1.

SEMANTICS is the technical term used to refer to the

study of meaning. But meaning covers a variety of aspects
of language. There is no very general agreement about
what meaning is or about the way is which it should be
described. The term was first used in 1900s in the book
Semantics: Studies in the science of meaning by
Michael Jules Alfred Breal. It treated semantics as the
science of meaning and it was not primarily concerned with
the historical change of meaning. The most famous books
on semantics are: The meaning of meaning by C.K.
Odgen and I.A. Richards and The problem of meaning
in primitive LG by B. Malinowski. The meaning of
meaning have many meanings (16 different meanings by
Odgen and Richards). There are problems with things like:
Hello, Isnt it hot in here, Youre a bright little spark,
arent you, The lion is more dangerous than the unicorn
- Thought our words have meaning we sometimes fail to
say what we mean that is the words fail to mean what they
mean. The words do not mean what they might most
obviously be thought to mean, there is some other
meaning besides the literal meaning of words. There are a
number of different ways of achieving this: intonation, nonlinguistic signs (wink) - to indicate that the words must not
be taken literally. 1) Hello - social gesture or ling item, 2)
Isnt it hot in here - problem with this is whether it is
really a question or saying that you want a window open,
3) Youre a bright spark, arent you - fall and rise of
intonation on the accented word in a sentence implies
sarcasm, 4) The lion is more dangerous than the
unicorn - because unicorns dont exist, but people still talk
about them, we see that semantics cannot be only coextensive with the real world in the literal sense. Much of
what we say presupposes a great deal - When did you

beating your wife - which presupposes that you beat her

at one time without saying it.
SEMANTICS AND LINGUISTICS - Semantics is often
viewed as a component or a level of linguistics on a par
with phonetics, syntax or morphology. Semantics is viewed
as being at one end, and phonetics at the other with
grammar (morpho-syntax) somewhere in the middle. LG
can be viewed as a communication system that has a
message on one end, and a set of signs and symbols on
the other. The Swiss linguist Ferdinard de Saussure
offered a dyadic or two part module of the SIGN and
referred to this as the SIGNIFIER (signifiant - the form which
the sign takes), and the SIGNIFIED (signifie - the concept it
represents). The sign is the whole that results from the
association of the signifier with the signified. This
relationship is referred to as SIGNIFICATION. Example of
communication systems are numerous and not all of them
concern LG: traffic lights - use a system of colors and color
combinations to instruct drivers; animal make noises to
communicate (bees and gibbons) which have a set of calls
to indicate the discovery of food, danger and to establish
position in order to prevent the band from spreading too
far apart. LG does not always have a message in any real
sense. Part of its function is considered with social
relationships and this is also true for animal
communication systems. In LG, both the sign and the
message (signifiers and signified) are complex and thus is
the relationship between them. For this reason, human LG
differs in kind rather in a degree from other LGs. In LG is
extremely difficult to specify precisely what the message
is. In other communication systems there is no problem
because the message can be independently identified in
terms of a LG, such as English, for example red=stop. For
LG in general we cannot define meaning (the message

independently of LG, we can only state one set of

meanings in terms of another set, only describe LG in
terms of LG. In dealing with linguistics and semantics de
Saussure made the distinction between LG (langue) and
speaking (parole). Langue is LG viewed as an abstract
system or a social institution, including vocabulary,
grammar, and pronunciation of a particular community.
Parole - LG as manifested in the actual utterances
produces by speakers of a LG. This distinction has
reappeared in the works of Noam Chomsky as
COMPETENCE (the knowledge that enables one to
produce and comprehend a LG - it is the form of the human
LG faculty independent of its psychological in actual
human beings) and PERFORMANCE (the form of the
human LG faculty, viewed as a concretely embodied in
speakers. It is ones actual use of LG in actual situations).
The difference between Chomsky and de Saussure is in the
nature of the linguistic system within a LG or competence,
but the theoretical distinction is the same. Both are
concerned to exclude what is individual and accidental
(speaking or performance) and to insist that the proper
study of linguistics is LG or competence. For them both, LG
or competence is some kind of idealized system without
any clear empirical basis. A useful distinction has been
made between UTTERANCES (any speech sequence
consisting of one or more words preceded and followed by
silence. It is a natural, complete unit of speech bounded by
the speakers silence i.e. by breaths or pauses) and
SENTENCES (a grammatical unit of one or more words
bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that
precede or follow it, often preceded or followed in speech
by pauses, having one of a small number of characteristic
intonation patterns, and typically expressing an
independent statement, question, request, command etc).

Utterance is an event in time; it is produced by someone

and at some particular time. Sentences are an abstract
entity that has no existence in time, but is part of a
linguistic system of a language. The distinction is related to
that of LG or competence and speaking or performance.
The sentence belongs to the former and the utterance to
the latter. When we talk about something that someone
has said, we use our linguistic knowledge, including what a
sentence is to talk about it. For example, the utterance
there is a book on the table may have been uttered by
someone at some time. In order to refer t it, we have to
write it down in words with all the conventions of spelling
and punctuation. In order to talk about an utterance, we
have to treat it as an example of a generalized, more
abstract, entity, the sentence. When we write it down, we
identify the words, but they are not a given part of the
utterance. They are not accessible by a direct observation
but are the result of linguistic thinking. Semantics isnt
concerned with a meaning of utterances but only with the
meaning of sentences.
THE SPOKEN LG - there are at least four ways in which
spoken LG is more basic than written: 1) the human race
had speech long before it had writing and there are still
many LG that dont have written form, 2) the child learns
to speak long before it learns to write, 3) written LG can, to
a large extent, be converted into speech without loss. But
the converse isnt true. If we write down what is said we
lose a great deal, 4) speech plays a far greater role in our
lives than writing. We spend more time speaking than
writing or reading. The spoken LG has striking
characteristics that cannot be easily shown in the written
form. For example: PROSODIC (prosodic features include
intonation and stress) and PARALINGUISTIC features. The
semantics of intonation and stress is a major subject in its

