Semantic Meaning

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A Semantic Meaning is a meaning that indicates a concept in a semantic relation.



References

2015

  • (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_(semiotics) Retrieved:2015-8-18.
    • Semiotics approaches meaning by studying the signs that make up sign systems. Such an approach goes back to the 4th century with St. Augustine of Hippo, but two 19th Century theorists developed modern notions of Semiotics: Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. They saw standard notions of meaning as being not sufficient enough to account for how language works.

      Sassure's notion of Semiotics drew a hard line between the natural and the cultural. For him, signs were not natural, but were rooted in shifts in culture and symbol use. He applied this to language in developing semiotics but arguing that meaning was not in the object itself, but in the relationship between concept or object signified and the vocal or symbolic referent signifier.

      In semiotics, the meaning of a sign is its place in a sign relation, in other words, the set of roles that it occupies within a given sign relation. This statement holds whether sign is taken to mean a sign type or a sign token. Defined in these global terms, the meaning of a sign is not in general analyzable with full exactness into completely localized terms, but aspects of its meaning can be given approximate analyses, and special cases of sign relations frequently admit of more local analyses.

      Two aspects of meaning that may be given approximate analyses are the connotative relation and the denotative relation. The connotative relation is the relation between signs and their interpretant signs. The denotative relation is the relation between signs and objects. An arbitrary association exists between the signified and the signifier.

      For example, a US salesperson doing business in Japan might interpret silence following an offer as rejection, while to Japanese negotiators silence means the offer is being considered. This difference in interpretations represents a difference in: semiotics

2009

  • (Wikipedia, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_(linguistics)
    • Linguistic strings can be made up of phenomena like words, phrases, and sentences, and each seems to have a different kind of meaning. Individual words all by themselves, such as the word "bachelor," have one kind of meaning, because they only seem to refer to some abstract concept. ...
  • (Huanging & Snedeker, 2009) ⇒ Yi T. Huanging, and Jesse Snedeker. (2009). “Semantic Meaning and Pragmatic Interpretation in 5-year-olds: Evidence from beal-time Spoken Language Comprehension." Developmental psychology 45, no. 6

2008

  • (Crystal, 2008) ⇒ David Crystal. (2008). “A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6th edition." Blackwell Publishing. ISBN:9781405152976
    • Lexis may be seen in contrast with GRAMMAR, as in the distinction between 'grammatical WORDS' and lexical words: the former refers to words whose sole function is to signal grammatical relationships (a role which is claimed for such words as of, to and the in English); the latter refers to words which have lexical meaning, i.e. they have semantic CONTENT. Examples include lexical verbs (versus auxiliary verbs) and lexical noun phrases (versus non-lexical NPs, such as PRO).

1971

1892

  • (Frege, 1892) ⇒ Gottlob Frege. (1892). “On Sense and Reference.” In: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, C: 25-50.
    • NOTES: It includes his famous argument on the distinction between Sense and Reference.
    • NOTES: It presents the example of the two Greek WordsHesperus” and “Phosphorus” that in ancient Greece stood for (invoked the Sense of) the “evening star” and “morning star” which at that time were unknown to have the same Referent: i.e. Venus (a situation that allows for the False BeliefHesperus”≠"Phosphorus"=>True).