Unit 8
Semantics

Overview

Semantics is the study of meaning. As you become more adept in your language, you soon notice that there are different ways of wording virtually everything. Although the readings in this unit involve English examples, the work done on semantics in anthropological linguistics has provided important information on the various ways that speakers of different languages categorize and define their reality and express it through language.

Units 3 and 4 touched upon a few aspects of semantics. For instance, distinctive features are called phonemic or morphemic because they result in differences in meaning. Authors who are interested in semantics discuss the analysis of meaning in linguistics and the meaning of discourse. Semantics goes beyond the analysis of language on a word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence basis. Meaning often involves longer segments, and if you have ever analyzed a novel, you know the extent to which discourse can be long and complex.

Objectives

After completing this unit, you should be able to

1. define the following terms
   • redundancy rules
   • meaning postulates
   • ambiguity
   • homonyms
   • synonyms
   • polysemy
   • paraphrase
   • antonyms
   • complementary pairs
   • gradable pairs
   • discourse
   • presuppositions
   • anomaly
   • idioms
   • hyponyms
2. describe semantic features and their role in componential analysis.
3. define a metaphor and explain how it may create ambiguity.