Definition and Brief History of Semantics

Arranged to fulfill the course assignment Semantics/Pragmatics

Lecturer : Sri Suci Suryawati M.Pd

Presented by Group 2

DHEA MARLIA :1611040382

LENI SUSIANA : 1611040347

ENGLISH EDUCATION
TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF RADEN INTAN LAMPUNG
2019
 PREFACE

Praise be to Allah SWT, God of the universe, grace and salvation may
always be delegated by Allah to Prophet Muhammad SAW, his family and his
companions and his faithful followers until the day of vengeance. And do not
forget we are grateful for the compilation of this paper. Our purpose in drawing
up this paper is to enrich the science of all of us, and to fulfill the task of the
course of Semantics/Pragmatics.

Finally I expect criticism and suggestions for our shortcomings in the

preparation of this paper, and hopefully this paper can be useful and useful for
everyone.

Bandar Lampung, 01 March 2019

The writer

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE............................................................................................... i

TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................. ii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION................................................................. 1
A. Background...................................................................................... 1
B. Problem formuation......................................................................... 1
C. Objective Problem............................................................................ 1

CHAPTER II. DISCUSSION...................................................................... 2

A. Definition Semantics.......................................................................... 2
B. Systematic Study of Meaning............................................................ 3
C. Brief History of Semantics................................................................. 6

CHAPTER III. CONCLUSION..................................................................... 9

REFERENCES............................................................................................. 10

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background
Semantics is a branch of linguistics, which is the study of language; it is an
area of study interacting with those of syntax and phonology. A person's
linguistic abilities are based on knowledge that they have. One of the insights of
modern linguistics is that speakers of a language have different types of linguistic
knowledge, including how to pronounce words, how to construct sentences, and
about the meaning of individual words and sentences
Studying semantics is important because semantics (as the study of
meaning) is central to the study of communication and as communication
becomes more and more a crucial factor in social organization, the need to
understand it becomes more and more pressing. Semantics is also at the centre of
the study of the human mind - thought processes, cognition, conceptualization -
all these are intricately bound up with the way in which we classify and convey
our experience of the world through language.

B. Problem Formulation
1. What is Definition Of Semantics ?
2. What is Systematic Study of Meaning ?
3. What Brief History of Semantics ?

C. Objective Problem
1. To know Definition of Semantics
2. To know systematic study of Meaning
3. To know Brief history of Semantics
 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

A. Definiton Semantics
Semantics (from Greek sēmantiká, neuter plural of sēmantikós) is the
study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words,
phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata. 1
The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the
highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of
understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation. This problem of
understanding has been the subject of many formal inquiries, over a long period of
time, most notably in the field of formal semantics. In linguistics, it is the study of
interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within
particular circumstances and contexts. Within this view, sounds, facial
expressions, body language, proxemics have semantic (meaningful) content, and
each has several branches of study. In written language, such things as paragraph
structure and punctuation have semantic content; in other forms of language, there
is other semantic content.
According to Lyons (1977), Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantics
is the study of meaning in language Hurford & Heasley The (1983). Semantics is
the study of meaning communicated through language Saeed (2003). Semantics is
the part of linguistics that is concerned with meaning Löbner (2002). Linguistic
semantics is the study of how languages organize and express meanings (Kreidler,
1998). (Sutrisno, 2012)2
Nowadays, there are two ways of approaching semantics. The formal
semantics approach connects with classical philosophical semantics, that is, logic.
It should not be forgotten that semantics was a part of philosophy for many

1
http: //wn.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/semantics date 27/02/2019 14.34

2
Kreider, Charles W. Introducing English Semantics. London. 1998 page 27

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centuries. Formal semantics tries to describe the meaning of language using the
descriptive apparatus of formal logic. The goal is to describe natural language in a
formal, precise, unambiguous way. Related (though not identical) denominations
for this type of semantics are truth-conditional semantics, model-theoretic
semantics, logical semantics, etc.
The other approach to semantics could call psychologically-oriented
semantics or cognitive semantics. This approach does not consider the logical
structure of language as important for the description of the meaning of language,
and tends to disregard notions such as truth-values or strict compositionality.
Cognitive semantics tries to explain semantic phenomena by appealing to
biological, psychological and even cultural issues. They are less concerned with
notions of reference and try to propose explanations that will fit with everything
that we know about cognition, including perception and the role of the body in the
structuring of meaning structures.3
We can conclude that Semantic is the study of meaning. It is a wide
subject within the general study of language. An understanding of semantics is
essential to the study of language acquisition (how language users acquire a sense
of meaning, as speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language change
(how meanings alter over time). It is important for understanding language in
social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding
varieties of English and effects of style. It is thus one of the most fundamental
concepts in linguistics.

