In 1990 appeared Breals book Semantics: studies in the science of meaning, one of the earliest books on linguistics.

He said that semantics is the science of meaning, found in practical, everyday lg. This definition is too general for
there are other aspects of meaning, which are based on the types of knowledge related to semantics in lg: Semantic
knowledge knowing what words mean and how these meanings combine in sentences to form sentence meanings.
Pragmatic knowledge knowing how sentences are used in different contexts and how contexts affect the
interpretation of the sentence. World knowledge the general knowledge about the world that lg users must have in
order to maintain conversation. Pragmatic knowledge, examples: the city councilors refused the demonstrators a
permit because they feared violence. Vidimo se veceras u 8 kod lepe brene (zgrade/pevacice). World knowledge is
often interwoven with pragmatic knowledge because both refer to some items that are outside the lg system. The
main difference lies in the scientific background of world knowledge, which pragmatic knowledge isnt based on.
We cannot talk about my meaning to refer to what I mean to do. Another example: a red light means stop. Mean
here is used for signs, both natural and conventional, that provide information or give instruction. However, when we
look at the use of terms mean and meaning to refer to lg we find that they seldom suggest this notion of sign.
Dictionaries provide definitions by suggesting words or phrases which have the same meaning. The extent to which
meaning is dealt with in terms of the equivalence of terms is even more clearly brought out when we deal with foreign
lgs. If we are asked what chat means in French we shall reply cat, but we would not ask what cat means in French
expecting the reply chat. Instead, we have to say what is the French for cat. In stating meaning we are obliged to
produce a term that is more familiar than the one whose meaning is being questioned. The words do not always
mean what they are thought to mean, there is some other meaning besides the literal meaning of the words. There
are different ways of achieving this: the use of intonation or non-linguistic signs. There is the fall-rise intonation tune,
in which the intonation falls and rises on the accented word in a sentence, and it expresses reservations.
Semantics is a component or level of linguistics of the same kind as phonetics or grammar. Lg is a communication
system that relates sth to be communicated with sth that communicates. the swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure
referred to these as the signifier and the signified. Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He
defined a sign as being composed of: a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and the 'signified'
(signifi) - the concept it represents. The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the
signified. The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as 'signification. A sign must have both
a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified . A sign is
a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified. The same signifier (the word 'open, for example)
could stand for a different signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button inside a lift ('push to open
door'), instead of a sign on a shop-door (open for business).What Saussure refers to as the 'value' of a sign depends
on its relations with other signs within the system - a sign has no 'absolute' value independent of this context.
Saussure uses an analogy with the game of chess, noting that the value of each piece depends on its position on the
chessboard.The sign is more than the sum of its parts. Whilst signification - what is signified - clearly depends on the
relationship between the two parts of the sign, the value of a sign is determined by the relationships between the sign
and other signs within the system as a whole.As an example of the distinction between signification and value,
Saussure notes that 'The French word mouton may have the same meaning as the English word sheep; but it does
not have the same value.There are various reasons for this, but in particular the fact that the English word for the
meat of this animal, as prepared and served for a meal, is not sheep but mutton. The difference in value between
sheep and mouton hinges on the fact that in English there is also another word mutton for the meat, whereas mouton
in French covers both' . the pragmatist philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce formulated his own model of
the sign, of 'semiotic' and of the taxonomies of signs.In contrast to Saussure's model of the sign in the form of a 'selfcontained dyad', Peirce offered a triadic model:The Representamen: the form which the sign takes (not necessarily

material);An Interpretant: not an interpreter but rather the sense made of the sign; An Object: to which the sign refers.
