Semantics: a coursebook, second edition

U N I T   1
About semantics
7
(3) If one knows the meaning of a word, is one therefore 
necessarily able to produce a clear and precise de
finition 
of its meaning?
Yes / No
(4) Conversely, if several speakers can agree on the correct 
de
finition of a word, do they know its meaning?
Yes / No
(5) Do you happen to know the meaning of the word ndoho in 
the Sar language of Chad, Central Africa?
Yes / No
(6) Would a sensible way to 
find out the meaning of ndoho be 
to ask a speaker of Sar (assuming you could 
find one)?
Yes / No
(7) The word ndoho in Sar means nine, so it is not a particularly 
rare or technical word. Would any normal adult speaker of
Sar be an appropriate person to approach to ask the meaning 
of the word?
Yes / No
(8) If a native speaker of Sar insists that ndoho means nine (or the number
of digits on two hands, less one, or however he expresses it), while a
distinguished European professor of semantics who does not speak Sar
insists that ndoho means ten (or dix, or zehn, however he translates it),
who do you believe, the Sar-speaker or the professor?
..........................................................................................................................
Feedback
(1) No (2) Yes (3) No, being able to give the de
finition of the meaning of a 
word is not a skill that everyone possesses. (Studying semantics should
considerably sharpen this skill.) (4) Yes, it would seem reasonable to say
so. (5) Probably you don’t. (6) Yes (7) Yes, although some speakers,
possibly through shyness or embarrassment, might not be able to give you
a perfectly clear answer. (8) the Sar-speaker
Comment The meanings of words and sentences in a language can safely be taken as
known to competent speakers of the language. Native speakers of languages
are the primary source of information about meaning. The student (or the
professor) of semantics may well be good at describing meanings, or
theorizing about meaning in general, but he has no advantage over any
normal speaker of a language in the matter of access to the basic data
concerning meaning.
English, like most languages, has a number of di
fferent dialects. Just as the
pronunciation of English varies from one dialect to another, so there are also
di
fferences in the basic semantic facts from one dialect of English to another.
Note that we are using ‘dialect’ in the way normal in Linguistics, i.e. to indicate
any variety of a language, regardless of whether it has prestige or not. In this
sense, every speaker, from the London stockbroker to the Californian surfer
speaks some dialect.

PA RT   O N E
Basic ideas in semantics
8
It is not the business of semantics to lay down standards of semantic
correctness, to prescribe what meanings words shall have, or what they may
be used for. Semantics, like the rest of Linguistics, describes. If some of the
basic semantic facts mentioned in this book don’t apply to your dialect, this
doesn’t mean that your dialect is in any sense wrong. Try to see the point of
such examples on the assumption that they are factual for some dialect of
English other than your own.
Almost all of the examples in this book will be from standard English.
We assume that most readers are native speakers of English and hence know
the meanings of English expressions. This may seem paradoxical: if semantics
is the study of meaning, and speakers already know the meanings of all the
expressions in their language, surely they cannot learn anything from
semantics! What can a book written for English speakers, using English
examples, tell its readers? The answer is that semantics is an attempt to set
up a theory of meaning.
Definition A THEORY is a precisely speci
fied, coherent, and economical frame-work of
interdependent statements and de
finitions, constructed so that as large a
number as possible of particular basic facts can either be seen to follow from
it or be describable in terms of it.
Example Chemical theory, with its de
finitions of the elements in terms of the periodic
table, specifying the structure of atoms, and de
fining various types of
reactions that can take place between elements, is a theory 
fitting the above
de
finition. Examples of some basic facts which either follow from chemical
theory itself or are describable in terms of it are: iron rusts in water; salt
dissolves in water; nothing can burn if completely immersed in water; lead is
heavier than aluminium; neither aluminium nor lead 
float in water. Chemical
theory, by de
fining the elements iron, lead, etc., and the reactions commonly
known as rusting, burning, dissolving, etc., in terms of atomic structure,
makes sense of what would otherwise simply be an unstructured list of
apparently unrelated facts.
In the practice section below we illustrate some particular basic facts
about meaning, the kind of facts that a complete semantic theory must make
sense of.
Practice Mark each of the following statements true (T) or false (F).
(1) Alive means the opposite of dead.
T / F
(2) Buy has an opposite meaning from sell.
T / F
(3) Caesar is and is not a meaningful English sentence.
T / F
(4) Caesar is a prime number is nonsensical.
T / F
(5) Caesar is a man is nonsensical.
T / F

(6) Both of John’s parents are married to aunts of mine is in a sense
contradictory, describing an impossible situation.
T / F
(7) If the sentence John killed Bill is true of any situation, then so 
is the sentence Bill is alive.
T / F
(8) If someone says, ‘Can you pass the salt?’, he is normally not 
asking about his hearer’s ability to pass the salt, but requesting 
the hearer to pass the salt.
T / F
(9) If someone says, ‘I tried to buy some rice’, his hearer would 
normally infer that he had actually failed to buy rice.
T / F
Feedback
(1)T (2)T (3)T (4)T (5)F (6)T (7)F (8)T (9)T
Comment Each of the true statements here (and the negation of the false ones) is a
statement of some particular basic fact falling within the scope of semantics.
(We take a rather broad view of the scope of semantics, incidentally.)
Obviously, one could not expect chemical theory, for example, to illuminate
any of these facts. Chemical theory deals with chemical facts, such as the
fact that iron rusts in water. Semantic theory deals with semantic facts,
facts about meaning, such as those stated in the true statements above.
In aiming to discover some system and pattern in an assortment of

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