CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1What is Semantics?
Semantics is a branch of linguistics study. As general terms, it has many
agreements about the way to describe meaning of a word of a language. By studying
Semantic, we will be able not only to hear a word told by everyone, but also to know
the real meaning of the word he/ she has told us. The term Semantic is known since
1984 by American Philological Association in an article named “Reflected
Meanings: A point in Semantics”. The history of Semantic can be read in an Article
named “An Account of the Word Semantic.
These are some definitions of Semantic referred by different Linguists:
Saeed (2003: 1) states, “Semantics is the study of meaning communicated
through language”.
Hurford (1983: 1), “Semantic is the study of meaning in language”.
Palmer (1976: 1), Semantics is the technical terms used to refer to the study
of meaning.
Lyons (1977: 1), “Semantics is generally designed as the study of meaning”.
Katz (1972: 1), “Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning”.
Leech (1974: 9) states, “Semantics is the study of meaning which is central to
the study of communication, and as communication becomes more and more
crucial factor in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more
Oxford Dictionary, Semantics is the branch of linguistics dealing with the
meaning of words and sentences.
From definitions above, it could be concluded that Semantic is a study of
meaning of a word and sentence.
2.2Scope of Semantics
Based on the definitions above, everybody would agree that Semantic is a
study of meaning, and the main point of Semantic is meaning itself.
There are at least two major approaches to know how the way meaning in a
language is studied. The first is linguistic approach. The second is philosophical
approach. Philosophers have investigated the relation between linguistic expression,
such as the words of language and the persons, things and events in the world to
which these words refer.
There are three basic terms of semantics, i.e (1) meaning, (2) sense, and (3)
reference.
2.2.1 Meaning
This word ‘meaning’ is derived from the word ‘mean’. In the Advanced
English learners’ Dictionary, meaning is defined as the thing or idea that a sound,
word, sign, etc, represents.
There are many theories about meaning in semantics created by linguists.
Basically, the linguists and philosophers discuss meaning in related between
into referential or corespondencial theory, contextual theory, mentalism theory, and
formalism theory. They will be explained below :
Referential theory
Ogden and Richards (in Parera 1990: 16) state that meaning is the
relation between reference and referent which is uttered in language sound
symbol, words or phrase or sentence. This theory concerns with the direct
relation between reference and referent in the real life.
Mentalism theory
This theory is contrasted to referential theory. Glucksberg and Danks
(in Parera 1990: 17) state “the set of possible meaning in any given word is
the set of possible feelings, images, ideas, concepts, thoughts, and inferences
that a person might produce when that word in heard and processed.”
Usually the proponents of this theory are the psycholinguists.
Contextual theory
This theory is collaterally with relativism theory in semantic
inter-language comparison. The meaning of a word is related to cultural and
ecology environment the language user from. So, if the word has separated
with the context, it will be meaningless.
‘Meaning in use’ theory
This theory in found by Wittgenstein (1830-1858). He assumes that
word is impossibly meaningful for all context because context changes
everytime.
“Jangan menanyakan makna sebuah kata, tanyakanlah
pemakaiannya” ( “don’t ask for the meaning of a word, ask for the
use” )
One of the lacks of this theory is how to decide the concept of “use” well, it
is like this theory is the beginning of Pragmatics theory.
2.2.2 Sense and Reference
Sense and reference are two, though related, but they are very different terms
that talks about aspects of meaning. Frank R. Palmer defines sense and reference as
following:
“Reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements,
words, sentences, etc, and the non-linguistic world of experience. Sense refers
to the complex system of relationship iothat holds between the linguistics
elements themselves (mostly the words); it is concerned only with the
intra-linguistic relations” (Palmer 1976:30)
(1)The woman who is my mother
(2)The woman who married my father
Phrases, like words, normally both have sense and can be used to refer. The
example (1) refers to a certain individual and has a certain sense which could be
different from example (2), although both expressions usually have the same
2.3 Types of meaning
According to Leech in his book Semantic (1974: 23), there are seven types of
meaning, they are as followings:
2.3.1 Conceptual or Denotative meaning
Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the basic
propositional meaning which corresponds to the primary dictionary definition. Such
a meaning is stylistically neutral and objective as opposed to other kinds of
associative meanings. Conceptual meanings are the essential or core meaning while
other six types are the peripheral. It is peripheral in as sense that it is non-essential.
