Kiefer Ferenc: Jelentselmlet

(Semantic Theory)
Kiefer, Ferenc. [2000].Jelentselmlet. Egyetemi Knyvtr. Budapest: Corvina.

Nowadays, there are many trends and concepts of linguistic theory; one rivals the
others, and it is impossible to write any of those encyclopedic-like books, which details the
whole field of the study of linguistics. There is a need for a comprehensive book, which is
collected by the author's own approach, but we can get an easily understandable collection of
knowledge about several fields of linguistics, such as semantic theory.
Kiefer Ferenc managed to write this type of work. His book, Jelentselmlet (Semantic
Theory) is a great summary of knowledge about semantic theory, but its importance is very
significant: this kind of collection is the first of its type in Hungarian, and it is also almost
inaccessible in other languages in Hungary. Nevertheless, it is not only a collection of current
trends of semantics, but Kiefer Ferenc completed them with his own experience and scientific
achievements.
The author introduces three types of conceptions: formal, cognitive, and structural
semantics. While Kiefer mainly takes a stand on the structural one, he does not reject any of
these; in his opinion, all of them has its own, remarkable place in modern research of
semantic theory. It might seem difficult to understand these wide range of theories, but
Kiefer's style of writing is clear, easily understandable, moreover enjoyable.
The first two chapters can be called "introductory ones". The first chapter (A jelents
lersnak mdjai/ Ways of semantic descriptions) details the main characteristics of the
mentioned three types and the specific researches and projects connected to these. It also lists
and describes traditional semantic relationships such as synonymy, antonymy, weak
implication, presupposition, or contradiction. As we can see from this list, only those semantic
relationships are detailed in this chapter, which can be explained through relationships

between utterances. Kiefer Ferenc also examines the important difference between
structuralist semantics and structural semantics. (Kiefer takes sides on structural semantics in
his book.)
The second chapter (Szemantika vagy pragmatika? /Semantics or Pragmatics?) is a
discourse about there is a need or possibility for taking difference between semantics and
pragmatics, or not. Kiefer examines this question through the three mentioned semantics
types, and each of them gives us different answers and solutions; for instance, structural
semantics draws a strict line between semantics and pragmatics. According to Kiefer, there
can be situations, when we cannot clearly differentiate these two; however, in many cases, it
is not only necessary, but also very useful; as a verification, Kiefer mentions deontic
situations.
After that, the next three chapters explain current researches of word semantics, with a
close connection with the three semantics types. The third chapter (A komponenses elemzs /
Componential Analysis) describes the antecedents and different types of componential
analysis. The analysis mustn't be arbitrary, semantic descriptions have to respect the aspects of
semantic markings and reflect the dimensional qualities of objects. Furthermore,
componential analysis conceives semantic decomposition with the help of elemental
predicates. Its disadvantage is that analysis cannot be adaptable in the case of each lexical
unit; for example, the names of objects, plants or animals cannot be discomposed into these
kind of semantic components. After that, this chapter explains two types of analysis according
to this topic: Jackendoff's conceptual semantics and Wierzbicka's semantic theory. Kiefer
cannot totally accept any of these, but according to him, they contain some useful parts for
modern semantic research. The advantage of Jackendoff's type is the multilevel semantic
representation of syntactic structures. Wierzbicka does not differentiate object language and
metalanguage, and he totally extracts his universal semantic primitives from natural

