What is semantic structure

What is Semantic Structure in Linguistics?

WHAT IS SEMANTIC STRUCTURE IN LINGUISTICS?




SEMANTIC STRUCTURE


The study of meaning and its manifestation in language is normally referred to as semantics. Shorter Oxford Dictionary explains the term relating to signification or meaning. Martin Gray defines, “The study of the meanings of words: How words express their meanings and how their meanings have changed in time”. David Crystal states,” Semantic is the major branch of Linguistics devoted to the study of the meanings in language”. The vocabulary of a language contains a number of “Lexical Systems” in semantic structure of which can be described in terms of paradigmatic and syntagmatic sense – relations, or name sense relationships which can be divided into six categories:

1): Synonymy

2): Antonymy

3): Hyponymy

4): Polysemy

5): Homonomy

6): Collocation

1): Synonymy

The simplest definition of this term is that a word with a meaning identical to that of another word. One sense in several names is Synonymy that is two items are Synonymous they have the same sense. Lexical items can be regarded as the Synonymous it they can be interchange without altering the meanings of an utterance. Example The study of meaning and its manifestation in language is normally referred to as semantics. Shorter Oxford Dictionary explains the term relating to signification or meaning. Martin Gray defines, “The study of the meanings of words: How words express their meanings and how their meanings have changed in time”. David Crystal states,” Semantic is the major branch of Linguistics devoted to the study of the meanings in language”. The vocabulary of a language contains a number of “Lexical Systems” in semantic structure of which can be described in terms of paradigmatic and syntagmatic sense – relations, or name sense relationships which can be divided into six categories:

The simplest definition of this term is that a word with a meaning identical to that of another word. One sense in several names is Synonymy that is two items are Synonymous they have the same sense. Lexical items can be regarded as the Synonymous it they can be interchange without altering the meanings of utterance.

i): I saw a madman.

ii): I saw a lunatic.

iii): I saw a maddy.

iv): I saw a insane.

2): Antonymy

Antonymy is the oppositeness in pairs of lexical items where the  assertion of one implies the denial of the other. For example, big and small, little and much, few and many etc. Oppositeness of meaning has one of the most important semantic relations. In many languages there are dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms.

3): Hyponomy

Hyponomy is frequently referred to as inclusion or classification. For example, a cat is a hyponym of animal, flute of instrument, chair of furniture and so on. In each case there is a super ordinate term with reference to which the subordinate term can be defined, as is the usual practice in dictionary definitions.

4): Polysemy

A term used in semantic analysis to, refer to a lexical item which has a range different meanings. E.g. plain= clear, unadorned, obvious. Opposed to Monosemy. A large proportion of language is vocabulary Polysemic. The theoretical problem for the linguist is how to distinguish Polysemy or polysemic. Another type of Polysemy is that created by metaphor e.g. “body, human body, heavenly body, body politic. Another example “head” human head, head of the department, bridgehead, head office etc.

5):Homonymy

A term used in semantic analysis to refer to lexical items, which have the same form but differ in meaning. For example, “bark meaning the noise, a dog make or skin of a tree.

6): Collocation

While we study the collocation the structure of the vocabulary can be defined as the association of a lexical item with other lexical items. For example ink collocates with words pen, paper, letter and note book. Another example climb collocates with mountain, hill, tree and park.

Conclusion:

Summing up, we can say that the vocabulary of a language contains a number of lexical items, which are used in divergent situation. This structure is also called Sense Relation. They are divided into six sole categories such as Synonymy, Antonymy, Hyponymy, Polysemy, Homonomy and Collocation.

Difference Between Morphology and Syntax

Difference Between Morphology and Syntax

Linguistics is the study of language and its structure. Morphology and syntax are two major subdisciplines in the field of linguistics. Other subdisciplines of linguistics include phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics. Syntax is the study of the formation of sentences and morphology is the study of the formation of words. The final aim of both these fields is to study how meaning is produced in language. The main difference between morphology and syntax is that morphology studies how words are formed whereas syntax studies how sentences are formed. In this article, we’ll look at these fields in more detail.

This article covers,

1. What is Morphology
2. Types of Morphemes
2. What is Syntax
3. Difference Between Morphology and Syntax

What is Morphology
Morphology is another important subdiscipline of linguistics. Morphology studies the structure of words. It specifically examines how words are formed by putting together morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest grammatical and meaningful unit of a language. Different languages have different morphemes and different rules about the formation of words.

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Types of Morphemes
Morphemes can be divided into two basic categories called free morphemes and bound morphemes. A free morpheme is a meaningful unit that can stand alone as a word. In other words, it is a word made up of only one morpheme. For example;

mat, trust, slow, cat, old, fast, bring, man

A bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand alone; it is always bound to another morpheme. Thus, a bound morpheme has no meaning on its own. For example;

slowly, talked, unthankful, blackish

Bound morphemes attached to the front of a word are called prefixes (distaste, untrue, etc.) and bound morphemes attached to the back of a word are called suffixes (valuable, sexual, etc.).

Bound Morphemes can be divided further into two categories called derivational and inflectional morphemes. Derivational morphemes are morphemes that are added to the base form of a word to create a new word.

Example 1:

Able ⇒ Ability

(adjective) → (noun)

Send ⇒ Sender

(verb)→ (noun)

Example 2:

Use⇒ Misuse

Stable ⇒ Unstable

(Meaning is totally changed.)

