stiba iec

1. 1
COURSE SYLLABUS
Course Title Semantics
Code / Credits 06 MKKL / Two (2) SKS
Course
Description
This course aims at introducing the principles of linguistic semantics to those who have a general ideas of what linguistics is
and some familiarity with its traditional division into fields like phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax etc
It deals with the ten aspects of the speaker’s semantic knowledge incorporating anomaly, paraphrases, contradictory,
antonymy, semantic feature, ambiguity, adjacency pair, entailment and presuppositions
The ten aspects of semantic knowledge will be arranged according to the headings intended to introduce the basic concepts of
linguistic semantics: (1) Utterance (2) Proposition (3) Reference (4) Sense relations (5) Semantic roles (6) Lexical Relations (7)
Deixis (8) Anaphora (9) Speech Act (10) Referents and referring expressions (11) Ambiguity and (12) Modality
ofStandard
Competence
To acquire the knowledge of linguistic semantics, and of the ways in which semantic analysis is done, and to have deeper
appreciation of English and better understanding of the nature of the language in general
Weight of
Assessment
 Attendance 10 %
 Assignment 20 %
 Mid Term Test 30 %
 Final Term Test 40 %
References 1. Kreidler, Charles W. 1998. Introducing Semantics. London: Routledge
2. Website in Semantics (TBA – to be advised)
Week Basic Competence Topic Sub Topic Indicator References
1 To define the concept of
semantics and list the
aspects of semantic
knowledge
The study of
meaning
 The systematic study of
meaning
 The nature of language
 Demonstrating semantic
knowledge
 To define and describe linguistics
semantics
 To describe characteristics
of human language
 To explain about aspects of
semantic knowledge
Chapter 1
(2 – 5;
8-13)
2 To describe utterance that Language in  Utterance and sentence  To distinguish between utterance Chapter 2

2. 2
differs from sentence and
the concept of prosody
use
 Prosody
and sentence
 To describe stress and intonation
which can distinguish meaning
pp 26 – 29
pp 30 - 38
3 To establish the idea of
what
‘reference’ is and how
words are related with each
other
The dimension
of meaning (1)
 Reference and denotation
 Sense relations
 To distinguish between reference
and denotation
 To describe the relation of
meaning between words
Chapter 3
pp 42 - 46
4 To distinguish between
grammatical and lexical
meanjngs and the concept
pf homonymy and polysemy
The dimension
of meaning (2)
 Lexical and grammatical
meaning
 Homonymy and polysemy
 To distinguish between lexical and
grammatical meaning
 To distinguish between homonymy
and polysemy
Chapter 3
Pp 49 – 51
5 To define proposition and
determine semantic roles of
referring expression
Semantic roles  Sentence and proposition
 Semantic roles
 To define proposition relation to
sentence
 To determine the semantic role that
a certain referring expression has
Chapter 4
pp 62 – 70
6 To describe how certain
words relate to one another
Lexical
relations
 Lexical fields
 Hyponymy, synonymy,
antonymy
 To identify sets of lexical items as
lexical fields
 To describe the lexical relations in
hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy
Chapter 5
pp 87 – 89
pp 92 – 101
7 To list and explain about
kinds of referents and ways
of referring
Reference  Reference and referring
expressions
 Kinds of referents and
ways of referring
 To distinguish referents- referring
expressions
To list and explain kinds of referents
and ways of referring
Chapter 5
pp 131– 132
pp 135-144
8
MID TERM TEST
9 To describe how the
speaker points with a
language and how shorter
Reference  Deixis
 Anaphora
To describe how speaker points with
language
To describe how longer expressions are
Chapter 5
pp 144-149

3. 3
Expressions replace longer
ones
replaced by shorter ones
10 To describe how ambiguity
can occur in three different
contexts
Ambiguity  Lexical ambiguity
 Referential ambiguity
 Syntactic ambiguity
To describe ambiguity that can occur
due to lexical, referential and syntactic
contexts
pp 55-56;
151-153;
169-171
11 To describe the types of
utterances that have effect
on the addressee
Speech acts
(1)
 Form of sentences and
purpose of utterance
 Types of speech act
Assertive,
Performative,
Expressive
 To describe the forms of
sentences with purposes
 To explain about assertive,
performative, expressive utterances
Chapter 9
pp 176-180
pp 183-189
12 To describe the types of
utterances that have effect
on the addressee
Speech acts
(2)
Types of speech act
 Directive
 Commissive
 Phatic
To explain about
 Directive
 Commissive
 Phatic
Chapter 9
pp 176-180
pp 183-189
13 To distinguish between telic
and atelic predicates
Aspect Telic and atelic  To define telic and atelic
predicates
 To distinguish between the two
different activities by
looking at the forms
Chapter 10
Pp 206-209
14 To identify expressions that
presupposes the truth of a
predication
Factivity,
Modality
Factivity To identify expressions that are factive
by finding words like regret, resent,
forget, surprising, and remarkable
Chapter 11
Pp 230-233
15 To define modality and
describe possibility, duty,
obligation, necessity
Factivity
Modality
Modality To describe how different modal verbs
can express possibility, obligations,
necessity etc
Chapter 11
pp 39 -246
16
FINAL TERM TEST