Semantic

&
Pragmatics

• Fadhilah Khairani (2022 6012 004)

• Muzhir Rinaldi (2022 6012 003)
BASIC IDEAS IN SEMANTICS

A. Semantics
B. Sentence
C. Utterance
D. Proposition
E. Cleft
A. Semantics
BASIC IDEAS IN SEMANTICS

A. Semantics
The formal study of semantics intersects with many
other fields of inquiry, including lexicon, syntax,
pragmatics, etymology and others, although semantics
is a well- defined field in its own right, often with
synthetic properties.

Semantics is sometimes contrasted with syntax, the

study of the symbols of a language (without reference
to their meaning), and pragmatics, the study of the
relationships between the symbols of a language, their
meaning, and the users of the language.
 In linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of
B. Sentence
one or more words, bearing minimal syntactic

relation to the words that precede or follow it,

often preceded and followed in speech by pauses,

having one of a small number of characteristic neither a physical event n or a physical

intonation patterns, and typically expressing an object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of

independent statement, question, request, words put together by the grammatical

command, etc. rules of a language.

James R. Hurford, A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words

behind various realizations inutterances and inscriptions or

sentence definition is a grammatically
a string of words satisfying the grammatical rules of a
complete string of words expressing a
language for example "he always spoke in grammatical
complete thought. For example, “we are
sentences"
going to learn aboutEnglish”. We are going

to is not a sentences..
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 C. UTTERANCE

An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person,

before and after which there issilence on the part of that
person.

An utterance is the use by particular speaker on

aparticular occasion of a piece of language, such a
sequence of sentences, or a single phrase,or even a
single word.

a) (a) “The plane now arriving is Garuda Airlines”.

b) (b) “Horses”.
c) (c) “Hummmpfh”’
d) (d) “Pxdgytguaargh”.

Carter and Cornbleet (2003:3)

“We do not set out to speak in sentences – in fact, in informal speech we rarely do that – rather, we set out to achieve a purpose
which may or may not require full, accurate sentences”
To illustrate this point, consider the short excerpt below taken from an actual
conversation :

Speaker A: “Lots of people are rolling skating, lots of people do rollerblade”.

Speaker B: “Just running around the city”.
Speaker A: “Mainly in Golden GatePark”.
 “
Therefore, in when discussing utterance in semantics,
a category that includes not just sentence but any
construction that is meaningful in the context in which
it occurs. To differentiate utterance and sentence we
usually use quotation mark (“…”) in written form of
utterance.

“
 D.PROPOSITION
Sentence
Jack‘s girl friend, Jane, who is a nurse,
Proposition is that part of meaning of the
likes oranges.
utterance of a declarative sentence which

describe some state of affairs. The state of Proposition

affairs typically involves or things referred to
(1) Jack has a girl friend.
by expressions in the sentence
(2) Her name is Jane.

(. 3) Jane is a nurse.

(4) Jane likes oranges.

Beside declarative sentence, proposition also

clearly involve in the meaning of

interrogatives and imperatives sentences. In

uttering declarative sentence a speaker

typically asserts a proposition,

for example, “Could you mind to close the

for example, “Could you mind to close the
door, please?”, “Close the door now!”.
door, please?”, “Close the door now!”.
 In short, any sentences
can be expressed in
different utterances,
produced by different
people at different times
and in different places.

Proposition
E. CLEFT

"A cleft sentence is a sentence that is cleft

(split) so as to put the focus on one part of
it. The cleft sentence is introduced by it,
which is followed by a verb phrase whose
main verb is generally be.

The focused part comes next, and then the

rest of the sentence is introduced by a
relative pronoun, relative determiner, or
relative adverb. If we take the sentence Tom
felt a sharp pain after lunch, two possible
cleft sentences formed from it are It was
Tom who felt a sharp pain after lunch and It
was after lunch that Tom felt a sharp pain."
 ese …
o ok at Th
ke A L
Ta

"Jerry went to the movie yesterday."

• It was Jerry who went to the movie yesterday.

• It was to the movie that Jerry went yesterday.
• It was yesterday that Jerry went to the movie.
 It-Clefts & Wh-Clefts
English has many different varieties of cleft constructions, but
the two major types are it-clefts and wh-clefts. Wh- clefts use
"wh" words, which is most often "what" in the construction.
However, why, where, how, etc. are also possibilities.
Examples and Observations

It-Clefts

•It was only last month that I decided to go back to school.

•"It was my father who sent Dyer out to proselyte. It was my father who had the blue-ice
eye and the beard of gold."

•"It was Roosevelt who impetuously blurted out the 'unconditional surrender' ultimatum
at a press conference in Casablanca, to the surprise of Winston Churchill, who was
sitting at his side and who had no alternative but to nod approval."

Wh-Clefts

•"What I needed was a weapon. Other people, hitchhikers, told me they always carried
a little something, a knife or a can of Mace, and I'd laughed, thinking there was no
greater weapon than the human mind. You idiot."

•"Strange, but what I really wanted was a dad who would come down to the police
station, yell his head off, and then take me home to talk about what happened, to come
up with a new plan for how I'd act in the future, etc. All the other guys had that. But not
me. My dad left me alone in jail for the night."
 Conclusion

We shall use the term ‘proposition’, ‘sentence’, and ‘utterance’ in such a way
that anything that can be said of propositions can also be said of utterances, but
not necessarily vice versa, and anything that can be said of sentences can also
be said utterances, but notonly necessarily vice versa.
Thank You
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