For examples:
(3)Father = (+) human (+) male (+) adult.
(4)Son = (+) human (+) male (-) adult
(5)Mother = (+) human (+) female (+) adult
(6)Daughter = (+) human (+) female (-) adult
The aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic
representation to a sentence or statement. A sentence is made of abstract symbols.
Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other
sentences. Thus, conceptual meaning is an essential part of language. A language
essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. The conceptual
2.3.2 Connotative Meaning
Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression over and
above its purely conceptual content. It is something that goes beyond mere referent
of a word and hints at its attributes in the real world. It is something more than the
dictionary meaning. Still further connotative meaning can embrace putative
properties of a referent due to viewpoint adopted by individual, group, and society as
a whole. So in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail, prone to
tears, emotional, irrigational, inconstant , cowardly etc. as well as more positive
qualities such gentle, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking etc. Connotations vary
age to age and society to society.
For examples:
Conceptual meaning:
(7)Woman = (+) human (+) female (+) adult
Connotative meaning:
(8)Woman = (+) human (+) female (+) adult (+) wearing Kebaya ‘in Java
society’.
(9)Woman = (+) human (+) female (+) adult (+) wearing Kebaya ‘in Western
society’.
The boundary between conceptual and connotative seems to be analogous.
determinant, open ended, variable according to age, culture and individual, whereas
conceptual meaning is not like that . It can be codified in terms of limited symbols.
2.3.3 Social Meaning
Social meaning is the meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the
social context of its use. The decoding of a text is dependent on our knowledge of
stylistics and other variations of language. We recognize some words or
pronunciation as being dialectical i.e. as telling us something about the regional or
social origin of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the situation in which an
utterance is used.
It is concerned with the social circumstances of the use of a linguistic
expression. For example, some dialectic words inform us about the regional and
social background of the speaker. In the same way, some stylistic usages let us know
something of the social relationship between the speaker and the hearer. Through
utterances we come to know about the social facts, social situation, class, region, and
speaker-listener relations by its style and dialect used in sentences.
For examples:
(10) “I ain’t done nothing”
In sentence (10), it tells us about the speaker and that is the speaker is
probably a black American, underprivileged and uneducated.
Another example can be,
In sentence (11), the social meaning can be interpreted that it is uttered by
Indian young close friends.
2.3.4 Affective or Emotive Meaning
For some linguists it refers to emotive association or effects of words evoked
in the reader, listener. It is what is conveyed about the personal feelings or attitude
towards the listener. In affective meaning, language is used to express personal
feelings or attitude to the listener or to the subject matter of his discourse.
For Leech (1974: 25) affective meaning refers to what is convey about the
feeling and attitude of the speaking through use of language (attitude to listener as
well as attitude to what he is saying). Affective meaning is often conveyed through
conceptual, connotative content of the words used.
For examples:
(12) “I hate you, you idiot!”
In sentence (12), speaker seems to have a very negative attitude towards his
listener. This is called affective meaning.
(13) “I am terribly sorry but if you would be so kind as to make lower your
voice a little”
In sentence (13), speaker uses a sentence in politeness. Intonation and voice
Richards (in Leech 1974:25) argued that emotive meaning distinguishes
literature or poetic language from factual meaning of science. Finally it must be
noted that affective meaning is largely a parasitic category. It overlaps heavily with
style, connotation and conceptual content.
2.3.5 Reflected Meaning
Reflected meaning and collocative meaning involve interconnection. At the
lexical level of language, Reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one
conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual meaning. In such cases while responding
to one sense of the word we partly respond to another sense of the word too.
Reflected meaning is also found in taboo words. Thus we can see that
reflected meaning has great importance in the study of semantics.
For examples:
(14) Daffodils by William Wordsworth
“The could not but be gay
In such jocund company”
The word ‘gay’in example (14) was frequently used in the time of William
2.3.6 Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of
certain words. Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its
usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words.
For examples:
(15) Beautiful
(16) Handsome
The examples (15) and (16) indicate ‘good looking’. ‘Beautiful’
collocates with girl, woman, garden, or flower, etc. ‘handsome’ collocates
with boys and men.
2.3.7 Thematic meaning
Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way in which a
speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis.
Thus active is different from passive though its conceptual meaning is the same.
Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications properly.
For examples:
(17) Mr. Andi donated the car.
In sentence (17), “who gave away the car “is more important, but in sentence
(18) “what did Mr. Andi gave is important”. Thus the change of focus changes the
meaning also.
