1. SUBJECT: SEMANTICS
TOPIC: APPLICATION OF DIMENSIONS OF MEANING ON
JAMES JOYCE’S A POTRAIT OF ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
CHAPTER 1
SUBMITTED BY: ABIDA PARVEEN
MARRIYAM TARIQ
FATIMA GUL
SITARA AYAZ
SUBMITTED TO: MAM NIGHAT SHAKOOR
DATE: DEC18, 2012

2. It is the flesh and blood of man that he wants to communicate or express his feelings and
thoughts with his fellow beings. To accomplish this purpose, he has been blessed with the faculty
of language. Language, whether in form of speech or sign, serves as a source or tool of
communication. It, being a vast field of study, is divided into a number of branches. Semantics is
one of the sub fields of language that throws light on the understanding of meaning. Generally, it
covers the areas of dimensions of meaning, lexical relations, semantic roles and language in use.
Dimensions of meaning are a significant component of semantics which includes numerous
aspects such as: reference and denotation, connotation, sense relation, lexical and grammatical
meaning, morphemes, homonymy and polysemy, lexical ambiguity and sentence meaning.
Hence, by having knowledge about all these dimensions of meaning and all other areas of
semantics, any person, whether he is a foreigner or native speaker will be in a position to
comprehend the message in a better way.
This project focuses on the depiction of roll of dimensions of meaning in semantics or towards
the understanding of meaning. It aims at the application of these dimensions on the first chapter
of the modern novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. Textual examples
with proper justification have been selected to determine the roll of these dimensions. Finally, it
emphasizes on the idea that to which extent dimensions of meaning contribute towards the
comprehension of communication.
It has been concern of every person belonging to any field of life, that he may convey his
massage in such a way that is interpretable or comprehensible for the receiver of the information.
In order to investigate about all the factors upon that are crucial for understanding of meaning,
the discipline of semantics developed. The word, „semantics‟ is derived from the Greek word
„semantickos‟ which means „significant‟. It is a scientific branch of linguistics that deals with the
interpretation of meaning at morphological or word level, lexical level, and at sentence level. It
throws light on relationship between different words and different sentences that whether these
words and sentences have part-whole relationship, or they are conveying similar meaning, or
they are expressing opposition. It focuses on the idea that what role each word has in a sentence,
according to the varying circumstances. Moreover, natural and conventional signs, body
language, facial expressions, and cultural knowledge are some of the other features that enhance
the ability of understanding any given message. On account of dealing with numerous spheres of

3. language, semantics is closely related to the fields of morphology, phonology, syntax and
pragmatics. In short, the knowledge of semantic enables people to explore the sense of meaning
in a better way.
The question of successful convenience of meaning has always gained attention by all the people
belonging to different ages. But, during the period of enlightenment or neo-classicism several
steps were taken for the development of study of meaning. It is the age in which the art of
writing dictionaries was introduced. Scholars like Dryden and Sheridan wrote complete
dictionaries of English language with proper spelling. Then, this era is also marked for the
betterment of pronunciation. Later on, these improvements gave birth to the field of semantics as
a separate discipline of linguistics.
Dimension of meaning make a large part of semantics. There are innumerable dimensions of
meaning that contribute towards the understanding of meaning. However, some of the significant
dimensions are reference and denotation, connotation, sense relation, lexical and grammatical
meaning, and homonymy and polysemy.
The very first and basic aspects that determine the study of meaning is reference and denotation.
Reference is an act of referring towards something. As language is a combination of thousands
of words, so each of these words is linked to something, object event, activity and description
outside the language. When human beings communicate with one and other first of all they form
concept in their minds after seeing any entity and then with the help of linguist expressions they
try to interpret the meaning of that object. This idea of reference can be understood in light of
mentalist theory given by Ogden and Richards‟s in1923.in view of this theory, basically there are
three terms; word, concept, object that are closely related to one another. In order to understand
the meaning, relation among these three terms has to be learned. According to mentalist
perspective the relation between word and concept is an association. The name of reference has
been suggested for the link between concept and object. The term of meaning depicts the relation
between actual entity and word. So reference is a connection between concepts, objects and
words provides a means by which human beings express their relation according to the particular
context to understand the exact meaning of some phenomenon.

