INTRODUCE OF SEMANTIC

BY LECTURE :
IKOSUSILOWATI, S. Pd., M, Pd

BY GRUP I :

ANDIKA BHAYANGKARA : 216-501-005

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM

UNIVERSITY LAKIDENDE

UNAAHA

2018
 PRELIMINARY

Language is a communication tool that is inseparable from the meaning or meaning of every word
that is arbitrary (arbitrary, changeable, not fixed, whichever likes). This means that there is no
mandatory relationship between the symbol of language (which is sound) and the concept or
understanding referred to by the symbol (Chaer, 2007: 45).

As a dynamic element, language is always analyzed and studied with a variety of approaches, among
others, through a meaningful approach, while semantics are components of language that cannot be
separated from linguistic conversation. Without discussing meaning, linguistic discussion is not yet
considered complete because the actual act of language is nothing but an attempt to convey those
meanings. Meaningless utterances have no meaning at all (Parera, 2004: 17).

Related to "meaning" in a language activity which is a whole unit.

A. Introduction to Semantics.

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences. It focuses on the
conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences in language, not on what a
spaeker might want the words to mean in a particular occasion. It means that semantics only
deals with objective and general meaning rather than subjective and local meaning. It means
that semantics only deals with objective and general meaning rather than subjective and local
meaning. It deals with the reading comprehension of the readers, in how they understand
others and their interpretations. In addition, semantics constructs a relation between adjoining
words and clarifies the sense of a sentence, whether the meanings of words are literal or
figurative.

Linguists and Philosophers invent three ways in definingmeaning. First, by defining the
essence of words or lexiconmeaning, second, by defining the essence of the meaning
ofsentence, and third, by explaining communication process. Therefore based on the above
ways of defining meaning, the study of semantics is broken down into are three levels, in
which they have different and varied theories to analyze each levels, those are:
• Lexical semantic
• Sentential semantic, and
• Speech act semantic

1. Lexical semantic, is semantic which tries to explain the meaning of words or lexicon, it
means that the focus of this level is only in word and lexicon. Before I go to the kinds of
theories in analyzing this level. I want to ask you something. What is the different
between word and lexicon anyway? To differentiate those two terms have a look these
illustration.

a. What is the meaning of "kill"?

Take a close attention to the word "kill" on those two sentences, the first "kill" refers to word
and the second "kill" refers to lexicon. So can you guess what is word and lexicon? Yes
you're right, word refers to phonological construct which carries meaning in which it doesn't
have any context. Meanwhile, lexicon refers to word which is context sensitive, or word that
have context is called lexicon. Therefore you can safely say that every lexicon is word but
word is not necessarily lexicon.

There are generally four kinds of theories in this level, those are:
• Referential Theory;
• Image Theory;
• Conceptual Theory; and
• Componential Analysis Theory.
 2. Sentential semantic, the higher level of lexical semantic, is semantic which tries to
explain the meaning of sentence. Sentence refers to a group of words which contain a
topic and a comment. e.g. "John killed a deer" means that John caused a deer to die. There
are three kinds of theories used to analyze this level, those are:
• Truth Condition Theory;
• Theory of Deep Structure; and
• Theory of Predicate Calculus

3. Speech act semantic, is semantic which tries to explain the meaning of utterances in
language used. There are eight features of language in use, those are:
• Appropriacy
• Non-literal or indirect
• Inference
• Indeterminacy
• Context
• Relevance
• Reflexivity
• Misfire

B. Semantic study of meaning

Linguistic semantics is an attempt to explicate the knowledge of any speakers of a language which
allows that speaker to communicate facts, feeling, intentions and products of the imagination to other
speakers and to understand what they communicate to him or her.

C. Semantic Elements

Semantics with signs, syntax relates to the making of signs (arrangement of signs) while pragmatics
relates to the origin, use and effects of using signs in behavior. Classification of signs can be done by:

1. Signs caused by nature, including humans because of experience, for example:

a. The day is burning a sign of rain.

b. Continuous rain can cause flooding.

c. Floods can indicate disease outbreaks and hunger.

