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semantic field are very important for students of semantics to know. They are universal, in
the sense that the three areas of meaning are the same everywhere in the world. In addi-
tion, they become the basis for universal com- munication. Semantics teachers must not fail
to teach them. It is only after these three kinds of meaning have been taught that other con-
cepts such as connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, collocative mean-
ing, reflected meaning, thematic meaning, syn- onymy, antonymy, homonymy, homophony,
homography, etc. may be taught.
3. Sentence Meaning
According to Devitt and Sterenly 1999, the conceptual meaning of a sentence is stud-
ied through the principle of referent and prin- ciple of structure. The principle of referent re-
fers to the conceptual meaning of the words that are contained in the sentence. The prin-
ciple of structure refers to the organization of the words in the sentence according to the
structural rules. The principle of structure states that a larger unit like phrases, clauses, and sen-
tences are composed of smaller constituent units. The sentence Tom is very tall, consists
of Tom with a referent of an individual with conceptual features of [ + animate ], [ + hu-
man ], [ + male ], [ + adult ], [ + potent ], [ + unique ] and with a functional category of is
very tall
is the predicate with is as a word that shows tense and concord, very as an
adjunct, and tall as the verb that shows a state of more than average height. Tom is very tall
consists of three lexical words with three ref- erents. Tom is an individual with the above
conceptual features, very is an adjunct with a referent of ‘of high degree’ and tall as the main
verb with a referent of ‘a state of more than average height’. The word ‘is’ does not have
a lexical meaning. It is a word only to show inflection, tense and concord. The meaning of
Tom is very tall
is Tom is very tall or Tom is not short
. The following example illustrates clearly
that the conceptual meaning of a sentence de- pends on the referents and structures of the
words: This is a large garden flower and This is a large flower garden
. The focus of
the first sentence is a flower while the focus of the second sentence is a garden.
A sentence is basically a structure of predi- cation. In terms of semantics, a simple sen-
tence consists of a predicate and one or more arguments. The predicates of sentences are of
several kinds. They are:
1One-place predicates
. These are predi- cates with only one argument. Examples:
It is necessary to be aware that, in seman- tics, prepositions are verbs. Prepositions
as verbs are followed by locative nouns.
2Two-place predicates . Two-place predi-
cates are predicates with two arguments. Some examples are:
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The Nature of Semantics D. Wagiman Adisutrisno
3Three-place predicates . These are predi-
cates with three arguments. Some examples are:
4 Ambient predicates . Cook 1989: 73-
75 identifies a fourth type of predicates which are called ambient predicates.
Ambient predicates are predicates without nouns, without arguments. There are
ambient predicates that show states like:
and ambient predicates showing pro- cesses
, like: The conceptual meaning of a sentence is
also studied through sense relations. Sense relations are relations between sentences or
propositions. The kinds of sense relations are: 1
Synonym or paraphrase For example:
The house is large is
the same as The house is big.
2 Entailment
For example: Mr. Smith lost his wife last Saturday
entails Mr. Smith does not have a wife anymore
.
3 Presupposition
For example: Bob has had a hair cut presupposes Bob’s hair is long.
4 Ambiguity
For example: The shooting of the
hunters was regretted has two mean-
ings or two readings.
5 Tautology
For example: My father is older than me
.
6 Contradiction
For example: The clever student is
stupid .
7 Inconsistency
For example: I am an orphan is incon- sistent with I have a father.
8 Anomaly
For example: The orphan’s mother lives in America
or My friend eats a lot of stones
.
4. Utterance Meaning
