b Semantics theory of natural language should reflect the fact, except
for idioms, expression are compositional. It means that their meaning is determined by the meaning of its constituents and their
grammatical relations.
2.4 Sense and Reference
Palmer 1976:30 has defined the reference and the sense as follows: “Reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements, words,
sentences, etc., and the non linguistic world of experience. Sense relates to the complex system of relationships that hold between the linguistic elements themselves
mostly the words; it is concerned only with intralinguistic relations. ”
The sense of a word is the additional meaning attached to the word. When people speak of the meaning of a word, they are usually speaking about one of its
senses, usually what they believe is the primary or central sense. It is not always obvious, however how many different senses should be discriminated for a word.
There are many kinds of sense relations, e.g. those exemplified by narrowwide, malefemale, buysell.
Phrases, like words, normally both have sense and can be used to refer. Thus the phrase The man who is my uncle refers to a certain individual and has a certain
sense which is different from that of The man who married my aunty, although both expressions usually have the same reference. Phrases may, however, have sense, but
no reference. Another example is The present King of Indonesia is bald. We have no trouble comprehending the meaning of this sentence, eventhough Indonesia now has
no King. This sentence has a sense, but hasn’t reference.
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2.5 Meaning
There are some opinions about meaning. For instances: 1.
Bloomfield 1933:139 says, “Meaning of a linguistics form as a situation in which the speakers utter it and response which it c
alls forth in the hearer.” 2.
Lyons 1977:2 says, “ The meaning can be distinguished by the technique of substituting other words in the same context and enquiry whether the
resulting sentences are equivalent.” 3.
Crystal 1980:222 states, “This basic notion is used in linguistics both as datum and as a criterion of analysis: linguists study meaning and also use
meaning as a criterion for studying other aspects of language especially through such notions as contrastivity and distinctiveness.”
By the definitions above, so semantics meaning depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence. The meaning that the speakers say have to express their
ideas, minds and feelings.
2.6 Types of Meaning