own right, but, meaning is also by paralinguistic

features such as rhythm, tempo, loudness (shouting,
whispering are very meaningful). When we talk we use
many non-linguistic signs (the term paralinguistic is used
sometimes for this too) - a smile or a wink as an indication
of a sarcasm. The form of the spoken LG and its purpose
are very different from written LG. The written LG is largely
a narration or the presentation of factual info or
arguments. This has lead to the assumption that meaning
is largely concerned with info, with what philosophers have
called PROPOSITIONS. But the main function of LG,
especially spoken, is not to inform.
HISTORICAL SEMANTICS - is the study of the change of
meaning in time. It is the historical and psychological study
and the classification of changes in the signification of
words or forms viewed as factors in linguistics. The great
American linguist L. Bloomfield noted a number of
changes: 1) narrowing: meat=food, earlier meaning, 2)
widening: bird=nestling, 3) metaphor: bitter=biting, 4)
metonymy (nearness in space or time): jaw=cheek, 5)
synecdoche (whole/part relations): town=fence,
stove=heated room, 6) hyperbole (stronger to weaker
meaning): astound=strike with thunder
2.1. Naming relates words and things directly. Lg might
be thought of as a communication system with on one side
the signifier and on the other side the signified. But a basic
problem is to establish the nature and relationship of these
two. According to Platos dialogue Cratylus the signifier is a
word in the Lg and the signified is the object in the world
that it stands for or refers to. Words are names of labels for
things. The child learns many words precisely by a process
of naming, but there are many difficulties with this view. It
seems to apply only to nouns. Grammarians often define a

noun as the name of a person or a thing. It is difficult to

extend the theory of naming to include other parts of
speech such as verb, preposition, adj... It is possible to
label colours and it may be that the colour words
adjectives, can be regarded as names. But this is not at all
plausible for most other adjectives (early, attractive). With
verbs, it is virtually impossible to identify what is named
by a verb. Even if we take a verb like run and attempt to
illustrate it with a boy running, there is no obvious way in
which we can isolate the running part of it. With a noun, we
can often draw a picture of an object that is denoted; but
this is almost impossible with verbs.
Can the theory of naming be applied to nouns alone
problems:
1. Unicorn, goblin, fairy relate to creatures that do not
exist, they do not denote objects in the world. A way out is
to distinguish two kinds of worlds, the real world and the
word of fairy tales. It would have to be admitted that words
are not just names of things and that it must involve some
explanation of the way in which we can move from giving
names to objects in the real world, to giving names to the
objects that do not exist. This explanation is possible, but,
such words are evidence of the fact that words are not
simply names of the objects of our experience.
2. Other nouns do not refer to physical objects at all. We
cannot identify the objects to be named by Love, Hate,
Inspiration, and Nonsense. Are these nouns things? The
only reason why the grammarians would call them things is
bcs they have nouns corresponding to them, but then, the
whole definition is circular since things are what they are
named by nouns.
3. Even when physical objects are identifiable, meaning
might not be the same as its denotation. The Evening Star

and the Morning Star dont have the same meaning, yet
they denote a single object Venus.
4. Even if we restrict our attention to the words that are
linked with visible objects in the world around us, they
often denote a whole set of rather different objects chair.
The dividing line between the items referred to by one
word and those referred to by another is vague and may
overlap. In the world of experience objects are not clearly
grouped together to be labelled with a single word. There
are two explanations unhelpful: 1.realist view all
things called by the same name have some common
property; there is some kind of reality that establishes
what is a chair, a hill, a house. There are no clearly defined
natural classes of objects in the world around us simply
waiting for a label to be applied to them. Part of the
problem of semantics is to establish what classes there
are. The classification of objects in terms of words used to
denote them, differs from Lg from Lg. The words of a Lg
often reflect not so much the reality of the words but the
interest of the people who speak it. Eskimos snow (3),
Hopi flier (1) 2.nominalist view things have nothing in
common but the name. This view is false bcs we do not use
chair or hill for objects that are completely different, the
objects so named have sth in common.
One possible way out of this is to say that only some words
actually denote objects. Bertrant Russel suggests that
there are two kinds of words object and dictionary word.
Object words are learnt ostensibly, by pointing at objects,
while dictionary words have to be defined in terms of the
object word. The object words have ostensive definitions,
but this is also not a solution. Bcs in order to understand
OD we have to understand precisely what is being pointed
at. Pointing to an object itself involves the identification of

an object, the specification of the qualities, it requires a

sophisticated understanding, perhaps even the
understanding of the entire categorization of the Lg
concerned. L. Vittgenstein you must be a master of a
Lg to understand a ostensive definition.
2.2. Concepts It is a more plausible view than naming
which relates words and things through the mediation of
concepts of the mid. The two best known versions of this
view are the sign theory of de Saussure and the semiotic
triangle of Ogden and Richards.
1. According to S, the linguistic sign consists of a signifier
and a signified. These are a sound image and the concept
both linked by a psychological associative bond. Both the
noises we make and the objects of the world that we talk
about are mirrored in some way by conceptual entities.
2. O and R saw the relationship as a triangle. (Thought or
Reference, <symbol (Lg), >referent (object)). A thought or
reference is a concept of our minds. According to this
theory there is no direct link between symbol and referent
(Lg and the world); the link is via Thought or Reference.
Problem with these theories is what is precisely the
associative bond that is the link between symbol and
concept. The most naive answer is to say that it is the
psychological one. When we think of a name, we think of a
concept and vice versa, meaning consist of our ability of
associating one with the other. This answer is
unsatisfactory bcs it is not clear what exactly is meant by
thinking of a concept. Some scholar have suggested that
we have some kind of image of a chair when we talk about
chairs, but this is false bcs we do not visualise a chair
every time we utter the word. More reasonably we relate

