CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 A Brief Review of Semantics Theory
Semantics in general, is defined as the study of meaning. However, meaning covers a variety of language aspects, and there is no general agreement
either about what meaning is or about the way in which it should be described. The term of Semantics is a recent addition to the English language.
Although there is no occurrence of semantick in the phrase semantick philoshophy to mean divination. Semantics has already been since seventeenth century but it
does not occurs until it was introduced in a paper read to the American philological association in 1894 entitled ‘Reflected meanings: a point in
Semantics’. In fact, the term Semantics was not simply to refer to meaning but its
development. In 1900, Breal released his book Semantics: Studies in the science of meaning. It is one of the earliest linguistic books which are treated as the
science of meaning, it was no longer primarily concerned with the development of meaning.
Some definitions of Semantics given by the linguists are as follows: a. Semantics is the study of meaning which is central to the study of
communication, and as communication becomes more and more crucial factor in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more and
more pressing. Semantics is also at the centre of the study of human mind- thought process, cognition, conceptualization- all these are intricately
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bound up which we classify and convey our experience of the world through language
Leech, 1974: 9. b. Semantics is the study of Linguistics meaning, it is concerned with what
sentences and other linguistic objects express, not with what the arrangement of their syntatic parts or their pronounication Katz, 1972:1.
c. Semantics is the technical terms used top refer to the study of meaning Palmer, 1976:1.
d. Semantics is genarally designed as the study of meaning Lyons, 1977:1. e. Semantics is the study of the relationship between linguistic form and
entities in world, that is how words literally connect to thing. Semantics analysis also attempts to establish the relationship between verbal
descriptions and states of affairs in the world as accurate true or not, regardless of who produces the description Yule, 1985:4.
f. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, or sentences in the language or Semantics is the study of the meaning of the language, or
simply, the study of Linguistics meaning Siregar, 1992: 2. From the definitions above, I draw on conclusion that Semantics is defined
as study of meaning which deals with meaning of the words.
2.2 The Scope of Semantics
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