Summary chapter 3 semantic

SUMMARY CHAPTER 3

3.1 Reference and Denotation

A denotation is the strict, literal, definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color. Denotation is a translation of a sign to its meaning, precisely to its literal meaning, more or less like dictionaries try to define it. Denotation is sometimes contrasted to connotation, which translates a sign to meanings associated with it.

The denotation is a representation of a cartoon heart. The connotation is a symbol of love and affection.

3.2 Connotation

The connotation of a word or term adds elements of emotion, attitude, or color. The meaning or use of denotation and connotation depends partly on the field of study. A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that some word or phrase carries, in addition to the word's or phrase's explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation.

A connotation is frequently described as either positive or negative, with regards to its pleasing or displeasing emotional connection. For example, a stubborn person may be described as being either strong-willed or pig-headed; although these have the same literal meaning (stubborn), strong-willed connotes admiration for the level of someone's will (a positive connotation), while pig-headed connotes frustration in dealing with someone (a negative connotation).

Here some examples in Bahasa Indonesia

1)      BUAH TANGAN

MK= Ilyas membawa buah tangan dari Jakarta.

MD= Irma membawa oleh-oleh dari kampung halaman.

2)      PANJANG TANGAN

MK= Orang itu ditangkap polisi karena panjang tangan.

MD= Polisi menangkap seorang pencuri di pasar.

3)      BUAH BIBIR

MK= Anti menjadi buah bibir karena malas kesekolah.

MD= Dimas jadi bahan pembicaraan di rumahnya karena kenakalannya.

4)      BERBADAN DUA

MK= Ibu Mia sering makan rujak karena sedang berbadan dua.

MD= Perut ibu saya sudah mulai membesar karena sedang hamil tiga bulan

5)      TANGAN KANAN

MK= Ilyas ditunjuk sebagai tangan kanan oleh bosnya di kantor.

MD= Ilyas adalah orang kepercayaan di kantornya.

6)      KAMBING HITAM

MK= Orang itu selalu dijadikan kambing hitam jika ada masalah.

MD= Andi selalu di jadikan pokok permasalahan jika ada masalah padahal belum tentu dia yang bersalah.

7)      SEBATANG KARA

MK= Kasihan nasib si bungsu,sekarang ia hanya sebatang kara.

MD= Anak itu kasihan sekali sudah tidak punya sanak saudara lagi.

8)      BIANG KELADI

MK = Ternyata si Arif, biang keladi semua masalah.

MD = Semua masalah yang terjadi Amul lah yang menyebabkan perselisihan.

9)      KAKI TANGAN

MK = Di PT. Angin Ribut, Amul sebagai kaki tangan perusahaan tersebut.

MD = Amul Hikma adalah pembantu utama di kantor tempat ia bekerja.

10)   KEMBANG DESA

MK = Semua pemuda mengagumi kembang desa yang cantik itu.

MD = Pada hari ulang tahun kakak mendapatkan kembang mawar yang sangat indah.

3.3 Sense Relations

What a word means depends in part on its associations with other words, the relational aspect. Lexemes do not merely ‘have’ meanings, they contribute meanings to the utterances in which they occur, and what meanings they contribute depends on what other lexemes they are associated with in these utterances. Example John walked and it makes sense to say an hour elapsed. It doesn’t make sense to say John elapsed or an hour walked. Part of the meaning of elapse is that it goes with hour, second, minute, day. But not with John, and part of the meaning of hour, second and so forth is that these words can co-occur with elapse. Part of the relationship is seen in the way word meanings vary with context.

A number of English verbs can be used in two different ways, different grammatical association, and then have slightly different meanings.

Example:   A window broke.      Tom broke a window.

Here what happened to the window is the same, but in the first sentence broke is equivalent to ‘became broken’ and in the second it is equivalent to ‘caused to be broken.’ Adjectives, too, can have different senses. The same term is used for your subjective feelings and for the supposedly objective properties of this item a curious person, a curious object. Example a judge makes decisions: if he is guided by personal whim or choice, the judge is arbitrary (dictionary definition: ‘inclined to make decisions based on personal whim’) but we also say that the decision is arbitrary (dictionary definition: ‘based on personal choice rather than reason’). A lexeme does not merely ‘have’ meaning; it contributes to the meaning of a larger unit, a phrase or sentence.