our utterance of the word chair to some more abstract

concept which is also not helpful bcs what is this abstract
concept, what is colour, size, shape. We are interested in
the general meaning of a chair and not what we may or
may not do every time we utter the word. More
sophisticated version sees the link not as sth we make
every time we use the word, but as some kind of
permanent association stored in the brain. The difficulty
with this view is that there is no obvious way in which we
can look in our minds to recognize them and still less a way
in which we can look into the minds of others. All this
theory does is to set up entities that are by definition
mirror images of the words that they are supposed to
explain. Whenever we have a word there will be a concept.
And a concept will be the meaning of that word. This is a
completely circular definition of meaning. It involves ghost
in the machine. Such an argument accounts for the
phenomena by setting up an entity whose existence is
justified solely as sth that explains the phenomena.
Meaning is not the same entity that words or any other
linguistic entities have, in any literal sense of having.
2.3. Sense and Reference Reference deals with the
relationship between linguistic elements, words, sentences,
and the non-linguistic world of experience. Sense relates to
the complex system of relationships that hold between the
linguistic elements themselves; it is concerned only with
intra-linguistic relations. The dictionary is usually
concerned with sense relations with relating words to
words. The ultimate aim of the dictionary is to supply its
user with the referential meaning and it does so by relating
a word whose meaning is unknown to a word or words
whose reference is already understood.

We have two kinds of semantics, one that deals with

semantic structure and the other that deals with meaning
in terms of our experience outside Lg; one relates nonlinguistic entities and the other is intra-linguistic. Its not
always possible to distinguish between sense and
reference for the simple reason that the categories of our
Lg correspond to real-world distinctions. The fact that we
have ram/eve, bull/cow may be part of the semantic
structure of English but it also clearly relates to the fact
that there are male and female sheep and cattle. But we
have to remember that now all Lg will make the same
distinction, that there is considerable indeterminacy in the
categorization of the real world, some things fall into
natural classes but other dont. It is bcs of this that we can
distinguish sense and reference and that there is no
absolute line between what is in the world and whats in
Lg. There are some terms of Lg that are not reducible to
other terms but interpretable only in terms of event around
us. Most important are Deictics or Indexical expressions,
the pronouns, the demonstratives this and that, and time
markers such as now and tomorrow. These cannot be
paraphrased by any other forms that do not themselves
indicate the real world, the present time, or the relevant
speakers or hearers. Only a theory that accepts the relation
of Lg to the world can handle these terms.
2.4. Kinds of Meanings Semantics as a study of sense
relations is concerned with factual info or with
propositions that can either be true or false. This is one
of the aspects of meaning called cognitive or ideational or
propositional meaning. It is not the only kind of meaning.
Of great deal of our meaning is not ideational at all but is
inter-personal or social, relating ourselves to others. There
are number of ways to see that Lg is not simply a matter of

providing factual info: 1)we do not make statements, we

also ask questions and give orders. It is easy to handle
questions in terms of info, since they are requests for info
and they can in part have an ideational meaning. But we
cannot handle orders in similar way bcs they are concerned
with getting action, not info. 2)there are a variety of
speech acts. We persuade, warn, insinuate, we use Lg to
influence other people in many different ways, and the
relationship of this aspect of Lg to ideational meaning is
not clear at all. 3)much of what we say is not a statement
of fact, but an evaluation. For example a politician hides
and conceals liberty and freedom, each implying approval
or disapproval. The function of such words is to influence
attitudes. Words may have different emotive meanings in
different societies liberal is a good word in GB but it is
bad in South Africa. 4)Lg is often deeply concerned with a
variety of social relations. We can be rude or polite and this
will depend upon the social relationship with the person to
whom we are speaking. For example, Shut up, Be
quiet, Would you please be quiet and Would you keep
your voice down a little, please. Some parts of Lg are
wholly social, and carry no info at all good morning,
how are you? and the Englishmans remark about the
weather. It is not intended to transmit info but is simply
part of the social activity. 5)we dont need to mean what
we say we can by the appropriate use of intonation be
sarcastic, or imply what is not said I dont like coffee
implying that you like tea. Semantics cannot fully succeed
without the investigation of the prosodic and paralinguistic
features of Lg. 6)the presupposed meaning found in
when did you stopped beating your wife? this
presupposes that you once beat her, though it nowhere
states that you did.

2.5 Word as a Semantic Unit The word is one of the basic

units of semantics. There are some difficulties with this
view.
1) Not all words seem to have the same kind of meaning.
Henry Sweet made a distinction between full words (tree,
sing, blue, gently) and form words (eat, the, of, and). Full
words have meaning that is of interest of semantics and
form words belong to grammar. But, they still can be said
to have meaning, but meaning of a grammatical kind. This
is a kind of meaning which is in the relation to other words,
and perhaps to whole sentence. For that reason, we
shouldnt look for the meaning of such words in isolation
but all within a sentence.
2) It is not at all clear that the word is a clearly defined
unit, except as a conventional one, resulting from the rules
for writing that we learned at school. Words as we know
them are the written items, between which we have
learned to put spaces, but this is necessarily an indication
of a well defined linguistic element in Arabic, the definite
article is written as a part of the word, whereas in English it
is not. And there are no clear criteria for deciding which of
these is more appropriate. L. Bloomfield offered a solution
by suggestion that the word is the minimum free form,
the smallest form that may occur in isolation. We will not
normally say the, is, by in isolation. We learn to utter in
isolation just those items that we have learned to
recognize as words. Bloomfield identified an element
smaller than the word, a unit of meaning morpheme
berry in Blackberry, y in Johnny. There are two independent
bits of meaning. The best way to handle this is not in terms
of morphemes, which are parts of words, but rather
redefining the term word in a different way. A technical
term for this is lexeme love & loved different forms of
the same word. Instead of treating them as two

