Semantics by Ohidur
Greek noun sema—‘sign/signal’
—verb semas—signal/mean/signify
—relating to signification/meaning
—aspects of
linguistics dealing with the relations between
referents (names) and referends (things)
Diachronic (historical) semantics—studies
semantic change
Synchronic semantic—accounts for semantic
relationship, simple or multiple
Semanticism—how a man is able to paraphrase,
transform, and detect ambiguities and only
the
surrounding words sometimes force him to choose
one interpretation rather than another
semantic analysis—must also explain antonyms/synonyms/homonyms
(homophones)
/polysemy/anomalies/paraphrase/relations/ambiguities/implications/transformations
of
language
—should also give an account of semantic
properties and relations
Importance of Meaning
Structuralists—study language without meaning
—recognized since time memorial
—essence of language
Speech without meaning—tree without fruits
and flowers
—if eternal, one word would have meant one
and the same thing in all the languages
—no semantic change—no necessity of learning
words
—still semantic universals
—the soul of language
Difficulties in the study of meaning
Linguists—excluding semantics from linguistics
(because of toughness)
—been studied not only by the linguists
but also by philosophers/psychologists/scientists
/anthropologists/sociologists
Scholars—long puzzled over what words mean
or what they represent, or how they are related
to
reality
—where does meaning exist: in the speaker
or the listener or in both, on in the context
or
situation?
Words—convenient units to state meaning
—meanings by virtue of their employment
in sentences, most of which contain more one
word
—tools; become important by the function
they perform, the job they do, the way they
are used
in certain sentences
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