languages. Semantic descriptions can be formulated into semantic paraphrases with the help
of semantic primitives. In Kiefer's opinion, Wierzbicka's semantic paraphrases, despite the
problems with them, have theoretical significance, because they are clearly language-based
and can connect semantic decomposition to the notion of prototype.
The fourth chapter (A prototpus-elmlet s a kognitv szemantika/ The Prototype
Theory and Cognitive Semantics) is a criticism about the psychological and philosophical
background of the development of prototype theory and its general notions, but is also
discusses the topic of metaphor and metonymy. While Kiefer briefly writes about metaphors,
metonymy is a broadly discussed topic in this chapter.
The fifth chapter (A poliszmia s a ktszint szemantika/ Polysemy and Two-level
Semantics) is about how we could terminate the notions of polysemy, homonymy and
semantic vagueness, and the impossibility of their precise termination. It discusses the topic
of polysemy within the borders of the modular approach of cognitive semantics, in the
conception of the so called two-level semantics, in a relation with verbs and nouns, pointing
out differences within the mechanisms of semantic changes.
The following two chapters deal with the semantics of nouns and adjectives (A fnv/
The Noun, A mellknv/ The Adjective). Kiefer examines three subclasses of nouns in a
semantic way in details: countable nouns, collective nouns and proper nouns. At the end of
this chapter, the author discusses some morpho-semantic questions with the help of factual
examples. In the next chapter, Kiefer Ferenc details the termination of the semantics of
adjectives from others. While we can terminate it from the semantics of verbs with also the
help of formal criteria, it is possible only on a semantic basis in the case of semantics of
nouns.
The eighth chapter follows the discussion of word classes (Az ige/ The Verb). It begins
with the definable status of the notion of verb. The notion of verbs can be conceived only by

clearly formal criteria and verb specific morphological features. It also shows us those tests,
which help to differentiate stative verbs from dynamic verbs. Later, Kiefer describes some
specific verb groups, such as control verbs, factual verbs, implicative verbs or causative verbs.
Finally, we can learn more about semantic questions in the topic of formation of phrasal
verbs, which is a preparation of the next chapter.
The ninth chapter (A mondat idszerkezete/ The Time Tense System of Sentences)
discusses the semantics of tenses in details. Kiefer examines the so called deictic tenses with
the help of Reichenbach system, which is a semantic analysis of tense; this system can be
used only in the cases of those languages, where the point of event is defined in a vectorial
way, so there are past, present and future tenses; however, the system is unsuitable for
languages with metric structures.
The tenth chapter (Aspektus, akciminsg, esemnyszerkezet/ Aspect, Aktionsart,
Actionality) deals with the notions mentioned in the title of this chapter. Kiefer defines aspect
as a category of clausal semantics; nevertheless, it is also questionable what relationship there
is between sentence aspect and verb aspect. Later it is going to be clear the relationship
depends on the degree of compositionality of sentence aspect, but this reveals some language
type-specific differences. Later, Kiefer switches to the topic of aktionsart; he discusses this
topic only in the cases of morphological complex verbs, because in the author's opinion
aktionsart is a morpho-semantic category (so if it is expressed by some morphological
methods).
The last two chapters deals with topics which can be best supported by Kiefer's own,
earlier researches. In the eleventh chapter (A modalits/ Modality) the author shows us the
logical and linguistic approach of modality, which evolved totally separated from each other.
Kiefer also details the different types of logical modality conception and their linguistic

equivalents. He disagrees with the idea in which linguistic modality is restricted to only one
word class; according to him, it has to be reconcilable with the logical modality conception.
In the very last, twelfth chapter (Az elfeltevsek/ Presuppositions) the autor discusses
the main questions in the topic of presuppositions. This topic is really controversial in the
fields of logic, too, Kiefer tries to avoid the logical problems; in linguistic semantics, he
accepts only two types of definitions. Presupposition can be a new semantic relation, which
cannot be originated in any of those known logical relations. The other definition is when we
relate presupposition with the concept of text coherence. Later in this chapter, Kiefer
classifies these presuppositions by their origins, contents and scopes: existential and nonexistential, syntactical and lexical, universal and non-universal presuppositions. Finally,
Kiefer suggests some solutions for problems related to the presuppositions of complex
sentences. Nowadays, according to him, the discourse semantic way is the most promising of
all, but he also points out its most notable weaknesses; there are many open questions left in
this field of research.