2.4 Meaning properties and meaning relations
The definition of meaning properties and meaning relations in semantic
theory can be thought as a formal explications of our ordinary notions about semantic
concepts. For example, our ordinary notions of semantic similarity, ambiguity,
meaningfulness, and synonymy are, roughly, that semantically similar expressions
are ones whose senses share a feature, that an ambiguous expression is one that has
more one sense, that a meaningful expression is one that has a senses, and that two
expressions are synonymous in case they have a common sense.
Thus, since semantic properties and relations are aspects of the
structure of the senses formed in the compositional determination of meaning,
there is no problem in coalescing the two conceptions of semantic theory into
one coherent whole. (Katz, 1972: 34)
Since meaning properties and relations of an expression are determined by its
meaning and since its meaning is given by semantic representations, it follows that
the definitions of meaning properties and relations must be stated in terms of formal
features of semantic representations. If it is done, there will be an explanation of how
the meaning of one expression makes it synonymous with another, or analytic,
2.4.1 Meaning Properties
Lyons (1977: 57) states “Meaning properties is one of several features or
components which together can be said to make up the meaning”. We can say that
the analysis of meaning properties is almost the same with componential analysis.
We analyze the conceptual meaning of a word or utterances. In the componential
analysis of meaning, the analyzed word is written in small letters, and the component
is written in capital letters and put in square bracket. There are five kinds of meaning
properties, they are meaningfulness, anomaly, contradictory, ambiguity, and
redundancy (Leech 1981: 29).
2.4.1.1Meaningfulness
The word ‘meaningful’ means having meaning and significances. Any
expression of language is meaningful. In order to be meaningful, an expression must
obey the Semantic rules of the language as obeying only the syntactic rule cannot
end up with meaningful expression and must represent their meaning. So, from this,
it can be said that meaningful expression is the word or expression which has
meaning and it is not strange or contradiction, and also must obey the grammatical
rules. Semantic theory must be able to distinguish and describe about both
meaningful and meaningfulness, and must be able to say which expression is
meaningful or meaningless.
For examples:
Sentences (19) and (20) are meaningful. The speaker and listener can
easily get the meaning of each sentence, and the meaning is not strange.
2.4.1.2Anomaly
If there is term meaningfulness, there must be term meaninglessness. Jerold
J. Katz proposes the term anomaly as substitution of term meaninglessness. A
constituent is semantically anomalous just in case it is assigned no readings (the set
of readings assigned to its null) -Katz (1972: 49)-
Katz uses term reading to represent morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, or
sentences. Anomaly happens when the selected features of one member of the
construction with it or the selected features are not familiar in the world every day.
For example:
(21) I heard trees whispering.
Sentence (21) is anomalous because tree is not kind of human, so it has
no mouth and when it has no mouth, it will not possibly do a whispering.
2.4.1.3Contradictory
A sentence is contradictory when there is a contradiction of meaning between
the constituent expressions. It is impossible for the constituent expression to be true
at the same time in the same circumstances.
For example:
In sentence (22), there is a contradiction. Usually, we hate what we dislike.
2.4.1.4Ambiguity
Ambiguity, as ordinarily understood, is a case where there is a problem
telling one thing from another, and accordingly, a semantic ambiguity is a case where
there are (at least) the two senses required to pose this problem. According to
Hurford and Heasley (1983: 121), a word or sentence is ambiguous when it has more
than one sense.
Ullman (in Pateda 2001: 202) divides ambiguity into 3 (three) main forms,
they are:
a. Phonetical ambiguity
This ambiguity exist because of the mixing of language sound uttered. It is
because the words that are formed to be a sentence uttered quickly, so that it becomes
an ambiguity for people about the meaning of the sentence.
For examples,
(23) Love her
(24) Lover.
In both examples (23) and (24), if people say it quickly, it will be
ambiguous for which one is used.
This kind of ambiguity usually comes in unit of language named
sentence group of sentences or words. Grammatical ambiguity can be seen
from 3 (three) sides:
First possibility, is the ambiguity which is caused by word forming
grammatically, such as prefix and suffix that can make a word have
two or more meanings, so that it can be confusing.
For example,
(25) Suffix –able In desirable, readable (adjectives), eatable, knowable,
and debatable just happens in the same form.
In English does not always the same meaning. In desirable,
readable (adjectives), eatable, knowable, and debatable just happens
in the same form.
