This document discusses semantics and the study of meaning from a linguistic perspective. It covers key topics such as: - What semantics is and its relationship to linguistics, philosophy and psychology (Section 5.1) - Major historical views on the study of meaning, including the naming theory, conceptualism, contextualism and behaviorism (Section 5.2) - Lexical meaning and sense relations like synonymy, polysemy, and antonymy between words (Section 5.3) - Sense relations between sentences like synonymy, inconsistency, entailment and presupposition (Section 5.4) - Methods of analyzing meaning through componential analysis and predic

1. Unit Five
Semantics, Study of Meaning
5.1. What is semantics?
5.2. Some views concerning the study of meaning
5.3. Lexical meaning
5.4. Sense relations between sentences
5.5. Analysis of meaning

2. 5.1. What is semantics
 Semantics is the study of meaning.
 Meaning is central to the study of communication
 Linguistic-philosophy, the study of relations
between linguistic expressions and what they refer
to in the real world and the truth value of linguistic
expressions.
 Linguistic-psychology, the study of the workings
of the mind through language.
 Semantics, the study of meaning from linguistic
point of view.

3. 5.2. Some Views Concerning
the Study of Meaning (1)
 5.2.1. The naming theory, proposed by Plato ---
ancient Greek scholar.
 a) The linguistic forms / symbols or the words
used in a language are simply labels of the objects
they stand for.therefore, words are just names or
labels for things.
 b) This theory is imperfect, obviously. It is only
applicable to physical objects, but not to abstract
notions such as dragon, think, hard, joy and slowly.

4. 5.2. Some Views Concerning
the Study of Meaning (2)
 5.2.2. The conceptualist view, held by some ancient
philosophers and linguists with Ogden and Richards as its
representatives.
 a) Words are referent to things through mediation of
concepts of the mind. That is, there is no direct link
between a linguistic form and what is refers to; rather, in
the interpretation of meaning they linked through the
mediation of the concepts in the mind.
 b) The semantic triangle / triangle of significance. b.
 c) This theory avoids many of the problems the naming
theory has encountered, but it also raises a completely new
problem of its own. What is precisely the link between the
symbol and the concept remains un-clarified. People do not
actually try to see the image of something in their mind’s
eye every time they come across a linguistic symbol.

5. 5.2.2. b) The semantic triangle
or triangle of significance.
 Thought/Reference
 Symbol/Form Referent
The dog over there looks unfriendly.
The symbol: the dog
The concept: what a dog is like
The referent: the dog over there

6. 5.2. Some Views Concerning
the Study of Meaning (3)
 5.2.3. Contextualism, popular roughly from 1930
to 1960, with British leading linguist of that period
J. R. Firth as its representative.
 a) Meaning should be studies in terms of situation,
use, context --- elements closely linked with
language behavior.
 b) The presumption of contextualism is that one
can derive meaning from or reduce meaning to
observable contexts (situational contexts and
linguistic contexts).
 e.g. The seal could not be found.

7. 5.2. Some Views Concerning
the Study of Meaning (4)
 5.2.4. Behaviorism, further strengthened on contextualism
by Bloomfield.
 a) The meaning of a language form is the situation in
which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in
the hearer. (Bloomfield, 1933)
 b) The model of behaviorism:
 Jill Jack
S r ……. s R
 ‘S’: the speaker’s physical stimulus
 ‘r’:the speaker’s verbal response
 ‘s’:verbal stimulus to the hearer
 ‘R’: non-verbal response from the hearer

8. 5.3. Lexical meaning (1)
 5.3.1. Sense and reference
 a) sense: the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection
of all the features of the linguistic form, abstract and decontextualized.
 b) reference: what a linguistic form refers to in the real world. It deals
with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-
linguistic world of experience.
 5.3.2. Major sense relations
 a) synonymy, the sameness or close similarity of meaning.
Synonyms are words close in meaning.
 i> dialectal synonyms
 ii> stylistic synonyms
 iii> emotive and evaluative synonyms
 iv> collocational synonyms
 v> semantically different synonyms

9. 5.3. Lexical meaning (2)
 5.3.2. Major sense relations (2)
 b) polysemy, the same one word may have more
than one meaning. Such is called polysemic word.
 c) homonymy, the phenomenon that words having
different meanings have the same form, or else
different words are identical in sound or spelling
or in both.
 i> homophones: words are identical in sound
 ii> homographs: words are identical in spelling
 iii> complete homonyms: words are identical in both sound and
spelling

10. 5.3. Lexical meaning (3)
 5.3.2. Major sense relations (3)
 d) hyponymy, the sense relation between a more
general, more inclusive word and a specific word.
 i> superordinate, the word more general in meaning
 ii> hyponyms, the words more specific
 iii> co-hyponyms, hyponyms of the same superordinate
 e) antonymy, oppositeness of meaning
 i> gradable antonyms, often with intermediate forms between the two
of a pair, standing for two extremes.
 ii> complementary antonyms, characterized by that the denial of one
implies the assertion of the other. They are two extremes without
intermediate degree. It is a matter of either one or the other.
 iii> relational opposites, exhibiting the reversal of a relationship
between the pair.

11. 5.4. Sense relations between
sentences
 i> X is synonymous with Y.
 X: He was a bachelor all his life. Y: He never married all his life.
 If X is true, Y is true, and if X is false, Y is false.
 ii> X is inconsistent with Y.
 X: John is married. Y: John is a bachelor.
 If X is true, Y is false, and if X is false, Y is true.
 iii> X entails Y. (Y is an entailment of X.)
 X: He has been to France. Y: He has been to Europe.
 If X entails Y, then the meaning of X is included in Y.
 iv> X presupposes Y. (Y is a prerequisite of X.)
 X: The Queen of England is old. Y: England has a Queen.
 If X is true, Y must be true, and if X is false, Y is still true.
 v> X is a contradiction.
 My unmarried sister is married to a bachelor.
 vi> X is semantically anomalous.
 The table has bad intentions.

12. 5.5. Analysis of meaning(1)
 5.5.1. Componential analysis, a way to analyze
lexical meaning
 The meaning of a word can be disserted into
meaning components, called semantic features.
 Plus and minus signs are used to indicate whether
a certain semantic feature is present or absent.
 human adult animate male
man + + + +
woman + + + -

13. 5.5. Analysis of meaning(2)
 5.5.2. Predication analysis, a way to analyze
sentence meaning.
 a) The meaning of a sentence is not the sum total
of the meanings of all its components.
 b) Sentence meaning has two aspects, grammatical
meaning and semantic meaning
 c) predication analysis proposed by G. Leech
 i> predication: the abstraction of the meaning of a sentence.
 ii> argument(s): a logical participant in a predication, largely identical
with the nominal element(s).
 iii> predicate: something said about an argument or stating the logical
relation linking the arguments in a sentence.

14. 5.5. Analysis of meaning(2)
 5.5.2. Predication analysis, a way to analyze
sentence meaning.
 d) case of predication:
 Tom smokes. Tom is smoking.
Tom has been smoking. Tom, smoke.
Does Tom smoke? Tom does not smoke.
 The argument: Tom;
The predicate: smoke;
The predication: Tom(smoke).
 All the sentences in the case are regarded as the various grammatical
realizations of the same semantic predication of Tom(smoke).
 Two-place predication: student, book (read)
 One-place predication: boy (be naughty)
 No-place predication: (be hot)

15. 5.6. Assignments
 All the items in the revision exercises on
page 82~83 of the course book should be
done independently and will be checked in
the classroom before the next lecture. Your
performance will be evaluated.

16. Thank You