Meaning Properties And Meaning Relations Found In Amiri Baraka’s Essay ‘I Will Not Apologize, I Will Not Resign’

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 What is Semantics?

  Semantics is a branch of linguistics study. As general terms, it has many agreements about the way to describe meaning of a word of a language. By studying Semantic, we will be able not only to hear a word told by everyone, but also to know the real meaning of the word he/ she has told us. The term Semantic is known since 1984 by American Philological Association in an article named “Reflected Meanings: A point in Semantics”. The history of Semantic can be read in an Article named “An Account of the Word Semantic.

  These are some definitions of Semantic referred by different Linguists:  Saeed (2003: 1) states, “Semantics is the study of meaning communicated through language”.

   Hurford (1983: 1), “Semantic is the study of meaning in language”.  Palmer (1976: 1), Semantics is the technical terms used to refer to the study of meaning.

   Lyons (1977: 1), “Semantics is generally designed as the study of meaning”.  Katz (1972: 1), “Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning”.  Leech (1974: 9) states, “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”.

   Oxford Dictionary, Semantics is the branch of linguistics dealing with the meaning of words and sentences. From definitions above, it could be concluded that Semantic is a study of meaning of a word and sentence.

2.2 Scope of Semantics

  Based on the definitions above, everybody would agree that Semantic is a study of meaning, and the main point of Semantic is meaning itself.

  There are at least two major approaches to know how the way meaning in a language is studied. The first is linguistic approach. The second is philosophical approach. Philosophers have investigated the relation between linguistic expression, such as the words of language and the persons, things and events in the world to which these words refer.

  There are three basic terms of semantics, i.e (1) meaning, (2) sense, and (3) reference.

2.2.1 Meaning

  This word ‘meaning’ is derived from the word ‘mean’. In the Advanced English learners’ Dictionary, meaning is defined as the thing or idea that a sound, word, sign, etc, represents.

  There are many theories about meaning in semantics created by linguists. Basically, the linguists and philosophers discuss meaning in related between language (utterance), thought, and reality. Generally, theory of meaning is divided into referential or corespondencial theory, contextual theory, mentalism theory, and formalism theory. They will be explained below :  Referential theory

  Ogden and Richards (in Parera 1990: 16) state that meaning is the relation between reference and referent which is uttered in language sound symbol, words or phrase or sentence. This theory concerns with the direct relation between reference and referent in the real life.  Mentalism theory

  This theory is contrasted to referential theory. Glucksberg and Danks (in Parera 1990: 17) state “the set of possible meaning in any given word is the set of possible feelings, images, ideas, concepts, thoughts, and inferences that a person might produce when that word in heard and processed.” Usually the proponents of this theory are the psycholinguists.

   Contextual theory This theory is collaterally with relativism theory in semantic inter- language comparison. The meaning of a word is related to cultural and ecology environment the language user from. So, if the word has separated with the context, it will be meaningless.

   ‘Meaning in use’ theory This theory in found by Wittgenstein (1830-1858). He assumes that word is impossibly meaningful for all context because context changes everytime. Wittgenstein (in Parera 1990: 18) states :

  “Jangan menanyakan makna sebuah kata, tanyakanlah pemakaiannya” ( “don’t ask for the meaning of a word, ask for the

  use” ) One of the lacks of this theory is how to decide the concept of “use” well, it is like this theory is the beginning of Pragmatics theory.

2.2.2 Sense and Reference

  Sense and reference are two, though related, but they are very different terms that talks about aspects of meaning. Frank R. Palmer defines sense and reference as following:

  “Reference deals with the relationship between the linguistic elements, words, sentences, etc, and the non-linguistic world of experience. Sense refers to the complex system of relationship iothat holds between the linguistics elements themselves (mostly the words); it is concerned only with the intra- linguistic relations” (Palmer 1976:30)

  (1) The woman who is my mother (2) The woman who married my father

  Phrases, like words, normally both have sense and can be used to refer. The example (1) refers to a certain individual and has a certain sense which could be different from example (2), although both expressions usually have the same reference.

2.3 Types of meaning

  According to Leech in his book Semantic (1974: 23), there are seven types of meaning, they are as followings:

2.3.1 Conceptual or Denotative meaning

  Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the basic propositional meaning which corresponds to the primary dictionary definition. Such a meaning is stylistically neutral and objective as opposed to other kinds of associative meanings. Conceptual meanings are the essential or core meaning while other six types are the peripheral. It is peripheral in as sense that it is non-essential.