morphemes, we can analyze them in terms of the lexeme

love and the grammatical category of tense. But we still
have to deal with the meaning of the grammatical element.
Sometimes it can be simple and independent, such as
plural, which means more than one.
3) There is a problem with transparent and opaque words.
Transparent words are those whose meaning can be
determined from the meaning of their parts (doorman,
chopper). Opaque words this is not possible (porter, axe).
One word may consist of several bits of meaning, but the
number of bits is arbitrary.
4) Many words in English called phonaesthetic in which
one part often the initial cluster of consonants, gives an
indication of meaning of a rather special kind SL(slippery,
slide, slip, slither, slush) are merely pejorative. Not every
word with these phonological characteristics will have the
meaning suggested and we cannot separate this part and
state the meaning of the reminder the meaning of IDE as
in slide.
5) Semantic division seem to override word division
heavy smoker, good singer.
6) Although we have ram/eve, we have no similar pairs for
giraffe or elephants. We have to say, male or female
giraffe, or if we know, the correct term elephant bull and
elephant cow. Such considerations may lead us to define
bull as male adult bovine animal and to see this as an
indication as four distinct elements of meaning in the same
word.
7) Idioms by an idiot is meant a sequence of words
whose meaning cannot be predicted from the words
themselves kick the bucket, spill the beans. Semantically,
idioms are a single units, they are not single grammatical
units like words bcs there is no past tense kick the
bucketed*.

Idioms are notable bcs they consist of several words but

function as one while in discussing morphemes,
transparent words, etc we almost always compare words
with words. Semantic units can sometimes be than the
word or smaller than it.
3. The non-linguistic context
3.1. The exclusion of context there are linguists who
exclude context from the study of semantics, bcs there are
difficulties in handling contexts satisfactorily. Other reasons
are: 1)it is argued that the meaning of a sentence can be
known in isolation from any context and that as speakers
of Lg we must know the meaning of a sentence before we
can use it in any given context. Meaning is shown to be
independent of context and linguists can study it without
reference to context, but how it can be argued that we
know the meaning of sentence independently of context
only in a sense that we can provide another sentence of
similar meaning a paraphrase. But if we can identify the
two sentences as having the same meaning it doesnt
mean that we can identify some abstract entity called
meaning. Instead, knowing that two sentences are similar
in meaning is knowing that they can be used in similar
contexts. Stating meaning equivalence is not stating
meaning, and there is no proof that knowing a meaning of
a sentence does not entail knowing the context in which it
is used. 2)the world of experience must include the sum of
human knowledge. If this is so, and if semantic is defined
in terms of reference, the scope of semantics will be
infinite. It is impossible to draw a clear line between the
meaning of a word or sentence and all the possibly
relevant info about it. We can solve the problem by paying
attention only to tight logical relationships seen in
unmarried/bachelor, short/long but this will give a very

narrow semantic theory that cannot deal properly with

meaning bcs we also have anomalous and ambiguous
sentences. Cutz and Fodor part of the aim of semantics
according to them was to account for the number of
readings of a sentence the bill is large (ambiguous two
reading, which result from two meanings of bill). Another
example by Bierwisch John is looking for the glasses is
also ambiguous bcs it refers either to spectacles or to
drinking glasses. This sentence has two meanings bcs of
our knowledge of the world. Cutz and Fodor admit that a
limited theory of selection by sociophysical settings is
possible but that this would blur the distinction between
speakers knowledge of his Lg and his knowledge of the
world. There is no such a thing in semantics as linguistic
ability that is unrelated to knowledge of the world. These
are essentially one and the same thing.
3.2. Context of the situation by b. Malinowski and J.R.Firth
they were concerned with stated meaning in terms of the
context in which the Lg is used. Maloniwski argued that
living Lgs must not be torn from their context of situation.
Lg as used in books is not the norm at all; it represents a
farfetched derivative functional Lg bcs Lg was not originally
a mirror of reflected thought. Lg is a mode of action, not a
counter-sign of thought. He also noted that there is a
special significance of expressions such as How do you
do? Here you are which are used to establish a common
sentiment. This aspect of Lg he called phatic
communion where words do not convey meaning, but
have a purely social function. Lg is not simply a matter of
stating info, but there are two reasons why this cannot be
fully accepted: 1)Malinowski believed that the mode of
action aspect of Lg was most clearly seen in the basic
needs of men as illustrated in the Lg of the child or of

primitive men. Although there may be primitive people

who lack skill and knowledge of civilized people, there is no
sense in which a Lg can be regarded as primitive.
2)Malinowskis views do not provide the basis of any
workable semantic theory, he discusses story telling but
the context is surely the same at all times whatever the
story. If the context is to be taken as an indication of
meaning, all stories will have the same meaning. His
solution was to invoke a secondary context, the context
within the narrative. But this cannot be more objectively
defined than concepts or thoughts.
J.R. Firth preferred to see context of situation as a part of
linguists apparatus in the same way as are the
grammatical categories that he uses. It was best used as
a suitable schematic construct to apply to Lg events and
he, suggested the following categories. A)relevant features
of the participants: persons personalities 1)verbal action of
the participants 2)non-verbal action of the participants.
B)relevant objects. C)effects of the verbal action. This is
the way in which contexts of situations can be grouped
together and classified. Firth saw context of situation as
one part of the linguists apparatus or rather as one of the
techniques of description, grammar (being another such
technique on a different level), but of the same abstract
nature. He used the analogy of the spectrum in which light
is dispersed into its different wave-lengths; linguistics
would similarly disperse meaning in a spectrum of
specialized statements. For Firth all kinds of linguistic
description (phonology, grammar...) as well as context of
situation were statements of meaning. Describing meaning
in terms of context of situation is just one of the ways in
which a linguist can handle a Lg.

