This
article is also the answer to the statement given below.
Palmer debunks the assumption that semantics deals only with
presenting factual information or true/false propositions. Rather he suggests at
least six other kinds of meanings that fall under the purview of semantics.
If we talk about the meaning, one can see that there are two types
of meaning. One is the lexical meaning, and the other is the grammatical
meaning. Lexical meanings are meanings of isolated words or meanings of content
words. Grammatical meaning deals with the meanings of the words when they occur
grammatically in a sentence. These are according to the principle of
compositionality, which means that the sentence's meaning is based on the
particles or elements it has. But some problems are faced by the principle of
compositionality. Sometimes sentence gives different and more meanings from the
words it contains, and these meanings are other than these lexical and
grammatical meanings. These meanings are pragmatic in nature. These meanings
are of 6 kinds. All of them are explained further with examples.
1. Prosodic and Paralinguistic Features:
Prosodic features are intonation and stress. Paralinguistic
features are loudness, facial expressions, body language, gestures, and others.
So when these features combine with the sentence, that sentence will give a
meaning beyond the meaning of the words it contains.
Examples:
1. If someone
asks about something you do not like and you say I love it (meaning is
opposite) a bad expression on his face means that the meaning is the
opposite of what you have said.
2. Someone is
explaining something, and the other person says yes (meaning is opposite)
with anxiety on his face. In this answer, the meaning is the opposite.
2. Use of Various Devices and Techniques in a Sentence:
The use of various devices and techniques in sentences such as
intonation, structure, or word order, and to use these is to signal something
most important, which is new or contrastive. So after using these devices and
techniques, there will be a change in the meaning.
Examples:
1. If someone
says she BOUGHT a car. In this sentence, Bought is written bold
and in the capital, which means that the speaker gives intonation on this word
while uttering this sentence to specify it to give focus on it.
2. This example
is related to word order: Sometimes, we change the word order of a sentence to
change the focus of the sentence. I would like to have tea: Tea, I would
like to have. So the tea is focused on in the second sentence by changing
the word order.
3. Sentence and Different Speech Acts:
Sometimes while uttering a sentence, a person may perform different
speech acts. These are called utterance meanings. These speech acts change the
meaning of a sentence from the basic level to another level.
Examples:
1. If two boys
are talking in the class and the third one says to them. The teacher is
looking at you. So the sentence meaning is general information, but the
utterance meaning is a warning. And this a kind of a speech act.
2. If a teacher
is teaching in a room with a door closed and suddenly says that there is so
much suffocation. So the sentence meaning is general info, but the
utterance meaning is the request to open the door.
4. Sentence and Implicatures:
Sometimes sentences may mean more than whatever their words are.
Example:
1. If somebody
asks a person about their CR's performance in class, he replies: He is a
good boy.
His reply communicates something inadequate by saying something good
in the given context because whatever he says about the CR is irrelevant. His
sentence implicates that he is a good boy but not a good student. The
implicated meaning is different from the sentence meaning. In these kinds of
utterances, implicature is different from what is said.
5. Sentences and Presuppositions:
Sentences have meaningful relations with other sentences. One
sentence may also presuppose the meaning of another sentence.
Example:
His brother has stopped playing cricket. It presupposes two things:
a) He has a
brother.
b) He was a
cricketer, and he used to play cricket.
A presupposition is signaled by a word or grammatical construction
that is called a trigger. In the above example, the words "His and
Stop" trigger the presupposition that He has a brother who has stopped
playing cricket.
6. Sentences and Phatic Communion:
Language does not always give factual information. Sometimes it is
used for establishing and maintaining social relations.
Example:
How are you? Speakers use
language not to ask about the health of the participant but they want to
establish or strengthen the social bond.
These all above are the six
different types of semantic meaning.