  For examples: (3) Father = (+) human (+) male (+) adult.

  (4) Son = (+) human (+) male (-) adult (5) Mother = (+) human (+) female (+) adult (6) Daughter = (+) human (+) female (-) adult

  The aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic representation to a sentence or statement. A sentence is made of abstract symbols.

  Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other sentences. Thus, conceptual meaning is an essential part of language. A language essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. The conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.

2.3.2 Connotative Meaning

  Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression over and above its purely conceptual content. It is something that goes beyond mere referent of a word and hints at its attributes in the real world. It is something more than the dictionary meaning. Still further connotative meaning can embrace putative properties of a referent due to viewpoint adopted by individual, group, and society as a whole. So in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail, prone to tears, emotional, irrigational, inconstant , cowardly etc. as well as more positive qualities such gentle, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking etc. Connotations vary age to age and society to society. For examples: Conceptual meaning:

  (7) Woman = (+) human (+) female (+) adult Connotative meaning:

  (8) Woman = (+) human (+) female (+) adult (+) wearing Kebaya ‘in Java society’.

  (9) Woman = (+) human (+) female (+) adult (+) wearing Kebaya ‘in Western society’.

  The boundary between conceptual and connotative seems to be analogous. Connotative meaning is regarded as incidental, comparatively unstable, in determinant, open ended, variable according to age, culture and individual, whereas conceptual meaning is not like that . It can be codified in terms of limited symbols.

2.3.3 Social Meaning

  Social meaning is the meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social context of its use. The decoding of a text is dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and other variations of language. We recognize some words or pronunciation as being dialectical i.e. as telling us something about the regional or social origin of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the situation in which an utterance is used.

  It is concerned with the social circumstances of the use of a linguistic expression. For example, some dialectic words inform us about the regional and social background of the speaker. In the same way, some stylistic usages let us know something of the social relationship between the speaker and the hearer. Through utterances we come to know about the social facts, social situation, class, region, and speaker-listener relations by its style and dialect used in sentences.

  For examples: (10) “I ain’t done nothing”

  In sentence (10), it tells us about the speaker and that is the speaker is probably a black American, underprivileged and uneducated.

  Another example can be, (11) “Come on yaar, be a sport. Don’t be Lallu”

  In sentence (11), the social meaning can be interpreted that it is uttered by Indian young close friends.

2.3.4 Affective or Emotive Meaning

  For some linguists it refers to emotive association or effects of words evoked in the reader, listener. It is what is conveyed about the personal feelings or attitude towards the listener. In affective meaning, language is used to express personal feelings or attitude to the listener or to the subject matter of his discourse.

  For Leech (1974: 25) affective meaning refers to what is convey about the feeling and attitude of the speaking through use of language (attitude to listener as well as attitude to what he is saying). Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words used.

  For examples: (12) “I hate you, you idiot!”

  In sentence (12), speaker seems to have a very negative attitude towards his listener. This is called affective meaning.

  (13) “I am terribly sorry but if you would be so kind as to make lower your voice a little” In sentence (13), speaker uses a sentence in politeness. Intonation and voice quality are also important here.

  Richards (in Leech 1974:25) argued that emotive meaning distinguishes literature or poetic language from factual meaning of science. Finally it must be noted that affective meaning is largely a parasitic category. It overlaps heavily with style, connotation and conceptual content.

2.3.5 Reflected Meaning

  Reflected meaning and collocative meaning involve interconnection. At the lexical level of language, Reflected meaning arises when a word has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual meaning. In such cases while responding to one sense of the word we partly respond to another sense of the word too.

  Reflected meaning is also found in taboo words. Thus we can see that reflected meaning has great importance in the study of semantics.

  For examples: (14) Daffodils by William Wordsworth

  “The could not but be gay In such jocund company”

  The word ‘gay’in example (14) was frequently used in the time of William Wordsworth but the word now is used for ‘homosexuality’.

  2.3.6 Collocative Meaning

  Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of certain words. Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words.

  For examples: (15) Beautiful (16) Handsome

  The examples (15) and (16) indicate ‘good looking’. ‘Beautiful’ collocates with girl, woman, garden, or flower, etc. ‘handsome’ collocates with boys and men.

  2.3.7 Thematic meaning

  Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis.

  Thus active is different from passive though its conceptual meaning is the same. Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications properly.

  For examples: (17) Mr. Andi donated the car.

  (18) The car is donated by Mr. Andi

  In sentence (17), “who gave away the car “is more important, but in sentence (18) “what did Mr. Andi gave is important”. Thus the change of focus changes the meaning also.