Signs can be: symbols, icons and indices (indexes).Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not
resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be
learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and
sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flagsIndex/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not
arbitrary but is directly connected in some way (physically or causally) to the signified - this link can be observed or
inferred: e.g. 'natural signs' (smoke, thunder, footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical
symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level), 'signals'
(a knock on a door, a phone ringing)Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating
the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of
its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, metaphors, 'realistic' sounds in 'programme
music', sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures
Although lg is basically a communication system, it doesnt always have a message in any real sense, part of its
function is concerned with social relationships. It 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
la, e.g. red means stop. For lg in general there is no such easy solution, for 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. since linguistics is the scientific study of lg, it should be empirical, statements made within it must be
verifiable by observation. It is easy to apply this to phonetics: we can listen to a person speaking, describe the
operations of the vocal organs, measure the physical characteristics of the emitted sounds. But there is no similar,
simple way of dealing with semantics. Since linguistics is scientific, it must be concerned with generalizations. This
point was made by Saussure in his distinction between LANGUAGE and SPEAKING. This distinction has reappeared
in Chomskys works as COMPETENCE and PERFORMANCE. Both are concerned to exclude what is purely
individual and accidental (speaking or performance) and to insist that the proper study of linguistics is lg or
competence. The point is clear enough in phonetics. What happens each time a person speaks is not usually of
interest in itself, it is rather part of the evidence for the generalizations. The same must be true of semantics, it should
not be concerned with the meaning every individual wishes to place on his words. An individuals meaning is not part
of the general study of semantics. This is necessary in the study of literature and in psychiatric studies, but neither of
these 2 studies of the individual would be possible without the generalized normal patterns to make comparisons
with. A useful distinction has been made between utterances and sentences so that we can distinguish between the
utterance there is a book on the table and the sentence there is a book on the table. An utterance is an event in time
= produced by someone at some particular time, while a sentence is an abstract entity that has no existence in time,
but is part of the linguistic system of a language. When we talk about sth that some1 has said we normally describe it
in terms that are appropriate to the sentence, we use our linguistic knowledge. When referring to the utterance there
is a book on the table one has to write it down in words with all the conventions of spelling and punctuation. In so
doing, it is identified as an example of the sentence there is a book on the table. The only way to avoid this
completely would be to have the utterance on the tape, for even writing it down in a phonetic script would probably
assume some of the characteristics of the sentence. When one writes it down, they identify the words, but words are
not a given part of the utterance. They are not accessible by direct observation. Therefore, semantics will be
concerned with the meaning of sentences.
The spoken lg is more basic than the written because:1. the human race had speech long before it had writing and
there are still many lgs that have no written form. 2. the child learns to speak long before he learns to write.3. written
lg can be converted into speech without loss. But the converse is not 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 far more time speaking than writing
or reading.3. EXPLANATION: there are a few features of the written form that are not easily (or not at all)
represented in speech. For instance, the use of italics to refer to examples. But the spoken lg has far more striking
characteristics that cannot be easily shown in the written form. It has what are known as prosodic and paralinguistic
features. The prosodic features include primarily intonation and stress. The semantics of intonation and stress is a
major subject in its own right. But meaning is also carried by paralinguistic features such as rhythm, tempo, loudness.
When we talk we use many non-linguistic signs a smile or a wink may be as good an indication that we do not
really mean what we say as a sarcastic intonation tune. The written lg is largely narration or the presentation of
factual information or arguments. This has led to the assumption that meaning is largely concerned with information,
with what philosophers have called propositions. But the main function of the spoken lg is not to inform.
The term semantics was 1st used to refer to the development and change of meaning. We can start by classifying the
kinds of change that occur. Bloomfield noted a number of types, each given a traditional name:Narrowing: meat
food,Widening: bird nestling,Metaphor: bitter biting,Metonymy (nearness in space and time): jaw
cheekSynechdoche (whole/part relation): town fence; stove heated room,Hyperbole (stronger to weaker
meaning): astound strike with thunder,Litotes (weaker to stronger meaning): kill torment,Degeneration: knave
boy,Elevation: knight boy. Historical change is properly an area of comparative and historical linguistics
COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, which attempts both to reconstruct the history of lgs and to relate lgs apparently
coming from a common source or ancestor. One of the aims of the subject is to establish sound laws, to show for
instance the correlation of p in Romance lg with f in Germanic lgs (this is an aspect of what is known as Grimms
Law). = father/paternal, feather/pen, fish/piscatorial. The establishment of sound laws depends on knowing that the
words we compare are the same in the sense that they have a common origin, and this can only be done on the
basis of their meaning. In many parts of the world the lg relationships are difficult to establish because there are no
ancient records. People are also interested in etymology, the discovery of earlier meanings of words. Few would
expect hysterical to be connected with the womb (in greek) or for lord and lady to have anything to do with loaf (of
bread). The chief difficulty with etymology is that there can be no true or original meaning since human lg stretches
back too far. Linguists have generally come to accept the distinction made explicit by de Saussure between
diachronic and synchronic linguistics, the first being concerned with lg through time, the 2 nd with lg as it is, or as it
was at a particular time. The synchronic study must logically precede the diachronic study, for we cannot study
change in a lg until we have first established what the lg was like at the times during which it changed. So in
semantics we cannot deal with change of meaning until we know what meaning is.