4. Denotation is derived from the Latin word „denotare‟. It conveys the general meaning of a word
and it denotes the relation of word with any phenomenon outside the language. According to
formal semantics by Ronnie denotation is “the association of linguistic expression with
publically identifiable entities and situation “out of the domain of language.
In short reference deals with link between concepts and objects while denotation talks about the
general aspect of meaning, acceptable for all people, of any word and these both serve as a main
factor to enable people to communicate successfully.
Another aspect under the discussion of dimensions of meaning is connotation. This word has
been originated from the Latin word „connotare‟. It deals with all the feelings, emotional
associations‟ and positive as well as negative opinions that people attach with any word. It talks
about the beliefs and values related to any linguistic expression. It is a personal view of looking
at objects and events. However connotative aspect of meaning can be impersonal in the sense
that some common beliefs about events and situations are shared by all the people of any society.
Then even some words can have similar connotation for the people of whole world. In addition,
connotative qualities can be changed with the passage of time. This perspective of meaning
generates critical thinking. Moreover one society can have positive feelings about certain
phenomena while the other community can have negative experiences attached to similar
objects. Thus, connotation enhances the knowledge of people about anything through which they
are able to derive meaning from different words ant different situations.
One of the key factors of understanding of meaning, about which people should have knowledge,
is sense relation. It is the relation of different word s with one and other in a sentence. It asserts
that each word in a sentence has its appropriate place and all the words in a sentence are united
in such away that the sentence becomes an organic whole. Then if one word is removed from the
sentence or its place is changed, either the sentence becomes anomalous or it changes its
meaning. This sense relation varies from situation to situation .Any single word conveys some
meaning but it has no sense .it conveys a sense when it is placed with any other word. So, each
word in a sentence has some kind of link with the words that come before and after this word in a
sentence.

5. There are two kinds of linkages that depict the relation of one word with another word in a
sentence.
First type of link is called syntagmatic relation. It is the relation in which two words in a
sentence are mutually connected with one another in a sequence that, both are affecting each
other and together these words are contributing to convey the sense of the sentence. This relation
is also known as chain relation and horizontal relation because in this relation words are
placed in a line.
The other kind of relation among words is paradigmatic relation. R.F.Palmer, in his book
Semantics has defined paradigmatic relation in light of De-Saussure‟s ideas. According to De-
Saussure‟s, paradigmatic relation is a relation where “a linguist unit enters through being
contrasted or substitutable, in particular environment, with other similar unit”. It is also called
the relation of choice and vertical relation, for in it, any person can chose some words from the
list according to his choice.
Hence, words are either syntagmatically related or they have paradigmatic association with other
words and the appropriateness of each word at its proper place serves as an emblem to derive
meaning from any linguistic expression uttered at a particular time in particular context.
In order to sort out or solve the problem of understanding of meaning, lexical and grammatical
meanings are the other leaves of the tree of dimensions of meaning. Any linguistic expressions
may have lexical as well as grammatical meanings.
Lexical meaning deals with the proposition of any sentence. According to it, generally sentence
contains two parts two parts. One is called referring expression which means linguistic
expression at phrasal level. The object or entity outside the language, to which this referring
expression refers, is the referent of this referring expression. Another meaningful part of a
sentence is its predicate. It is an action or activity performed by referent and it has some sort of
relation with the phenomenon outside the language.
Grammatical approach also helps to understand the meaning. Every language of the world has
a complete system of grammatical rules different from any other language. In light of these rules,
the meaning of any word or sentence can be investigated. Various sentences with same referring

