INTRODUCTION TO SEMANTICS

SUMMARY
This paper proposed to meet one of the task Semantics subjects

Lecturer: Inat Maksum S.Pd.M.Hum

Compiled By:
Ade Chandra
12.02.084
English Department

SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN

PERSATUAN ISLAM

CHAPTER 1
STUDY OF MEANING
1. The systematic study of meaning.
Semantics is the study of meaning. It is a wide subject within the
general study of language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the
study of language acquisition (how language users acquire a sense of
meaning, as speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language
change (how meanings alter over time). It is important for understanding
language in social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for
understanding varieties of English and effects of style. It is thus one of the
most fundamental concepts in linguistics. The study of semantics includes the
study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified, obscured,
illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased.
2. The Nature of Language
Natural language or ordinary language is any language which arises,
unpremeditated, in the brains of human beings. Typically, therefore, these are
the languages human beings use to communicate with each other, whether by
speech, signing, touch or writing. They are distinguished from constructed and
formal languages such as those used to program computers or to study logic.
natural language can broadly be defined in contrast to artificial or constructed
languages (such as computer programming languages and international
auxiliary languages) and to other communication systems in nature (such as
bees' waggle dance).[2] Definitions of "natural language" also usually state or
imply that a "natural" language is one that any cognitively normal human
infant is able to learn and whose development has been through use rather
than by prescription. An unstandardized language such as African American
Vernacular English, for example, is a natural language, whereas a standardized
language such as Standard American English is, in part, prescribed.

Animal versus Human Communication

Systems of communication are not unique to human beings. Other animal
species communicate in a variety of ways. One way is by sound: a bird may
communicate by a call that a territory is his and should not be encroached
upon.
Another means of animal communication is by odor: an ant releases a
chemical when it dies, and other ants then carry it away to the compost heap.
A third means of communication is body movement, for example used by
honeybees to convey the location of food sources.
Although primates use all three methods of communication: sound, odor,
and body movement, sound is the method of primary interest since it is our
own primary means of communication. A topic of persistent debate in

linguistic anthropology is whether human communication (verbal and

nonverbal) is similar to nonhuman primate communication, such as seen in
apes and monkeys. Linguistics and primatologists have searched for a
common thread running through the communication systems of humans and
nonhuman primates. Certain scholars argue that our language capabilities are
not unique and point to various aspects of non-human primate communication
as evidence. Other scientists remain unconvinced. Today there continues to be
a significant amount of debate concerning this area of linguistic anthropology.
Communication can be defined to include both signals and symbols.
Signals are sounds or gestures that have a natural or self-evident meaning
[example of someone crying (=emotion), laughing (=emotion), animal cries
(=indicating fear, food, or hunt). In this regard, we can consider that most
animal communication is genetically determined and includes hoots, grunts,
or screams that are meant to mean only one thing and are used every time in
the same situation. So there is only one way to express one thing and it never
changes. Animal communication tends to consist primarily of signals.
In contrast, human communication is dependent on both signals and
symbols. Symbols are sounds or gestures that have meaning for a group of
people-it is the cultural tradition that gives it meaning (e.g. green light=go;
teaching a child letters (see Faces of Culture video). Symbols have to be
learned and are not instinctive; the meanings are arbitrary.
3. Language and the individual
Every human child learns the language of the society in which it grows up.
A child acquires the fundamentals of that language in the first five or six years of
life (follows a general timetable in the process of acquisition).
-

Just as the baby sits up, then crawls, so the child, at about the age of
twelve months, begin to imitate its parents' ways of naming what is in the

environment ( bed, bottle, doll, etc. )

18 months: two-word utterances (Baby up)
Soon the utterances become complex and longer.
Because we must acquire our native language so early in life, our
knowledge is mostly implicit.

The linguist's task is to explicate this implicit knowledge.