There is a considerable overlap between the philosophical and the linguistic approach to meaning. The linguist is not
primarily interested in idealized systems of the kind found in some logical work. The logicians proposals have ranged
from the comparatively simple syllogism of All men are mortal.Socrates is a man.Therefore Socrates is mortal to the
highly involved logical syntax of Rudolph Carnap. What they have in common is that they are not based upon
observable lg, but are essentially self-coherent and internally consistent models of an idealized kind similar to those
of mathematics. Secondly, there is a distinction to be made between science and the philosophy of science and the
approaches of the scientist and the philosopher will be very different. Psychologists have tackled semantics in
several ways. One example is to be found in the book signs, lg and behavior by Charles morris. In this book he is
concerned with signs and what they denote or signify. A more promising approach might be found in an altogether
different discipline, communication theory. In this theory we have several different concepts that are defined
technically. The communication system carries information and the system can be judged according to the efficiency
with which it transmits the information. In particular an efficient system will have minimum redundancy and minimum

noise. In lg there is great deal of redundancy and a lot of noise. A simple illustration of redundancy in the written lg is
that if the bottom half of a line of print is covered, the line can still be read. Noise can be sth that interferes with
communication but it can equally be loss of high frequencies on the telephone or radio, bad enunciation or bad
handwriting or the covering of the bottom half of the line of print. In semantics noise may consist of the discrepancies
between the speakers and the hearers understanding for this will interfere with the transmission of the information.
But, it is not the effectiveness of the transmission of information that concerns us in semantics, but precisely what
that info is intended to be.
One of the oldest views, found in Platos dialogue Cratylus, is that the signifier is a word in the lg and the signified is
the object in the world that it denotes. This is an attractive view because the child learns many words by a process of
naming. There are many difficulties to this view one of them is that this definition applies only to nouns, it cannot be
extended to adjs early, true, traditional, relevant. Moreover, it is virtually impossible to identify what is named by a
verb. Even if we take a verb run and attempt to illustrate it with a picture of a boy running we cannot isolate the
running part of it. First, we are not presented separately with a boy and with running. Secondly, even if we can
distinguish between the boy and what hes doing it is very difficult to identify precisely what are the essential
characteristics of what is denoted by the verb (does running involve only the movement of the feet or are the arms
involved too? In addition, some nouns (unicorn, goblin, fairy) relate to creatures that do not exist so they do not
denote objects in the real world. One way out of this difficulty is to distinguish 2 kinds of world: the real world and the
world of fairy stories. Such words are the evidence of the fact that words are not simply names of objects of our
experience. Even with identifiable physical objects, it isnt always the case that the meaning is the same as its
denotation. One of the best known examples to illustrate this point is that of the evening star and the morning star
they do not have the same meaning, yet they both denote planet Venus. Yet another difficulty if we restrict our
attention to words that are linked with visible objects in the world around us, they often seem to denote a whole set of
rather different objects (chairs, for instance). Often the dividing line between the items referred to by one word and
those referred to by another is vague, and there may be overlap. When is hill a hill and not a mountain? In the world
of experience objects are not clearly grouped together ready to be labeled with a single word. There are 2 extreme,
yet unhelpful explanations: 1. the realist view all things called by the same name have some common property; 2.
The nominalist view they have nothing in common but the name. This isnt true because we do not use chair or
hill for objects that are completely different, they always have sth in common. But the 1 st view also has its flaws
there are no clearly defined natural classes of objects in the world around us. Part of the problem of semantics is to
establish what classes there are. Even if there are no natural classes, it might be argued that there are universal
classes common to all lgs. But the classification of objects in terms of lgs appear to differ from lg to lg. The colour
systems of lgs are different too, in spite of the apparently natural system of the rainbow. The words of a lg often
reflect not so much the reality of the world, but the interests of the people who speak it.
The anthropologist Malinowski noted that the trobriand islanders had names for the things that were useful to them,
and they did not correspond to words in English. The scientific classifications for animals are not typical of everyday
experience because most of the things we see do not fall strictly into one class or another. Ordinary lg differs from the
scientific precisely in the fact that its stems are not clearly defined and its classes are not rigorously established.
Bertrand Russel suggested that there are 2 kinds of word object word and dictionary word. Object words are learnt
ostensibly, by pointing at objects, while dictionary words have to be defined in terms of the object words. The object
words have ostensive definitions. But in order to understand an ostensive definition we have to understand precisely
what us being pointed at. The philosopher Wittgenstein said: I must already be the master of a lg to understand an
ostensive definition.

Concepts a more sophisticated view relates words and things through the meditation of concepts of the mind. Two
of the best known versions are the sign theory of de Saussure and the semiotic triangle of Ogden and Richards.
