Page 407 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 31: Semantic: Meaning Types: Lexical, Contextual and Others Semantics Practice

31.7 Summary Notes

• The study of meaning and its manifestation in language is normally referred to as semantics
from the Greek noun sema ‘sign’, signal; and the verb semains ‘signal, mean, signify’. The
Shorter Oxford Dictionary glosses the term semantics as ‘relating to signification or meaning’.
Broadly speaking, semantics is that aspect of linguistics which deals with the relations between
referents (names) and referends (things)—that is, linguistic levels (words, expressions, phrases)
and the objects or concepts or ideas to which they refer—and with the history and changes
in the meaning of words. Diachronic (historical) semantics studies semantic change, whereas
synchronic semantics accounts for semantic relationship, simple or multiple.
• Although the structuralists tried to study language without meaning, the importance of
meaning has been recognized since time immemorial. In the Vedas, meaning is treated as the
essence of language, and the speech without meaning has been called ‘the tree without fruits
and flowers.’ Ancient Indian scholars such as Katyayana, Patanjali, Vyadi, Vyas, etc. regard
the relationship of word and meaning as eternal.
• There is a good number of semantic theories. Each of them defines meaning in its own
manner. Ogden and I.A. Richards in their book Meaning of Meaning cite no less than sixteen
definitions of meaning. To Ludwing Wittgensteiu (Philosophical Investigations) the meaning
of a word or expression is neither more nor less than its use. Usage, not meaning, is the right
basis. Bloomfield defines meaning as ‘the situations in which the speaker utters it and the
response which it calls forth in the hearer’ (Language, New York : 1933 : 139). According to
Harris, “the meaning of an element in each linguistic environment is the difference between
the meaning of its linguistic environment and the meaning of the whole utterance.
• Linguists and earlier scholars of language often had very clear ideas about the importance of
meaning and the need for its study. There were, to begin with, numerous preconceptions
and false ideas about the nature of meaning which hindered clear thinking, but which it was
difficult to get rid of because of their separable ancestry. One was the tendency to identify
words and things or to think that meaning were somehow concrete entities— words would
be called ‘dirty’, ‘dangerous’, ‘beautiful’, and so on, instead of the objects or events being
referred to. This conception goes back to Plato.

31.8 Key-Words

1. Flat/plain : Flat sounds are those in the pronunciation of which there is a gradual
widening of the resonator either in the front or the back of the oral cavity.
When the resonator is narrow, we have plain sounds.
2. Sharp/plain : Platalisation occurs in sharp sounds when there is an ‘upward shift of some
of the upper frequency components’. Back part of the mouth resonator is
dilated, while palatalisation restricts the cavity. This is not distinctive in
English.
3. Diaphone : The term diaphone is suggested to denote a sound used by one group of
speakers together with other sounds which it consistently in the
pronunciation of other speaker”. Again, Jones says - “A family of sounds
consisting of an ‘average’ sound used by many speakers in a given word
together with deviations from this used as equivalents by other speakers
may be called a “diaphone”
31.9 Review Questions

1. What is semantics ?
2. State the major difficulties faced in the study of meaning.
3. Distinguish between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning.

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