單擊此處編輯母版標題樣式,*,*,*,單擊此處編輯母版文本樣式,第二級,第三級,第四級,第五級,CUIJIANBIN:A Study on Modern English Linguistics Studies L 5,語言與意義,S,emantics Studies,INTRODUCTION,MEANING OF MEANING,THE SENSE RELATION,SEMANTICS,THE REFERENCIAL THEORY,Componential Analysis,Chapter Five,Semantics,Meaning of“meaning,Referential Theory,Sense Relations,Componential Analysis,5.,1.,Semantics,The subject concerning the study of meaning is called SEMANTICS.,More specifically,semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic units,words and sentences in particular.,Meaning has always been a central topic in human scholarship,though the term“semantics has only a history of a little over a hundred years.,There were discussions of meaning in the works of the Greek philosopher Plato as early as in the fifth century before Christ.In China,Lao Zi had discussed similar questions even earlier.,5.,1.,Semantics,The fact that over the years numerous dictionaries have been produced with a view to explaining the meaning of words also bears witness to its long tradition.,Nevertheless,semantics remains the least known area in linguistics,compared with phonetics,phonology,morphology and syntax.,5.2.Meanings of“meaning,The word“meaning itself has different meanings.In this lecture The Meaning of Meaning written in 1923,C.K.Ogden and I.A.Richards presented a“representative list of the main definitions which reputable students of meaning have favored.,There are 16 major categories of them,with sub-categories all together,numbering 22.,5.3.,The Referential Theory,The theory of meaning,which relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to,or stands for,is known as the referential theory.,This is a very popular theory.It is generally possible to explain the meaning of a word by pointing to the thing it refers to.In the case of proper nouns and definite noun phrases,this s especially trues.,When we say“The most influential linguist Noam Chomsky teaches at MIT,we do use“the most influential linguist and“Noam Chomsky to mean a particular person,and“MIT a particular institution of higher learning.,5.4.,Sense Relations,Words are in different sense relations with each other.Some words have more similar senses than others.,The sense of a word may be seen as the network of its sense relations with others.,In other words,sense may be defined as,the semantic relations between one word and another,or more generally between one linguistic unit and another.It is concerned with the intra-linguistic relations.,5.4.,Sense Relations,In contrast,as we alluded to earlier,reference is concerned with the relation between a word and the thing it refers to,or more generally between a linguistic unit and a non-linguistic entity it refers to.,There are generally three kinds of sense relations recognized,namely,sameness relation,and oppositeness relation and inclusiveness,relation.,Synonymy,Antonymy,Hyponymy,5.,5.,Componential Analysis,On the analogy of distinctive features in phonology,some linguists suggest that there are SEMANTIC FEATURES,or SEMANTIC COMPONENTS.,BOY HUMAN,YOUNG,MALE,