nature and scope of semantics. Hence, here in this unit, you will be introduced to the concept and definition semantics, brief history of semantics, semantics and other disciplines, major concern of semantics, and the different approaches to the study of semantics. The symbols employed in language must be patterned in a systematic way. You have been already informed that language is organized at four principal levels – sounds (i.e. Phonetics/phonology), words (i.e. Morphology), sentences (i.e. syntax) and meaning (i.e. semantics). Phonology and syntax are concerned with the expressive power of language while semantics studies the meaning of what has been expressed. Knowledge of grammar is an aspect of the innate cognitive ability of human beings. The power of interpretation complements that innate ability. Interpretation is an aspect of semantics. Therefore, language acquisition or learning includes not only the knowledge of the organization of sounds and structures, but also how to associate meaning to the structures. Semantics can, therefore, be characterized as the scientific study of meaning in language. Semantics has been the subject of discourse for many years for philosophers and other scholars but later was introduced formally in literature in the late 1800’s. Hence, we have philosophical semantics and linguistic semantics among other varieties of semantics. Earlier scholars in philosophical semantics were interested in pointing out the relationship between linguistic expressions and identified phenomena in the external world. In the contemporary world, especially in the United States philosophical semantics has led to the development of semiotics. In some other parts of the world, and especially, France, the term semiology has been favoured. The reliance on logical calculations in issues of meaning has led to the development of logical semantics. However, for your purpose in this course, emphasis is on linguistic semantics, with our interest on the properties of natural languages. You shall see how this study relates to other disciplines. We shall also examine the real issues in linguistic semantics. Semantics has been identified as a component of linguistics. In its widest sense, linguistics is the scientific study of language. As a field of study, semantics is related to other disciplines. In semantics, we study the meaning of words and also how the meanings of words in a sentence are put together to form sentential meaning. Linguistic semantics studies meaning in a systematic and objective way. Since meaning as a concept is not static, a great deal of the idea of meaning still depends on the context and participants in the act of communication (discourse). There is a strong connection between meaning and pragmatics. The exchange or relay of information, message, attitude, feelings or values from one person to another contributes to the interpretation of meaning. This is done mainly by the use of language. It is often expressed that language is a system which uses a set of symbols agreed upon by a group to communicate their ideas or message or information. These symbols can be spoken or written, expressed as gestures or drawings. Depending upon the focus of study, semantics can be compartmentalized as lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, logical semantics and semantics in relation to pragmatics.

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References (74)

  1. Firth, J.R. 1935. 'The techniques of semantics'. In Transactions of Philosophical Society. (Reprinted in Firth, J.R. 1957. Papers in Linguistics, 1934-1951. London: Oxford).
  2. Gordon, W.T. 1982. A History of semantics. John Benjamin publishing company.
  3. Hocket, C.F. 1958, A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillan.
  4. Leech, G. (1981). Semantics (second edition). London Penguin Books.
  5. Leech, G. 1990. Semantics. The Study of Meaning. London. Penguin Books.
  6. Lackoff, G and Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We live by. Chicago and London: Chicago University press.
  7. Lepore, Ernest. 2016. Study of meaning. Encyclopedia Britannica.
  8. Ogden, C.K. and Richards, I.A. 1923. The meaning of meaning. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  9. Palmer, F.R. (1996). Semantics. London: Cambridge University Press.
  10. Saeed, J. 1997. Semantics. Blackwell Publishers.
  11. Stern, G. 1931. Meaning and change of meaning. Gothenburg (Reprinted in Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University, 1965.).