Second possibility, is like Ullman’s equivocal phrasing and amphiboly
(Pateda 2001: 204). Every words form a phrase, but the combination
can have more than one meaning.
For example:
(26) I met a number of old friends and acquaintance,
In sentence (26), the word old here can be related to the old
friends or acquaintance.
Third possibility, is the ambiguity that comes in context, individual
context or situation context.
For example:
The word (27) can have more than one meaning. It can be
where do you go? Or why do you go? To avoid this kind of ambiguity,
people have to know the context of conversation.
c. Lexical ambiguity
Words in sentences have several meaning, and lexical ambiguity is
resulted from polysemous word, or word has more than one meaning. Palmer
(1976: 67) states that “polysemy is one word with several meanings”. It can be
disambiguated by giving further information.
For example,
(28) Glasses
In example (28), it can be a thing useful to see clearly, or a container
for drinking.
2.4.1.5Redundancy
In linguistics, redundancy is the construction of a phrase that presents some
idea using more information, often via multiple means, than is necessary for one to
be able to understand the idea. Often, redundancies occur in speech unintentionally,
but redundant phrases can also be deliberately constructed for emphasis, to reduce
the chance that a phrase will be misinterpreted. Redundancy typically takes the form
of tautology: phrases that repeat a meaning with different though semantically
similar words.
In sentence (29), the word variety has meant a difference in kind.
2.4.2 Meaning relations
Meaning relations is also called sense or semantics relations. It is the
relationships of meaning or sense that may be set up between two individual and
groups of lexical items. Semantic or meaning relations have eight terms (Saeed 2003:
63) and that will be discussed in this thesis. They are synonymy, antonymy,
polysemy, hyponymy, homonymy, meronymy, member-collection, and portion mass.
2.4.2.1Synonymy
The term ‘synonymy’ is derived from Greek word synonymy syn which
means with together and onoma means name. So, synonymy means name together.
Two words or more (together) name the same object, action, event or quality.
Saeed (2003: 65) states that synonyms are different phonological words
which have the same or very similar meaning. Moreover, synonymy is used to mean
‘sameness of meaning’ (Palmer 1976: 59). So, we can say that synonym is when two
or more words have similar meaning though they have different phonological and
morphological aspects.
For examples:
(30) Beautiful = Lovely
(31) Fair = Objective
The example (14), (15), and (16) are synonymy because the meaning of each
word in each example is similar, although the word is different.
2.4.2.2Antonymy
In the traditional terminology, antonyms are words which are opposites in
meaning. Palmer (1976: 78) in his book states that “Words that are opposite is called
Antonymy”.
Antonymy is often thought of as opposite of synonymy, but the status of the
two are very different. For language has no real need of true synonyms, and, as we
have seen, it is doubtful whether any true synonyms exist. But antonymy is a regular
and very natural feature of language and can be defined fairly precisely.
Saeed (2003: 66) divides antonym into two, they are:
Simple Antonym
This is a relation between words such that the negative of one implies
the positive of the other.
For examples:
(33) Dead >< Alive
(34) Pass >< Fail
Gradable Antonym
This is the relationship between opposites where the positive of one
term does not necessarily imply the negative of the other.
For examples:
(35) The big ant is likely smaller than the small elephant.
2.4.2.3Polysemy
Sameness of meaning is not very easy to deal with but there seems nothing
inherently difficult about difference of meaning. Not only different words have
different meanings; it is also the case that the same word may have a set of different
meanings. This is called polysemy (Palmer 1976: 65).
For examples:
(37) Crane :
a. a bird,
b. a type of construction equipment
(38) Present
a. right now, the current moment
b. a gift
c. to show or display (e.g. "Michael was next to present")
d. to be physically somewhere (e.g. "Stephen was present at the
meeting"
2.4.2.4Homonymy
According to Saeed (2003: 64), there is a traditional distinction made in
lexicology between Polysemy and homonymy. Both deal with multiple senses of the
same phonological word, but homonymy is not invoked if the senses are judged to be
related.
Homonyms are unrelated senses of the same phonological word (Saeed 2003:
63). Palmer (1976: 67) states that homonymy is when there are several words with
Homonymy can be divides into two, homophone and homograph.
Homophone is word that have the same pronunciation but different in spelling and
meaning.
For examples:
(39) Flour /flaυə(r)/ means used for making bread or cake.
