1

COURSE SYLLABUS

Course Title Semantics

Code / Credits 06 MKKL / Two (2) SKS

Course

Description

This course aims at introducing the principles of linguistic semantics to those who have a general ideas of what linguistics is

and some familiarity with its traditional division into fields like phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax etc

It deals with the ten aspects of the speaker’s semantic knowledge incorporating anomaly, paraphrases, contradictory,

antonymy, semantic feature, ambiguity, adjacency pair, entailment and presuppositions

The ten aspects of semantic knowledge will be arranged according to the headings intended to introduce the basic concepts of

linguistic semantics: (1) Utterance (2) Proposition (3) Reference (4) Sense relations (5) Semantic roles (6) Lexical Relations (7)

Deixis (8) Anaphora (9) Speech Act (10) Referents and referring expressions (11) Ambiguity and (12) Modality

ofStandard

Competence

To acquire the knowledge of linguistic semantics, and of the ways in which semantic analysis is done, and to have deeper

appreciation of English and better understanding of the nature of the language in general

Weight of

Assessment

Attendance 10 %

Assignment 20 %

Mid Term Test 30 %

Final Term Test 40 %

References 1. Kreidler, Charles W. 1998. Introducing Semantics. London: Routledge

2. Website in Semantics (TBA – to be advised)

Week Basic Competence Topic Sub Topic Indicator References

1 To define the concept of

semantics and list the

aspects of semantic

knowledge

The study of

meaning

The systematic study of

meaning

The nature of language

Demonstrating semantic

knowledge

To define and describe linguistics

semantics

To describe characteristics

of human language

To explain about aspects of

semantic knowledge

Chapter 1

(2 – 5;

8-13)

2 To describe utterance that Language in Utterance and sentence To distinguish between utterance Chapter 2

2

differs from sentence and

the concept of prosody

use

Prosody

and sentence

To describe stress and intonation

which can distinguish meaning

pp 26 – 29

pp 30 - 38

3 To establish the idea of

what

‘reference’ is and how

words are related with each

other

The dimension

of meaning (1)

Reference and denotation

Sense relations

To distinguish between reference

and denotation

To describe the relation of

meaning between words

Chapter 3

pp 42 - 46

4 To distinguish between

grammatical and lexical

meanjngs and the concept

pf homonymy and polysemy

The dimension

of meaning (2)

Lexical and grammatical

meaning

Homonymy and polysemy

To distinguish between lexical and

grammatical meaning

To distinguish between homonymy

and polysemy

Chapter 3

Pp 49 – 51

5 To define proposition and

determine semantic roles of

referring expression

Semantic roles Sentence and proposition

Semantic roles

To define proposition relation to

sentence

To determine the semantic role that

a certain referring expression has

Chapter 4

pp 62 – 70

6 To describe how certain

words relate to one another

Lexical

relations

Lexical fields

Hyponymy, synonymy,

antonymy

To identify sets of lexical items as

lexical fields

To describe the lexical relations in

hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy

Chapter 5

pp 87 – 89

pp 92 – 101

7 To list and explain about

kinds of referents and ways

of referring

Reference Reference and referring

expressions

Kinds of referents and

ways of referring

To distinguish referents- referring

expressions

To list and explain kinds of referents

and ways of referring

Chapter 5

pp 131– 132

pp 135-144

8 MID TERM TEST

9 To describe how the

speaker points with a

language and how shorter

Reference Deixis

Anaphora

To describe how speaker points with

language

To describe how longer expressions are

Chapter 5

pp 144-149

3

Expressions replace longer

ones

replaced by shorter ones

10 To describe how ambiguity

can occur in three different

contexts

Ambiguity Lexical ambiguity

Referential ambiguity

Syntactic ambiguity

To describe ambiguity that can occur

due to lexical, referential and syntactic

contexts

pp 55-56;

151-153;

169-171

11 To describe the types of

utterances that have effect

on the addressee

Speech acts

(1)

Form of sentences and

purpose of utterance

Types of speech act

Assertive,

Performative,

Expressive

To describe the forms of

sentences with purposes

To explain about assertive,

performative, expressive utterances

Chapter 9

pp 176-180

pp 183-189

12 To describe the types of

utterances that have effect

on the addressee

Speech acts

(2)

Types of speech act

Directive

Commissive

Phatic

To explain about

Directive

Commissive

Phatic

Chapter 9

pp 176-180

pp 183-189

13 To distinguish between telic

and atelic predicates

Aspect Telic and atelic To define telic and atelic

predicates

To distinguish between the two

different activities by

looking at the forms

Chapter 10

Pp 206-209

14 To identify expressions that

presupposes the truth of a

predication

Factivity,

Modality

Factivity To identify expressions that are factive

by finding words like regret, resent,

forget, surprising, and remarkable

Chapter 11

Pp 230-233

15 To define modality and

describe possibility, duty,

obligation, necessity

Factivity

Modality

Modality

To describe how different modal verbs

can express possibility, obligations,

necessity etc

Chapter 11

pp 39 -246

16 FINAL TERM TEST