Ogden and Richards saw the relationship as a triangle. (top-thought or reference, bottom left-symbol, bottom rightreferent). The symbol is the linguistic element, the referent is the object in the world of experience, while thought or
reference is the concept. According to the theory there is no direct link between symbol and referent, the link is via
thought or reference? what precisely is the associative bond of de S, or the link between O and Rs symbol and
concept? Some scholars have suggested that we have some kind of image of a chair when we talk about chairs. But,
we can visualize chair, although we do not do that every single time. A more sophisticated version sees the link as
some kind of permanent association stored in the mind. It sets up entities that are by definition mirror images of the
words that they are supposed to explain. Wherever we have a word there will be a concept, this is a circular definition
of meaning. It involves a ghost-in-the-machine argument. We wish to explain how a machine works in mechanical
terms, but someone cannot understand how this machine could work unless there is some kind of disembodied ghost
inside it. Many linguists today accept this conceptual view of meaning. This must be rejected for three reasons: 1.
Nothing is said by moving meaning back one step to the mind; 2. Even if there were concepts in the mind they are
inaccessible to anyone but the individual subjective views; 3.the arguments about intuition and introspection are
irrelevant because in that way we do not learn more about our lg or its structure, we merely produce for ourselves
some more examples of our lg. Firth said we go fishing in our own tank. We can understand the meaning of a word
just as we can read the signpost. We cannot ask, what words mean or signposts point to, in general. We can only
ask: what does THIS word mean/This signpost point to.
Sense and reference reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements and the world of
experience. Sense relates to the complex system of relationships between the linguistic elements, intra-linguistic
relations. Sense relationships have formed an important part of the study of lg. There are words such as ram and
ewe. They belong to a pattern in English that older grammarians treated as a part of grammar because it was clearly
related to sex, a matter of gender. There are other kinds of related words: duck/duckling, pig/piglet (involving adult
and young) or between father/son, uncle/nephew (involving family relations). They are rather a part of the semantic
structure. There are other kinds of sense relations narrow/wide, male/female, buy/sell. The ultimate aim of the
dictionary is to supply its user with referential meaning and that it does so by relating a word whose meaning is
unknown to words whose reference is already understood. So, there are 2 kinds of semantics, one that deals with
semantic structure and the other that deals with meaning in terms of our experience outside lg.
Some linguists have attempted to limit semantics to sense relations. One example is to be found in a well-known
article by Katz and fodor the structure of a semantic theory. They state that a semantic theory must account for
ambiguity, anomaly and paraphrase. Bierwisch gives a more complete list of semantic properties. He says that a
semantic theory must explain such sentences as: his typewriter has bad intentions (anomalous sentence), my
unmarried sister is married to a bachelor (contradictory), john was looking for the glasses (ambiguous), the needle is
too short/is not long enough (illustrate paraphrase or synonymous sntcs), many of the students were unable to
answer your question/only a few students grasped your question (one sntc follows from the other), how long did
Archibald remain in monte carlo/Archibald remained in monte carlo for some time (the 1 st implies the 2nd). Only some
suggested sense relations belong to semantics, others belong to pragmatics. This is an extraordinary view, for it puts
reference in the second place, and only a minute part of dict definition could be handled in terms of these sense
relations. Scholars have concentrated on sense because it has structure and can be accurately and precisely
determined. We can distinguish between sense and reference but also we must allow that there is no absolute line
between them. There are some terms of lg that are not reducible to other terms but interpretable only in terms of the

events around us. Most important are deictics (indexical expressions), the pronouns, the demonstratives and time
markers. Only a theory that accepts the relation of lg to the world can handle these terms.
Kinds of meaning lg is not simply a matter of providing factual information. 1 st, We do not only make statements, but
also ask questions and give orders. Secondly, there are a variety of speech acts. We persuade, we warn, we
insinuate, we use lg to influence people in many different ways. Thirdly, much of what we say is not a statement of
fact but an evaluation. There is the emotive difference between politician and statesman, hide and conceal, liberty/
freedom, each implying approval or disapproval their function is to influence attitudes. Words may have different
emotive meanings in different societies. On the whole, liberal is a good word in GB, but it is a bad word in S. Africa
and in some political circles in the USA. Fourthly, lg is often deeply concerned with a variety of social relations. We
can be rude or polite, depending upon the social relationship with the person to whom we are speaking: shut up, be
quiet, would you please be quiet, would you keep your voice down a little please? Some parts of lg are wholly social
and carry no information: good morning; how are you? etc. and all the Englishmans remarks about the weather.
Phatic Communion - The fact that human beings tend to talk when they meet, often leads to a sense of discomfort,
even hostility, when silence occurs in such a meeting. Because talk is often a first step in establishing a relationship it
is characterised by a stock of conventional utterances which break such silences and help to establish the
participants in a mutual situation in which awkwardness and tension gradually disappear. This kind of utterance was
given the name phatic communion by Malinowski, the anthropologist who studied the speech and customs of the
Trobriand Islanders. He described such talk as a means by which 'ties of union are created by the mere exchange of
words.' Phatic communion is the initial linguistic attempt to relate to another individual. If this relationship develops,
then small talk will take over, and that in turn may lead to serious conversation.