2.4 Meaning properties and meaning relations

  The definition of meaning properties and meaning relations in semantic theory can be thought as a formal explications of our ordinary notions about semantic concepts. For example, our ordinary notions of semantic similarity, ambiguity, meaningfulness, and synonymy are, roughly, that semantically similar expressions are ones whose senses share a feature, that an ambiguous expression is one that has more one sense, that a meaningful expression is one that has a senses, and that two expressions are synonymous in case they have a common sense.

  Thus, since semantic properties and relations are aspects of the structure of the senses formed in the compositional determination of meaning, there is no problem in coalescing the two conceptions of semantic theory into one coherent whole. (Katz, 1972: 34)

  Since meaning properties and relations of an expression are determined by its meaning and since its meaning is given by semantic representations, it follows that the definitions of meaning properties and relations must be stated in terms of formal features of semantic representations. If it is done, there will be an explanation of how the meaning of one expression makes it synonymous with another, or analytic, semantically ambiguous, and semantically anomalous.

2.4.1 Meaning Properties

  Lyons (1977: 57) states “Meaning properties is one of several features or components which together can be said to make up the meaning”. We can say that the analysis of meaning properties is almost the same with componential analysis. We analyze the conceptual meaning of a word or utterances. In the componential analysis of meaning, the analyzed word is written in small letters, and the component is written in capital letters and put in square bracket. There are five kinds of meaning properties, they are meaningfulness, anomaly, contradictory, ambiguity, and redundancy (Leech 1981: 29).

2.4.1.1 Meaningfulness

  The word ‘meaningful’ means having meaning and significances. Any expression of language is meaningful. In order to be meaningful, an expression must obey the Semantic rules of the language as obeying only the syntactic rule cannot end up with meaningful expression and must represent their meaning. So, from this, it can be said that meaningful expression is the word or expression which has meaning and it is not strange or contradiction, and also must obey the grammatical rules. Semantic theory must be able to distinguish and describe about both meaningful and meaningfulness, and must be able to say which expression is meaningful or meaningless. For examples: (19) This is my house.

  (20) He is my brother.

  Sentences (19) and (20) are meaningful. The speaker and listener can easily get the meaning of each sentence, and the meaning is not strange.

  2.4.1.2 Anomaly

  If there is term meaningfulness, there must be term meaninglessness. Jerold J. Katz proposes the term anomaly as substitution of term meaninglessness. A constituent is semantically anomalous just in case it is assigned no readings (the set of readings assigned to its null) -Katz (1972: 49)-

  Katz uses term reading to represent morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. Anomaly happens when the selected features of one member of the construction with it or the selected features are not familiar in the world every day.

  For example: (21) I heard trees whispering.

  Sentence (21) is anomalous because tree is not kind of human, so it has no mouth and when it has no mouth, it will not possibly do a whispering.

  2.4.1.3 Contradictory

  A sentence is contradictory when there is a contradiction of meaning between the constituent expressions. It is impossible for the constituent expression to be true at the same time in the same circumstances.

  For example: (22) I like what I dislike.

  In sentence (22), there is a contradiction. Usually, we hate what we dislike.

2.4.1.4 Ambiguity

  Ambiguity, as ordinarily understood, is a case where there is a problem telling one thing from another, and accordingly, a semantic ambiguity is a case where there are (at least) the two senses required to pose this problem. According to Hurford and Heasley (1983: 121), a word or sentence is ambiguous when it has more than one sense.

  Ullman (in Pateda 2001: 202) divides ambiguity into 3 (three) main forms, they are: a. Phonetical ambiguity

  This ambiguity exist because of the mixing of language sound uttered. It is because the words that are formed to be a sentence uttered quickly, so that it becomes an ambiguity for people about the meaning of the sentence.

  For examples, (23) Love her (24) Lover.

  In both examples (23) and (24), if people say it quickly, it will be ambiguous for which one is used.

  b. Grammatical ambiguity

  This kind of ambiguity usually comes in unit of language named sentence group of sentences or words. Grammatical ambiguity can be seen from 3 (three) sides:

   First possibility, is the ambiguity which is caused by word forming grammatically, such as prefix and suffix that can make a word have two or more meanings, so that it can be confusing.

  For example, (25) Suffix –able In desirable, readable (adjectives), eatable, knowable, and debatable just happens in the same form.

  In English does not always the same meaning. In desirable,

  readable (adjectives), eatable, knowable, and debatable just happens in the same form.