B. Systematic study of Meaning

Linguistic semantics is an attempt to explicate the knowledge of any
speakers of a language which allows that speaker to communicate facts, feeling,
intentions and products of the imagination to other speakers and to understand
what they communicate to him or her.

3
Allan K.. Linguistik Meaning 2 Vols. Londen ; Routledge Kegan Paul. 1986. Page 52

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 Three disciplines are concerned with the systematic study of ‘meaning’ in
itself: psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. Psychologists, they are interested
in: how individual human learn, how they retain, recall, or lose information; how
they classify, make judgments and solve problems. In other words, how the
human mind seeks meanings, and works with them; Philosophers of language are
concerned with how we know, how any particular fact that we know or accept as
true is related to other possible facts In other words, what must be antecedent to
that fact and what is a likely consequence, or entailment of it; what statements are
mutually contradictory, which sentences express the same meaning in different
words, and which are unrelated; Linguists want to understand how language
works. Just what common knowledge do two people posses when they share a
language that makes it possible for them to give and get information, to express
their feelings and their intentions to another, and to be understood with a fair
degree of success.
According to Alsayed (2012) meaning covers a variety of aspects of
language, and there is no general agreement about the nature of meaning. Looking
at the word itself, the dictionary will suggest a number of different meanings of
the noun “meaning” and the verb “mean”. The word mean can be applied to
people who use language, i.e. to speakers, in the sense of “intend”. And it can be
applied to words and sentences in the sense of “be equivalent to”. To understand
what meaning is, one has to keep in mind whether we are talking about what
speakers mean or what words (or sentences) mean. 4
It may seem to you that meaning is so vague, insubstantial, and elusive
that it is impossible to come to any clear, concrete, or tangible conclusions about
it. We hope to convince you that by careful thought about the language you speak
and the way it is used, definite conclusions can be arrived at concerning meaning.
Lewis Carroll had brilliant insights into the nature of meaning (and into the
foibles of people who theorize about it). In the passage above, he is playfully
suggesting that the meanings carried by words may be affected by a speaker’s
4
Clark.H.H. Using Language. Cambridge : Cup. 1996.page 112

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will. Lewis Carroll’s aim was to amuse, and he could afford to be enigmatic and
even nonsensical. The aim of serious semanticists is to explain and clarify the
nature of meaning. (Hurford, Heasley and Smith, 2007)
Semantics deals with:

1. Words meaning

Language is used for communication. In communicating, speakers or writers

communicate meaning to listeners or readers. The nature of the meaning of a word
is its referent. The referent of a word can be an object, an event, a state, a process,
or an action here in this world. Word meaning can also said lexical meaning
(Lyons, 1985) : the meaning of lexemes depends upon the of sentences in which
they occur. (Sutrisno, 2012)
Examples :

a. hot is : [ a state of having a high temperature ]

b. to sew is : [ an action of working with a needle and thread
c. drizzling is : [ the process of raining in small drops ]
d. a party is : [ an event of the gathering of persons, by invitation, for
pleasure ]

2. Sentence meaning

According to Hurford, Heasley and Smith (2007), sentence meaning is what a

sentence means, i.e. what it counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned.
According to Lyons,( 1985) as in Sutrisno (2012), the meaning of sentence is the
product of both lexical and grammatical meaning (the meaning of the constituent
of lexemes and of the grammatical constructions)

Examples :

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 1. This is a beautiful garden flower
2. This is a beautiful flower garden
In sentence (1) the focus is on flower, where as in sentence (2) the focus is on
garden. It is clear that the conceptual meaning of the sentence depends on the
reference and the structures of the words.

3. Utterance meaning

Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he

uses a piece of language. (Hurford, Heasley and Smith, 2007), In
communication, the meaning of an utterance is not only determined by the
conceptual meaning of the sentence but also by paralinguistic features such as
stress, pitch, intonation, juncture, body movements, head movements, hand
gestures, eye-contact, and the distance between the interlocutors.
Examples : “It’s one o’clock”, can be interpreted as “It’s really one o’clock”
or “It’s time to have lunch” or “It’s time to stop the lecture.” So the meaning does
not only depends the reference, conceptual sentence but also context, gestures,
intonations etc. 5

C. Brief History of Semantics

Ogbulogo.et.al. (2011: 15) says that Alfred Korzybski was the first person
who attempts studying semantics as a distinct discipline, separate from the
discipline of philosophy. Incidentally, Korzybski was a non-linguist who was
passionate about introducing a generally acceptable science of communication.
Prior to the work of Korzybski, semantics has been looked at from a non scientific
perspective but Korzybski’s work was the first formal attempt at bringing in a
scientific model to the study of semantics.

