Republic of Iraq

Ministry of Higher Education

And Scientific Research
University of Kerbala
College of Education for Human Sciences
Department of English

Language and the Real World

Types of Semantics

By:

Huda Hameed Jacop

Supervised by:

Asst. Prof. Dr. Tawfeeq Majeed Ahmed

Sep. 2023
Language and the real world

It is difficult relating language to external world and it arise from the

fact that the way that we see the world is to some degree dependent
on language we use. Human categorize the objects of our experience
with the aid of language. Sapir suggests that the world that we live "is to
large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the
group" His view was expanded by Whorf and become Sapir-Wharf
hypothesis. They suggest that we are unaware of the language around us
as we are unaware of air. Also he states that there are several words for
one thing, for example Eskimo have 4 words for snow and in Arabic there
are several words for camel. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world'
is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the
group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as
representing the same social reality ( Palmer , 1981).

In every language there are words like tree and run and red which
seem to have an obvious relation to objects and events and descriptions of
things in the world around us. Children learning their native language
first learn words in association with observable items and situations and
events. This simple fact can give rise to an overly simple idea about what
‘meaning’ is. We are likely to think that a language consists of a large
number of words and each of these words has a direct correlation with
something outside of language, which is its meaning. And since, if we
communicate with one another through language, it must be that we all
have the same ‘idea’ or ‘concept’ associated with each word. The best
known elaboration of this view was made by Ogden and Richards
(1923), who developed THE DIMENSIONS OF MEANING a
mentalistic theory about meaning, an attempt to explain meaning in terms
of what is in people’s minds. Their explanation centers around this
scheme: (object , word and concept ) Ogden and Richards called the
bond between word and concept an ‘association,’ the bond between
concept and object ‘reference,’ and the bond between object and word
‘meaning (Kreidler, 1998).
 When we hear or read a word, we often form a mental picture of what
the word represents, and so we are apt to equate ‘concept’ with a mental
picture. To be sure, it is easier to form a mental picture for some words,
DOOR, for example, than for others such as ORDINARY or PROBLEM
or PRETEND. But the idea of a mental picture is misleading. What
mental image do you form for DOOR? A revolving door? A folding
door? A sliding door, moving horizontally? An overhead door which
moves vertically? A door turning on hinges? Is it in a wall, or on a
cabinet, or part of a car? Clearly the meaning of door is more than what is
included in a single image, and your knowledge of these words is much
more than the ability to relate them to single objects. You can use these
words successfully in a large number of situations because you have the
knowledge that makes this possible (Kreidler, 1998).

For the linguist, as for the philosopher, a crucial difficulty lies in

drawing a boundary not simply between sense and nonsense, but between
the kind of nonsense which arises from contradicting what we know
about language and meaning, and the kind of nonsense which comes from
contradicting what we know about the real world (Leech ,1975).

The example sentences (1) "My uncle always sleeps standing on one
toe" and (2) "My uncle always sleeps awake" are used to illustrate this
difference. Sentence (1) is considered unbelievable because it contradicts
what we know about the physical world and the posture required for
sleep. Sentence (2) is seen as pointing to the unimaginable because it
involves a contradiction between the meanings of "sleep" and "awake,"
making it absurd in a different way (Leech ,1975).

So drawing an analogy between the rules of a language and the rules of

a game, emphasizing that absurd statements can be disbelieved either
because they violate the rules of the language or because they defy the
laws of the real world (Leech ,1975).
• Types of Semantics

The seven types of meaning are:

)1( Logical or Conceptual meaning

(2) Connotative meaning,

)3(Social meaning,

)4(Affective meaning,

)5(Reflected meaning

)6(Collocative meaning and

)7(Thematic meaning (Leech, 1975).

Here Leech discusses meaning as a whole both sentential meaning and

word meaning.

1 .Conceptual Meaning or Sense: This refers to the logical, cognitive, or

denotative content of language , and it is the dictionary or the literally
meaning of word .

►For example, the meaning of word. "Needle" we can be specified As

Is a thin , sharp and it is work for clothes .

2 .Connotative Meaning: This encompasses the associations and

additional meanings that words carry beyond their conceptual meaning ,
what is communicated by virtue of what language refers to, and it is also
known as emotive , It means a word has more than one meaning

▸These meaning may very from age to age, Society to society,culture to

culture and person to person we call it open ended meaning. For example,
the word. "Needle" is associated with illness and pain.
3 .Social Meaning: It is based on aspects of society when people from
particular society define language in their own way that is called social
meaning. including the speaker's social role, context, and relationships.