2. Signs caused by animals, for example:

a. The dog barks as someone enters the yard.

b. Cats fighting (meowing) with fasting are a sign that there is an outbreak of disease or keribytan (for
Indonesian people in West Java), etc.

3. Signs caused by humans, this sign is distinguished by:

b. Non-verbal, can be divided into 2, namely:

the sign produced by the limbs, known as sign language, for example a great thumbs up, good.

signs produced through sound (sounds), for example whistling happy meanings, calling, wanting to
know, etc.

D. Types - Meanings

1. Lexical Meanings: lexical meanings are true meanings, which are in accordance with the results of
our sensory observations, meaning as they are, meanings in the dictionary.

For example, a lexical horse is a kind of four-legged animal that is usually driven.

2. Grammatical Meanings: Grammatical meanings occur when there is an affixation, reduplication,

For example, riding, the basic word for a horse starts with meaningful riding a horse.

3. Contextual meaning: the meaning of a word that is in a context. For example:

There is no white hair on grandma's head (meaning head)

As headmaster, he must admonish the student.

The meaning of context can also be related to the context of the situation, namely the place, time and
environment of the use of the language, for example: what is three times four? If the question is asked
to the elementary school the answer is twelve, but if it is addressed to the photographer the answer is
two hundred or three hundred, because the question refers to the cost of making a photo pass that is
three times four centimeters in size.

4. Referential meaning is a meaning that is directly related to reality or referent (reference),

1) the person slaps a person

2) the person slapped him

In (1) people 1 mean the difference between people because people 1 as actors and people as
experience, while in (2) people have the same referential meaning as people1 and people because they
refer to the same concept.
5. The cognitive meaning ; also called denotative meaning is the meaning that shows the relationship
between the concept and the real world. Cognitive meaning is not only possessed by words that point
to real objects, but also refers to forms whose cognitive meaning, among others, here, here and there.

For example, people are mercenary.

6. connotative meanings ; are negative meanings, for example flowery to not know while meanings
while emotive meanings are positive meanings, for example he is a flower in that village.

7. Conceptual meaning ; is the meaning possessed by a lexeme regardless of any context or

For example Kuda has a conceptual type of four-legged animal that can be driven.

8. Associative meaning ; is the meaning possessed by a lexeme or word with regard to the
relationship of the word to something that is outside the language.

for example the word jasmine is associated with saint or chastity, the word red associates boldly.

9. The meaning of idioms ; is a lexical meaning formed from several words. Words arranged in other
combinations of words can also produce different meanings.

for example a green table means a court, toiling means working hard.

10. The meaning of proverb; is a meaning that is almost similar to the meaning of idioms, but there
are differences, the meaning of preaching is meaning that can still be traced from the meaning of the
elements because there is an association between the original meaning and meaning as a proverb,
while idiom cannot be predicted.

For example, like dogs and cats which means two people who never get along. This meaning has an
association that animals that are called dogs and cats if they speak are always fighting, never peaceful.
 CONCLUSION

Semantics is a branch of linguistics dealing with the meaning of words, phrases and sentences,
however, contrary to pragmatics it does not analyze the intended speaker meaning, or what words
denote on a given occasion, but the objective, conventional meaning.

A sentence is a group of words that are put together to mean something. A sentence is the basic unit
of language which expresses a complete thought. It does this by following the grammatical rules of
syntax. An Utterance is any sound of talk, that human produce. To differentiate utterance and
sentence, we usually use quotation mark (“….“) in written form of utterance.

A Proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes
some state of affairs. Besides declarative sentence, proposition also clearly involved in the meaning of
interrogatives and imperative sentences.

Reference is relation between piece of language and the things in the world. A referent is concrete
object or concept that is designated by a word or expression. Sense : its place in a system of semantic
relationships with other expressions in the language. Sense consists of 'semantic properties'.