3.4  Lexical and Grammatical Meaning

Grammatical meaning:  tables, students, houses, jokes - the grammatical meaning of plurality. Every language has a grammatical system and different languages have somewhat different grammatical systems. The component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. E.g. the tense meaning (went, answered, wrote), the case meaning (parents’, sister’s, student’s, etc.).

Lexical meaning is identical in all the forms of the word. E.g. write, writes, wrote, writing, written. The meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions. The meaning (and relations between the meanings) of words. Lexical units, also referred to as syntactic atoms, can stand alone such as in the case of root words or parts of compound words or they necessarily attach to other units such as prefixes and suffixes do. The former are called freemorphemes and the latter bound morphemes. They fall into a narrow range of meanings (semantic fields) and can combine with each other to generate new meanings.

A lexeme is a minimal unit that can take part in referring or predicating. All the lexemes of a language constitute the lexicon of the language, and all the lexemes that you know make up your personal lexicon. The term ‘lexeme’ was proposed by Lyons (1977:18–25) to avoid complexities associated with the vague word ‘word.

(a) go, going, went, gone

(b) put up with, kick the bucket, dog in the manger

How many words are there in group (a)? Four or one? There are four forms and the forms have four different meanings, but they have a shared meaning, which is lexical, and other meanings of a grammatical nature added to the lexical meaning. We say that these four forms constitute one lexeme—which, for convenience we designate as go.

Group (b) presents a different sort of problem. The expression put up with combines the forms of put and up and with, but its meaning is not the combination of their separate meanings. Therefore put up with, in the sense of ‘endure,’ ‘tolerate,’ is a single lexeme. The same must be true of kick the bucket meaning ‘die’ and dog in the manger when it refers to a person who will not let others share what he has, even though he does not use it himself.

3.5  Morphemes

A lexeme may consist of just one meaningful part minimal meaningful part is morpheme. Arm, chair, happy, guitar, lemon, shoe and horn are all morphemes; none of them can be divided into something smaller that is meaningful. They are free morphemes because they occur by themselves. The elements un-, -ist and -ade in unhappy, guitarist and lemonade respectively, are also morphemes; they are bound morphemes which are always attached to something else.

3.6 Homonymy and Polysemy

Homonyms are two or more forms that are identical in speech but have different meanings, e.g. bank ‘a financial instution’ and bank ‘the edge of a stream’. Homographs are forms that are identical in writing but not in speech nor in meaning, e.g. ‘bow’ rhyming with ‘go’ referring to an instrument for shooting arrows and ‘bow’ rhyming with ‘cow’ indicating a bending of the body as a form of respectful greeting. Since a lexeme may have a range of meanings, it is not always easy to decide whether two (or more) meanings attached in a single form constitute two (or more) homonyms or a single plysemous lexeme. A polysemous lexeme has several (apparently) related meanings, e.g. ‘head’. The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is not an easy one to make. Two lexemes are either identical in form or not, but relatedness of meaning is not a matter of yes or no; it is a matter of more or less. Separate entries are necessary when two lexems have comon origin, e.g. ‘pupil’, ‘to poach’ ‘ask’If two homonyms can occur in the same place in an utterance, the result is lexical ambiguity.

3.7 Lexical Ambiguity

When homonyms can occur in the same position in utterances, the result is lexical ambiguity. Ambiguity occurs also because a longer linguistic form has a literal sense and a figurative sense.

3.8 Sentence Meaning

1.      Sentence derives a meaning from lexical and grammatical meaning. For example:

a.       One team consisted of six students from Felman College

1)      Felman College (such an entity exists) because we know the lexical and grammatical meanings

2)      One team: containt information at least one team, paradigmatically related to second team, another team.

3)      Six student: there are at least six student from Felman College

b.      One team consisted of the six student from Felman College

This sentence is more informative than the sentence before

1)      The six students: there are only six students from Felman college.

2.      Declarative sentence: conditions of the sentence true or false (by the truth condition). For example:

a.       Albert Thompson opened the first flour mill in Waterton.

This sentence can be true can be false

1)      It can be true:

 It must exist a person named Albert Thompson and a place named Waterton (presupposition).

There was no flour mill in Waterton before Albert Thompson opened his mill.

2)      It can be false if the condition is contradiction