Semantics is the scientific study of meaning in language. There is no general agreement about the nature of meaning. Approaches to semantics include formal studies focused on logic and truth, and functional studies analyzing meaning in natural languages. The term 'semantics' was first used in 1894 and gained prominence through works in the early 20th century. Areas of semantic analysis include word meaning, vocabulary organization, and meaning in linear syntax. Historical semantics studies how word meanings change over time. Semantics interacts with and is important to various other fields including philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and communication theory.
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science is an International Journal edited by International Organization of Scientific Research (IOSR).The Journal provides a common forum where all aspects of humanities and social sciences are presented. IOSR-JHSS publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual framework, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, technical notes etc.
These are the slides of a talk by Rens Bod presented on January 18, 2012 at WERELD BEELD, Amsterdam University College. The title is: How the Humanities Changed the World, Or why we should stop worrying and love the history of the humanities.
The humanities are under severe pressure worldwide. While the humanities have been viewed for centuries as the pinnacle of education, during the last forty years or so the study of art, history, literature, language and music is typically seen as a luxury, both by policy makers and the public. The humanities are an ornamentation of life but useless for technology, economy and industry. Humanities scholars have been unable to come up with a convincing answer to their marginalization. Arguments in favour of the humanities are defensive and get lost in mantra-like repetitions like: the humanistic disciplines are important for self-cultivation (Bildung), they are relevant for cultural and historical consciousness, and they form the basis for critical thinking and democracy. While these arguments may all be true, most scholars overlook the possibility that the assumption behind the image problem itself may be wrong.
Humanities scholars seem to have taken for granted that the humanities are economically irrelevant. Yet a quick glance over the history of the humanities shows the opposite: humanistic insights not only radically changed the world but they also resulted in concrete applications. As if humanities scholars have no idea of their own history – or decided to neglect a part of it -- these applications are attributed to the sciences. Here something has to be rectified, where the attack is the best defense.
The Edge of Linguistics lecture series from Prof. Fredreck J. Newmeyer
During Oct 7 to Oct 17, Prof. Newmeyer offered a lecture series on a wide range of linguistic topics in Beijing Language and Culture University.
Lecture 1: The Chomskyan Revolution
Lecture 2: Constraining the Theory
Lecture 3: The Boundary between Syntax and Semantics
Lecture 4: The Boundary between Competence and Performance
Lecture 5: Can One Language Be ‘More Complex’ Than Another?
Background:
Fredreck J. Newmeyer is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Washington and adjunct professor in the University Of British Columbia Department Of Linguistics and the Simon Fraser University Department of Linguistics. He has published widely in theoretical and English syntax.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Normal Labour/ Stages of Labour/ Mechanism of LabourWasim Ak
Normal labor is also termed spontaneous labor, defined as the natural physiological process through which the fetus, placenta, and membranes are expelled from the uterus through the birth canal at term (37 to 42 weeks
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Acetabularia Information For Class 9 .docxvaibhavrinwa19
Acetabularia acetabulum is a single-celled green alga that in its vegetative state is morphologically differentiated into a basal rhizoid and an axially elongated stalk, which bears whorls of branching hairs. The single diploid nucleus resides in the rhizoid.
2. Defining Semantics
Linguistics – Semantics
scientific study of language –
scientific study of meaning
implication of corpus and methodology
- no general agreement about the nature
of meaning
3. Formal vs functional approaches
to meaning
FORMAL: semantic logics, logic
semantics, symbolic logics
(Carnapp, Quine); truth as basic
category; logics and mathematics
associations
FUNCTIONAL: analysis of
meaning in natural languages
4. About the term ‘semantics’
First used in 1894 in ‘Reflected meanings: a
point in semantics’.
M. Bréal: ‘An Essay on Semantics’ (1897)
Most important usage of the term: Ogden
and Richards: ‘The Meaning of Meaning’
(1923)
(Malinowski:‘The problem of meaning in
primitive languages’)
5. Areas of semantic analysis
1. Word meaning
2. Meaning in vocabulary
organisation (paradigmatic level)
3. Meaning in linear sequence (in
syntax) (syntagmatic level)
6. Historical semantics
deals with the study of change of meaning in time
Bloomfield lists a number of different changes:
Narrowing: meat 'food'
Widening:bird 'nestling'
Metonymy: (nearness in space or time): jaw 'cheek'
Synecdoche: (whole/part relation): stove 'heated
room'
Degeneration: knave 'boy'
Elevation: knight 'boy'
7. Reasons for these changes:
Accidental: tanks are called as they are because of a
security decision in First World War to deceive the
Germans into thinking that water-tanks were being
dispatched
Due to needs: the word car was an obsolete poetic
word for 'chariot' until the motor-car was invented.
Most scientific words have acquired specialized
meanings that have no close relationship to the
non-scientific use (mass, energy)
Taboo: privy-lavatory-toilet-bathroom-loo.
8. 1. ETYMOLOGY-discovery of the earlier meanings
of words, the 'true' meaning of words (first serious
discussion is in Plato's Cratylus)
Chief difficulty: there can be no 'true' or 'original'
meaning since human l. stretches back too far.
(nice once meant 'silly'. Lat. nescius-'ignorant').
9. 2. LEXICOLOGY- study of lexemes
Lexicography- art of dictionary-
making
Roget’s Thesaurus – conceptual
dictionary
10. 3. STYLISTICS – stylistic variation in
speech and writing
achieving style: choice of words, use of
metaphor
entered linguistics in 40s and 50s of the
previous ct.
12. Semantics in other disciplines
Semantics has been of concern to philosophers,
anthropologists and psychologists
Philosophy: Some thought that many philosophical
problems can be solved by the study of 'ordinary l.'.
They argue that the nature of good and evil in moral
philosophy can be dealt with by seeing the way in
which words as good are used.
Anthropology: They are concerned with language as
an essential part of cultural and behavioural
patterns. One specific area of anthropological
research that is particularly interesting in connection
to semantics is that of kinship (complex kinship
relations of many societies are revealed in equally
complex semantic patterns of the kinship
terminology)
13. Psychology: They try to understand how we process
l. in production and reception. There are problems
with understanding sentences with 'self-
embedding': The boy the man the woman loved saw
ran away.-rely on the meaning to help us with the
interpretation.
Communication theory: comm.system carries
information; it should have minimum redundancy
(parts of the message that can be removed without
removing any information) and minimum noise
(anything that interferes with transmission). The
human speaker, unlike the comm. system, doesn't
merely transmit the message; he also creates it.
14. Exact beginning of semantics?
REISIG (philologist, 1839), forerunner
of serious semantic analysis
Future of linguistics: analysis of ALL
natural languages
Importance of the study of meaning
15. BRÉAL (‘An essay on semantics’, 1897) –
considered father of semantics, first to
popularize the term SÉMANTIQUE
no serious linguistic analysis without
touching on meaning
semantics has to be an integral part of
linguistics
need for syntactic semantics
16. Development of semantics
Structural semantics (beginning of the
20th ct.): discovery of the general
principles of semantic change
Lexeme meaning: COMPONENTIAL
ANALYSIS
MEYER (1910):”semantic system”-
grouping of words by meaning in
coordinated whole (military ranks)
17. TRIER (1931): elaboration of
SEMANTIC (LEXICAL) FIELDS
End of 1960s: establishment of TG
(focus on syntax)
1963 Katz and Fodor’s generative
theory of semantics
18. 1980s: major overturn in general
linguistics:
COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS >
COGNITIVE SEMANTICS