Semantics
المؤلف:
Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham
المصدر:
Dictionary of Semiotics
الجزء والصفحة:
P114
2025-06-28
418
Semantics
The term semantics designates a branch of linguistics which deals with the meaning given to words or syntagms. In other words, semantics concerns itself with a scientific description of the level of the signified in language rather than the signifier.
In the context of semiotic grammar, semantics represents one of its main components, with syntax making up the other. Semantics, here, relates to the three levels of meaning. Firstly, there is abstract or conceptual semantics, which is concerned with meaning at the deep level, the ab quo where signification starts. An example are elementary abstract concepts underlying a text such as 'war' and 'peace', or 'virtue' and 'sin', in other words, terms in opposition forming semantic categories. Their organization and dynamics within a text, however, fall under the heading of syntax.
Secondly, there is narrative semantics, actualizing values on the story level, selecting them and placing them in conjunction or disjunction with subjects, that is, setting up states of being ready to be transformed. The fairy-tale Cinderella, for example, selects happiness and riches as values to aim for, and places these initially in disjunction with the heroine and in conjunction with the nasty sisters. The ensuing narrative programme, on the other hand, the actual process of transformation, in Cinderella's case the achievement of wealth and happiness, is subject to narrative syntax.
Finally, discursive semantics puts values into words by giving them figurative and thematic shape. It is here that we encounter reality effects such as references to the senses (vision, touch, etc.) as well as allusion to concrete or abstract worlds. Using Cinderella again as an example, we find wealth expressed in lavish clothes and sumptuous balls, and happiness taking the shape of the love of a handsome prince. The syntagmatic organization of these discursive elements belongs to discursive syntax.
See also grammar and syntax.
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