This document discusses different branches of semantics, the study of meaning in language. It outlines four main branches: 1) lexical semantics which studies word meanings, 2) grammatical semantics which looks at how meaning relates to syntax, 3) logical semantics which models natural language using logical systems, and 4) semantics as it relates to other disciplines like philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and communication theory. The document also discusses Charles Sanders Pierce's three-way distinction of signs as icons, indexes, or symbols and how semantics interacts with other linguistic fields like etymology, lexicology, and discourse analysis.

1. Branches of the study of
meaning in language
1. Lexical semantics
studies the meaning of words; the focus
here is on ‘content’ word like tiger, daffodil,
inconsiderate, rather than ‘form’/’grammatical’
words like the, of, than, and so on. To a non-
specialist, the notion of meaning probably has a
stronger link with the idea of the word than with
any other linguistic unit: words are, after all, what
are listed in dictionaries, and the main function of
the dictionary is to tell us what the listed words
mean.

2. 2 Grammatical semantics
studies aspects of meaning which
have direct relevance to syntax.
Consider, for instance, the
differences in the meaning of
yellow in the following:
 She wore a yellow hat.
 They painted the room a glowing
yellow.
 The leaves yellow rapidly once
the frost arrives.

3. 3. Logical semantics
 Logical semantics studies the relation
between natural language and formal
logical system such as the
propositional and predicate calculi.
Such studies are usually aim at
modeling natural language as closely
as possible using a tightly controlled,
maximally austere logical formalism

4. A three-way distinction, established by
C.S. Pierce
1. Icon: a relation of similarity between the
sign and what it represents; for example, a
portrait, etc.
2. Index: a cause-effect relationship; contiguity
in
space or time; for example, smoke and fire,
yawning and boredom, vultures circling
overhead a dead animal
3. Symbol: an arbitrary, conventional
relationship
between sign and meaning: for example,
red flag
and danger.

5. Semantics and other linguistic
disciplines
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').

6. 2. LEXICOLOGY‐ study of lexemes
Lexicography‐ art of dictionary making
Roget’s Thesaurus – conceptual Dictionary
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 centuries.

7. 4. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
(PRAGMATICS) – analysis of all kinds
of written and spoken texts
‐ great development in 1970s (Austin,
Searle)

8. Semantics in other disciplines
Semantics has been of concern to philosophers,
anthropologists and psychologists
1. 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

9. 2. 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

10. 3. Psychology
They try to understand how we process in
production and reception. There are
problems with understanding sentences with
'selfembedding':
The boy the man the woman loved saw
ran away.‐rely on the meaning to help us
with the interpretation.

11. 4. Communication theory
Communication 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.

12.  I mean