Fifthly, we need not mean what we say. We can be sarcastic, we can also with the appropriate intonation imply what
it not said (shes very clever may mean Shes ugly). We can conclude that semantics cannot fully succeed without the
investigation of the prosodic and paralinguistic features of lg. sixthly, there is the kind of meaning found in the
notorious when did you stop beating your wife? For this presupposes that you once beat her, though it nowhere
states that you did.
The word as a semantic unit it is assumed that dictionaries are concerned with words and that the word is one of
the basic units of semantics. But, there are some difficulties. 1st, not all words seem to have the same kind of
meaning. Henry Sweet, the English grammarian, made distinction between full words and form words. Full words are
tree, sing, blue, gently, it, the, of, and. Only full words seem to have meaning. Form words seem t belong to grammar
rather than to semantics/lexicon. They also have meaning, but the one of a grammatical kind. Secondly, words as we
know them are the written items between spaces are put. But, in Arabic, the definite article is written as part of the
word, unlike in English. Bloomfield offered a solution by suggesting that the word is the smallest form that may occur
in isolation. But, we shall not normally say the, is, by in isolation. We utter in isolation just those items that we have
learnt to recognize as words. Bloomfield went on to identify an element smaller than the word, a unit of meaning the
morpheme: -berry in blackberry or y in Johnny. Linguists were also interested in words as loved, where they could
identify the morphemes love- and d (adore+past). But problems arose with words such as took (take+past), but it
cannot easily be divided. The solution to this is achieved by redefining the term word. We have been using this term
in the sense that love and loved are different words. A technical term for the word in this second sense is LEXEME.
Lexemes provide dictionary headings. There will not be 2 entries for love and loved, but only one, and we should
analyze loved in terms of the grammatical lexeme love and the grammatical category of tense. Thirdly, there is a
problem with transparent and opaque words. Transparent words meaning can be determined from the meaning of
their parts, but this is not the case with opaque words. Chopper and doorman are transparent, but axe and porter are

opaque. However, if we decide that chopper is to be determined in terms of chop and er (instrument), what do we
say of hammer? Fourthly, there are many words in English that are called phonaesthetic one part, often the initial
cluster of consonants, gives an indication of meaning of a special kind. Sl- indicates sth slippery: slide, slip, slither
etc. Fifthly, semantic division seems to ovverride word division. Heavy smoker does not mean a smoker who is
heavy. Some other amusing examples are artificial florist and criminal lawyer. Finally, there is the problem of idioms.
Idiom is a sequence of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of the words themselves (kick
the bucket, spill the beans..). Semantically, idioms are single unit. But they are not single grammatical units like
words, for there is no past tense kick the bucketed. Family Resemblances & Wittgenstein - How do we recognize
that two people we know are related to one another? We may see similar height, weight, eye color, hair, nose, mouth,
patterns of speech, social or political views, mannerisms, body structure, last names, etc. If we see enough matches
we say we've noticed a family resemblance. It is perhaps important to note that this is not always a conscious
process generally we don't catalog various similarities until we reach a certain threshold, we just intuitively see the
resemblances. Wittgenstein suggests that the same is true of language. We are all familiar (i.e. socially) with enough
things which are games and enough things which are not games that we can categorize new activities as either
games or not. Language-games Wittgenstein develops this discussion of games into the key notion of a languagegame. He introduces the term using simple examples, but intends it to be used for the many ways in which we use
language. In one language-game, a word might stand for things to be manipulated, but in another the same word
might be used for asking questions or giving orders. "Water!", for example, can be an exclamation, an order, a
request, or an answer to a question; but, which meaning it has depends on the language-game in which it is being
used. Thus, the word "water" has no meaning apart from its use within a language-game.
The non-linguistic context
The meaning of a sentence, or the fact that it is ambiguous or anomalous, can be known in isolation from context and
that as speakers of a lg we must know the meaning of a sentence before we can use it in any context, showing that
meaning is independent of context and it must be studied without reference to it. But, we can know the meaning of a
sntnc independently of the context only in the sense that we can provide another one with a similar meaning,
paraphrased. This doesnt mean that ,if we can say that 2 sentences have the same meaning, we have identified the
meaning. This is another version of the dualist fallacy. To set up a set of abstract relationships between sentences
without even considering what they refer to, is like describing a measuring system, saying that there are 12 inches in
a foot, three feet in a yard etc., without indicating how long an inch or a foot actually is. Stating meaning equivalence
is not stating meaning.