Critique of Firths view DODATI Firth believed that we

could never capture the whole of meaning. The meaning of
words and sentences do relate to the word of our
experience, one virtue of Firths approach was that he set
out to make only partial statements of meaning.
3.3. Behaviourism Malinowski and Firth believed that
description of a Lg could not be complete without some
reference to the context of situation in which the Lg
operated. A more extreme view sees the meaning of the
linguistic elements as totally accounted for in terms of the
situation in which it is used. The situation is wholly
definable in empirical or physical terms. This is
behaviourism (Bloomfield). He maintained that the only
useful generalizations about Lg are inductive
generalizations. He defined the meaning of a linguistic
form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and
the response it calls forth in the hearer. While Malinowski
and Firth made statements of meaning in terms of
situation, Bloomfield is defining meaning as the situation.
According to Bloomfield, meaning consists in the relation
between speech (which is shown by r. . . s) and the
practical events (S) and (R) that precede an and follow it.
The stimulus and the reaction are physical events.
Bloomfield had troubles to contrast his mechanistic
theory with the mentalistic theories that posit nonphysical processes such as thoughts, concepts, images,
feelings etc. He didnt deny that we have such feelings,
images etc, but he explained them as popular terms for
bodily movements, events that the speaker alone is aware
of as a in Im hungry, private experiences, or soundless
movements. The speech and the practical events depend
upon predisposing factors which consist of the entire life
history of the speaker and the hearer.

Bloomfields theory loses its force bcs many of the relevant

predisposing factors are unknown and unknowable. A more
workable theory may be the one that defines meaning
wholly in terms of the observable stimulus and response.
The theory is limited to observables but nothing can be
said about the internal structure of organism bcs we are
scientifically restricted to external behaviour and outside
events.
Can we propose a theory in which in relation to speech the
human being is presented with a stimulus and produces a
response? According to B. F. Skinner we can. According to
his theory, the same stimulus may produce different
responses. This is accounted for in terms of
reinforcement in which responses are partially
conditioned by previous experiences. What is similar to
Bloomfields predisposing factors? This theory collapses
when we realize that it is almost never the case that
particular stimuli produce specific linguistic responses.
There can be different responses on one stimulus. The
variety of responses can only be explained if the controlled
stimuli are also different and that we must take into
account all the features of reinforcement. The difficulty
with this is that we cannot establish precisely what the
controlling stimuli are, except by working back to them
from the responses. The whole point of the theory is that
the responses are predictable from the stimuli, and bcs of
this the theory is empty. Since in practice, the stimuli can
be indentified only from the responses. There is no
possibility for prediction and no scientific explanation at all.
3.4. Linguistic relativity the way in which we see the
world is to some degree dependant on the language we

use. Since we categorize the objects of our experience with

the help of language, it may be the case that learning
about the world and learning about the Lg are activities
that can be separated and that our world is partly
determined by our Lg. Edward Sapir suggested that the
world in which we live is to a large extent unconsciously
built up on the Lg habits of the group". His view was
expanded and explained by Whorf and became known as
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Whorf argued that we are
unaware of the background character of our language and
if we look at other languages, we realize that a Lg does not
merely voice ideas but it is the shaper of our ideas. This
leads him to a new principle of relativity which holds that
all observers are not lead by the same physical evidence,
to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic
backgrounds are similar or in some way can be adjusted.
Whorf has several evidence for his view. First, he suggests
that there is no division in reality corresponding to English
nouns and verbs. In English we use nouns for lightning,
spark, wave, whereas in the American Indian Lg Hopi all
events of brief duration such as these are represented by
verbs. Secondly, Hopi has one word for insect, pilot and
planet, while Eskimo have 3 words for snow. Thirdly, their
Lg shows that the Hopi had no notion of time. Distinction
can only be made by what is subjective and what is
objective, where the subjective includes both the future,
and everything that is mental. No distinction is made
between distance in time and distance in place. Whorfs
arguments are not wholly convincing, if we dont have the
same picture of the universe as the speakers of other
languages, we have a picture that can be related to the
picture that others have. This is supported by the fact that
we can investigate other languages and that we can

translate this wouldnt be possible if the pictures are totally

different. There may be no exact equivalence but we never
totally fail to translate from one Lg to another, and that
proves that Lgs are never totally different. The
grammatical structure of a Lg doesnt tell us much about
our way of thinking, about the world.
4.0 Lexical structure
4.1 Synonyms synonymy - sameness of meaning. Many
sets of words have the same meaning. Theyre
synonymous or are synonyms to one another. English is
particularly rich in synonyms bcs historically its vocabulary
has come from two different sources AS and French, Latin
and Greek. The AS words are often considered native while
those from FLg are foreign or borrowed. However,
whatever the origin of the word, most of the words are an
essential and wholly natural part of the English language
and some of the native words may have been borrowed
from some other Lg. There are pairs of native and foreign
words brotherly/fraternal, buy/purchase. The native words
are often shorter and less learned. Four letter words are
mostly for AS. There are examples of triples native one,
French and one Latin (kingly/royal/regal). However there
are no real synonyms. No two words have exactly the same
meaning.
Ways in which synonym differ: 1)some sets of synonyms
belong to the different dialects of a Lg (fall US, autumn
UK). This is simply a matter of speaking different forms of
Lg, having different vocabulary items. 2)there is a problem
with the words that are used in different styles and
registers (nasty smell/obnoxious effluvium,
gentleman/chap). These are difficult to deal with bcs there
is less clear distinction between the styles than between
the geographically defined dialects. Within a single