-

Phonology is the knowledge, or the description, of how speech sounds

are organized in a particular language there are units called phonemes
which combine in various possible ways (but not all possible ways) to
express meaningful units such as words. These phonemes contrast with
one another to make different units of meaning.
Syntax is the knowledge, or the description of the classes of words,
sometimes called parts of speech, and of how members of these classes
go together to form phrases and sentences.
Syntax deals with

grammatical categories like tense, number, aspect categories somehow in

all languages.
Morphology is the description or the knowledge of word formation: the
account of different forms of the 'same' word (cat, cats; connect,
connecting, connected) and the derivation of different words which share a
basic meaning (connect, disconnect, connection). So a speaker knows how
to combine words into complex sentences and grasp the meanings of
complex structures that other speakers produce.

4. Demonstration Semantics Knowledge

The speakers can make their thoughts and feelings and intentions
known to other speakers of the language and can understand what others
say. This ability requires possession of a vocabulary and for speakers to know
how to pronounce every item in this vocabulary and how to recognize its
pronunciation by other speakers. They know how to use the production
vocabulary in meaningful sentences and to understand the sentences
produced by others. And of course they know meaningshow to choose the
items that express what they want to express and how to find the meanings
in what other people say. If it is hard to say what meaning is, it is fairly easy
to show what knowledge speakers have about meanings in their language
and therefore what things must be included in an account of semantics
(Bierwisch 1970:16775; Dillon 1977:16).
Speakers of a language have an implicit knowledge about what is
meaningful in their language, and it is easy to show this. There are ten
technical
antonymy;

terms:

anomaly;

contradiction;

paraphrase;

ambiguity;

synonymy;

adjacency

semantic

pairs;

feature;

entailment

and

presupposition.

CHAPTER II
LANGUAGE IN USE
2.1. Pragmatics
Pragmatic is another branch of linguistics that is concerned with
meaning. Pragmatic is study about meaning and the study of out of
meaning, study of context of meaning, study of social and society of
meaning.

The reason why we study pragmatic is to get meaning of the

utterance and understand it meaningful. Not only looked from
meaning of word or sentence but also looked from out of meaning of
word and sentence. On the other hand, pragmatic study more than
meaning.
pragmatic is concerned with peoples ability to use language
system in producing meaningful utterance and processing
(comprehending) utterance produce by other, the chief focus of
pragmatic is a person ability to derive meaning of speech situation
to recognize what the speaker is referring to, to relate new
information to what has gone before, to interpret what is said from
background knowledge about the speaker and the topic of
discourse.

2.2. Natural and Conventional Sign

What are natural signs? Conventional signs?
-

Natural signs convey messages unintentionally to communicate to

someone which are natural in nature. Example: Footprint (person
passed by), black cloud (possibility of rain), treetops moving, our
own bodies (earaches, hunger pongs, head nodding) sings and
smells.
Conventional signs convey messages intentionally which are
conventional and produced by humans. Example: horns, whistles ,
sirens. Also, visual devices such as the location of a telephone, a
slippery road, traffic light, road signs, etc. None of these uses
language.
Conventional signs have human senders as well as human receivers;
each has an intention and an interpretation.

What are the processes of a message to be conveyed?

- There are three steps to get information conveyed:
1) Perception
2) Identification
3) Interpretation
1) Perception

The first step is that the observer should perceive what others say
and what he reads. the sign and the observer share a context of
place and time in which the sign attracts his/her attention.
Example: You are driving on a 200-km road. You see lightening not
far away. What does it mean to you?
2) Identification:
- We rely on our previous experiences which are stored in our
memories. If we recognize a phenomenon, that means we have
seen it before.
- The second step is that the speaker should identify what he talks
or what he reads.
- We identify new things either by previously mentioned signs or
similar to it. A sign refers to something being common between
the speaker and the listener.
3) Interpretation:
- So, we interpret different meanings because of the context in
which the utterance occurs. Example: Conventional signs can
have different meanings in different contexts or different
circumstances. Example: The whistle made by the policeman, or
a hotel doorman summoning a taxi, or a referee. Is it the same?
- Answer: They are not the same. Their different meanings are due
to the difference of context in which the signal occurs. They have
different intentions and are interpreted differently.
2.3. Linguistic Sign

