Semantic Meaning
A Semantic Meaning is a meaning that indicates a concept in a semantic relation.
- AKA: Lexical Meaning, Conceptual Content, Semantic Content, Referential Meaning, Denotative Meaning.
- Context:
- It can typically represent Conceptual Content through semantic reference to external entities.
- It can typically establish Reference Relations through semantic connections to real-world objects.
- It can typically encode Conceptual Knowledge through meaning structures within language systems.
- It can typically convey Cultural Understanding through shared symbols and social conventions.
- It can typically associate Symbol Expressions with conceptual referents in sign systems.
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- It can often reflect Cultural Context through meaning conventions within specific communities.
- It can often change Meaning Evolution through historical use and contextual shifts.
- It can often connect Multiple Interpretations through ambiguous references and polysemic structures.
- It can often distinguish Word Senses through context-dependent interpretations of linguistic units.
- It can often resolve Referential Ambiguity through contextual clues and pragmatic factors.
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- It can range from being a Denotative Meaning to being a Connotative Meaning, depending on its reference directness.
- It can range from being a Universal Semantic Meaning to being a Culturally Specific Meaning, depending on its cultural boundedness.
- It can range from being a Concrete Semantic Meaning to being an Abstract Semantic Meaning, depending on its abstraction level.
- It can range from being a Literal Meaning to being a Figurative Meaning, depending on its interpretation mode.
- It can range from being a Simple Concept Reference to being a Complex Conceptual Structure, depending on its semantic complexity.
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- It can enable Cross-Cultural Communication through shared reference systems and conceptual overlaps.
- It can support Knowledge Representation through semantic encoding of conceptual relations.
- It can facilitate Linguistic Understanding through meaning associations with symbolic forms.
- It can provide Conceptual Foundations for inference processes and logical reasoning.
- It can differentiate Sign Interpretations through context-sensitive meanings in varying situations.
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- Examples:
- Linguistic Semantic Meanings, such as:
- Word Senses, such as:
- Phrasal Meanings, such as:
- Sentential Meanings, such as:
- Semiotic Semantic Meanings, such as:
- Sign-Object Relations, such as:
- Cultural Symbols, such as:
- Philosophical Semantic Meanings, such as:
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- Linguistic Semantic Meanings, such as:
- Counter-Examples:
- Syntactic Meaning, which concerns structural relations rather than conceptual content.
- Pragmatic Meaning, which emerges from usage context rather than semantic relations.
- Phonological Form, which relates to sound patterns without inherent reference.
- Emotive Expression, which conveys emotional states without conceptual indication.
- Grammatical Function, which signals structural roles without semantic content.
- See: Meaning Carrier, Semantics, Real World, Physical Entity, Semantic Relation, Reference Relation, Sign (Semiotics), Sign Systems, Sign Relation, Sign Type, Sign Token.
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
- 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.
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
- (Shapiro & Woodmansee, 1971) ⇒ Stuart C. Shapiro, and G. H. Woodmansee. (1971). “A Net Structure for Semantic Information Storage, Deduction and Retrieval.” In: IJCAI, pp. 512-523.
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 Words “Hesperus” 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 Belief “Hesperus”≠"Phosphorus"=>True).