   Second possibility, is like Ullman’s equivocal phrasing and amphiboly (Pateda 2001: 204). Every words form a phrase, but the combination can have more than one meaning.

  For example: (26) I met a number of old friends and acquaintance,

  In sentence (26), the word old here can be related to the old friends or acquaintance.  Third possibility, is the ambiguity that comes in context, individual context or situation context.

  For example: (27) Go!

  The word (27) can have more than one meaning. It can be where do you go? Or why do you go? To avoid this kind of ambiguity, people have to know the context of conversation.

  c. Lexical ambiguity Words in sentences have several meaning, and lexical ambiguity is resulted from polysemous word, or word has more than one meaning. Palmer

  (1976: 67) states that “polysemy is one word with several meanings”. It can be disambiguated by giving further information.

  For example, (28) Glasses

  In example (28), it can be a thing useful to see clearly, or a container for drinking.

2.4.1.5 Redundancy

  In linguistics, redundancy is the construction of a phrase that presents some idea using more information, often via multiple means, than is necessary for one to be able to understand the idea. Often, redundancies occur in speech unintentionally, but redundant phrases can also be deliberately constructed for emphasis, to reduce the chance that a phrase will be misinterpreted. Redundancy typically takes the form of tautology: phrases that repeat a meaning with different though semantically similar words.

  For example: (29) A variety of different items.

  In sentence (29), the word variety has meant a difference in kind.

2.4.2 Meaning relations

  Meaning relations is also called sense or semantics relations. It is the relationships of meaning or sense that may be set up between two individual and groups of lexical items. Semantic or meaning relations have eight terms (Saeed 2003: 63) and that will be discussed in this thesis. They are synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, hyponymy, homonymy, meronymy, member-collection, and portion mass.

2.4.2.1 Synonymy

  The term ‘synonymy’ is derived from Greek word synonymy syn which means with together and onoma means name. So, synonymy means name together.

  Two words or more (together) name the same object, action, event or quality.

  Saeed (2003: 65) states that synonyms are different phonological words which have the same or very similar meaning. Moreover, synonymy is used to mean ‘sameness of meaning’ (Palmer 1976: 59). So, we can say that synonym is when two or more words have similar meaning though they have different phonological and morphological aspects.

  For examples: (30) Beautiful = Lovely (31) Fair = Objective (32) Unhappy = Sad

  The example (14), (15), and (16) are synonymy because the meaning of each word in each example is similar, although the word is different.

2.4.2.2 Antonymy

  In the traditional terminology, antonyms are words which are opposites in meaning. Palmer (1976: 78) in his book states that “Words that are opposite is called Antonymy”.

  Antonymy is often thought of as opposite of synonymy, but the status of the two are very different. For language has no real need of true synonyms, and, as we have seen, it is doubtful whether any true synonyms exist. But antonymy is a regular and very natural feature of language and can be defined fairly precisely.

  Saeed (2003: 66) divides antonym into two, they are:

• Simple Antonym This is a relation between words such that the negative of one implies the positive of the other.

  For examples: (33) Dead >< Alive (34) Pass >< Fail

• Gradable Antonym This is the relationship between opposites where the positive of one term does not necessarily imply the negative of the other.

  For examples: (35) The big ant is likely smaller than the small elephant.

  (36) The thick pencil is likely thinner that the thin boy.

  2.4.2.3 Polysemy

  Sameness of meaning is not very easy to deal with but there seems nothing inherently difficult about difference of meaning. Not only different words have different meanings; it is also the case that the same word may have a set of different meanings. This is called polysemy (Palmer 1976: 65).

  For examples: (37) Crane :

  a. a bird,

  b. a type of construction equipment (38) Present

  a. right now, the current moment

  b. a gift

  c. to show or display (e.g. "Michael was next to present")

  d. to be physically somewhere (e.g. "Stephen was present at the meeting"

  2.4.2.4 Homonymy

  According to Saeed (2003: 64), there is a traditional distinction made in lexicology between Polysemy and homonymy. Both deal with multiple senses of the same phonological word, but homonymy is not invoked if the senses are judged to be related.

  Homonyms are unrelated senses of the same phonological word (Saeed 2003: 63). Palmer (1976: 67) states that homonymy is when there are several words with same shape.

  Homonymy can be divides into two, homophone and homograph. Homophone is word that have the same pronunciation but different in spelling and meaning.

  For examples: (39) Flour /flaυə(r)/ means used for making bread or cake. (40) Flower /flaυə(r)/ means the part of plant.