Any unit of language (morpheme, word, phrase, or sentence) used to

designate objects or phenomena of reality. Linguistic signs are bilateral; they
consist of a signifier, made up of speech sounds (more precisely, phonemes),
and a signified, created by the linguistic signs sense content. The
relationship between the aspects of a sign is an arbitrary one, since the
selection of a sound form does not usually depend on the properties of the
designated object. The peculiarity of the linguistic sign is its asymmetricality,
that is, the capacity of one signifier to convey various meanings (polysemy or
homonymy) and the tendency of the signified to be expressed by various
signifiers (heterophony or homosemy). The asymmetry of the structure of the
linguistic sign determines the languages capacity for development.
Linguistic signs are sometimes subdivided into complete and partial
signs. A complete sign implies an utterance, usually a sentence, directly
related to the designated situation (the referent or denotatum of the
linguistic sign). A partial linguistic sign is a word or morpheme that is
actualized only as part of a complete sign. The existence in a language of
partial signs of various degrees of complexity, as well as the divisibility of the
signifier and signified of the simplest sign into unilateral (nonsign) units of
content (components of meaning) and expression (phonemes), ensure the
economy of the linguistic system, permitting the creation of an infinitely
large number of communications from a finite number of simple units.

2.4. Utterance and sentence

Utterance is the noun form of utter (verb), which means to speak or
say. So an utterance can be any vocally produced sound -- it doesn't even
have to be a word. Technically, a burp could be considered an utterance.
A sentence (in the context you mean) can be written or spoken. It's
simply a group of words that expresses a complete thought or idea.
Sentences typically contain a subject and a predicate containing a verb.
2.5.

Prosody

Prosody is the study of the tune and rhythm of speech and how
these features contribute to meaning.
Prosody is the study of those aspects of speech that typically
apply to a level above that of the individual phoneme and very often
to sequences of words (in prosodic phrases). Features above the level
of the phoneme (or "segment") are referred to as suprasegmentals. A
phonetic study of prosody is a study of the suprasegmental features of
speech.
At the phonetic level, prosody is characterised by:

vocal pitch (fundamental frequency)

loudness (acoustic intensity)

rhythm (phoneme and syllable duration)

Phonetic studies of prosody often concentrate on measuring

these characteristics.
Prosody has been studied from numerous perspectives by people
belonging to differing linguistic schools. There has been great diversity
of approaches to prosody. Different approaches examine prosody from
the perspective of grammar, of discourse, of pragmatics and of
phonetics and phonology
Prosody can be regarded as part of the grammar of a language.
Discourse approaches examine the prosody of normal interactions
rather than stylised, constructed, fluent, scripted interactions.
Functionalist approaches integrate the study of prosody with the study
of grammar and meaning in natural social interactions.
Pragmatics examines the distinction between the literal meaning
of a sentence and the meaning intended by the speaker. Prosody can

have the effect of changing the meaning of a sentence by indicating a

speaker's attitude to what is being said (eg. it can indicate irony,
sarcasm, etc.) particularly when prosody works in conjunction with the
social/situational context of an utterance.
Prosody overlaps with emotion in speech. The same acoustic
features that are used to express prosody (intensity, vocal pitch,
rhythm, rate of utterance) are also affected by emotion in the voice.
For example, I can simultaneously be sad and ironic or fearful and
sarcastic.
2.6. Nonverbal Comunication
Nonverbal communication is the process of communication through
sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues between people. It is
sometimes mistakenly referred to as body language (kinesics), but nonverbal
communication encompasses much more, such as use of voice
(paralanguage), touch (haptics), distance (proxemics), and physical
environments/appearance.[1]
Typically
overlooked
in
nonverbal
communication are proxemics, or the informal space around the body and
chronemics: the use of time. Not only considered eye contact, oculesics
comprises the actions of looking while talking and listening, frequency of
glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate. This subject is
diverse in meaning, relative to culture and not limited to these definitions
specifically.

Non-verbal Messages Allow People To:

Reinforce or modify what is said in words. For example, people may nod
their heads vigorously when saying "Yes" to emphasise that they agree with the
other person, but a shrug of the shoulders and a sad expression when saying
"I'm fine thanks, may imply that things are not really fine at all!

