• Linguistic signs are
like non-linguistic
signs (semiotics)
• Mind/cognition
(psychology)
• Natural language is
like artificial
languages (formal
logic)
?
• Semantics is also
dealing with
questions such as
truth and
reference which
are also the domain
of philosophy.
Definition
*Study of meaning as applied to language.
*Part of grammar of any language, part of the
linguistic competence of speakers.
Word meaning:
Is semantic knowledge (of meaning) equivalent to
encyclopedic knowledge? (encyclopedic=Gr.
knowledge which encompasses considerable
information about the way the world is). In
other words, is our knowledge of the world and
the objects equivalent to the semantic
knowledge we acquire?
No, one uses language without the need to have such
encyclopedic knowledge. One can use a word without knowing
its exact meaning, even without knowing its meaning at all and
successful communication is still possible.
Example:
I started learning C++
(I know the signifier (the sound) and very little of the signified)
What is ‘C++’?
(I know the sound NOW, I have no idea of the signified)
Circularity
How do we give the meaning of a word/phrase/sentence
if its meaning is defined by using other words whose
meaning needs to be defined over and over again?
E.g. how do we solve the problem of circularity?
Example:
Dogs are animals.
Dogs=Highly variable domestic mammals (Canis) closely
related to the common wolf
are=belong to the class of
Animals= living beings differing from plants
in their capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid
motor response to stimulation.
Source used: Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
Solution?
Metalanguage or formal language
literary and non-literary meaning
Examples:
1. It’s getting late!
literary meaning: what the speaker actually says
Speaker Meaning: you should leave
2. The movie was a flop but we say
That movie was tremendous!
Sarcasm, irony
3. raven hair, ruby lips, emerald eyes, teeth of pearl.
My friend is a machine.
Metaphorical use of certain words
A word can have more than one referent (be ambiguous):
I saw the bank (more than one referent)
I saw you (anaphoric, any referent)
=> Context has a disambiguating function.
Idioms
I gave her the slip.
1. I departed secretly.(idiom)
2. I gave her a small piece of paper
It is the slip I gave her - cannot be used with its
idiomatic meaning.
Sentence meaning is compositional:
-not listed in the lexicon
-derived by rules of combination between the components
For example: birds and dogs
Pink elephants
-exception: idioms (listed in the lexicon)
Denotation: denotes an object
Reference: the speaker refers to an object
Extension: the set of objects which could be the denotation
Signs
Real Object(s)
denotation
reference
extension
Linguistic sign
signified
signifier (cup)
arbitrary
conventional (accepted both by
the speaker and the hearer so
that the sign can be decoded)
Utterance
exactly what is said by the individual speaker
1.The book was read by all the students.
2. All the students read the book.
Degree of
abstractness
Sentence
Some features of the utterance such as intonation
are sometimes considered irrelevant.
It is that part of the utterance that is actually taken
into account.
Proposition
in logic and formal semantics
read (V students)
Types of meaning
Meaning
literal (conventional)
non-literal
I
sentence level
word level
?
ambiguous, anaphor
non-ambiguous
sentence level
idiom
speaker meaning
irony, sarcasm
focus
word level
F. e. metaphor