6. expression and predicate can have different meanings in grammatical view. Parts of speech,
affixes and function words provide numerous possibilities of looking at any sentence.
In short, people having knowledge about lexical and grammatical approaches can easily
overcome the difficulty of interpreting any sentence or word.
Awareness about homonymy and polysemy of any language also plays an important part to
illustrate the meaning. As every word is a combination o0f form and meaning, it is necessary to
differentiate between the words having similar form in order to understand their meaning.
Homonymy has its origin from the Greek word „homonumous‟ which means „having the same
name‟. Homonyms are the words that have identical pronunciation as well as spellings, but they
convey different meanings according to the particular circumstances. Act of studying about
homonyms is called homonymy. Sometimes, some words have same spellings but they are
pronounced differently. Such words called homographs. At times, words have identical
pronunciation but they contain different spellings. These words have acquired the name of
homophones and process of getting information about these words is termed as homophony. In
all these three cases, two words have some sort of similarity, either in spelling or in
pronunciation or in both; but their meanings are totally different from one another.
On the other hand, polysemy is an act of studying those words in which two or more than two
words have similar spellings and pronunciation and, they have somehow related meanings.
Hence, these reference and denotation, connotation, sense relation, lexical and grammatical
meaning, and homonymy and polysemy are some of the theoretical aspects of dimensions of
meaning suggested by linguists. Each of these, has its own role to play in the study of meaning
and due to all these features, semantics is a systematic study of meaning.
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce is modern novel that deals with artistic
development of an artist from his childhood till his dream of becoming an artist is fulfilled. In the
novel, the life experiences of Stephen Dedalus, the hero of the novel, are substantiated.
Especially, his attitude towards religion, his artistic approach towards different things and
situations, and his intellectual sort of nature, are the themes that occupy dominant position in
entire text.

7. Chapter one of the novel, focuses on the childhood experiences of life of Stephen. Basically, in
this chapter, his hostel life and his life at home are the main targets of discussion. In the
beginning, his parents go to leave him in hostel for studies at Clongwoes College by advising
him „never to peach on a fellow‟ and „never to play with rough boys‟. While living in hostel,
every thing seems sad and strange to him. He is unable to eat, to rest, to play and to study the
lesson. He is found to be „struggling amid the throng of players‟. At one, Wells shoulders him
into the squire ditch. Consequently he suffers from fever and he has to go to infirmary. During
holidays, he comes home where he observes „bad language‟ against „god and religion and
morality. „After holidays, he again comes to Colognes College. Here one day father Dolan gives
him punishment during the class of themes on account of not writing his lesson; for his glasses
are broken. Father Dolan calls him “lazy, idle little schemer “for what is not his fault. Then, he
goes to the rector's office to complain against father Dolan. Going to the rector‟s office is an act
of bravery and on account of this courageous act he becomes the centre of attention for all the
boys. Hence, the numerous experiences of his childhood with his family, friends, classmates and
teachers are depicted in chapter one.
The very first aspects related to the topic of dimensions of meaning are reference and denotation
which are also applicable on the novel a Portrait of an artist as a Young Man. The novel opens
with the narration of a childish story about the cow and baby tuckoo by Stephen told to him by
his father. He says, “There was a moocow coming down along the road” and later on this
moocow meets a little boy called baby tuckoo. Here, some sort of connection is found between
actual things and their concepts, and between these concepts and words. It is to be noted that
after seeing a cow (an entity outside the language) performing an action of coming down along
the road (place outside the language), Stephen creates a mental picture of this scene. Then, a link
or reference is developed between the actual situation and the concept of scene. Now through his
words he conveys his contextual picture of the scene before other people and through these
words, other people are able to understand the meaning of that situation. It is the link between
things and concepts and then between concepts and words due to which people interpret the
meaning of certain linguistic expression. Without this linkage it will be difficult to understand
the meaning. Alone words or concepts or entities are not enough to convey meaning. When these
three terms are linked together, then meaning is understood.

8. The idea of general meaning or denotation can also be seen easily in entire chapter one of the
novel. While discussing his feelings about his mother and father Stephen says “His mother had a
nicer smell than his father”. Here these words covey a general meaning. Each of these words is
linked with some phenomenon or concept outside the language. In this sentence, each separate
word like “mother, had, a, nicer, smell, than, his, father” denotes a general meaning that is
acceptable or understandable for all the people of the different countries. If this sentence or each
word separately is translated from English into any other language, then that sentence or word
will refer towards the same information contained in this sentence. The words may be different,
but they will refer towards the same entities or concepts. Thus, the general acceptability of
meaning by all people of the world is main factor to communicate successfully with people.
Another dimension of meaning for which novel has enough place, is connotation. In the novel
when Stephen comes home to celebrate Christmas Eve, at the time of dinner, his parents, Uncle
Charles, Mr. Casey and Dante discuss about various affairs. They share their ideas about Parnell.
It is the name that elicits a general meaning. It refers towards the person who bears this name.
But this name Parnell has different connotations for different people. On one hand, Mr. Dedalus
and Mr. Casey have positive feelings about Parnell. As in the text one of them says, “Poor
Parnell, my dead king”. In their view, he is the king of the Ireland who has guided people and he
is the leader who has won many battles for the security of his nation. Even he has sacrificed his
life for the love of his nation. On the other hand Dante has negative connotations about this hero
of Ireland. In her view, “he was a public sinner. Woe be to the man by whom the scandal
cometh” says Mrs. Riordan “it would be better for him that a millstone were tied about his neck
and that he were cast into the depths of the sea rather than that he should scandalize one of
these, my least little ones”. These remarks connote her hatred against Parnell. In her view he is a
traitor to his country and he has misled the people. Hence, in the eyes of some people, Parnell is
a great man worthy to be admired and respected. While for other people, he is an enemy of his
people and he has been rightly punished.
Similarly, at the time of dinner, the views of Mr. Dedalus, Mr. Casey and Dante, regarding God
religion and church, have different connotations. On one side Dante‟s remarks, “I‟ll defend my
church and religion when it is insulted and spit on by Renegade Catholics”, connote her deep
emotional associations with religion and church. She is a strict follower of rather blind follower

