UNIVERSITY OF BABYLON COLLEGE OF EDUCATION FOR HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH A REVIEW OF RUTH KEMPSON’S SEMANTIC THEORY By A'MER SAGHEER ALLWAN AL-A'MERY amer.amery@Yahoo.com https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004785700427 SUPERVISED BY Asst. Prof. Dr. QASSIM ABBAS AlTufaili, Ph.D. qassimdhayf@Gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001523273930&ref=br_rs AD 2016 AH 1437

1. UNIVERSITY OF BABYLON
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION FOR HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
A REVIEW
OF
RUTH KEMPSON’S
SEMANTIC THEORY
By
A'MER SAGHEER ALLWAN AL-A'MERY
amer.amery@Yahoo.com
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004785700427
SUPERVISED BY
Asst. Prof.Dr. QASSIM ABBAS AlTufaili, Ph.D.
qassimdhayf@Gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001523273930&ref=br_rs
AD 2016 AH 1437

2. In chapter two, the author surveys some of the proposed theories that handle
meaning such as the theory of meaning and reference, the image theory of meaning,
and meaning and concept in order to clarify that the task of semantics is to explain
the nature of the relation between word and sentences and the state of affairs those
sentences describe. She also explains the procedure of componential analysis.
The author indicates that in spite of the contribution of these proposed
theories, but each one has its shortcomings that needed to be tackled. Therefore,
these theories do not give a complete account of the aims of the semantic theory.
In chapter three, the author tries to:
i. Detect the relationship between meaning and truth. So, she
surveys the methods of explaining and accounting meaning in terms of
logical formula that proposed by logicians such as Tarski, and to what
extent they are valid in addition to the linguists’ reaction against such
logical account.
ii. Differentiate between the logical formula account of both word
and sentences meaning and which one is more applicable and productive.
iii. Provide the relationship between the accounted meaning and the
truth conditions of explaining meaning.
The author indicates that some refused the use of meaning to account for the
truth conditions of the sentence because of the drawbacks without denying the
explanatory power of these mechanisms.
At the end of the chapter, the author tries to define and differentiate the
concepts of sentences vs. statements, logical truth, truth conditions and
entailments. The author also indicates that the logical account is inapplicable to
the negation and interrogative sentences.

3. In chapter four, the author tries to survey the selected non-purely semantic
theories that try to account meaning such as the behavioristic theory of
Bloomfield, the theory of context situation and the speech act theory. The author
detects some shortcomings of these theories in the approach of meaning.
She concentrates on speech act theory, agreeing that this theory does not
require T/F values of logical conditions but appropriate conditions of use for
accounting meaning.
In chapter five, Kempson makes a distinction between the semantic
account of meaning and the pragmatic account of meaning. This distinction,
according to the author, can explain a wide range of phenomenon than either a
truth-based semantics or a speech act semantics.
She tries to apply the speech act semantics to account for the sentence
meaning from a communicative point of view. She prefers the speech act theory
to the truth-value of logical account of meaning. Then she surveys and applies
the pragmatic theory of use such as Grice cooperative principles and their maxims
to meaning interpretations and their shortcomings excluding the metaphorical
and stylistic dimensions of use.
In chapter six, the writer starts with the difficulties face the account of
words semantic representation of sentences and tries to put some hypotheses to
deal with them. She also tries to show the relationship between the syntactic rules
and to what extent they are related to each other.
Then she tries to:

4. i. Define and explain the use of the term “word” and the variation of
lexical item, lexical entry and the concepts related to them such as
ambiguity, hyponymy, and the concept of lexicon.
ii. Analyse the lexical structure (inter-lexical relation) and the nature
of componential analysis procedure and how can participate in
solving the problem of word meaning.
iii. Discuss the nature of the formal representation of semantic
components and the evidence of componential analysis and how
they predict the inter-sentential relations of both contradiction and
entailment.
iv. Show their representation in the lexicon lexical meaning,
v. Investigate the field of semantic universals and to what extent it is
valid and productive and the opinions of anthropologists and
linguists and their evidence of these approaches and theories that
reflect their debate over this issue.
In chapter seven, the author tries to account for sentence meaning so she
discusses the concepts of deep structure, or the underlying representation, phrase
structure rules and surface structure as components of transformational
generative grammar.
She tries to show the relation between these components and the structure
of the sentence to make and set up generalizations that are valid to all sentences.
She also presents some problems related to word meaning, sentence
meaning and the projection rules, selection restriction and negation.
In chapter eight, Kempson deals with the concepts of ambiguity and
vagueness. After surveying the different types of vagueness, she presents some

5. test mechanisms to clear ambiguity and to what extent they are applicable and
valid. Then she presents the rules of quantifiers and their contribution in solving
the problem of ambiguity after the failing of the logical truth condition rules.
In chapter nine, the author tries to indicate that dealing with the account
of logical of the two truth-values is not satisfied for many linguists. There are
cases where two truth-values are not productive or valid so the need for three-
truth values scale is necessary. This third scale is neither true neither false.
Then, the author tries to put this new formula under test by using
entailment, presupposition and negation in addition to the logical ties such as
“and, or, if, etc.…”from a semantic point of view.
The conclusion is that there should be a third possibility of truth-value. The
author notices that in the case of negation, the dimension of entailment should be
cancelled and work with the presupposition principle as it is more valid and
productive.
In chapter ten, the author deals with the relation between the syntactic
component and the semantic component. The author lists the definitions of both
levels of deep structure, surface structure in addition to the phrase structure rules.
Then she explains the ways that relate each other within the framework of
transformational generative grammar and the tasks of each level and how does it
work in order to get results and to put generalizations about both components,
i.e., the syntactic representation and the semantic component.
Then she explains the relation between both deep structure and semantic
representation and, how they can solve the problem of ambiguity.
In chapter eleven,

6. The author concludes that:
i. There is almost no aspect of semantics over which there is any
degree of certainty,
ii. There is a considerable disagreement over the basic assumptions of
a semantic theory,
iii. The nature of semantic representations is contentious, and
iv. There is no agreement about the relation of semantics either to logic
or to other parts of grammar.
She also concludes that what increases the confusion is that many of the
problems are interdependent; a solution to one problem depends on the solution of
another. Then she tries to survey linguistics semantics and logical semantics and
their contributions and limitations and how these theories handle meaning
postulates.
Finally, the author tries to foresee the future directions of the study of
semantics and pragmatics.