SEMANTIC

Semantic    : The branch of linguistics which studies meaning (Trask, 1999: 268)

Semiotics   : The study of the social production of meaning from sign system (Trask, 1999: 270)

Icon, Index and Symbol (Saeed, 2000: 5)

·      Icon is where there is a similarity between a sign and what it represents.

·      Index is where a sign is closely associated with its referent, often in a causal relationship.

·      Symbol is where there is only a conventional link between the sign and the referent.

Challenge 1 in doing semantics (Saeed, 2000: 6-7)

1.    Circularity

2.    Linguistic Knowledge (about the meaning of words) Versus Encyclopaedic Knowledge (about the way theworld)

Ex: What is tomato? It is a fruit or vegetable?

3.    Meaning of utterance incontext

Word

Prototypical word has the following properties:

1.    It is the smallest grammatical unit that can be moved around in a sentence or be separated from its fellows by the insertionof new material.

2.    It is the largestunit which can not be reordered.

3.    It usually consists of a single root, either alone or with one or more affixes.

Lexeme

Cruse (2006:92) defined lexeme as the fundamental unit of lexical semantics (it is dealing with an associationbetween form and meaning). It coresponds roughly to one of the everyday uses of the term ‘word’.

Units of talk, talks, talked and all differetalking are

Sentence

Trask (1999: 273) states that sentence is the largest purely grammatical unit in a language. The unit is held together by rigid grammatical rules.

Grammar

            Grammar is the rules for constructing words and sentence in a particular language (Trask, 1999: 110). Similar to that, (Matthews, 1997: 150) states that grammar is a systematic account of structure of a language and it is also dealing with patterns of the structure.

Sentence Vs Sentence Fragment

Consider this exchange.

Mike    : “Where’s Susi?”

Alice    : “In the library”.

Thus, grammatically

·      Mike’s utterance represents a sentence (because it is constructed according to the rules for making English sentence); but,

·      Alice’s response does not represent a sentence (because it is only a fragment of a sentence)

Phrase

            Matthews (1997: 279) defines phrase as any sintatic unit which includes more than one word and is not an entri sentence.

Clause

Trask (1999: 35-6) defines clause as the largest grammatical unit smaller than a sentence.

Traditionally, a clause cosists of a subject and a predicate. Trask also points out that every sentence must consist of one clause or it can consist of more than one clause.

Syntax and Semantics (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998: 181)

            Syntax is concerned with how words are combined to form phrases and sentences.

            Semantics is concerned with what the combinations mean.

Sentence Relation and Truth

            There are fixed truth relations between sentences which hold regardless of the empirical truth of the sentences (Saeed, 2000: 90)

            In standard system of logic, a truth value is a property of a proposition; there are normally only two possible truth values: ‘true’ and ‘false’ (Cruse, 2006: 185).

Entailment

            We can see the claim of fixed truth relation by looking at the semantic relation of entailment (Saeed, 2000: 90).

§  The anarchist assassinated the emperor. (P)

§  The emporer died. (Q)

Cruse (2006: 54-55) states that entailment is a logical relation between proposition.

·      A proposition P entails a proposition Q

·      If and only if the truth of Q follows inescapably from the truth of P

Paraphrase

            Trask (1999: 89) states that normally, if P entails Q, then Q does not entail P; but it is possible for P and Q to entail each other, and this case we are looking at paraphrase.

Example:

P ‘Sally sold a car to Mike’.

Q ‘Mike bought a car from Sally’.

Presupposition

            Trask (1999: 89) points out that an entailment (conversational implicature) differs from a presupposition. Trask (1999: 248) mentions that, in presupposition, when we hear an utterance, we are immediately entitled to draw certain following inference.

Example:

P ‘John’s wife runs a boutique.’

Q ‘John is married.’

        P presupposes Q

Entailment Vs Presupposition

            Trask (1999: 89) mentions that an entailment is destroyed by negation.

‘The anarchist assassinated the emperor’ entails ‘The emperor died’ but

‘The anarchist did not assassinate the emperor’ does not entail ‘The emperor died’.

Meanwhile, a presupposition survives negation.

‘John’s wife does not run a boutique’ still presupposes ‘John is married’. (Trask, 1999: 248

Situation Types:

Stative Verbs Vs Dynamic Verbs

            Certain lexical categories, in particular verbs, inherently describe different situation types; some describe states, other are dynamic and describe process and events (Saeed, 2000: 109).

Stative Verbs like be, have, know and love allow the speaker to view a situation as a steady state (Saeed, 2000: 109).

            Dynamic Verbs can be classified into a number of types, based on the semantic distinction durative / punctual and telic / atelic. One possible  distinction within dynamic situation types is between events and processes (Saeed, 2000: 110).

Tense and Aspect

            Tense is defined as the grammatical category which relates to time. In other words, tense is the grammaticalization of verbs (Trask, 1999: 311).

            Aspect is defined as grammatical category which represents distinction in the temporal structure of an event; it may be seen as extending over a period of time or as occurring in a single moment (Trask, 1999: 23).

Modal Verbs

            Cruse (2006: 110)  mentions that there are two main dimensions of modality:

·      First is ‘eepistemic modality’ which is concerned with certainty or doubt, possibility or impossibility; in other words, it is dealing with the speaker’s attitude to the truth of the proposition;

·      Second is ‘deontic modality’ which is the dimension of obligation, permission and prohition.