Another argument is that the world of experience must include the sum of human knowledge. In this is so, the scope
of semantics would be infinite. We can evade a problem by confining our attention to tight local relationships of the
kind seen in unmarried/ bachelor or short/ long, but thus a narrow semantic theory would be provided. Bierwischs
My typewriter has bad intentions and John was looking for the glasses are anomalous and ambiguous, respectively
and to recognize this we have to have the relevant info about typewriters and kinds of glasses.
Katz and Fodor argued that the part of the aim of semantics was to account for the number of readings of a
sentence. An example was The bill is large ambiguous, has 2 readings, bill has 2 meanings. It can be
disambiguated if extended with but need not be paid. This is possible only with one meaning of bill. K and F accept
that the ambiguity and disambiguation of this sntnc by this method are proper subjects for semantics. Both the
anomaly and ambiguity depend on knowledge of the world. For John may be looking for either spectacles or drinking
glasses, but there may be even a third type! And in the sent I am looking for the bible, the meaning of the bible

depends on whether one knows that cows stomach is called the bible. K and F admit that a limited theory of
selection by socio-physical settings is possible but that it would blur the distinction between the speakers knowledge
of his lg and knowledge of the world. Therefore, there is no such thing in semantics as linguistic ability that is
unrelated to knowledge of the world, these are one and the same thing.
Context of situation this term is associated with B.Malinowski and J.R.Firth. Malinowskis interest in lg derived from
his work in the trobriand islands in the south pacific. He was concerned with his failure to produce any satisfactory
translation for the texts he had recorded. He argued that living lgs must not be treated like dead ones, torn from their
context, but seen as used by people fir hunting, cultivating etc. lg as used in books isnt the norm, lg itself isnt a
mirror on reflected thought. Lg is a mode of action not a countersign of thought. His arguments were based on his
observation of the way in which the lg of the people he was studying fitted into their everyday activities. He also noted
an aspect of lg he called phatic communication where the words do not convey meaning but have a purely social
function. He also noted that the child uses words as active forces with which to manipulate the world around him, and
said that there is much in common between words and magic, because both give him power. He assumed that the lg
he observed was more primitive than his and thus more closely associated with the practical needs of the primitive
society. He assumed that it was difficult to translate because of the differences in the nature of lgs and that context
was more important when dealing with primitive lgs. he was mistaken many lgs may not have the vocab of modern
industrial society, but this is a reflection of their interests, not the primitive nature of lg. Secondly, he doesnt discuss
the ways in which context can be handled in a systematic way. He discusses narrative, the telling of stories, where
the context is always the same. If context indicates meaning, all stories will have the same one. his solution was to
invoke secondary context the context within the narrative, but it can no more be objectively defined than concepts of
thoughts that he was so eager to banish from discussion. J.R. Firth acknowledged his debt to M, but thought that Ms
context of situation was not satisfactory for the more accurate and precise linguistic approach to the problem. He saw
context as part of the linguistic apparatus, so he classified it into following categories: A. the relevant features of the
participants: persons, personalities 1. The verbal action of the participants, 2/the non-verbal action of the
participants; B.the relevant objects; C.the effects of the verbal action. While context may deal with meaning in the
semantic sense, some other levels, such as grammar, are not considered with meaning in the same sense. So he
used meaning in 2 senses: one legitimate and the other his own idiosyncratic usage. But this criticism is not fair for 3
reasons. First, it is valid only if we accept that there is an area of linguistic investigation which deals with the relation
of lg and the outside world that is different from the investigation of the internal characteristics of lg. secondly, it is
almost impossible to decide what is in the world and what is in lg. thirdly, he did not produce any total linguistic model
which could totally describe a lg. another criticism of his view is that it has very limited value context of situation
cannot be alright for the vast majority of the sentences that we encounter.
3. behaviourism-malinowski and firth believed that the 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, associated first in linguistics with bloomfield. 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.
Bloomfield is defining meaning as the situation. Bloomfield illustrated his views with a now famous account of jack
and jill. Jill is hungry, sees an apple and with the use of lg gets jack to fetch it for her. If she had been alone she
would have first received a stimulus (S) which would have produced a reaction (R) (the form response is more usual)
she would have made a move to get the apple. Since jack was with her, the stimulus produced not the reaction R,
but a linguistic reaction, that of speaking to jack (r). The sound waves resulting from his in turn create a stimulus for
jack, a linguistic stimulus (s), which results in his non-linguistic reaction R of getting the apple. Meaning, according to

bloomfield, consists in the relation between speech and the practical events S an R, that precede and follow it. The
speech and the practical events depend upon predisposing factors which consist of the entire life history of the
speaker and hearer. The facts concerning predisposing factors are totally unknowable and no more open to
observation than the thought, images etc., of the mentalists that bloomfield despised. Bloomfield forecast that all the
problems of phonology would be solved in a few decades in the phonetics laboratory. He suggested that we can
define the meaning of a speech form accurately when this meaning has to do with some matter of which we possess
scientific knowledge and gave as an example the ordinary meaning of salt as sodium chloride (NaCl). But
bloomfield is factually wrong. There is no reason at all to argue that scientific definitions are linguistically more
accurate than non-scientific ones. The precision of scientific definition serves the scientists purpose, but it is in no
way related to human lg. A more workable theory might seem to be one that defines meaning wholly in terms of the
observable stimulus and response. Skinners theory allows that the same stimulus may produce different responses.