  2.4.2.5 Hyponymy

  Saeed (2003: 68), ”Hyponymy is relation of inclusion. A hyponym includes the meaning of more general word. Palmer (1976: 76) states that “hyponym involves us in the nation of inclusion in the sense”.

  For examples: (41) Butterfly and dragonfly are hyponyms of animal.

  (42) Sister and daughter are hyponyms of woman.

  The more general term is called superordinate or hypernym. It is the opposite of hyponym. Hypernym is a linguistic term for a word whose meaning includes the meanings of other words.

  2.4.2.6 Meronymy

  Meronymy is a part-whole relationship between lexical items. Meronymy reflects hierarchical classifications in the lexicon somewhat like taxonomic.

  Meronymy differs from hyponym in transitivity. Hyponymy is always transitive, but meronymy is not always transitive.

  For examples: (43) Hole is a meronym of button and button of shirt,

  (44) but hole is not a meronym of shirt

  2.4.2.7 Member-collection

  This is a relationship between the word for a unit and the usual word for a collection of the units.

  For examples: (45) ship (46) tree (47) fish (48) book

  2.4.2.8 Portion-mass

  This is a relation between a mass noun and the usual unit of measurement or division.

  For examples: (49) drop of liquid (50) sheet of paper (51) strand of hair

2.5 Related studies

  In doing this thesis, the writer has consulted and read some information from some researches done before. They are some thesis which are relevant to the topic and support the idea of the analysis. Some of them, are as following:

  Margaretha (2003) in her thesis entitled “An Analysis of meaning properties and meaning relations used in Sidney Sheldon’s novel ‘Nothing Last Forever” found and concluded that there are 5 (five) kinds of meaning properties, they are 20 meaningfulness (39.21%), 7 anomaly (13.72%), 6 contradictory (11.76%), 6 ambiguity (11.76%), and 6 redundancy (11.76%). Meaning relations found are 16 homonymy (16.32%), 39 synonymy (39.79%), and 42 antonymy that is divided into 3 (three), 21 complementary pairs (21.42%), 16 gradable pairs (16.32%), and 6 relational pairs (6.15%).

  Sofyana (2008) in her thesis entitled “Meaning properties and meaning relations in Saul Bellow’s Looking for Mr.Green” found and concluded that there are 5 (five) kinds of meaning properties, they are 112 meaningfulness (82.3%), 6 anomaly (4.4%), 4 contradictory (2.9%), 12 ambiguity (8.8%), and 2 redundancy (1.4%). Meaning relations found are 11 homonymy (32.3%), 10 synonymy (29.4%), and 13 antonymy (38.2%).

  Gultom (2009) in her thesis “An analysis of meaning properties and lexical relations in ‘the Rainbow’ by D.H. Lawrence”, found and concluded that there are 4 (four) kinds of meaning properties, they are 14 anomaly (19.71%), 4 contradictory (5.63%), 10 ambiguity (14.08%), and 43 redundancy (60.56%). Meaning relations found are 7 homonymy (5.51%), 57 synonymy (44.88%), 50 antonymy (39.37%), and 13 hyponymy (10.23%).

  Aginta, Windy (2009) in her thesis “An analysis of Lexical relations and meaning properties in articles in The Jakarta Post Daily Newspaper”, found and concluded that there are 3 kinds of meaning properties, they are 321 meaningfulness (99.37%), 1 contradictory (0.31%), 1 anomaly (0.31%), and no ambiguity and redundancy. Lexical relations found are 8 antonyms (44.44%), 8 synonyms (44.44%), 2 hyponyms (11.1%), and no homonym and meronym.\

  Simbolon, Sherly Kristina (2003) in her thesis “An analysis of meaning properties and meaning relations on Westlife’s songs”, found and concluded that there are 5 kinds of meaning properties, they are 24 meaningfulness (47.05 %), 8 anomaly (15.6%), 4 contradictory (7.84%), 10 ambiguity which is divided into two, 7 lexical ambiguity (13.7%), 3 structural ambiguity (5.88%), and 5 redundancy (9.8%). Meaning relations found are 13 synonymy (30.23%), 7 homonymy (16.27%), and 23 antonymy which is divided into 3, they are 8 complementary pairs (18.60%), 10 gradable pairs (23.25%), and 5 relational opposites (11.62%.)

  Those thesis’s above only analyze only meaning properties and meaning relations in Novel, Short story, Song, and Articles from newspaper, and they found some of meaning properties and meaning relations but in this thesis, the writer focuses to find out meaning properties and meaning relations in essay.