9. of the church. In her view whatever priests say or do is right. In edition here the word church
connotes a place of worship for Christian people. On the opposite side, some people have
disrespectful ideas about God and religion. Mr. Dedalus‟ remarks,” we have had too much god in
Ireland, away will god”, illustrate his blasphemy against teachings of religion provided by god. It
appears that he is a believer of reason rather than a believer of a system of set beliefs given by
religion. He has no value of religious teachings in his eyes. In addition, here the word god has
different connotations for different communities. Some societies worship idols accepting them as
god. Some believe in no than one god, while the others accept god as the sole sovereign of the
universe. In fact, connotative perspective gives birth to numerous sources of interpreting the
meaning of any given message.
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, also through light on the importance of sense relation in
the study of meaning. In the novel when Stephen shares his ideas about his class of
mathematics, here sense relation can easily be noted. He says,” father Arnall wrote a hard sum
on the board………… he was not good at sums but he tried his best so that York might not lose”.
Here, in these sentences, all the words have their own set places and all the words are conveying
sense by co-operating with one another. For instance, if one word like “wrote” is removed from
the sentence, then the whole sentence, “father Arnall a hard sum on the board” will become
senseless or anomalous. Then if the places of these words are changed such as, “wrote sum a
father Arnall” even then it will lose its sense and it will not be understood.
Similarly, in the next sentence “he was not good at sums, but he tried his best so that York might
not lose”, all the words like “he, was, not, good” etc. are united together. If some words are
excluded from the sentence such as “he was not at sums, but he his best so that might not lose”,
then this sentence gives no sense. In his senseless sentence, it is not depicted that what is the
progress of Stephen at sums. It is not conveyed that what he has done to win for his team. Later
on, it is also missing that for which team he is desires to win. Hence, this union of words helps a
great deal to convey the right meaning of the sentence.
This novel is replete with the example of syntagmatic relation. In the text, when Stephen tries to
learn his lesson of geography he reads the words written by Fleming on his book. These words
are “Stephen Dedalus is my name. Ireland is my nation. Clongwoes is my dwelling place”. These

10. sentences are tied together in a syntagmatic relation. In the first sentence, “Stephen Dedalus is
my name”, all the words are placed in a line or sequence, coming one after another. Here in this
line each word is linked to other word. For instance, the words “Stephen and Dedalus” have
some sort of relation, for these two words serve as a name of person who bears this name. Then,
this name is united with „is and my‟ which shows possession. It has also relation with the word
„name‟ which is a source of identity. All these words in this sentence have link with each other
and combing together in a relation these words contribute towards the understanding of meaning
of this sentence.
Paradigmatic relation appears at a number of places in the novel. At the end of first chapter,
Stephen receives punishment from father Dolan for not writing his lesson. He is humiliated on
the idea of getting punishment before the whole class. His remarks are: “it is unfair and cruel to
make him kneel down in the middle of the class”. In this sentence two words are
paradigmatically united together. Here, “unfair and cruel” have paradigmatic link. It is the matter
of choice that these words can be replaced with some other words like “unjust and harsh”.
Moreover, form these two words, one word like „cruel‟ can also be used. So, whether these
words are replaced with other words or one word is selected, at any rate these words have link
with other words like “make, him, in the, middle, class” etc. and all these words are playing their
role to convey the sense of the sentence.
Some other, perspectives of understanding the meaning is lexical and grammatical meaning.
These both approaches appear in first chapter of the novel written by James Joyce. In the novel
Stephen suffers from fever after falling into the ditch by Wells. Prefect of study comes to check
him that whether he is really sick or he is just pretending. At this situation Stephen‟s remarks are:
“no, no he was not foxing”. In this sentence lexical approach of meaning can be observed “he
was not” is a referring expression because it consists of which have some link with the
phenomena outside the language. Then, “he” (Stephen) is a referent to which these words are
referring. „Foxing‟ is a predicate. It consists of some action performed by referent (Stephen).
Thus, lexical perspective generates the ability to better understand the meaning of any language.
Grammatical perspective is another area about which this novel gives depiction. In the text,
Stephen being a child is unable to understand the ideas about the power of God in the universe.