This is accounted for in terms of reinforcement, in which responses are partially conditioned by previous experiences,
a notion similar to Bloomfields predisposing factors. The variety of responses can only be explained if it is argued
that the controlling stimuli are also different, that we must take into account all the features of reinforcement. Since
the whole point of the theory is that the responses are predictable from the stimuli, the theory now becomes vacuous,
since in practice the stimuli can be identified only from the responses.
4. Linguistic Relativity the way in which we see the world depends on the lg we use. Malinowski argued that
primitive people have names only for those things that stand out for them from an otherwise undifferentiated world.
From a confused mass of experience, they pick out by words those parts that are relevant to them. Edward Sapir
suggested that the world in which we live is to a large extent 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 lg, just as we are unaware of the presence of air until we begin to choke,
and that if we look at other lgs we come to realize that a lg does not merely voice ideas, but that it is the shaper of
ideas and that we dissect nature along lines laid down by our native lgs. This leads him to a new principle of
relativity which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe,
unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar or in some way can be calibrated. Whorfs arguments are not very
convincing. If we do not have the same picture of the universe as the speakers of other lgs, we nevertheless have a
picture that can be related to and in some degree mapped upon the picture that others have. That this is so is
proved by the fact that we can investigate other lgs and that we can translate. Much of Whorfs argument is invalid in
that he argues from certain formal observable characteristics to a model of the Universe. For example, we could
argue that English has no concept of time. Formally English has two tenses only, past and present (loved and love).
All other tenses are composite forms involving auxiliary verbs, was loving, will love, etc. moreover, the past tense is
not semantically simply a matter of past time reference. The past tense may refer to past time as in I went there
yesterday, but it is also used for unreality I wish I went there every day. It has been suggested (by M. joos) that
English does not have a past tense, but a remote tense to indicate what is remote in time or remote in reality. It is
clear that the grammatical structure of a lg tells us little about our way of thinking about the world.
Meinongs jungle alexius meinong, an Austrian philosopher, claimed that since non-existent things could apparently
be referred to (although they may not be pointed at) they must have some sort of being, which he termed sosein
(being so). In Meinongs schema, entities such as unicorns, goblins, square circles and golden mountains all have
being. The strangeness of such entities lead to this ontological realm being referred to as meinongs jungle. There
are at least 5 groups of such thruths that have been singled out in recent literature for there would seem to be at least
5 difrent sorts of things that we may say of an object that does not exist or have any other kind of being:a)we may
say that the object does not exist, b)we may say what the obj is without implying either that it exists or that it does not

exist; c)we may note what expressions in our lg are used to refer to that obj; d) we may say that the obj is involved in
a piece of fiction or a myth and that, as so involved, it has certain attributes; e)we may say that someones intentions
are directed upon that obj. objects may have one of the following three modalities of being and nonbeing:1)existence-or actual reality, which denotes the material being of an object and is linked with time (chairs,
mountains, etc.);2)subsistence-which denotes the being of an object and is not linked with time. These objects
cannot in principle ever exist, they can simply subsist (numbers theorems);3)absistence or being-given or mere
subsistence-denotes being an object but not having being. These objects cannot even subsist (square circle). There
are 2 types of reality: external and internal. Certain objects can exist, others cannot in principle ever exist, such as
the objects of mathematics: these objects simply subsist. Finally, a third class of objects cannot even subsist, such as
impossible objects (square circle). Abstinence, unlike existence and substinence, does not have a negation;
everything absists. Physical and physiological things are real. If an obj that subsists also exists it is a real object, but
if an object that subsists cannot exist, it is an ideal obj. on the whole. All objects absist, while some subset of these
subsists, of which a yet smaller subset exist. The result that everything absists allows meinong to deal with our ability
to affirm the non-being of an object. It is given or absists. As evidenced by our act of intending it, which is logically
prior to our denying that it has being.
HOMONYMY where one lexical form has many meanings is to be expected in a language.
