1.2 Semantics - Linguistics
1.2 Semantics - Linguistics
1.2 Semantics - Linguistics
2 SEMANTICS
& LINGUISTICS
Semantics
SEMANTICS andLINGUISTICS
AND Linguistics
• Almost all linguists have, explicitly or implicitly, accepted a linguistic model in
which semantics is at one 'end' and phonetics at the other, with grammar
somewhere in the middle.
Semantics -- grammar -- phonetics
• Language can be viewed as a communication system that relates something to be
communicated with something that communicates, a message on the one hand with
a set of signs or symbols on the other.
• The Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure /sɔːˈsʊər/ or /səʊˈsʊər/, referred to
these as:
The SIGNIFIER (signifiant) and the SIGNIFIED (signifie).
Semantics
SEMANTICS andLINGUISTICS
AND Linguistics
Saussure used the term SIGN to refer to the association of these two, but some of his
more recent followers have, more reasonably, used it for the signifier alone.)
Communication Cycle
Feedback
For Communication, we need
A Communication
Language
System
Something
Message
to communicate
Something to
Signs or symbols
communicate with
SEMANTICS AND LINGUISTICS
• Different communication systems:
1. Human C.S. 2. Mechanical C.S. 3. Animal C.S.
• Language as a System of Communication - differs from other communication
systems.
• Examples are:
Unconscious
knowledge of Actual production
possible and comprehension
grammatical of language in
structures in an specific instances of
idealized speaker language use
Competence Performance
What are they all concerned about?
They are all concerned essentially to exclude what is purely individual and
accidental (speaking or performance), and to insist that the proper study
of linguistics is language or competence.
For example:
(1) Literature
(2) Psychiatric Studies.
Types of Meanings: