A. The Exclusion of Cont ext
Cont ext shoul d be excl uded f rom semant ics in t hat :
§
it woul d be dif f icul t in pract ice as wel l as t heory t o handl e cont ext§
t he meaning of a sent ence can be known and underst ood in isol at ion f rom anycont ext
Meanwhil e, l et ’ s consider t he f ol l owing exampl es
The bi l l i s l ar ge.
He needs t he chai r.
“ I haven’t had my br eakf ast ” “ My baby needs mi l k”
v
Any kind of NON-LINGUISTIC inf ormat ionmay be used in t he anal ysis and
underst anding of a sent ence.
v
It is a mist ake t o t hink t hat we can l imit it t o what is ‘ purel y’ l inguist icB. Cont ext of Sit uat ion
B. Mal inowski•
st udy on l anguage in t he Trobriand Isl ands,§
f ound t hat l anguage not onl y is “ a mirror of ref l ect ed t hought ” but al so can be “ a mode of act ion”§
chil d uses words as “ act ive f orces”man uses t hem as “ import ant ut ensil s”
J. R. Firt h
§
see cont ext of sit uat ion as part of t hel inguist ’ s apparat us in t he same way as are t he grammat ical cat egories t hat he uses
§
it is j ust one of t he ways in which a l inguist handl es a l anguage??? Is it st il l appl icabl e f or t he st udy of semant ics?
C. Behaviourism
Bl oomf iel d§
def ine meaning as t he sit uat ionD. Linguist ic Rel at ivit y
Part of t he dif f icul t y in rel at ing
l anguage t o t he ext ernal worl d may arise f rom t he f act t hat t he way in which we see t he worl d is t o some degree
dependent on t he l anguage we use.
Sapir’ s and Whorf’ s Hypot hesis
Hopi, American Indian l anguage
al l event s of brief durat ion are represent ed by verbs.
In anot her Anerican Indian l anguage, no noun/ verb dist inct ion. As a resul t , f or an expression such as ‘ There is a house’ , it is expressed as ‘ A house occurs’ or ‘ It houses’
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