Unit 1 Semantics
- 1. BRANCHES OF SEMANTICS ACCORDING TO CRUSE (2000)
- 2. OVERLAP BETWEEN SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS According to Saeed the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is useful, but when it comes down to details it is very difficult to tell the diffeence between speakers meaning and sentence meaning, the problem is how to distinguish speaker’s meaning from sentence meaning, that is what extra meaning is the speaker giving to a particular sentence that, of course already meant something to start with. Saeed links the semantics-pragmatics overlap to the concept of presupposition . The basic idea is that semantics deals with conventional meaning, those aspects of meaning that do not vary much from context to context while pragmatics deals with the individual, context dependent usage. According to Bennet the difference lays on concepts such as implicature and entailment .
- 3. Words, utterances, sentences, propositions and texts A word can be defined as a minimal permutable element. Words are separated by silence and by spaces in writing. We can also describe words as dictionary entries Levels of abstraction
- 4. Saeed:
- 5. REFERENCE, DENOTATION AND SENSE
- 6. .
- 7. FUNCTIONAL MEANING AND CONTENT MEANING. LEXICAL MEANING AND GRAMMATICAL MEANING
- 8. LITERAL AND NON LITERAL MEAN ING
- 9. Contextual meaning : the fact that meaning varies from context to context is one of the most evident problems in semantics. The context disambiguates the problematic interpretation of the words. There is no need to have an extensive variation of meanings, if their interpretation can be fixed by the context in which the word it uttered. Language, as a system of communication maximizes its resources in the most economic way.
- 11. EXTENSION OF MEANING METAPHOR AND METONIMY Lakoff say that metaphors are not only features of certain styles but essential components of human cognition. Metaphors involve three elements: A source domain. Usually concrete and familiar – WAR A target domain. Usually abstract or less well structured- ARGUMENT A set of correspondenes between the two ARGUMENT IS WAR METAPHOR TWO TYPES OF METAPHOR ONTOLOGICAL, INVOLVING TWO ENTITIES IN TWO DOMAINS EPISTEMOLOGICAL, INVOLVING RELATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE BETWEEN THE ENTITIES. METONIMY IS BASES IN CONTIGUITY INSTEAD OF RESEMBLANCE. It relys on lthe actual, literal association between two components between a single domain. The container for the contained. The represented for the representative. It is a resource for a much more economic use of cognition and to highlight relations.