  12. 1.2.2. Transitivity in meronymy
  13. 1.2.3. Characteristics of meronomies
  14. 1.2.4. Close relatives of the part-whole relation
  15. 1.2.5. Meronomies and taxonomies
  16. 2. Non-branching hiearchies
  17. 2.1. From branching to non-branching
  18. 2.2. Chains, helices and cycles
  19. 2.3. Ranks, grades and degrees
  20. 2.5. Propositional series or grids
  21. 2.7. Miscellaneous OVERVIEW The vocabulary of a language is not just a collection of words scattered at random throughout the mental landscape. It is at least partly structured, and at various levels. There are various modes of structuring. It is useful, at the outset, to distinguish two major types of structure, the linguistic and psycholinguistic. Linguistic structures in the lexicon are defined semantically in terms of meaning relations. Psycholinguistic structures are defined in terms of such properties as associative links, priming characteristics, and patterns of speech errors. These two approaches are complementary to one another. Linguistic structures in the lexicon may have a phonological, grammatical, or semantic basis. Obvious examples of grammatical structuring are word classes (grouping of words according to their syntactic properties) and word families (set of words derived from a common root). Here we shall be concerned BIBLIOGRAPHY
  22. Allan, K. 1986. Linguistic meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Aitchison, Jane. 2003. Linguistics. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd.
  23. Crystal, David. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  24. Cruse, Alan D. 2000. Meaning in Language. An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  25. Finegan, Edward. 2004. Language. Its Structure and Use. 4th ed. United States of America: Thomson Wadsworth.
  26. Goodenough, W. 1956. Componential analysis and the study of meaning. Language 32, 195-216.
  27. Jackson, Howard. 1996. Words and Their Meaning. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Inc. Katz. J.J. 1972. Semantic Theory. New York: Harper & Row.
  28. Katz, J. J. & Fodor, J.A. 1963. The structure of a semantic theory. Language 39, 120-210.
  29. Kreidler, Charles. 2002. Introducing English Semantics. New York: Routledge.
  30. Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Ltd.
  31. Leech, Geoffrey. 1976. Semantics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Ltd.
  32. Lehrer, Adrienne. 1974. Semantic fields and lexical structure. Amsterdam: North Holland. Lounsbury, F.G. 1956. "
  33. Lounsbury, F.G. 1963. The structural analysis of kinship semantics. In H. Lunt (ed.), Proceedings of the ninth international congress of linguists 1073-93. The Hague: Mouton. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  34. Lyons, John. 1995. Linguistic semantics: An introduction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  35. Matthews , P.H. (2007). Concise Dictionary of Linguistics . Oxford : Oxford University Press .
  36. Nida, Eugene A. 1975. Componential Analysis of Meaning. Belgium: Mouton.
  37. Nida , E. 1983. "Semantic Components in Translation Theory." In: G . E . Perren and J. L. M. Trim (eds). 1983. Applications of Linguistics. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press Palmer, F. R. 1983. Semantics (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  38. Saeed, John I. 2009. Semantics. 3rd ed. United Kingdom: Wiley Blackwell.
  39. Wardhaugh, Ronald.1977. Introduction to Linguistics. United States: McGraw-Hill.
  40. UNIT 6 DYNAMICS OF WORD MEANING AND LEXICON
  41. I went to the bank. (ambiguous because of the two readings for the bank: one 'bank of a water body' or 'financial bank')
  42. a. The child can walk already and she's only 11 months old. (contrasted with standing up unaided, talking, etc.)
  43. b. I usually walk to work. (contrasted with driving, going by train, etc.)
  44. Mary's speech was inaudible.
  45. b.Mary's speech was interesting.
  46. Do words typically have multiple meanings? 2. How do we decide what constitutes 'a meaning'?
  47. Is there a finite number of meanings?
  48. How are meanings related to one another? The answers for these questions are difficult to arrive at. We shall begin by identifying two properties of variant readings of a word which are relevant to the answers to the above questions. We can first of all ask whether there is a sharp semantic boundary between the two readings; a second question is whether they are mutually exclusive. Both these will be taken as distinctness of two readings.
