LIN247H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Semantics, Pragmatics, Semiotics
Document Summary
Semantics is the study of how humans encode meaning in language. Semantics is the nature of language and allows us to see into other people"s minds and lets others see into ours. Semantics is part of a larger domain of inquiry that studies the human ability to use signs semiotics. Entailment is when the truth of one sentence follows logically from another. The meaning of a word is also defined by the other words within the network. The meaning of a sentence is derived via compositionally. The meaning of complex linguistic expressions is built up from the meaning of their component parts and the rules that combine them. If compositionally holds, then the semanticist would account for the meaning of a linguistic expression by first appealing to the meaning of the individual words. An utterance is the very concrete realization of a linguistic derivation a real spoken, written or signed piece of language in context.
