This document provides an overview of semantics and outlines what will be covered in an introductory semantics course. The course will cover 10 units on topics like word and sentence meaning, reference and sense, referring expressions, and sense relations. It defines semantics as the study of meaning in language, including word meanings, sentence meanings, and how speakers understand each other. It notes some potential issues in studying meaning, like vagueness and how language relates to the world. It emphasizes that semantics describes rather than prescribes meaning and that speakers are the primary source of information about meaning. It defines the goal of a semantic theory as explaining a large number of basic meaning facts in a precise, coherent way.

1. SEMANTICS
UNIT ONE
ABOUT SEMANTICS

2. Administrivia
Reference book Lectures
 Once a week
 unit1: about semantics
 unit2: sentences, utterances,
and proposition
 "unit3: reference and sense
 unit4: referring expression
 unit8: word and things:
extensions and prototypes
 unit9: sense properties and
stereotypes
 unit10: sense relations (1)
 Unit 11: sense relations (2)

3. An example situation
So did you like
the food?
You made a
great black
coffee.

4. MEANING COMES FROM
WHERE ?
1+2+3+4+5
All possibilities
1+2+
Reference
4. logic
1. Word
meaning
2.Structure of
the sentence
Pragmatics
5. context

5.  Semantic …
 is the study of the meaning in language.
 word meaning
 lexical semantics
 sentence meaning
 sentential semantics
 The aim of the semanticists …
 is to explain and clarify the nature of meaning.
 Speakers have some internalised knowledge such that:
 They understand what other people mean
 They are able to say what they mean

6. So why would be this a problem?

7. 1- Meaning vagueness
 it may seem to you that meaning is so vague that
is impossible to come to any clear or concrete
conclusions about it .
 For example: Individual differences about the
meaning of the word black

8. 2- Language and the world
semantics
concepts/
thoughts
things
&
situations
What is the meaning of
the word man or ostrich?
• Is your knowledge of the
meaning independent of your
experience of the world?
• Are you born with an innate
knowledge of such words?

9. 3. Speaker meaning vs. sentence
meaning
- In a situation John who is a teacher says to his
interlocuter who is a student:
- What time is it?
What Does this answer mean?
‘Excuse me, could you tell me the
time please?
Do you have the time?
You are late
sentence meaning Speaker meaning

10. DEFINITIONS
• Speaker meaning: is what a speaker means intends when he
uses a piece of language .
• Could one make a list of it???
• Sentence meaning or Word meaning: is what a sentence or
word means.
• Dictionary meanings of words can help in finding out this
meaning
 So the distinction is useful in analyzing the various kinds of
communication between people made possible by language.

11. 4- The different conversational and
social uses of sentences
 It is true that many sentences do carry information in a
straightforward way.
 It is also true that many sentence are used by speaker
not to give information at all but to keep the social
wheels turning smoothly ( social relationships ).
Example : A:We are going to France next month.
B: oh, Are you ? that will be nice.
What Does “are you” mean?

12. Cont.
 Speaker meaning can include (courtesy
– hostility – praise – insult – so on
……..).
 Once a person has mastered the stable meanings
of words and sentence as defined by the language
system, he can quickly grasp the different
conversational and social uses that they can be
put to.

13. 5- Nonsensical sentences
 is such it is even possible for a
speaker to convey a quite
intelligible intention by using a
sentence whose literal meaning
is contradictory or nonsensical .
• First : to show what is wrong with such sentences
why they can't be literally true.
• Secondly : how speakers nevertheless manage
to communicate something by means of them.
To understand these sentences, it is
necessary to analyze at two levels :

14. What do we need?
Theory of meaning

15. 1- The primary source of information
• Native speakers of languages are the primary source of
information about meaning.
• The student or the professor of semantics may well be
good at describing meaning ,or theorizing about meaning
in general , but he has no advantage over any normal
speaker of language in the matter of access to the basic
data concerning meaning.

16. 2- Descriptive not prescriptive
Semantics -- LIN1180
 It is not the business of semantics to lay down
standards of semantic correctness, to prescribe
what meanings words shall have, or what they
may be used for.
 Semantics ,like the rest of linguistics ,describes .

17. Theory definition
A theory is a precisely specified, coherent, and
economical framework of interdependent
statements and definitions, constructed so that as
large number as possible of particular basic facts
can either be seen to follow from it or be
describable in terms of it .

18. Chemical theory as example
 The chemical theory with its definitions of atoms and
defining various types of reactions that can take place
between elements.
Chemical Facts
• Iron rusts in water.
• Salt dissolves in
water.
• Nothing can burn if
completely
immersed in water.

19. Semantic theory
 Facts:
1) Alive means the opposite of dead
2) Buy has an opposite meaning from sell
3) Both of John’s parents are married to aunts of mine is in a sense
contradictory , describing an impossible situation
1. Semantics theory should be able to deal with the semantics facts and should
describe it

20. Cont.
2. The semantic theory statements should move from particular facts
to generalizations statement about whole classes of items .
They deal with whole classes of words (the whole class of prepositions, and not
just with the individual example.
1. Proper names ( like English John or German Hans or French Jean ) have a different
kind of meaning from common nouns ( like English man or German Mann or French
homme)
2. Prepositions ( like English under , or German unter , or French sous ) have a
different kind of meaning from both proper names and common nouns .

21. Cont.
 In French , acheter has an opposite meaning from vendre
 In French , Et la mère et le père de Jean sont Marie sont
les tantes de Marie is in a sense contradictory, describing
an impossible situation
 Many basic facts about English have exact parallels in other languages.
 The fact that it is possible to translate any sentence of one language into
any other language also reinforces the conclusion that the basic facts about
meaning in all languages are , by and large , parallel.
3- The semantic theory statements should apply not just to
English , but to human language in general .

22. About the semantic theory

23. 1- Searching for similarity
 Semantics concerned on the similarities between
languages , rather than on differences .
 Semantics theory is a part of large enterprise ,linguistics
theory which includes the study of syntax (grammar), and
phonetics (pronunciation) besides the study of meaning ,
linguistics as a whole that it concerned on the similarities
between languages .

24. 2- Terminology
 It is not possible to talk precisely and simply about
meaning without using at least a small amount of technical
terminology developed by semanticists for just this
purpose .
 We try to avoid unnecessary jargon, and only introduce a
technical term when no everyday word quite suits our
purpose .

25. 3- Theories are incomplete and
always change
Hecataeus's’ map Current world map
No theory, be it chemical theory, phonetics theory, mathematical
theory, Semantics theory, or whatever is Complete.
There are always further facts in need of explanation.

26. Cont.
Ancient semantics
• Aristotle can be regarded
as a forerunner of
modern semantics , just
as Hecate's was a
forerunner of modern
geography .
• Aristotle was clearly
concerned with the same
general areas that
concern modern
semantics .
Modern semantics
• We must assume that our
modern theories of meaning
are in some sense superior to
Aristotle's .
• Today’s semanticists have
modern techniques (e.g.
symbolic logic, new theories
of grammar such as cognitive
and generative grammar, and
research in psychology and
cognitive science) not
available to the ancients.

27. 4- Mental labor
Physical labor Mental labor (paper and pencil)

28. Questions
Semantics -- LIN1180
?