Convey information about their emotional state.

Define or reinforce the relationship between people.

Provide feedback to the other person.

Regulate the flow of communication, for example by signalling to others

that they have finished speaking or wish to say something.

The types of interpersonal communication that are not expressed verbally are
called non-verbal communications. These include:

Body Movements (Kinesics)

Posture

Eye Contact

Para-language

Closeness or Personal Space (Proxemics)

Facial Expressions

Physiological Changes

CHAPTER III
THE DIMENSIONS OF MEANING

3.1. Reference and Denotation

References
reference is an apparent relation between a word and the
world. Russell, following the 19th-century British philosopher John
Stuart Mill, pursued the intuition that linguistic expressions are signs of
something other than themselves. He suggested that the meaning of
an expression is whatever that expression applies to, thus removing
meaning from the minds of its users and placing it squarely in the
world. According to a referential semantics, all that one learns when
one learns the meaning of tomato is that it applies to tomatoes and to
nothing else. One advantage of a referential semantics is that it
respects compositionality: the meaning of red tomato is a function of
the meanings of red and tomato, because red tomato will apply to
anything that is both red and a tomato.

Denotation

Denotation is a translation of a sign to its meaning, more exactly, to

its literal meaning. Denotation is sometimes contrasted to connotation,
which translates a sign to meaningsassociated with it.
In logic, linguistics and semiotics, the denotation of a word or phrase is a
part of its meaning; however, the part referred to varies by context:

In grammar and literary theory, the literal meaning or "dictionary

definition" of a term, devoid of emotion, attitude, and color.
In semiotics, the surface or literal meaning of a signifier.
In logic, formal semantics and parts of linguistics, the extension of a
term.

Example of Denotation :

The denotation of this example is a red rose with a green stem. The
connotation is that it is a symbol of passion and love this is what the

rose represents.
The denotation is a brown cross. The connotation is
a symbol of religion, according to the media connotation. However, to

be more specific this is a symbol of Christianity.

The denotation is a representation of a cartoon heart. The connotation
is a symbol of love and affection.

3.2. Conotation

Connotation refers to a meaning that is implied by a word apart

from the thing which it describes explicitly. Words carry cultural and
emotional associations or meanings in addition to their literal
meanings or denotations. For instance, Wall Street literally means a
street situated in Lower Manhattan but connotatively it refers to
wealth and power.
Positive and Negative Connotations
Words may have positive or negative connotations that depend
upon the social, cultural and personal experiences of individuals. For

example, the words childish, childlike and youthful have the same
denotative but different connotative meanings. Childish and childlike
have a negative connotation as they refer to immature behavior of a
person. Whereas, youthful implies that a person is lively and energetic.
Common Connotation Examples

Below are a few connotation examples. Their suggested meanings

are shaped by cultural and emotional associations:

A dog connotes shamelessness or an ugly face.

A dove implies peace or gentility.

Home suggests family, comfort and security.

Politician has a negative connotation of wickedness and

insincerity while statesperson connotes sincerity.

Pushy refers to someone loud-mouthed and irritating.

Mom and Dad when used in place of mother and father connote
loving parents.

Function of Connotation
In literature, connotation paves way for creativity by using figures
of speech like metaphor, simile, symbolism,personification etc. Had
writers contented themselves with only the literal meanings, there
would have been no way to compare abstract ideas to concrete
concepts in order to give readers a better understanding .Therefore,
connotative meanings of words allow writers to add to their works,
dimensions which are broader, more vivid and fresher.
3.3.

Sense Meaning

Meaning is more than denotation and connotation. What a word

means depend in part on its associations with other words, the relational
aspect. Lexemes do not merely have meanings; the contribute meanings
to the utterances in which they occur, and what meanings they contribute
depends on what other lexemes they are associated with in these
utterances.
And sense relation is the relations between form and meaning
For example: he is a good boy
Good can be meaning is not spoiled, being positive and may be noble

I love you, meaning of love there will be different, when different

object are conveyed.

