Semantics

    Assalamu'laikum.wr.wb my brothers...i'm so sorry, because i'm late to post to you about our lesson. This lesson becomes in the end of Introduction of Linguistics lesson and now, i want to tell you about it.

    Semantic is one of branch of lingustics and study the meaning. There are many branch of semantics, namely: polysemy, synonymy,antonymy,hyponymy and idiom. Be based on definition of Charles (2002:3) “semantics was the systematic study of meaning, and semantics was the study of how languages organized and expressed meaning. It referred how language was formed and produced meaning which will bring us to meaning concept”. Therefore, the goal of semantic study was to explain how sequences of languages were matched with their proper meanings and placed in certain environments by speakers of the language. It  means that semantics was not just how to build words or sentences and produced language but also how to interpret the language it self.

   Under the subject of semantics we shall deal with the following areas of interest :

1.       The fact that a word can have more than one meaning, for example ball can be both a dance and around objectfor bouncing

2.       The fact thatdifferent words appear to have the same meaning, for example ‘regal’ and ‘royal’ or ‘big’ and ‘large’

3.       The fact that some words can b analysed into components such as adult,female,for example mare implies both adult and female as well as horse

4.       The fact that some words seems to have opposites, for example ‘long’ and ‘short’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ but not ‘desk’ or ‘table’

5.       The fact that the meaning of some words are included in the meaning of others, for example the meaning of ‘vegetable’ is included in that of ‘potato’ and the meaning of ‘tree’ is included In that of ‘elm’

6.       The fact that certain combinations of words have meanings which  are very different from the combination of their separate meanings, for example the meaning of ‘pass’ plus the meanings of ‘on’ do not add up to the meaning of ‘die’ although that is what ‘pass on’ can mean.

The Branches of semantics

Polysemy
 

   The same morphological word may have a range of different meanings as a glance at any dictionary will reveal. Polysemy, meaning “many mening”, is the name given to the study of this particular phenomeon. If we look up the word ‘star’ of conscise oxford dictionary, we find the meanings:

·         Celestial body

·         Thing suggesting star by its shape

·         Principal actor or actress in a company

·         (in card game) additional life bought by player whose lives are lost

Synonymy
 

   Synonymy is the relationship in which two or more words are in free variation in all or most contexts. The closet we come to absolute synonymy is when it belong to different dialecs as with:

British usage       us usage

Autumn                   fall

Estate agent           realtor

pavement               sidewalk

Antonymy

   This is the general term applied to the sense relationinvilving oppositeness of meaning. For our purposes, it will be convenient to distinguish three types of ‘oppositeness’, namely (1) implicitly graded antonyms. (2) complementarity and (3)converseness.
 

1.       Implicitly graded  antonyms refer to pairs of items such as ‘big’ and small’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘young’and ‘old’. In orther words, ‘big’, ‘good’ and’young’ can only be interpreted in terms of being ’bigger’,better’ or ‘younger’ than something which is established as thenorm for the comparison.

2.       Complementarity refers to the existenceof such pairs as ‘male’ and ‘female’. It is chrcteristic of such pairs that the denialof one implies the assertion of the other. Thus if one is not male, then one is certainly female. Notice the difference between gradedantonys of the ‘good’/’bad’ typeand complementary pairs. To say :

John is not single.

Implies:

John is married.

But to say :

John is not bad.

Does not imply:

John is good.

3.       Converseness is the relationship that holds between such related pairs of sentences as:

John sold it to me

And:

I bought it from jhon.

Where ‘sell’ and ‘buy’ are in a converse relationship. English has a number of conversely relatedverbs and so sentence converseness is a common phenomenon:

Jhon lent the money to peter.

Peter borrowed the money from jhon.

Hyponymy
 

   Hyponymy is related to complementarity and incompatibility. Whereas the relationship of implicit denial is called incompatibility, the relationship of implicit inclusion is called hyponymy. The assertion of  hyponym:

This is a rose.

Implies the assertion of the superordinate:

This is a flower.

Idiom
 

   An idiom is a group of words whose meaning cannot be explained in terms of the habitual meanings of the words that make up the piece of language. Idiom involve the non-literal use of language and theycan ce categorised as follows:

1.       Alliterative comparisons:

Dead as a dodo

Fit as a fiddle

Good asgold

2.       Noun phrases:

A blind alley(route that leads nowhere, a false trail)

A close shave (a narrow escape)

3.       Prepodition phrases:

At sixes and sevens (unable/unwilling to agree)

By book or by crook (by whatever methods prove necessary)

4.       Verb + preposition phrase:

Kick the bucket (die)

Pop your clogs (die)

5.       Verb + preposition phrase:

Be inclover (be exceptionally comfortable)

Be in the doghouse (be in disgrace)

6.       Verb + dverb:

Give in (yield)

Put down (kill).

   Those our lesson about semantic and it becomes in the end of introduction of linguistics lesson. I hope this blog can help you to know branches of linguistics and don't forget to show to you a video in order you can more understand about semantic..thank you very much and seee you next time brothers (Y)