conversation we can change our style, the problem is

whether a change of style should be treated as a change
from another Lg to another, or a change within a single Lg.
If we treat it as a change within a single Lg then stylistic
differences can be semantic. But, in changing styles we
may change not only vocabulary but also grammar and
phonology, and bcs of this, it is simpler to handle them in
terms of different but related Lg like dialects. 3)some
words may be said to differ only in their emotive/evaluative
meaning. The remainder of their meaning, the cognitive
meaning remains the same statesman/politician,
thrifty/economical/stingy. But it is a mistake to attempt to
separate emotive or evaluative meaning from the basic
cognitive meaning bcs its not easy to establish precisely
what the cognitive meaning is; there are words in English
that are used only for evaluative purposes good/bad; we
make all kinds of judgements giant, dwarf, mountain, and
hill. The meaning of words is not just a matter of objective
facts. A great deal of it is subjective, and we cannot clearly
distinguish between the two. 4)some words are
collocationally restricted, that is, they occur only in
conjunction with other words rancid+bacon/butter;
addled+eggs/brains. 5)many words are close in meaning,
or their meaning overlap. For Adj mature synonyms are
adult, ripe, perfect, due. If we look for the synonyms for
each of these words themselves, we shall have a further
set for each and get further away from the original
meaning.
Ways of testing synonymy: 1)substitution another word
with another. True or total synonyms are mutually
interchangeable in all their environments but there are no
total synonyms in this sense, bcs no two words have
exactly the same meaning. Some words are
interchangeable in certain situations only deep/profound

may be used with sympathy, but only deep with water, this
will only merely indicate the collocational possibilities, and
these do not necessarily seem to be always closely related
to nearness of meaning. 2)investigate opposites
superficial is to be contrasted with deep/profound but
shallow is contrasted only with deep. The fact that two
words have the same antonyms may be the reason for
treating them as synonyms but words are interchangeable
only in certain environments and it is precisely in the
context in which deep/profound are interchangeable that
they have the antonym superficial.
Connotation synonyms are often said to differ only in
their connotations. This often refers to emotive or
evaluative meaning and is also used to refer to stylistic or
even dialectical differences. Sometimes words become
associated with certain characteristics of the items which
they refer to woman=weak, pig=dirty. This is not a
matter of meaning, it rather indicate what some people
believe. Bcs they words is associated with a socially
distasteful object, it becomes distasteful itself, and another
word euphemism takes its place, but the process is
unending since it is the object and not the words that is
unpleasant.
Two kinds of synonymy: 1)context dependent two
items appear to be synonymous in a particular context J.
Lyons: dog & bitch My __ had just had pups. Buy & get Ill go and __ bread. Theyre related in terms of hyponymy one term being more specific than the other. The context
supplies info that is lacking, having pups indicates that the
dog is female, going to the shop suggest that bread is to
be bought. This is not part of the meaning bcs dog might
not be female, and bread might be stolen. The fact that

info can be gleaned from the context does not affect the
meaning of the items. 2)difference between bull/male
adult bovine animal - the test of interchangeability
would rule this out as synonyms bcs one would hardly say
There is a male adult bovine animal in the field - even
though in some sense these two seem to have the same
meaning. But this is not a natural linguistic phenomenon
it is created by the linguists for the purposes of definition
and paraphrase.
4.2. Polysemy and homonymy.
Polysemy the same word may have a set of different
meaning. Problems with the polysemy: 1)we cannot clearly
distinguish whether two meaning are the same or different
and determine exactly how many meaning a word has bcs
word is not delimited and so distinguished from other
meaning eat do all different types of eating require a
different verb? We should not look for all possible
difference of meaning, but we should look for the
sameness of meaning and there is no clear criterion of
either difference of sameness. 2)can we make any general
remarks about differences of meaning. A)One of the most
familiar kinds of relationship between meaning is that of
metaphor where a word appears to have both literal and
transferred meaning part of the body hand, foot, face, leg
when we speak of the hands/face of a clock, foot of a
bed/mountain, leg of a chair/table. Intuitively it is clear
enough which is the literal sense and we are supported by
the fact that the whole set of words apply only to the body
and that only some of them can be transferred to the
relevant object. Metaphor is fairly coincidental. B)There are
some other kinds of transference that are more regular.
Many adjs may be used either literally for the quality
referred to, or with the transferred meaning of being the

source of the quality a person may be sad, or a book may

be sad. The Lg recognizes the difference of meaning in that
we cannot say Johnny is as sad as the book he was reading
this is similar to the traditional grammarians concept of
ZEUGMA bcs in each case one word co-occurs with the two
other words and these two each require the first to have a
different meaning and this the Lg does not allow. Similarly,
many nouns have a concrete and abstract sense, so we
can compare - The score of the symphony is on the table
and The score of the symphony is difficult to follow but
we cannot say The score is on the table and difficult to
follow. 3)there is a problem that if one form has several
meanings its not always clear whether this is an example
of polysemy or homonymy (several words with the same
shape). The dictionary has to decide whether a particular
item is to be handled in terms of polysemy or homonymy ,
because a polysemic item will be treated as a single entry,
while a homonymous will have a separate entry for each of
the homonyms. We do not make the same distinctions in
the writing and speech lead(metal)/lead(verb) are spelled
in the same way but pronounced differently
homographs, while sight(vision)/site(web)
homophones. There are some homonyms and
homophones that are also antonyms cleave(rip
apart)/cleave(unite).
The problem is to decide when we have polysemy and
when homonymy. In general, dictionaries base their
decision upon etymology. If it is know that identical forms
have different origins, they are treated as homonyms and
given separate entries, but if it is known that they have
one origin, even if they have different meaning, they are
treated as polysemic and given one entry
pupil(student)/pupil(eye) historically are from the same

origin, and are examples of polysemy. They are today

treated as pairs of unrelated words that is homonyms
ear(body)/ear(corn) arent related historically, and they are
homonyms. But most people today would regard them as
the same word with different meanings that is examples of
polysemy.
A difference in spelling does not always indicate a
difference in origin. What are today homophones may be
derived from the same original form metal/mettle,
flour/flower. If semanticist relies on his historical
knowledge this would be the same word, examples of
polysemy even though they are spelled differently. In
practice we usually allow the spelling difference to decide
because we need to keep words in their alphabetical
position.
4.3. Incompatibility
FIELD THEORY OF SEMANTICS - derives very largely the de
Saussures notions of VALUE. He pointed that the knight on
a chess-board is not because of any inherent quality, but
because what it can do in relation to other pieces on the
board. He stressed this relational aspect of Lg claiming that
there were only differences and no positive terms
sheep(Eng) has different value from mouton(F) because
English also has a word mutton, E. A. Nida discusses in
terms of class the words in Mexican Lg for noise. A relevant
point is that the words are incompatible. We cannot say
This is a red hat and of the same object This is a green hat.
Sentence with incompatible terms with contradict each
other. Sometimes incompatibility is the reflection of clear
definition in the world of experience. Lions and elephants
are distinct species but this is not wholly relevant, what is
relevant is that the terms themselves are incompatible

even if there may be clear distinction in the world. The

basic characteristics of the items in these classes is their
incompatibility, moreover, they are unordered, but there
are some groups of words that seem to have some order
days of the week, months form a set of incompatible items
since we cannot say This month is November and it is also
March, but they also have sequential relations such that
Sunday comes immediately before Monday Sundays the
day before Monday.
The colour terms are unordered set of incompatible terms.
Hjelmslev plays them in an order by setting them along the
dimension of wave-length. This is not reflected in the
language. We dont have adj to say that Red is more _ than
orange.
4.4. Hyponymy there are also words that refer to the
class itself, this involves us in the notion of inclusion in the
sense that tulip and rose are included in the flower, and
lion and elephant in mammal. Inclusion is thus a matter of
class membership.
Lyons term for the relations is HYPONYMY the upper is
SUPERORDINATE and the lower term is HYPONYM. There is
not always a superordinate term in classical Greek there
is a superordinate term to cover a variety of professions
and crafts such as doctor, shoemaker, carpenter but none
in English. The possible term is craftsman but this is
exclude doctor. The same term may appear in several
places in the hierarchy; this is possible only if the word is
polysemic; in one its meanings it may actually be
superordinate to itself in another meaning. Thus animal
may be used: 1)in contrast with vegetable, to include
fishes, insects as well as mammals; 2)in the sense of

mammals, to contrast with birds, fishes insects, to include

both humans and beasts; 3)in the sense of beast, to
contrast with human. A similar situation is with the word
dog. The word sheep is used for all creatures in a certain
species and it is a superordinate term of eve, lamb, ram.
There are similar terms pig for sow, boar, piglet and horse
for stallion, mare, and colt. But the superordinate term for
dogs is dog, though dog is also hyponym as distinct from
bitch. We can avoid the ambiguity dog by using the term
male, thus male dog would be hyponym to contrast with
bitch. We can also form hyponymous sets where no singleword hyponyms exist in English in a similar way male
giraffe, female giraffe, and baby giraffe.
Hyponymy involves the logical relationship of ENTAILMENT.
This is a more precise characterization of the relation of
follows from. To say that one sentence entails another is
to say that if the fist sentence is true, the second is true as
well. To say This is a tulip entails This is a flower. Similarly,
There are two boys entails There are two children. In all
such examples a sentence containing the hyponym entails
the sentence containing the superordinate term, but if we
have reference to all the items, the reverse is the case.
Thus, All flowers are lovely = All tulips are lovely but not
vice versa.
4.5. Antonymy oppositeness in meaning. It is often
thought of as opposite of synonymy. Antonymy is a regular
and a very natural feature of Lg and can be defined
precisely, however there are different kinds of
oppositeness: 1)English abounds in pairs of words, such
as wide/narrow, old/young, these may be seen in terms of
degrees of the quality involved, thus road may be wide
or very wide, and one road may be wider than another. We

have gradation of width, age, size indicated by similar adj

as these gradability. Sapir argued that we should
handle all these words in terms of gradability. The
comparative forms of adjs (those ending in er, or
occurring with more) are explicitly graded, because they
are placed in a graded scale for comparison. Although
these comparative forms are preceded linguistically by the
simple form (formed from them by adding er or more),
they precede them logically in that wide, old, and big can
only be understood in terms of being wider, older and
bigger than something. They are, according to Sapir,
implicitly graded synonyms. 2)not only are these adjs
gradable, but they are graded against different norms
according to the items being discussed if we say
that not many people were present, this might mean five
or six if we are talking about an intimate party, but perhaps
20.000 if we are talking about an important match. The
norm is set by the object being described. For most
antonyms a set of relationships hold between the
comparative form such that all of the following are
mutually applied, A is wider than B, B is narrower than A, A
is less narrow than B, B is less wide than A. These are
related both in terms of simple reversal with switch of
antonyms, and the more and less relationship. Since
antonyms are gradable, there are often intermediate terms
hot/warm/cool/cold. In each pair, one of the items is the
marked term, and the other unmarked term because
only one is used simply to ask about or describe the degree
the gradable quality How high/wide it is there is no
implication how high or wide it is, but how low/narrow it is,
is the marked term, bcs it implies that the object in
question is actually low/narrow. In English examples it is
the larger terms that appears to be unmarked, but is not
a universal feature.