For example say I love you for mother & father, boyfriend, and friendship
its meaning will be different.
Sense relations is a paragdimatic relation between words or
predicate
Two type of sense relations
Sense relation of inclusion
Hyponymy and synonymy
Sense relations the sense of word is its statable meaning out of
context meaning that apply across many contexts in which the
word is used. Sense are what we find when we look up words in the
dictionary and, we have seen, words often have more than one
sense they are polysemous.

3.4. Lexical and Grammatical Meaning

Lexical Meaning: concrete, specific
e.g. gwo3 cross, pass, gan2 tight
Grammatical Meaning: abstract, vague

e.g. lek1 gwo3 ngo5 smarter than me (comparative)

gwo3 as in heoi3-gwo3 have been (experiential aspect)
gan2 as in dang2-gan2 waiting (progressive aspect)
Relationship between lexical and grammatical meaning:
(i) historical derivation (comparative gwo derives from the verb gwo
pass)
(ii)

synchronic polysemy (gwo can mean cross, pass or surpass)

Grammaticalization: the process by which lexical morphemes acquire

grammatical meanings/functions general hypothesis: all grammatical
morphemes derive from lexical sources specific hypotheses: e.g. all/most
progressive morphemes derive from locative expressions; future tense typically
derives from motion verbs

Grammaticalization pathways: routes from lexical to grammatical meaning

1*

location -> action in progress

Mandarin:

locative

progressive

Ta zai Taiwan

Ta zai chang ge

s/he at Taiwan

s/he at sing song

Malay: sedang middle; sedang + verb -> progressive

dia sedang bercakap dengan jirannya.
he middle

chat

with neighbour-his

He was (in the middle of) talking to his neighbour.

motion - > future

Were going to study French next year.

French: On va tudier lallemand.
one goes study German
Were going to study German.
Evidence for synchronic relationships between lexical and grammatical
meaning

lexical

retention:

prior

lexical

meanings

constrain

functions
going to [+ intentional]
Im going to have my hair cut (causative, intentional)

grammatical

? Im going to have my car stolen (indirect passive, unintentional)

intermediate cases as missing links:

English: Were going to have lunch now.

(movement and/or immediate

future)
Mandarin: Ta zai tushuguan du shu (locative and progressive)
Shes in the library studying.
Cantonese: Lei5 hang2ding6 leng3 dak1 gwo3 keoi5.
You can definitely beat (surpass) her for looks.

Transparency of lexical sources especially in creoles due to recent

development

Tok Pisin: belong (lexical) -> possessive (grammatical)

mi no save nem bilong en
I not know name belong her
I dont know her name

Runionnais

(French

creole):

finish

(lexical)

->

perfect

tense

(grammatical)
li fini fatig
he finish tired
he has become tired
Haitian creole: pass (lexical) -> exceed (grammatical: comparative)
bel

pase tout

beautiful pass all

the most beautiful

3.5. Morphems
A "morpheme" is a short segment of language that meets three basic
criteria:

1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning.

2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without

changing its meaning or leaving a meaningless remainder.

3. It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal

environments.

Free and Bound Morphemes

There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and

bound morphemes. "Free morphemes" can stand alone with a
specific
meaning,
for example, eat, date, weak.
"Bound
morphemes" cannot stand alone with meaning. Morphemes are
comprised of two separate classes called (a) bases (or roots) and (b)
affixes.

A "base," or "root" is a morpheme in a word that gives the

word its principle meaning. An example of a "free base" morpheme
is woman in the word womanly. An example of a "bound base"
morpheme is -sent in the worddissent.

Affixes

An "affix" is a bound morpheme that occurs before or after a

base. An affix that comes before a base is called a "prefix." Some
examples of prefixes are ante-, pre-, un-, and dis-, as in the
following words:
antedate

prehistoric
unhealthy
disregard

An affix that comes after a base is called a "suffix." Some

examples of suffixes are -ly, -er, -ism, and -ness, as in the
following words:

happily
gardener
capitalism
kindness

Derivational Affixes

An affix can be either derivational or inflectional. "Derivational

affixes" serve to alter the meaning of a word by building on a base.
In the examples of words with prefixes and suffixes above, the
addition of the prefix un- tohealthy alters the meaning of healthy.
The resulting word means "not healthy." The addition of the suffix er togarden changes the meaning of garden, which is a place
where plants, flowers, etc., grow, to a word that refers to 'a person
who tends a garden.' It should be noted that all prefixes in English
are derivational. However, suffixes may be either derivational or
inflectional.