►This meaning is based on dialect. The dialect of London is differs from

the dialect of USA in regards of pronunciation ,vocabulary and grammar.

4 .Affective Meaning: the speaker's feelings, emotion and also including

listener's attitude to something through their choice of words or
expressions.

►For example If we talk with motherless child we will be very

emotional and we will talk in very soft manner.

5 .Reflected Meaning: This involves what is communicated through

association with another sense or context of the same expression, often
influenced by how others have used the word .In other word we simply
can say have one sense of word and which give multiple conceptual
meaning .

6 .Collocative Meaning: This refers to the association with words that

tend to occur in the environment of another word, indicating common
word pairings or phrases.

►For example: Pretty and handsome and both have show good looking.
The word Pretty yes for Girl, women and village and other word
handsome use for boy and Male.

7. Thematic Meaning: is type of semantic meaning that is communicated

by the way message is organized in terms of order and emphasis,
contributing to the overall message's tone and focus (Leech, 1975).
1 - Linguistic Semantics

Semantics is a component or level of linguistics of the same kind as

phonetics or grammar. Most of the linguists have accepted a linguistic
model in which semantics is at one end and phonetics at other, with
grammar somewhere in the middle. De Saussure refers to semantics as
signifier. For example if we take the traffic signs, they are
communication with people through sign, for example Red signifying
stopping ( Palmer , 1981).

Sense relations:

Sense is another way of giving the meaning of a word, commonly used

in dictionaries. It involves paraphrasing the word with another expression
that has the same sense or content. For example, "forensic" is defined as
"pertaining to courts of law and court procedures," and "export" is
defined as "to send out from one country to another, usually of
commodities." Sense-for-sense matching is akin to translation between
languages, where different expressions have the same sense ( Kearns ,
2011)

Sense relations are one of important elements with regard to learning

semantics, the study of language meaning. The sense of a word can be
understood from its similarity with other words. On the other hand, it can
also be learned from its oppositeness with other words.

The Meaning goes beyond mere denotation and connotation. It

suggests that a word's meaning is influenced by its associations with other
words, referred to as the relational aspect, and that lexemes (words or
phrases) contribute to the meanings of the utterances they are used in.
This contribution depends on the context and the other lexemes they are
associated with in those utterances, which is referred to as the "sense" of
the lexeme (Kreidler, 1998).

the syntagmatic relations between lexemes, where words co-occur with

other words in phrases or sentences. For example, the word "elapse" goes
with "hour," "second," "minute," and "day" but not with "John,"
illustrating how the meaning of words is influenced by their syntactic
relationships (Kreidler, 1998).
 Furthermore, word meanings can vary with context. For instance, the
word "library" can refer both to a collection of books and the building
that houses them, depending on the context. This illustrates how the same
word can have different senses in different contexts . (Kreidler, 1998).

lexical semantics

Lexical relations refer to the various ways in which words are related
to each other in a language. These relationships play a crucial role in
understanding how words are used and how meaning is conveyed within
a language. Here are some common types of lexical relations:

-Hyponymy: it involves us in the notion of inclusion in the sense that

tulip and rose are included in flower, loin and tiger in animal.

-Synonymy: it is used to mean the sameness of meaning , that is the

meaning of the words is close to each other for example we have the
word govern, we can use control, determine, direct require etc.

-Antonymy: The term Antonymy is used for oppositeness of meaning,

the words that are opposite are antonyms. For example Big X Small, High
X Low. We have not to forget that Antonyms are gradable for example
we have Cold and Hot but between them we have Cold, cool, warm and
hot. Lyon introduced the term complementary, because male is
complementary of female, married is complementary of single.

- Homonymy: Homonyms are words that have the same form (spelling
and/or pronunciation) but different meanings. These can be divided into
two subcategories:

- Homographs: Homographs are words that share the same spelling but
may have different pronunciations and meanings. For example, "lead"
can refer to a metal or mean "to guide".
- Homophones: Homophones are words that have the same or similar
pronunciation but different spellings and meanings. For example, "pair"
and "pear" sound the same but have distinct meanings.

6 .Polysemy: Polysemy occurs when a single word has multiple related

meanings. These meanings are usually connected by a common
underlying concept. For example, the word "bank" can refer to a financial
institution or the side of a river. Polysemy allows for economy in
language use, as related meanings are linked to a single word.

