An Introduction to semantics
What is semantics ?
The word semantics was first used by Michel Bréal , a French philologist . It denotes
a range of ideas - from the popular to the highly technical. It’s a division of micro
linguistics
Any attempt to understand the nature of language must try to describe and explain the
ways in which linguistic expressions have meaning.
We have to introduce some of the aspects of meaning studied in linguistic semantics,
the branch of linguistics which, along with pragmatics, has responsibility for this task .
Semantics is one of the richest and most fascinating parts of linguistics.
Among the kinds of questions semanticists ask are the following:
• What are meanings - definitions? ideas in our heads? sets of objects in the world?
• Can all meanings be precisely defined?
• What explains relations between meanings, like synonymy, antonymy (oppositeness),
and so on?
• How do the meanings of words combine to create the meanings of sentences?
• What is the difference between literal and non-literal meaning?
• How do meanings relate to the minds of language users, and to the things words refer to?
• What is the connection between what a word means, and the contexts in which it is used?
• How do the meanings of words interact with syntactic rules and principles?
• Do all languages express the same meanings?
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• How do meanings change?
Clearly, semantics is a vast subject . ‘Meaning’, however, is a very vague term.
In ordinary English, the word ‘meaning’ is used to refer to such different things as the
idea or intention lying behind a piece of language .
Semantics, the study of word meaning and sentence meaning , abstracted away from
contexts of use, is a descriptive subject. It is an attempt to describe and understand the
nature of the knowledge about meaning in their language that people have from knowing
the language.
It is not a prescriptive enterprise with an interest in advising or pressuring speakers
or writers into abandoning some meanings and adopting others ( though pedants can
certainly benefit from studying the semantics of a language they want to lay down
rules about, to become clear on what aspects of conventional meaning they dislike
and which they favour ).
A related point is that one can know a language perfectly well without knowing
its history.
While it is fascinating to find out about the historical currents and changes that explain
why there are similarities in the pronunciations or spellings of words that share similarities
in meaning - for example: arms body parts, arms weapons, army, armada and
armadillo- this kind of knowledge is not essential for using present-day English, so
it is not covered in this book. Historical linguists investigating language change over
time sometimes concern themselves with semantic (and pragmatic) matters.
They are then doing historical (linguistic) semantics (and /or pragmatics).
Semantic description of language knowledge is different from the encyclopedia
maker’s task of cataloguing general knowledge.
The words tangerine and clementine illustrate distinctions that are not part of our:
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Some definition of semantics
1-According to the book “ Linguistics: An introduction to language and Communication “
semantics is the study of meaning , reference , truth and related notions .
2-According to the book “An introduction to language “ , semantics is the study of the
linguistics meaning of morphemes , words , phrases and sentences
3-According to the book “ An introduction to language and linguistics “ ,
semantics is the field of linguistics which studies the literal meaning , the study of
those aspects of meaning which are determined with the linguistics system .
4-In the book “ Study of language : Yule ) , semantics is the study of the meaning of
words, phrases and sentences.
In semantic analysis , there is always an attempt to focus on what the words
conventionally mean, rather than on what an individual speaker might want them to mean
on a particular occasion. This approach is concerned with objective or general meaning
and avoids trying to account for subjective or local meaning.
Doing semantics is attempting to spell out what it is we all know when we behave as if
we share knowledge of the meaning of a word, a phrase, or a sentence in a language.
Does semantics have any relationship with other branches of linguistics ?
Yes, it does . Semantics has relationship with other levels of linguistics as described
below.
1- Semantics and the phonetics , for example in the use of stress and intonation.
2-Semantic and Phonology
3-Semantics and Morphology
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4- Semantics and Pragmatics
5- Semantics and Syntax
6- Semantics and Computational linguistics
7- Semantics and psycholinguistics
8- Semantics and Historical Linguistics
Is semantics a science ?
Before we answer this question , let’s discuss the word “ science “ and what does it
mean .
The word Science comes from Latin word "scientia" meaning "knowledge" and in
the broadest sense it is any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice capable
of resulting in prediction. Science can also be understood as a highly skilled technique
or practice.
In more contemporary terms, science is a system of acquiring knowledge based on
the scientific process or method in order to organize a body of knowledge gained
through research.
Science is defined as the observation, identification, description, experimental
investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena .
Also , science is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts
or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws:
for example, mathematical science .
Another definition is that science is a systematized knowledge in general .
So are these definitions included into semantics ? If these definition are included ,
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semantics is a science , if not semantics is not a science . In my point of view , they
are included :
1- Geoffrey and the view of contextualist and the mentalist
According to Geoffrey Leech in his book “ Semantics :69-93 “ , semantics is science .
He presented the two opposed views of semantics as a science : the contextualist and
the mentalist views .while the contextualist is un willing to accept abstract entities
( such as ‘ concepts ‘ ) not accessible to operational test , the neomentalist ‘ takes
a less stringent view of scientific truth regarding an abstract theory of semantics
competence as acceptable so long as it conforms to various standards .
Mentalist vary in the degree of the psychological reality they attribute to the postulated
rules of competence , and in the last resort , this must depend on the degree of confidence
a semantic has in his own analysis , which in turn must depend on how far he has in his
attained such scientific goals as explicitness ,completeness , simplicity and conformity
of data .
A mentalist could scarcely argue that although his a count of a given a set of data is
correct , it has nothing to do with what actually goes on in the brain on the native speaker
Geoffrey Leech in his book “ Semantics :69-93 “ , also used the “ semantic testing “ to
prove that semantic is a science .
In this test , he provided objective support for an analysis would observe what sentences
actually occur in a corpus of utterance .
2-The semantic feature :
From the semantic features we can prove that semantic is a science and it depends on
logic and on the facts and scientific information and the objective observation .
What are the semantic features ?
One way in which the study of basic conceptual meaning might be helpful would be
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as a means of accounting for the “oddness” we experience when we read sentences such
as the following:
Ex: The hamburger ate the boy.
Ex: The table listens to the radio.
Ex: The horse is reading the newspaper.
We should first note that the oddness of these sentences does not derive from their
syntactic structure. According to the basic syntactic rules for forming English sentences
we have well-formed structures.
NP V NP :
The hamburger ate the boy
This sentence is syntactically good, but semantically odd. Since the sentence
The boy ate the hamburger is perfectly acceptable, we may be able to identify the
source of the problem.
The components of the conceptual meaning of the noun hamburger must be significantly
different from those of the noun boy, thereby preventing one, and not the other, from
being used as the subject of the verb ate.
The kind of noun that can be the subject of the verb ate must denote an entity that is
capable of “eating.”
The noun hamburger does not have this property and the noun boy does.
3- Semantic studies the lexical relation between the words .
Semantic studies the lexical relation between the word . Lexical relation means :
the relationships of meaning, such as synonymy, between words.
Is it logical to say that the word “ deep “is the opposite of beautiful ? Is it a fact that
word “ flower “ is a prototype of furniture ?
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