Int roduct ion t o Semant ics
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Semant ics and Meaning•
Semant ics and Linguist ics•
Semant ics in ot her disciplinesSemant ics and Meaning
Semant ics : t he st udy of meaning
“ meaning” ???
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Covers a variet y of aspect s of language-
No very general agreement eit her about what meaning is or about t he way inThe t erm “ semant ics”
“ semant i que” – a French t erm derived f rom Greek by M. Breal (1893)
“ Ref lect ed meanings: a point in semant ics”
A paper of American Philol ogical Associat ion (1894)
In above cases, t he t erm not onl y ref ers t o “ meaning” , but also t o it s devel opment
“ Semant ics: st udies in t he science of meaning”
A book by M. Breal (1900)
“ The meaning of meaning”
A book by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (1923)
The t erm appeared in an appendix ent it led “ The problem of meaning in primit ive
Meaning ???
I mean t o be t her e t omor r ow
The sense of ‘ int end’
Those cl ouds mean t hunder
A r ed l i ght means ‘ st op’
Signs indicat ing:
somet hing t hat is happening or will happen
What does ‘ cal l i gr aphy’ means?
‘ Cal l i gr aphy’ i s beaut i f ul handwr i t i ng.
The repl y provides ot her words t hat t he speaker t hinks t he hearer can underst and.
To consider:
If words have a meaning, how can we f ail t o say what we mean? How can t he words f ail t o mean what t hey mean?
There is some ot her meaning besides t he ‘ l it eral’ meaning of t he words.
Semant ics and Linguist ics
Language as a communicat ion syst em
Semant ics --- Grammar --- Phonet ics
Message ---- Set of Signs or Symbol
Ferdinand de Saussure:
Linguist ics:
v
t he scient if ic st udy of languageIf semant ics is part of linguist ics, it must be no less scient if ic.
One essent ial requirement of a scient if ic st udy is t hat st at ement s made wit hin it must be verif iable by observat ion.
Phonet ics
describe t he operat ions of t he vocal organs
precisely measure t he physical
Also, scient if ic st udy must be concerned not wit h specif ic inst ances, but wit h
generalisat ions. Phonet ics
not primarily concerned wit h t he part icul ar sounds t hat are made at a part icul ar t ime by a part icul ar person
list en t o a number of individual
ut t erances of a word, e. g. book, but it
Semant ics ???
not normall y concerned wit h t he
meaning t hat any individual wishes t o place on his words