5
Blakemore, D. Understanding Utterances. London; Blackwel 1992 page 65

6
 Korzybski started by describing all entities and realities by assigning
labels to them. He went further to group the names into three. He had names for
common objects such as chair, stone, cow etc. He also had labels for groups and
collections like nations, animals, people etc. Korzybski’s third group of labels
does not have identifiable referents in the outside world.

These labels are highly abstract and do not readily lend themselves to the
assignment of concrete reality. These labels are only assignable to concrete
realities by imagination. Such labels include but are not limited to freedom, love,
democracy etc. They feature in aesthetics, philosophy and politics. However, this
is not the same with common objects since there seems to be a direct
correspondence between items and linguistic expressions. It is interesting to also
know that a serious difficulty tends to be posed by labels for groups as a result of
the wide range of items within the group. The main challenge with abstract labels
stems from the fact that meaning does not have an objective reference in reality
because different people will react to different words differently. For instance, the
word “love” would be viewed differently by different people as a result of their
circumstance or present reality. One person who probably is in a loving
relationship will view it positively while another in an unfulfilled relationship will
view it negatively. Hence, their reactions will be different and will therefore
evoke different emotions from them.6

Two other scholars, Odgen and Richards came very close to the analysis
of meaning by combining philosophical processes and linguistic methodologies.
How did they do this? They introduced the concept referent to describe the
physical object or situation which the word identifies in the real world. They
pointed out that the representation or situation should be seen as a referent while
the actual pronunciation or orthographic representation will constitute the symbol.

6
Kreider, Charles W. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. London page 32

7
For example, the figure or silhouette of an adult female human being will be the
referent while the word used to describe the referent will constitute the symbol.
The symbol is similar to Korzybski’s concept of label. Since the world is
dynamic, the study of semantics has not been left out. One of such areas that have
remained dynamic among others is the concept of change in meaning. Semantics
has been at the fore in the study of change in meaning. As early as 1933,
Bloomfield observed a system of change in the meaning of words. Instances of
change in meaning of words overtime:

1. Meat used to represent all types of food

2. Bitter derives from the metaphor of biting
3. The meaning of astound derives from the weakened meaning of thunder
4. The meaning of knight has been an elevation of the concept of boy
5. The word money relates to the Latin moneo [warn] or admonish because money
was made in Rome at the temple of the goddess, Junto Moneta
6. Tanks in modern warfare derived their names from the 1914 – 1918 war in
which the Germans were deceived into believing that the structures being
moved around were just water tanks
7. The modern word car originated from the word chariot7

Etymology, which focuses on the discovery of the origin and earlier

meanings of words, also played an important role in earlier studies in semantics.
However, it should be noted that there is a challenge with etymological studies.
The major one being that no one can state with certainty the origin of the meaning
of any word.

7
Kreider, Charles W. Introducing English Semantics. London . 1998.page 40

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 CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

Semantics is a branch of linguistics dealing with the meaning of words,

phrases and sentences, however, contrary to pragmatics it does not analyze the
intended speaker meaning, or what words denote on a given occasion, but the
objective, conventional meaning.
A sentence is a group of words that are put together to mean something. A
sentence is the basic unit of language which expresses a complete thought. It does
this by following the grammatical rules of syntax. An Utterance is any sound of
talk, that human produce. To differentiate utterance and sentence, we usually use
quotation mark (“….“) in written form of utterance.
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 is often
used in ordinary language for denoting a problem of understanding that comes
down to word selection or connotation. This problem of understanding has been
the subject of many formal enquiries, over a long period of time, especially in the
field of formal semantics. In linguistics, it is the study of the interpretation of
signs or symbols used in agents or communities within particular circumstances
and contexts.

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 REFERENCE

Allan K.1986. Linguistik Meaning 2 Vols. Londen ; Routledge Kegan Paul

Blakemore, D. 1992. Understanding Utterances. London; Blackwel

Clark.H.H. 1996. Using Language. Cambridge : Cup

Kreider, Charles W. 1998. Introducing English Semantics. London

http: //wn.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/semantics

http;//www.Iosjournal.org >papers >Version 3

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