Semantics is the study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences. The basic areas of study are the meaning of signs and the
study of relation between different linguistics units. Traditionally, semantics has included the study of connotative sense and denotative reference, truth conditions,
argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis and the linkage of all of these to syntax.
There are some definitions of semantics proposed by the linguists as follows: 1.
Lyons 1977:1 says, “Semantic is generally defined as the study of meaning
”. 2.
Palmer 1976:1 says, “Semantics is the technical term used to refer to the study of meaning”.
3. Hornby 1974:775 says, “Semantics is branch of linguistics
concerned with studying the meaning of words and sentences”. 4.
Katz 1972:1 says, “Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. It is concerned with what sentences and other linguistic objects express,
not with the arrangement of their syntactic parts or with their pronunciation”. It means that generally the basic principle of
semantics is about the meaning.
2.2 Scope of Semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistics meaning. It is not very general agreement either about the nature of meaning or about the way in which meaning in language is
studied, each of which if often very influential in determining which facts of meaning are relevant for semantics.
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The first is the linguistic approach. The students of language or linguists have long been interested in the way in which meaning in a language is structured. There
have been studies of the meaning of words and the semantic structure of the sentences. Some of them also have distinguished between different types of meaning
in the language. The second is philosophical approach. Philosophers have investigated the
relation between linguistic expressions, such as the words of language, persons things, and events in the world to which these words refer. Although there may be
different approaches to semantics, three basic terms seem to be widely mentioned in each of these approaches, i.e. meaning, sense, and reference.
2.3 Goals of Semantics
According to Leech 1981:20-21, there are two questions which must be answered concerning with the goals of semantics theory; what should a semantics
theory do and how should it do it? A semantics theory should attribute to each expression in the language which
the semantics properties and relations. The answer to the second question is that a semantics theory should have at
least two kinds of constraints: a
Semantics theory of natural language should be finite; people are capable of storing only a finite amount of information but they
nevertheless learn the semantics of natural languages.
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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