- Co-hyponymy: This relation arises when two or more words share the
same hypernym (superordinate category). For instance, "dog" and "cat"
are co-hyponyms under the hypernym "animal." and, "rose" is a hyponym
of "flower," meaning that a rose is a specific type of flower, Co-
hyponyms help distinguish between different members of the same
category.

-Metonymy: Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word is used

to represent something closely related to it or associated with it. For
example, using "The White House" to refer to the U.S. government or
"the crown" to refer to the monarchy. Metonymy relies on context and
cultural associations to convey meaning ( Palmer , 1981).

The concept of meaning in language, distinguish between lexical

meaning (the meaning of individual words) and structural meaning (the
meaning derived from the way words are combined in sentences). It
emphasizes that structural meaning is mainly related to the syntactic
structure of expressions ( Kearns , 2011)

( paradigmatic and syntagmatic)

Paradigmatic relation, a relation of choice. We choose from among a

number of possible words that can fill the same blank: the words may be
similar in meaning or have little in common but each is different from the
others (Kreidler, 1998).

Syntagmatic relations, the mutual association of two or more words

in a sequence (not necessarily right next to one another) so that the
meaning of each is affected by the other(s) and together their meanings
contribute to the meaning of the larger unit, the phrase or sentence
(Kreidler, 1998).

An important relationship can be seen in syntagmatic relationship for

example between blond and hair, bite and teeth, bark and dog. Then Firth
invented Collocation idea, this is collocation that we don’t need to say
white milk because originally milk is white ( Palmer , 1981).
 This clarifies de Saussure's notion of "value". He states that there is
relationship between the words. For example the knight in chess is called
knight not because of its size, shape, etc but because of its relationship
with other pieces of the board. He makes a distinction between
paradigmatic and syntagmatic. The former we can find substitute words
or linguistics items in a particular environment, but in latter the
relationship contrasts by the virtue of its co-occurrence with similar units.
For example in a red and a green door, the green and red are in a
paradigmatic relationship but each of them is in syntagmatic relationship
( Palmer , 1981).

Since we are used to a writing system that goes from left to right, we
may think of syntagmatic relations as horizontal and paradigmatic
relations as vertical (Kreidler, 1998).

2 - philosophical semantics

Philosophical semantics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the

study of meaning in language. It explores questions related to how words,
phrases, and sentences acquire meaning, how language relates to the
world, and how meaning is communicated between speakers and
listeners. Philosophical semantics seeks to understand the nature of
meaning, reference, truth, and language itself, and it has connections to
various other areas of philosophy, including logic, epistemology, and
metaphysics ( Palmer , 1981).

Most philosophers suggest that many philosophical problems can be

solved by the study of ordinary meaning. Anthropologists are concerned
with language as an essential part of the cultural and behavioral patterns
of the people they study ( Palmer , 1981).

3- Historical semantics

Sound laws, etymology, and the study of meaning change in language,

known as historical semantics. It emphasizes the importance of
synchronic (studying language as it is at a particular time) over
diachronic (studying language through time) linguistics and suggests that
scholars have often made vague statements regarding historical change.
There are examples of semantic changes, such as narrowing, widening,
metaphor, and metonymy. In essence, it highlights the complexities of
language evolution and the challenges in tracing the origins and changes
in word meanings over time. ( Palmer , 1981).

Great deal of work that has been done on semantics has been a
historical kind, the term semantics was first used to refer to the
development and change of meaning. Bloom Field noted a number of
types of word with their traditional names: (Meat, Food) (Town , fence)
(Stove , heated room)

There are several reasons behind changes; the most important reason is
invention. Apart from scientific study of the change of meaning, it is an
obvious fact that people are interested in ETYMPOLOGY, the discovery
of the earlier meanings of words. ( Palmer , 1981).

CONCLUSION

Semantics is a multifaceted field that plays a pivotal role in

understanding language and communication. It involves not only
deciphering the meaning of words and sentences but also exploring how
language interacts with our cognitive processes, social contexts, and the
ever-evolving historical context. The distinctions between sense and
nonsense, as well as the various dimensions of meaning, provide a rich
framework for studying and analyzing language and its profound impact
on our perception of the world. Moreover, the intersection of linguistic,
philosophical, and historical semantics offers a comprehensive
perspective on the complex nature of language and meaning.

References

- Geoffry Leech , (1975), Semantics, London: Penguin Books .

- Kate Kearns, (2011), Semantics, Palgrave Macmillan

- Charles Kreidler, (1998). Introducing English Semantics London:

Routledge

- F.R. Palmer, (1981). Semantics, second edition, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press