11. He expresses his desire to be like the people who can understand all the philosophical concepts.
He says “when would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric”. This sentence can be
analyzed grammatically. Here “would” is a model verb. It also shows his desire of becoming like
older people. “He” is a pronoun is as well as subject. “Be” is the example of function word. “in”
is a preposition. “Poetry and rhetoric” are playing the role of objects. By adding function words
and parts of speech, there are many possibilities to convey the information contained in this
sentence containing one lexical meaning can have a large number of grammatical meanings. In
short, these two approaches prepare the way for understanding the meaning to a great extend.
Some other dominant features found in the novel in respect of study of meaning is homonymy
and polysemy. In the text, are various examples of homonymy .In the beginning, while recalling
his recalling his early childhood memories, Stephen says to himself, “when you wet the bed, first
that is warmed then it gets cold”. Later on at the time of dinner at Christmas eve, Mr.Dedalus
serves whisky to Mr. Casey before eating meal by saying “a timblefull ,john ,just to wet your
appetite “. In these two sentences the words „wet‟ is an example of homonymy. In both
sentences, this word has same spelling as well as pronunciation, but it contains different meaning
in both sentences. In the first sentence, its meaning is “something watery or opposite of dry”. But
in the second sentence it contains the meaning of reducing appetite to some extent.
Similarly at one time in the novel it is depicted that “he opened his geography to study the
lesson” in the next part of the chapter this situation appears that “he was flied out in the study
hall after others”. In these sentences the word study is an instance of homonymy. It has identical
spellings and pronunciation but different meanings are conveyed in both sentences. In the first
sentence it conveys the meaning of learning lesson. While in the next sentence, it correspond the
meaning of a room where all the children study. Thus, homonymy is a other way of
understanding meaning.
Homophones are also found in the first chapter of the novel. At one occasion Dante expresses
her feelings about Parnell by saying that “he were cast in to the depths of the sea”. In the later
part of the chapter, when Father Dolan gives punishment to the boys in class of themes, here
while flogging Fleming, he utters the words “I could see the trick in the corner of your eye.” In
both sentences, the words „sea‟ and „see‟ are the instances of homophones. These have similar

12. pronunciation but their spellings are different from one another .then their meanings are also
totally different. In the first sentence, the „sea‟ has the meaning of ocean. But in the second
sentence „see‟ is giving the meaning the meaning of observe and look. Thus homophones have
important place in determining the meaning of linguistic expression according to the given
context.
Instances of polysemy are also presented in the first chapter of the novel. In the text, Stephen
defines chapel of Clongwoes College as “strange and holy place”. After coming to know about
the theft of boys he calls this sin of theft as “a terrible and strange sin.” when he goes to the
rector‟s office to complain against Father Dolan, he describes the atmosphere of office by saying
the words of “strange and solemn smell.” In these three sentences, the word „strange‟ is the
instance of polysemy. In these sentences this word has identical pronunciation as well as
spelling. Then this word spoken at three different times, has somehow related meaning. In three
sentences, it conveys the meaning of a thing or situation which is not easy to define. it creates
confusion . Hence polysemy provides a chance to better interpret the meaning.Making
communication successful. People having knowledge about all these dimensions can better
communicate, interpret, express and understand any information.
On the whole, all these aspects are different bricks of the wall of dimensions of meaning and it
is the wall of the room of semantics is one of the rooms of house of language. As without bricks,
walls and rooms, there is no concept of house , similarly these dimensions of meaning and the
knowledge of other feature of semantics are basic steps to communicate effectively.