Complementarity male/female, married/single,

alive/dead. Lyons treats these in terms of complementarity;
bcs items are complementary to each other. These belong
to the set of incompatible terms, but, they are members of
two-term sets instead of the multiple-term sets and they
are in some ways similar to our gradable antonyms. Both
exhibit incompatibility. To say that Something is wide is to
say That it is not narrow. To say Something is not the one is
to say that It is the other. This results from the fact that
there are only two possibilities. With gradable antonyms
although there are two terms, it is not a case that to say
Something is not wide, is to say that It is narrow, or that to
say that It is not narrow is to say that It is wide. The
possibility of being neither wide nor narrow is left open.
There is no absolute distinction between complementary
antonyms and gradable antonyms. Some gradable
antonyms have some characteristics of the DICHOTOMOUS
division into two, esp mutucally exclusive/contradictory:
1)there are some pairs of adjs honest/dishonest, open/shut
that are gradable in terms of more/less, yet in which the
denial of one is usually taken to assert the other. 2)some
pairs of antonyms are in Sapirs terms not SYMETRICALLY
REVERSABLE. The more/less relationship cannot be applied
to them brilliant/stupid > more brilliant NOT less stupid.
4.6. Relational opposites A different kind of opposite is
found with pair of words which exhibit the reversal of a
relationship between items or arguments buy/sell,
husband/wife, if A sells to B, B buys from A. These are
relational opposition. Relations are often characterized by
logicians in terms of: 1)symmetry if a relationship is
symmetric it holds for the arguments (related items) in
both directions be married to, cousin. 2)transitivity a

relation is transitive if a R b and b R c then a R c.

3)reflexivity a relation is reflexive if it relates an
argument to itself a R a equal, resemble. These words
are symmetrical and transitive too. Kinship terms are
interesting for two reasons: 1)many of them indicate not
only the relationship, but the sex of the person concerned
father=male parent, daughter=female child. This blocks
reversibility. We therefore have pairs indicating the same
relationship, but a different sex father/mother,
son/daughter. There are also pairs of words that would be
symmetrical if there is no indication of sex brother/sister.
Only a small number of terms in English do not indicate sex
cousin -symmetrical, parent/child non-symmetrical.
2)whether a term is symmetrical or not the matter of Lg,
thus be married to is symmetrical in English, bcs like
spouse it doesnt indicate sex. But in many Lgs a different
term is used for husband and wife, often the active form of
the verb for the husband and the passive term for the wife
so John marries Mary, Mary is married to John. In English
marry/be married to are used for either partner, and are
both symmetrical, thought they have different meanings.
The true gradable antonyms can be treated in terms of
relational opposites, wide can be seen as wider than the
norm, and that if A is wider than B, B is narrower than A.
The comparative forms wider/narrower (the explicitly
gradable forms) are thus relational opposites. They are
transitive, but not symmetrical or reflexive but, as wide
as/as narrow as are symmetrical, transitive and reflexive.
4.7. Components The total meaning of a word being seen
in terms of a number of distinct elements, or components
of meaning. The idea that semantics could be held in terms
of components has been argued with the investigation of

kinship terms. Sex provides one set of components for

kinship terms, generation differences and degrees of
relationships provide two others. We can easily recognize
components where words can be set out in a diagrammatic
form to represent some kind of proportional relationship. In
English there is a three-fold division with many words that
refer to living creatures man/woman/child=bull/cow/calf.
COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS allows us to provide definition
for all these words in terms of a few components thus
boar is (porcine) (male) (adult). In many cases, there is an
appropriate word in the Lg to label a component
male/female are obvious example. A particular component
of CA is that it attempts to treat components in terms of
BINARY OPPOSITES between (male) & (female), (animate)
& (inanimate). There is an advantage in such binary terms
in that we choose one only as the label and distinguish this
in terms of pluses or minuses thus (male) and (female)
are written as (+male) or (-male). We can refer to the lack
of the sex distinction with the symbol (+/- male) this works
well only where there is a clear distinction. In practice,
componential analysis has been used to bring out the
logical relations that are associated with them.
Arguments against CA CA doesnt handle all semantic
relations well. 1)it is difficult to reduce the relational
opposites to components. We can treat parent/child as
having the same components, but in different direction;
but, by introducing direction into components we admit
that they are relational. 2)CA cannot remove hierarchical
characteristics of hyponymy. The distinction of (+male)/(male) applies only to living things. Distinction in terms of
these components, between ram/eve will hold only for the
items that are also marked (+animate). CA states that if

something is animate, may it be male or female. With a

formula such as (+animate)(+/-male). Such rules called
redundancy rules are simply a disguised way of stating
that hierarchical nature of the semantic distinction. CA can
thus handle all the relations with a relevant modifications,
it doesnt make them clear.
The drawback of Cutz and Fodors componential theory.
There is, in theory, no limit to the number of markers that
can be established because any piece of info can be used
to disambiguate and can thus function as a MARKER The
bachelor waggled his flippers is not ambiguous it is a
seal; The bachelor got his hair wet cannot refer to the seal,
but it may refer to any of the other three (unmarried man,
degree, knight). If we use the disambiguation test, for the
first seal, the markers (having flippers) and (not having
hair) and a list is endless. Cutz later dropped the
distinction between the marker and distinguisher, but the
difficulty remains because in principle any piece of info
may be used as a marker.