Discuss the concept of Semantics and elaborate Name-Sense-Reference

Semantics is the study of meaning in language. We know that language is used to express
meanings which can be understood by others. But meanings exist in our minds and we can
express what is in our minds through the spoken and written forms of language (as well as
through gestures, action etc.). Phonological, morphological and syntactic processes are
organized in such a way that we can convey meaningful messages or receive and
understand messages. How is language organised in order to be meaningful?

This is the question we ask and attempt to answer at the level of semantics. Semantics is
that level of linguistic analysis where meaning is analysed. It is the most abstract level of
linguistic analysis, since we cannot see or observe meaning as we can observe and record
sounds. Meaning is related very closely to the human capacity to think logically and to
understand. So when we try to analyse meaning, we are trying to analyse our own capacity
to think and understand, our own ability to create meaning. According to Leech, Semantics
concerns itself with:

Giving a systematic account of the nature of meaning

In Semantics, what we study largely concerns with sense and reference. It has been
explained earlier that signs refer to concepts as well as to other signs. A sign is a symbol that
indicates a concept. This concept is the reference, which refers in turn to some object in the
real world, called the referent. The relationship between linguistic items (e.g. words,
sentences) and the non-linguistic world of experience is a relationship of reference as
illustrated in the diagram given by Ogden and Richards. The objects in the real world are
referents, the concept which we have of them in our minds is the reference and the symbol
we use to refer to them is the word, or linguistic item. As we have seen, we can explain the
meaning of a linguistic item by using other words. The relation of a word with another word
is a sense-relation. Therefore, sense is the complex system of relationships that holds
between the linguistic items themselves. Sense is concerned with the intra-linguistic
relations, i.e. relations within the system of the language itself, such as similarity between
words, opposition, inclusion, and pre-supposition. Sense relations include homonymy,
polysemy, synonymy and antonymy. When the linguistic elements and larger structures
relate to the experiential side of communication or the the non-linguistic world of
experience, we are talking of reference. The relationships that hold among elements of
language are known as sense relations. Palmer says:

The dictionary is usually concerned with sense-relations, with relating words to words

Homonyms are different items (lexical items or structure words) with the same phonetic
form. They differ only in meaning, e.g. the item ear meaning organ of hearing is a
homonym of the item ear meaning a stem of wheat. Homonymy may be classified as: (a)
Homography: a phenomenon of two or more words having the same spellings but different
pronunciation or meaning, e.g. lead /led/ = metal; lead/li:d/ = verb. (b) Homophony: a
phenomenon of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings
or spellings, e.g. sea/see, knew/new, some/ sum, sun/son. It is difficult to distinguish
between homonymy and polysemy as in polysemy, the same lexical item has different
meanings, e.g. bank, face: Two lexical items can be considered as synonyms if they have
the same denotative, connotative and social meaning and can replace each other in all
contexts of occurrence. But still complete synonymy is rarely possible. Antonyms are lexical
items which are different both in form as well as meaning. An antonym of a lexical item
conveys the opposite sense, e.g. single-married, good-bad. Another kind of sense-
relationship is hyponymy. Hyponymy is the relation that holds between a more general and
more specific lexical item. For example, flower is a more general item, and rose, lily, etc.
are more specific. The more specific item is considered a hyponym of the more general
itemrose is a hyponym of flower. The specific item includes the meaning of the general.
When we say rose, the meaning of flower is included in its meaning. Rose is also
hyponymous to plant and living thing as these are the most general categories. There are
other sense relations ass collocation, euphemisms, dysphemism and the like. In general, all
these sense-relations are peculiar to a language and every language develops its own
system of sense-relations. In short, the study of meaning and its manifestation in language
is called Semantics and this manifests through sense-relations. Words are tools; they
become important by the function they perform. As a result, words form certain kinds of
relations which are called name-sense relations.

The theory of Componential Analysis in Semantics

Linguistic semantics is also used by anthropologists called ethnoscientists to conduct formal
semantic analysis (componential analysis) to determine how expressed signsusually single words
as vocabulary items called lexemesin a language are related to the perceptions and thoughts of
the people who speak the language.

Componential analysis tests the idea that linguistic categories influence or determine how people
view the world; this idea is called the Whorf hypothesis after the American anthropological linguist
Benjamin Lee Whorf, who proposed it. In componential analysis, lexemes that have a common range
of meaning constitute a semantic domain. Such a domain is characterized by the distinctive semantic
features (components) that differentiate individual lexemes in the domain from one another, and
also by features shared by all the lexemes in the domain. Such componential analysis points out, for
example, that in the domain seat in English, the lexemes chair,sofa,loveseat, and bench
can be distinguished from one another according to how many people are accommodated and
whether a back support is included. At the same time all these lexemes share the common
component, or feature, of meaning something on which to sit. Thus, in the terms of Katz:

The word is broken down into meaningful components which make up the total sum of the
meaning in a word

[MALE] [ADULT]

-------------------------------

Man + +

Woman - +

Boy + -

Girl - -

Word has been analyzed through this method in terms of a number of distinct elements or
components of meaning. Names of Katz and Fodor are prominently associated with Componential
Theory. They tried to describe words in terms of relatively small sets of general elements of meaning
which some are also called Universals. Kinship terms, color vocabulary, words for botanical and
animal world easily lend themselves for this kind of analysis. Sex is one of the parameters in kinship
terminology. So sets like mother-father, brother-sister and uncle-aunt are formed.. The analysis of
this kind allows us to provide definitions for all these words in terms of a few components as man is
= human + adult + male and so on. This analysis is called Componential Analysis. The meanings of
lexemes are analyzed into components, which can then be compared across lexemes or groups of
lexemes. The idea of dividing a lexeme into semantic components is like that of Distinctive Feature
theory. Components have a distinguishing function. They serve to distinguish the meaning of a
lexeme from that of other related lexemes and we show this through a matrix:

This shows that the semantic components [MALE] and [ADULT] serve to distinguish the meanings of
these four lexemes. The semantic domain where Componential Analysis was successfully used
Kinship terminology where we need many semantic components to distinguish the kinship terms.
Here we can add [ASCEND] and [DESCEND] components to show generation older or younger than
the other and also [LINEAL] to show collateral descent. There are two broad types of components:
those that serve to identify a semantic domain and that are shared by all the lexemes in the domain
and those that serve to distinguish lexemes from each other within a semantic domain. The first type
is called Common Component and the second one is called the Diagnostic Component or as in
phonology a distinctive feature. For example, all jugs are containers have bottoms, open mouths and
handles which are the common components, but if one jug is not round, but rectangular, so [SHAPE]
will be the diagnostic component in the domain. There are also Formal Components related to form
of the object and Functional Components related to the function the object plays i.e. sofas, chairs
and bench can be described in terms of form and function. The presence of a component is
represented by [+] the absence is marked by [-] and these are usually binary; but if the components
may or may not be presence, we describe them as [+/-]. This is so, as language is independent and
universal. Katz says:

Semantic components may be combined in various ways in different languages yet they would be
identifiable as the same component in the vocabularies of all languages

In conclusion, These components or categories are not part of vocabulary of language itself, but
rather theoretical elements postulated in order to describe the semantic relation between the
lexical elements of a given language. Within generative-transformational theory, meaning is studied
through semantic features where they deep structures of a sentence and the meaning of words used
in that structure together represent the total meaning of the sentence features mention the
permissible relationship among words e.g. that is a good hope. In order to carry out a semantic
analysis, we put it as: Hope = (noun-abstract-inanimate-non-human-uncount-definite) and
comprehensive meaning emerges.