  49. Words that are polysemous have single entries in the dictionary. However, there are numbers 7.1.5. 4. Gradation in adjectives Most discussions on antonymy distinguish between contradictory and contrary terms. This terminology is originated in logic, where two propositions are said to be contradictory if the truth of one implies the falsity of the other and are said to be contrary if only one proposition can be true but both can be false. 'alive' -'dead' (Contradictory terms) 'fat' -'thin' (Contrary terms)
  50. Contraries are gradable adjectives, contradictories are not. Gradation, therefore must also be considered as a semantic relation organizing lexical memory for adjectives. warmth: very hot, hot, warm, cold age: old, middle aged, young
  51. 1.5.5. Gradable and non-gradable adjectives There are two major dichotomies in the classification of adjectives. The first separates gradable from non- gradable adjectives. This has grammatical consequences, because prototypically, the degree inflections occur only in connection with gradable adjectives; if an adjective is basically non-gradable, then it has to be reinterpreted when inflected for degree: Raja was very married Radha is very alive.
  52. 1.5.6. Markedness in adjectives Binary oppositions frequently have a marked term and an unmarked term. That is, the terms are not entirely of equivalent weights, but one (the unmarked one) is neutral or positive in contrast to the other.
  53. Marked/unmarked distinction is found in polar oppositions such as : 'high': 'low, 'old': 'young', 'long': 'short, wide: narrow.
  54. We measure things by 'height' rather than 'shortness'. While asking questions about 'height', we say 'How high that pillar is?' rather than 'How short that pillar is?'. A question 'How short is X?' is felt to contain the assumption that X is short, while no equivalent assumption is present in 'How high is X?' A great deal of the problems of communication derives from the misinterpretation of the grammatical and sentential meaning. It is always profitable to explore the full range of meaning from the point of view of grammar and sentence. This we have attempted in this unit. In this unit, we have studied semantics in its two dimensions: grammatical semantics and sentential semantics. Under grammatical semantics we studied about the difference and relation between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning, the meaning of major grammatical categories, grammatical meaning associated with nouns and noun phrases, grammatical meaning associated with the verbs, adjectives and their properties and quantification. Under sentential semantics we have focused our attention on paraphrase, ambiguity, vagueness, tautology, presupposition, entailment, anomaly, and analyticity.
  55. Cruse, D.A. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  56. Huford, J.R. & Heasley, B. (1983). Semantics: A course book. London: Cambridge University Press.
  57. Kempson, R. (1977). Semantic theory. London: Cambridge University Press Lyons, J. 1977. Semantics volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  58. 2. Reference anaphora and dexis
  59. Reference, Referring Expression, and Referent
  60. Differentiate between scalar implicature and conventional implicature. SUMMARY We have discussed about the role of pragmatics in semantics. In the second part of the unit we have discussed about reference, anaphora and dexis. We have studied the difference and the relation between reference, referring expression and referent. We have also learned about the types of referents and the types of reference. We have discussed about anaphor and dexis in details. We have learned about dexis and its types. In the third part of the unit, we have discussed about speech acts. We have learned about Austin's speech act theory and Searle's classification of speech acts. In the third part of the unit we have discussed about implicature. We have learned about Grie's conversational maxims and conversational implicature BIBLIOGRAPHY Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. London: Oxford University Press
  61. Cruse, D.A. 2000. Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  62. Grice, H. (1975). "Logic and conversation". In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. (Eds.), Syntax and semantics, vol 3, New York: Academic Press, pp 41-58.
  63. Halliday, M.A.K and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
  64. Hofmann, Th.R. 1993. Realms of Meaning. London:Longman.
  65. Kreidler, C.W. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. London: Routledge.
  66. Lyons, J. 1977. Semantics. Vol. 1 & 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  67. Matthews, P.H. 1997. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  68. Palmer, F.R. 1981. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  69. Saeed, J.I. 1997. Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
  70. Quirk, R, Sydney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvick. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
  71. Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  72. Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as social semiotic. London: Edward Arnold.
  73. Kempson, R. (1986). Semantic theory. London: Cambridge University press.
  74. Searl, J.R. (1969). Speech Acts. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press,

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