№8 лекция
Дәрістің тақырыбы: Semasiology
1. Дәрістің мазмұны:
1. Semasiology as a branch of Linguistics.
2. Types of meaning.
1.Semasiology as a branch of Linguistics.
The branch of the study of language concerned with the meaning of words and word
equivalents is called semasiology. The name comes from the Greek word semasia meaning
signification. As semasiology deals not with every kind of
meaning but with the lexical
meaning only, it may be regarded as a branch of Lexicology.
This does not mean that a semasiologist need not pay attention to the grammatical
meaning. On the contrary, the grammatical meaning must be taken into consideration in so far
as it bears a specific influence upon the lexical meaning.
If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning which words
undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not of individual words but of
semantic structures typical of the language studied and of its general semantic system.
Sometimes the words semasiology and semantics are used indiscriminately. They are
really synonyms but the word semasiology has one meaning, the word semantics has several
meanings.
Academic or pure semantics is a branch of mathematical logic originated by Carnap.
Its aim is to build an abstract theory of relationships between signs and their referents. It is a
part of semiotics – the study of signs and languages in general, including all sorts of codes
(traffic signals, military signals). Unlike linguistic semantics which deals with real languages,
pure semantics has as its subject formalised language.
Semasiology is one of the youngest branches of linguistics, although the objects of its
study have attracted the attention of philosophers and grammarians since the times of
antiquity. A thousand years before our era Chinese scholars were interested in semantic
change. We find the problems of word and notion relationship discussed in the works of Plato
and Aristotle and the famous grammarian Panini.
For a very long period of time the study of meaning formed part of philosophy, logic,
psychology, literary criticism and history of the language.
Semasiology came into its own in the 1830’s when a German scholar Karl Reisig, lecturing in
classical philology, suggested that the studies of meaning should be regarded as an
independent branch of knowledge. Reisig’s lectures were published by his pupil F.Heerdegen
in 1839 some years after Reisig’s death. At that time, however, they produced but little stir. It
was Michel Breal, a Frenchman, who played a decisive part in the creation and development
of the new science. His book “Essai de semantique” (Paris, 1897) became widely known and
was followed by a considerable number of investigations and monographs on meaning not
only in France, but in other countries as well.
The treatment of meaning throughout the 19
th
century and in the first decade of the 20
th
was purely diachronistic. Attention was concentrated upon the process of semantic change and
the part semantic principles should play in etymology. Semasiology was even defined at that
time as a science dealing with the changes in word meaning, their causes and classification.
The approach was “atomistic”, i.e. semantic changes were traced and described for isolated
words without taking into account the interrelation of structures existing within each
language. Consequently, it was impossible for this approach to formulate any general
tendencies peculiar to the English language.
As to the English vocabulary, the accent in its semantic study, primarily laid upon
philosophy, was in the 19
th
century shifted to lexicography. The Golden age of English
Lexicography began in the middle of the 19
th
century, when the tremendous work on the many
volumes of the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language on Historical Principles was
carried out. The English scholars R.C.Trench, J.Murray, W.Skeat constantly reaffirmed the
primary importance of the historical principle, and at the same time elaborated the contextual
principle. They were firmly convinced that the complete meaning of a word is always
contextual, and no study of meaning apart from a complete context can be taken seriously.
Since that time indications of semantic change were found by comparing the contexts
of words in older written records and in contemporary usage, and also by studying different
meanings of cognate words in related languages.
In the 20
th
century the progress of semasiology was uneven. The 1930’s were said to
be the most crucial time in its whole history. After the work of F. de Saussure the structural
orientation came to the forefront of semasiology when Jost Trier, a German philologist,
offered his theory of semantic fields, treating semantic phenomena historically and wit hin a
definite language system at a definite period of its development.
In the list of current ideas stress is being laid upon synchronic analysis in which
present-day linguists make successful efforts to profit by structuralist procedures combined
with mathematical statistics and symbolic logic.
