What is semantics?

Dr. Ivana Grbavac, Assistant Professor

University of Mostar
Semantics is …

… a scientific study of meaning.

… the study of meaning in the human
language.
 the meaning of the linguistic
expressions, linguistic entities such as
words, phrases, grammatical forms
and sentences
 the theory of linguistic meaning
“ “Linguistics may be defined as the
scientific study of language, i.e. its
investigation by means of controlled and
empirically verifiable observations and
with reference to some general theory of
language-structure.” (Lyons, 1968: 1)

 theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics,

sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, linguistic
anthropology
 philology - the study of language in written historical
sources; a combination of literary criticism, history, and
linguistics.
 natural sciences : social sciences : humanities
What is semantics?

• Semantics is the study of the relation between form and

meaning.
Basic observation: language relates physical phenomena
(acoustic blast we produce when we speak, chalk
marks on the board, etc.) to meanings
– How do we get from certain brute physical facts to
meanings?
– How do we get from physics to semantics?

The crucial question of linguistics:

How are form and meaning systematically related in an
adequate grammar of natural language?
The form-meaning link
in linguistics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics
___________________________________________________
SOUNDS MEANING

Phonetics studies the physical side of linguistic utterances—the

articulation and perception of speech sounds (articulatory,
acoustic and auditory).

Phonology is the study of the sound patterns of human language.

- Speech sounds as physical entities may be infinitely varied, but
when they function as elements in a given language, as
phonological units, they are highly constrained.
- What are the smallest meaning distinguishing units (= phonemes)
in a given language? Example: cat - sat - bat - mat
The form-meaning link
in linguistics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics
___________________________________________________
SOUNDS MEANING

Morphology is the study of the structure of words and the smallest

meaning-bearing units and how they combine into words:

- allowable combinations of morphemes: un-able, to un-do,

*un-house
- new word formation: to pulver-ize, to woman-ize, to
google
The form-meaning link
in linguistics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics
___________________________________________________
SOUNDS MEANING

Syntax is the study of the formation of sentences, how words are

combined to larger units than words, to phrases and sentences that
are well-formed strings in a given language

*portrait Rembrandt painted that a …

A portrait that Rembrandt painted …
The form-meaning link
in linguistics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics
___________________________________________________
SOUNDS MEANING

Semantics is the study of meaning expressed by elements of any

language, characterizable as a symbolic system.
The form-meaning link
in linguistics
phonetics phonology morphology syntax semantics pragmatics
___________________________________________________
SOUNDS MEANING

Semantics studies literal, context-independent meaning, the

constant meaning that is associated with a linguistic expression
in all of its occurrences
Pragmatics is the study of situated uses of language, the
study of language in relation to the users of language, the
study of linguistic communication as a social activity
Pragmatics is also concerned with how we DO things with
words.

– There are certain utterances that change facts in the

world
I hereby declare you husband and wife.
vs.
*I hereby scramble and fry you.
(This is not how you get your eggs cooked)

Austin. J. 1962. How to Do Things with Words?

What is semantics?
What is meaning?
Meaning

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in

rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I
choose it to mean neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can
make words mean so many different things.’
(Lewis Caroll. Alice through the Looking Glass.
Macmillan 1871)
Meaning
 “We can define the meaning of a speech form
accuratelly when this meaning has to do with
some matter of which we possess scientific
knowledge. We can define the names of
minerals, for example, in terms of chemistry
and minerology, as when we say that the
ordinary meaning of the word salt is sodium
chloride (NaCl), …” (Bloomfield 1933: 139)
Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. London:
George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

 “… word-meanings will escape any cage they

are put in.” (Sampson 1980: 13)
 “Meaning is what we start with, in the use of language,
and where we finish. This should surely also apply in the
linguistics, the scientific study of language.” (Dixon 1984:
583)
Dixon, R. M. W. (1984). The Semantic Basis of Syntactic
Properties. Berkeley Linguistic Society 10.

