Semantics

  Semantics in Linguistics

 "Semantic is the study of meaning in language...The sound patterns of language are studied at the level of phonology and syntax...How is language organised in order to be meaningful? This is the question we ask and attempt to answer at the level of semantics. Semantic is that level of linguistic analysis where meaning is analysed."

Meaning Concept: "The meaning of meaning, L.KOgden and I.ARichards, give the following lits of some definitions of meaning. Meaning can be any of the following:

1. An intrinsic property of some thing
2. Other words related to that word in a dictionary
3. The connotations of a word
4. The thing to which the speaker of that word refers
5. The thing to which the speaker of that word should refer
6. The thing to which the speaker of that word believes himself to be referring
7. The thing to which the hearer of that word believes is being referred to.

Referent:

Lexical meaning: lexical or word meaning is the meanging or invidual lexical items. These are of twon types: the open class lexical items, such as nouns, verbs, adjective and adverbs, and the close lexical items, such asprepositions, conjunctions and determiners. The open class items have independent meanings, which are defined in the dictionary. The closed class items have meaning only in relation to other words in a sentence, this is called Grammatical meaning which can be understood from a considaration of the structure of the sentence and its relation with other sentences.

Denotative meaning: The logical meaning, which indicates the essential qualities of a concept which distinguish it from other concepts.

AN INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS: Language, Grammar and Semantics  By PUSHPINDER SYAL, D. V. JINDAL

Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest at likeness or analogy between them.

http://www.merriam-webster.com

Polysemy: "The term polysemy is used in linguistics to refer to those words that have multiple meanings related to each other ... different from homonymy which refers to a single word that has two or more meanings that are unrelated to each other...An example of polysemy is the meaning of over in He lives over the mountain. He flew over the ocean, He is over the divorce.

The Semantics of Polysemy: Reading Meaning in English And Warlpiri  Escrito por Nick Riemer

Words Formations

Phonology

• Task 1

"Phonology within linguistic concerned with the sounds of language. more narrowly, phonolgy proper is concerned to the function, behaviour and organization of sounds...as opposed to phonetics more neutral study of sounds themselves as phenomena in the physical world, and the physiological, anatomical, neurological, and psychological properties of human beings that make them." 

Phonology: An Introduction to Basic Concepts By Roger Lass

"Phonetics and phonology deal with many of the things since the both have to do with speech sounds of human language...Phonetics deals with speech sounds themselves how they are made (articulatory phonetics), how they are perceived (auditory phonetics) and the physics involves (acoustics phonetics)... Phonology deals with how these speech sounds can be combined, the relations between them and how they affect each other." 

Introducing Phonetics and Phonology, Third Edition By Mike Davenport, S.J. Hannahs

  

•  Task 2

"The aim of phonology is to demonstrate the patterns of distinctive sound found in a language, and to make as general statements as possible about the nature of sounds systems in the lenguage of the world."

Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics By David Crystal

“The goal of phonology as conceived by generative theory is to describe the following phenomena: (i) the relations among similar but physically distinct sounds that are nonetheless taken to be “the same” in some sense (allophonic relations), (ii) the relations among variants of morphemes as they occur in different contexts, (iii) phonological units of various sizes – features, segments, syllables, feet, and so on, and (iv) language-specific and universal properties of these relations and units.” 

Phonology and Language Use  By Joan Bybee

•  Task 3

Phoneme:  The minimal unit in the sound System of a Language

Letter: A written symbol or character representing a speech sound and being a component of an alphabet.A written symbol or character used in the graphemic representation of a word

Digraph: A pair of letters representing a single speech sound, such as the ph in pheasant or the ea in beat. A single character consisting of two letters run together and representing a single sound

Consonant cluster: A group of two or more consonant sounds that come before (onset), after (coda), or between (medial) vowels. Also known ascluster.There are many CC onset combinations permitted in English phonotactics, as in black, bread,trick, twin, flat and throw.

Allophone: Linguistics: A predictable phonetic variant of a phoneme. For example, the aspirated t of top, the unaspirated t of stop, and the tt (pronounced as a flap) of batter are allophones of the English phoneme /t/.

http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/Consonant-Cluster-Cc.htm

• Task 4

There are 44 phoneme in English, below there are some examples of them.

 

• Task 5

Stress: The relative force with which a sound or syllable is spoken.

   The emphasis placed on the sound or syllable spoken most forcefully in a word or phrase.

Mark the stress of the following words by underlining the syllabus. 

Table - Happy - Geographic - Revelation - Photography - Critical - Greenhouse - Understand

How do we acquire language?

 How do we acquire language?

Acquire a second language must be like natural processes like children in their natural environment, in this way the language with all of the different skills will be normally and with fluency. The teaching of the second language must be simple without complications, teaching not the meanings of the words but teaching the uses of word or sentences according to the context.

As children we can acquire a second language by repetition of sounds and words as a basic form to start, as adult we can start with basic vocabulary, this vocabulary will increase by using them and when we share with other like babies with their parents, then simples words became sentences and then we can develop the most difficult skills such as writing and reading, in this way we can be able to share complete messages, in the acquisitions of the language first or second with the time we can study how to share our message or have a correctly communication.

The fluency of the language is going to increase with the interaction and learning from the society. This is going to be a slowly process it depends on our abilities and needs to communicate our thoughts and message.