(40) Flower /flaυə(r)/ means the part of plant.
2.4.2.5Hyponymy
Saeed (2003: 68), ”Hyponymy is relation of inclusion. A hyponym includes
the meaning of more general word. Palmer (1976: 76) states that “hyponym involves
us in the nation of inclusion in the sense”.
For examples:
(41) Butterfly and dragonfly are hyponyms of animal.
(42) Sister and daughter are hyponyms of woman.
The more general term is called superordinate or hypernym. It is the opposite
of hyponym. Hypernym is a linguistic term for a word whose meaning includes the
meanings of other words.
2.4.2.6Meronymy
Meronymy is a part-whole relationship between lexical items. Meronymy
reflects hierarchical classifications in the lexicon somewhat like taxonomic.
Meronymy differs from hyponym in transitivity. Hyponymy is always transitive, but
meronymy is not always transitive.
(44) but hole is not a meronym of shirt
2.4.2.7Member-collection
This is a relationship between the word for a unit and the usual word for a
collection of the units.
For examples:
(45) ship
(46) tree
(47) fish
(48) book
2.4.2.8Portion-mass
This is a relation between a mass noun and the usual unit of measurement or
division.
For examples:
(49) drop of liquid
(50) sheet of paper
(51) strand of hair
2.5 Related studies
In doing this thesis, the writer has consulted and read some information from
some researches done before. They are some thesis which are relevant to the topic
Margaretha (2003) in her thesis entitled “An Analysis of meaning properties
and meaning relations used in Sidney Sheldon’s novel ‘Nothing Last Forever” found
and concluded that there are 5 (five) kinds of meaning properties, they are 20
meaningfulness (39.21%), 7 anomaly (13.72%), 6 contradictory (11.76%), 6
ambiguity (11.76%), and 6 redundancy (11.76%). Meaning relations found are 16
homonymy (16.32%), 39 synonymy (39.79%), and 42 antonymy that is divided into
3 (three), 21 complementary pairs (21.42%), 16 gradable pairs (16.32%), and 6
relational pairs (6.15%).
Sofyana (2008) in her thesis entitled “Meaning properties and meaning
relations in Saul Bellow’s Looking for Mr.Green” found and concluded that there are
5 (five) kinds of meaning properties, they are 112 meaningfulness (82.3%), 6
anomaly (4.4%), 4 contradictory (2.9%), 12 ambiguity (8.8%), and 2 redundancy
(1.4%). Meaning relations found are 11 homonymy (32.3%), 10 synonymy (29.4%),
and 13 antonymy (38.2%).
Gultom (2009) in her thesis “An analysis of meaning properties and lexical
relations in ‘the Rainbow’ by D.H. Lawrence”, found and concluded that there are 4
(four) kinds of meaning properties, they are 14 anomaly (19.71%), 4 contradictory
(5.63%), 10 ambiguity (14.08%), and 43 redundancy (60.56%). Meaning relations
found are 7 homonymy (5.51%), 57 synonymy (44.88%), 50 antonymy (39.37%),
and 13 hyponymy (10.23%).
Aginta, Windy (2009) in her thesis “An analysis of Lexical relations and
meaning properties in articles in The Jakarta Post Daily Newspaper”, found and
concluded that there are 3 kinds of meaning properties, they are 321 meaningfulness
redundancy. Lexical relations found are 8 antonyms (44.44%), 8 synonyms
(44.44%), 2 hyponyms (11.1%), and no homonym and meronym.\
Simbolon, Sherly Kristina (2003) in her thesis “An analysis of meaning
properties and meaning relations on Westlife’s songs”, found and concluded that
there are 5 kinds of meaning properties, they are 24 meaningfulness (47.05 %), 8
anomaly (15.6%), 4 contradictory (7.84%), 10 ambiguity which is divided into two, 7
lexical ambiguity (13.7%), 3 structural ambiguity (5.88%), and 5 redundancy (9.8%).
Meaning relations found are 13 synonymy (30.23%), 7 homonymy (16.27%), and 23
antonymy which is divided into 3, they are 8 complementary pairs (18.60%), 10
gradable pairs (23.25%), and 5 relational opposites (11.62%.)
Those thesis’s above only analyze only meaning properties and meaning
relations in Novel, Short story, Song, and Articles from newspaper, and they found
some of meaning properties and meaning relations but in this thesis, the writer