Inflectional Affixes

There are a large number of derivational affixes in English. In

contrast, there are only eight "inflectional affixes" in English, and
these are all suffixes. English has the following inflectional suffixes,
which serve a variety of grammatical functions when added to
specific types of words. These grammatical functions are shown to
the right of each suffix.

-s

noun plural

-'s

noun possessive

-s

verb present tense third person singular

-ing

verb present participle/gerund

-ed

verb simple past tense

-en

verb past perfect participle

-er

adjective comparative

-est

adjective superlative

3.6. Homonym and Polisemy

a. Homonymy
Homonymy is a group of word that have some pronounciaton,
spelling but different meaning.
Example :
a.Fine
Fine(adj) its mean good/baik
She looked fine yesterday
Fine(Noun) its mean Denda
You should pay the fine or go to the court
2.Polysemy
Polysemy is the ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that
can be used ( in different contexts ) to express two or more
meaning.
Example :
News paper

a.The news paper fried its editor ( the company that publishes the
news paper ).
b.John spilled coffe on the news paper ( the physical news paper ).
c. The newas paper has decided to change its format ( the news
paper as an edited work).
3.7. Lexical Ambiguity
The presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word. Also
called homonymy. Compare to syntactic ambiguity.
Examples :

Donald Ressler: The third guard, he's in the hospital. Berlin cut his
hand

off.

Aram Mojtabai: No, no. It's a lexical ambiguity. "He cut his hand off."
Elizabeth Keen: Berlin cut off his own hand?
("Berlin: Conclusion." The Blacklist, May 12, 2014)

Lexical Ambiguity and Context

Context is highly relevant to this part of the meaning of utterances. . . .
For example
They passed the port at midnight
is lexically ambiguous. However, it would normally be clear in a given
context which of the two homonyms, 'port1' ('harbor') or 'port2' ('kind of
fortified wine'), is being used--and also which sense of
the polysemous verb 'pass' is intended."
(John Lyons, Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction. Cambridge University
Press, 1995)
Lexical Ambiguity and the Processing of Words
"Depending on the relationship among the alternative meanings
available for a particular word form, lexical ambiguity has been
categorized as either polysemous, when meanings are related, or
homonymous, when unrelated.

3.8. Sentence Meaning

Sentence Meaning is an important component of a general
account of linguistic meaning. Studying it raises important issues
about finding relevant data, about the relationship between data and
theories, about the use of intuitions as data. It also raises questions
about the notion of compositionality, and about the interaction of
separate components of linguistic knowledge and linguistic theory.
Sentence Meaning is a difficult subject which can be introduced
gently, beginning with an overall sketch of what a theory of linguistic
meaning needs to account for, namely how an initial, linguistically
encoded semantic representation leads to an overall interpretation of
an utterance in context. Linguistic semantics aims to account for what
is linguistically encoded, while a pragmatic theory will explain how
more detailed interpretations are derived on the basis of semantic
representations.
The largest independent unit of grammar: it begins with a capital
letter and ends with a period, question mark, orexclamation point.
Adjective: sentential.
The sentence is traditionally (and inadequately) defined as a word
or group of words that expresses a complete idea and that includes
a subject and a verb. See Definitions and Observations, below.
The four basic sentence structures are the simple sentence,
the compound sentence, thecomplex sentence, and the compound-complex sentence.

Functional Types of Sentences:

Declarative Sentence
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
society."
(Mark Twain)

Interrogative Sentence
"But what is the difference between literature and
journalism? Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read."
(Oscar Wilde)

Imperative Sentence
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
(Mark Twain)

Exclamatory Sentence
"To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it
would be if men died for ideas that were true!
(H. L. Mencken)