GGGV1253
Semantics
Dr. Nur Ehsan bin Mohd Said
Faculty of Education
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
What is semantics?
• The study of meaning in language
Some basic principles
• Speaker meaning – what a speaker means or the
message he/she intends to convey when using a
language structure (e.g. word, phrase, clause,
sentence)
• Sentence meaning/word meaning - what a
sentence/word means in the language
For example: the expression “that is a nice dress”
Sentence meaning – the dress under discussion is nice.
In the English language, the word “nice” has a positive
connotation.
Speaker meaning – it may mean positively when said
compliment the wearer. However, it can be with a
negative note if the remark is meant to be sarcastic.
Why learn about semantics?
1. To understand different conversational and social uses that an
expression can be put to, a language learner has to master the stable
meanings of words and sentences as defined by the language system
(sentence/word meaning)
• The same sentences are used by different speakers on different
occasions to mean different things (speaker meaning).
• Sentence meaning and speaker meaning are both important.
Note:
• The is a gap between speaker meaning and
sentence/word meaning as is evidenced in
figurative speech, jokes, or sarcasm.
For example: These shoes are killing me.
• The expression is not supposed to be taken at face
value unless the shoes have the ability to kill human
beings.
• When the expression is used, it means that the shoes
are making the speaker very uncomfortable (usually
because they are tight)
• Meaning not to be understood literally
How does one study meaning?
• Called the methods of semantics
• When two people hold an ordinary conversation,
they need to first have the same word/sentence
meaning
• For example, when speaker A says to speaker B:
“Please move the table to the corner”
• They must both understand and interpret the word
and/or sentence meanings similarly. If speaker B does
not understand or has a different interpretation of a
word (e.g. table) the conversation will not lead to the
same conclusion.
Informant for meaning in languages
• If you are learning a foreign language, e.g. the Sar
language of Chad, Central Africa, how do you find out
what ndoho means in the language?
• Would one of the sensible ways to find out is to ask a
speaker of Sar (if you could find one)?
• Ndoho means nine in Sar; it is not a technical word.
Would an adult speaker of Sar know what ndoho
means?
• Native speakers are the primary source of information about meaning
Purpose of semantics:
• To describe what meanings words shall have as used by competent native
speakers of a particular language
• To set up a theory of meaning
• Theory: a precisely specified, coherent, and economical framework of
interdependent statements and definitions, constructed so that as large a
number as possible of particular basic facts can either be seen to follow
from it or be describable in terms of it.
What is a semantic theory?
• Theory refers to:
a precisely specified, coherent, and economical
framework of interdependent statements and
definitions, constructed so that as large a number as
possible of particular basic facts can either be seen to
follow from it or be describable in terms of it.
Look at the following statements.
• Alive means the opposite of dead.
• Buy has an opposite meaning from sell.
• Caesar is and . . . Is not a meaningful English sentence
• Caesar is a prime number is nonsensical
• Caesar is a man is logical.
• If someone says, “Can you pass the salt?”, he is not asking about the
hearer’s ability to pass the salt, but is requesting the hearer to pass the salt.
• If someone says, “I tried to buy some rice”, the hearer would normally infer
that he/she had actually failed to buy rice.
• All these statements help speakers to form a theory.
• Semantic theory deals with semantic facts, facts
about meaning, such as those stated in the true
statements above.
• Semantic theory is a part of a larger enterprise,
linguistic theory, which includes the study of syntax
(grammar) and phonetics (pronunciation) besides
the study of meaning.
• Semantics concentrates on the similarities
between languages, rather than on the
differences.
• Linguistics as a whole concentrates on the
similarities between languages.