Mary walked along the bank of the river.Bank of America is the largest bank in the city.He has
left.We have turned left. Such lexical distinctions are called contrastive ambiguity, where it is
clear that the senses associated with the lexical item are unrelated. For this reason, it is
generally assumed that homonyms are represented as separate lexical entries within the
organization of the lexicon.
POLYSEMY is the relationship that exists between different senses of a word that are related in
some logical manner rather than arbitrarily. A word is judged to be polysemous (a polyseme) if it
has two or more senses of the word whose meanings are related. Because applying pre-existing
words to new situations is a natural process of language change, looking at words' etymology is
helpful in determining polysemy but not the only solution; as words become lost in etymology,
what once was a useful distinction of meaning may no longer be so.
HOMOGRAPHS words that share the same spelling regardless of how they are pronounced.
Homographs may be pronounced the same, in which case they are also homophones for example, bark
(the sound of a dog) and bark (the skin of a tree). Alternatively they may be pronounced differently, in
which case they are also heteronyms for example, row (argument) and row (propel with oars).
HOMOPHONES (ORONYMS) words that share the same pronunciation regardless of how they are
spelled. Homophones may be spelled the same (in which case they are also homographs) or spelled
differently (in which case they are heterographs). Homographic examples include tire (to become weary)
and tire (on the wheel of a car). Heterographic examples include to, too, two, and there, their, theyre.
HETERONYMS the subclass of homographs that have different pronunciations. They are homographs
which are not homophones. Words that are spelled the same but with different pronunciations (and
meanings). Such words include desert (to abandon) and desert (arid region); row (to argue or an

argument) and row (as in to row a boat or a row of seats). Heteronyms are also sometimes called
heterophones.
CAPITONYMS are words that share the same spelling but have different meanings when capitalized (and
may or may not have different pronunciations). Such words include polish (to make shiny) and Polish
(from Poland). Capitonyms are not true heteronyms for two reasons. First, the capitalised forms are
proper nouns, and as such may not be found in standard dictionaries. Second, a pair of heteronyms must
be spelled identically. It is arguable that there is a graphological difference between a word that must be
capitalized and one that must not.

ANTONYMS are word pairs that are opposite in meaning, such as hot and cold, fat and skinny,
and up and down. Words may have different antonyms, depending on the meaning. Both long
and tall are antonyms of short. It is obvious that there are various types of antonyms: a)
Gradable Contrariety (Classical Antonymy): are two ends of the spectrum (slow and fast) but
can have variations; b) Complementary (also called contradictory) antonyms are those whose
senses completely bisect some domain (and thus are non-gradable). For example, every integer
is either odd or even, so even/odd is a complementary pair. c) Directional Antonyms: a)
Converse (relational) antonyms follow the pattern if X is p to Y, then Y is q to X. (give (to)/receive
(from), child/parent, and above/below). b) Reversive opposites the undoing of some action:
tie/untie, build/demolish. d) Auto-antonyms are the same words that can mean the opposite of
themselves under different contexts or having separate definitions:fast (moving quickly; fixed
firmly in place).
SYNONYMS different phonological words which have the same or very similar meanings.
couch/sofa large/big. True or exact synonyms are very rare. Palmer (1976) notes, the synonyms
often have different distributions along a number of parameters. They may have belonged to
different dialects and then become synonyms for speakers familiar with both dialects.
Alternatively, the words may belong to different registers, those styles of language, colloquial,
formal, literary, etc. that belong to different situations. The synonyms may portray positive or
negative attitudes of the speaker: for example naive or gullible seem more critical than
ingenuous. Finally, one or other of the synonyms may be collocationally restricted.
HYPONYMY is a relation of inclusion. A hyponym includes the meaning of a more general word,
e.g. dog and cat are hyponyms of animal. The more general term is called the superordinate or
HYPERNYM. Much of the vocabulary is linked by such systems of inclusion, and the resulting
semantic networks form the hierarchical taxonomies. Hyponymy is a vertical relationship in a
taxonomy: so saw is a hyponym of tool, while taxonomic sisters are in a horizontal relationship:
so hacksaw and jigsaw are sisters in this taxonomy with other types of saw. Such classifications
are of interest for what they tell us about human culture and mind.
MERONYMY a part-whole relationship between lexical items. Thus cover and page are
meronyms of book. We can identify this relationship by using sentence frames like X is part of Y,
or Y has X, as in A page is part of a book, or A book has pages. Meronymy reflects hierarchical
classifications in the lexicon somewhat like taxonomies. Meronymic hierarchies are less clear-

cut and regular than taxonomies. Meronyms vary, for example, in how necessary the part is to
the whole. HOLONYMY is the semantic relation opposite of meronymy. Holonymy defines the
relationship between a term denoting the whole and a term denoting a part of, or a member of,
the whole.