 “Bertrand Russell once wrote: ‘No one can understand

the word cheese unless he has a non linguistic
acquaintance with cheese,’ i.e. unless he has seen it,
smelled it and eventually sunk his teeth into it. But to that
Roman Jacobson rightly retorted that ‘no one can
understand the word cheese unless he has an acquaintance
with the meaning assigned to this word in the lexical code of
English.”
Mel’čuk, I. A. (1985). Lexicography and Verbal Government.
Folia linguistica – Acta Societas Linguistica Europaea,
Tomus IXIX 1-2.
What is meaning?
‘Aboutness’ of natural language
– A noise that I make when I speak or a scribble that I
produce when I write words in English or a sign-
language gesture I make are physical objects that
convey meanings, they are about something
– We use language to communicate, to talk about things
in the world, people and their properties, relations
between people, events, in short about the way the
world is, should be, could have been …
– The property of ‘aboutness’ of linguistic signs (or
symbols) is one of the defining properties of natural
languages, it is what a semantic theory of natural
languages tries to capture
Where is meaning?
Can we define meanings in terms of their
physical properties?
• The answer is ‘no’.

The connection between a word and what it

stands for is ARBITRARY.
“The ARBITRARINESS of the linguistic sign”
(Ferdinand de Saussure, 1916, Cours de
linguistique générale) is one of the defining
properties of human language.
Where is meaning?

 Indirect relation between word and

world
WORD ←→ CONCEPT ←→ THING IN THE WORLD
house THOUGHT
IDEA
SENSE
IMAGE
Where is meaning?
 Indirect relation between word and
world
WORD ←→ CONCEPT ←→ THING IN THE WORLD
house THOUGHT
IDEA
SENSE
IMAGE

Is it in your mind?
Where is meaning?

Gold is getting more and more expensive.

What idea, concept, thought or image do you

think of when you hear this sentence?

For EVERY PERSON, the word gold evokes A

DIFFERENT PICTURE, IDEA, CONCEPT, etc.; yet that
does not prevent us all from using the word with the same
meaning.
This means that the word gold applies to something
general, or possibly even universal.
Where is meaning?
 Indirect relation between word and world

WORD ←→ CONCEPT ←→ THING IN THE WORLD

house THOUGHT
IDEA
SENSE
IMAGE
Is the concept something
outside your mind that you
somehow latch onto?
Where is meaning?
Where is meaning?
SUMMARY
– The meaning of words cannot be derived from their
physical properties,
– it cannot be reduced to the real-world objects or their
perception, and
– it cannot be reduced to the particular image in my or
your mind.

• The meaning of words is to be derived from the

relations between words, concepts and things in
the real world.
 The Ogden and Richard’s semiotic triangle, The Meaning of Meaning (1923)
 Charles Sanders Peirce (1931)
M. Breal, 1893, semantique

Symbol = sign vehicle, word, term, expression

Thought = concept, sense, the sense made of the word
Referent = what the sign ‘stands for’, the real-world object
Ogden & Richard's (1923) famous triangle of meaning
implies that the referent of an expression (a word or another

sign or symbol) is relative to different language users.

 SEMIOTICS

“ a science which studies the life of

signs at the heart of social life”
(Ferdinand de Sausurre)

“every thought is a sign”

(Charles Sanders Peirce, 1857)
SEMIOTICS
… provides a unifying analysis of various sign systems.

3 kinds of SIGNS:

• INDEX : smoke means fire, a rabbit’s tracks in the snow mean

that the rabbit has recently passed by (NOT arbitrary, NOT
conventional)
- a sign whose form only has characteristics associated with the
real-world object
ICON : bathroom signs, road signs, photographs (NOT arbitrary,
partly conventional)
- a sign whose form has actual characteristics of its meaning, i.e.
icons always bear some resemblance to their referents
SYMBOL: natural language, formal languages like algebraic
languages, programming languages, first order language, etc.
(arbitrary and conventional)
- a sign whose form and meaning are related only by convention
- there is nothing intrinsic or natural that would relate the signifier
to the signified, relationship is arbitrary
________________________________
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