As seen from these examples, adding a derivational morpheme will change either the meaning or the class of the word.

Inflectional morphemes are a type of bound morphemes that do not cause a change in the meaning or word class: they serve as grammatical markers and indicate some grammatical information about a word.

Laughed –Past Tense

cats – Plural

Swimming – Progressive
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What is Syntax?
Syntax is a discipline of linguistics that studies the structure of sentence. Syntax is the study of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in any language. It pays attention to components such as word order, agreement, and the hierarchical structure of language. The meaning of any sentence in any language depends on the syntax.

For example, the sentences in the English language often formed by following a subject with a verb and the direct object. It is the positions of these words that convey the subject-object relationship. Look at the following sentences.

The cat ate the mouse.

The mouse ate the cat.

These two sentences convey two different meanings although they contain the exact same words. It is the word order of the sentences that affect the meaning of these two sentences.

The parts of a language are divided into different syntactic categories. Most sentences can be divided into two sections called subject and predicate. These two parts are also made of different words. Syntactical classes of words are known as parts of speech.
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Difference Between Morphology and Syntax
Definition
Morphology: Morphology studies the structure of words.

Syntax: Syntax studies the structure of sentences.

Smallest Unit
Morphology: Morphemes are the smallest units in morphology.

Syntax: Words are the smallest unit in syntax.

Content
Morphology: Morphology studies how words are formed.

Syntax: Syntax studies the word order and agreement

Stylistics

Stylistics

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Stylistics is a form of language and means of establishing principles. These principles are capable of explaining particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language such as socialization, production and repetition. Defining stylistics F.L Lucas writes
‘’Style is a means by which a human being gains contact with others, it is personality clothed in words, character embodied in speech’’.

The word ‘stylistics’ has two interpretations. Narrowly it means the use of concepts and techniques of linguistics in studying the language of literary texts like poetry and novels. Broadly speaking it is the study of the aesthetic use of language in all circumstances not only in literature.

History of Stylistics= When we study the history of stylistics, we find that the term ‘stylistics’ is the product of early nineteenth century and it is first used in Grimm’s dictionary in German. In English the noun stylistic is found in 1864, while in French the first example of stylistics is from 1872, when Littre included the word in his dictionary. In our own century, Charles Bally regarding language as an intellectual, psychic and social system emphasized the expressive value of language and came to the conclusion that it was only the effective expression (stylistics) that constitutes the system of language.

Branches of Stylistics= Stylistics, like linguistics has two branches to deal with; sociostylistics and psychostylistics. Socio stylistics studies a literary text from the point of view of the varieties of language which is spoken by the various sections of society. While psycho stylistics deals with the temperament, creative ability and inner potential by which a literary critic expresses himself. So we can say that an author’s psyche can be seen through his imagery with the help of psychostylistics.

Register= In linguistic analysis, different styles of language are technically called ’’Register’’. Register is a style of speech which is suitable for certain professions or occupations. It has typical vocabulary and grammar and used by speakers in a particular context. It is one of the many forms of language and it grows in special circumstances. According to Halliday,
‘’Register is determined by what is taking place, who is taking part and what part the language is playing’’.
Halliday places great emphasis on the social context of register and distinguishes register from dialect. Dialecct is a regional, temporal or social variety within a single language while register is the variety of language that grows when language is used in a particular profession.
Approaches to Style= Enkvist in his essay ‘ On Defining Style’ mentions some approaches to style. They treat style as an embellishment, a set of individual and collective characteristics and as a set of relations among linguistic entities etc.
Style as an Embellishment= Every writer embellishes his writings by using different devices and characteristics of language and this embellishment is called writer’s style. As George Puttenham writes
‘’ Style is a constant and continual phrase and tenor of speaking and writing …..a certain contrived form and quality.’’
Style as a Set of individual or collective characteristics= The mind, person, characteristics, thought and feelings of the writer are called his style. The original thought of a writer cannot be separated from the way of presentation, style. According to Gibbon, ‘’Style is the image of character’’ while Buffon says that ‘’Style is the man himself’’. Thus we can say that style is the set of the characteristics of the writer.
Relationship between Stylistics and Literature= There is deep relationship between stylistics and literature because between true litterateur and linguistics there is no conflict. The real linguist is at least half a litterateur and real litterateur is half a linguist. Stylistics is an attempt to make literary criticism more scientific, methodical, objective and precise and it stresses the need to form a literary grammar of language. Moreover stylistics is the study of the linguistic features of a literary text. In “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language”, Crystel observes that stylistics analysis has attempted to deal with the complex and valued language within literature and he names it ‘Literary Stylistics’.
To cap up our discussion we can say that stylistics is a distinctive term that may be used to determine the connections between the form and effects within a particular variety of language. Therefore, stylistics looks at what is going on within the language; what the linguistic association are that the style of language reveals. Stylistics is the subject which helps to solve the complexity and mystery of style and its importance in linguistics cannot be denied.

Is power a function of speech?
That, in essence, was the core of the Supreme Court decision we know under the
deeply cynical – but curiously not inaccurate – name of Citizens United. Limiting the right of the wealthy to spend
limitless sums of capital on political campaigns was curtailing their right to
speak about issues that matter both to them and the polis.





But capital is not speech –