Semantics & Pragmatics: Key

Concepts & Definitions

Summary
This document covers the fundamental concepts of semantics (the study of
linguistic meaning) and pragmatics (the study of meaning in context). It
explores different types of meaning, theories that explain how meaning works,
and how speakers use language to communicate beyond literal interpretations.
The material progresses from basic definitions of meaning through major
theoretical approaches (Structuralism, Cognitivism, Generativism) to pragmatic
theories that explain how context shapes communication (Speech Act Theory
and Grice's Cooperative Principle).

Core Concepts of Meaning

What is Linguistic Meaning?
Linguistic meaning is the meaning purely related to the form of language and
meaning occurring beyond the sentence level. It encompasses three main
types:

1. Lexical Meaning
Definition: The meaning of words with reference to their referents in the
outside world.
Example: The word "tree" refers to that representation in nature which is made
of leaves, trunks, branches, etc.

2. Grammatical Meaning

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 1

 Definition: The category and different forms of a lexeme as specified in the
lexicon (e.g., noun, verb, adjective, adverb, article, quantifier).
Examples:

"Girl" (lexical) vs. "girls" (grammatical - plural form)

"Go," "went," "gone" are grammatical meanings of the lexeme "go"

"Sheep" (singular and plural are formally identical but grammatically

different)

Important distinction: Lexemes are divided into function words (limited in

number, like "the," "and," "of") and content words (unlimited, like nouns, verbs,
adjectives).

3. Sentence Meaning
Definition: The function a lexeme can have in a sentence.
Example:

"They designed a new syllabus" (syllabus = direct object)

"The syllabus designers are thinking of a new syllabus" (syllabus = modifier

in compound noun)

The function of "syllabus" differs between these sentences.

Descriptive vs. Expressive Semantics

Descriptive Semantics: Deals with lexical, grammatical, and sentence meaning
- restricted to the verbal component.

Expressive Semantics: Goes beyond lexemes, grammatical and sentence

meaning to include meaning in other semantic contexts.

Types of Meaning
Literal vs. Figurative Meaning

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 2

 Literal Meaning: The exact dictionary meaning a lexeme has.

Figurative Meaning: The meaning a lexeme has beyond its dictionary definition
to create emotional impact through devices such as metaphor, simile, and
hyperbole. Leaves space for interpretation beyond surface meaning.
Examples:

Literal: "The children are swimming in the pool"

Figurative: "Mr. Jones is swimming in money" (metaphor)

Literal: "The fire is spreading"

Figurative: "The fire of freedom is spreading" (metaphor)

Personification: "The chair attacked me" (instead of "The chair fell on me")

Denotation vs. Connotation

Denotation: The literal dictionary definition of a lexeme.
Connotation: The emotional or cultural association connected to the word.

Examples:

Rose: Denotes a flower; connotes love, romanticism, beauty, Valentine's

Day

Sugar: Denotes the sweet substance; in Moroccan culture connotes

weddings, engagement, sweetness

Pray: Denotes the act of worshipping, but its connotation differs between
Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists

Sense Relations
Synonymy
Definition: When two lexemes are identical or similar in meaning.

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 3

 Complete/Absolute Synonymy: When lexemes are identical in expressive,
descriptive, and social meaning (very rare).
Criteria for absolute synonymy:

All meanings are identical

Synonyms work in all contexts

Semantically equivalent in descriptive and non-descriptive meaning

Example: Radio/wireless; aerodrome/airfield/airport (found in technical or

scientific contexts)

Partial Synonymy: Not all three conditions are met.

Examples:

"Find" vs. "found" share the form "found" but not "finds" or "founds"

"Last" as verb vs. "last" as adjective

Partial synonymy can cause ambiguity, which grammar can resolve.

Collocational Range: Another criterion for synonymy.

Examples:

"Big mistake" (correct) vs. "large mistake" (incorrect)

"Do homework" vs. "make a mistake" (not interchangeable)

Context-Restricted Synonymy: Words that are synonymous only in certain

contexts.

Example: "Broad shoulders" vs. "The door is one metre wide" (not "broad")

Homonymy vs. Polysemy

Homonymy: Multiple unrelated meanings of the same word form.

Example:

Bank₁: river bank

Bank₂: financial institution

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 4

 Polysemy: The same lexeme has different but related meanings.

Example - "Neck":

Neck₁: part of the body

Neck₂: upper part of shirt

Neck₃: upper part of a bottle

Neck₄: narrow strip of land

All share the meaning of "small/narrow part of something."

Antonymy
Definition: Oppositeness of sense.
Examples:

Up/down

Good/bad

Hot/cold

Hyponymy
Definition: Relationship between more specific and more general terms.

Examples:

Flower (general) → tulip, rose (specific)

Virtue (general) → chastity, honesty (specific)

Theories of Meaning
1. Verificationism
Proponent: Ayer (1946)

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 5

 Main Idea: "A sentence is factually significant to a given person, if and only if,
he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express."
Principle: All verification is a matter of observation.

Limitation: A sentence like "All swans are white" cannot be verified, but can be
falsified by finding one instance of a black swan.

2. Truth-Conditions
Main Idea: To claim that a statement is true or false is to specify the conditions
under which it would be true or false of the situation or state of the world it
purports to describe.

3. Structuralism
Proponent: Ferdinand de Saussure (1959)

Main Ideas:

Language is a set of autonomous intralinguistic systems of relations

between words

Words are organized around semantic fields, not psychological or cognitive

concepts

Words are not substantial but relational - defined by what they are not

Example: "Long" is known by its oppositeness to "short" (similar to how

phoneme /b/ is recognized by opposition to /t/)

Syntagmatic vs. Paradigmatic Relations:

Syntagmatic Relations: Linear relations between words in the same sentence;

responsible for sentence meaning (horizontal).
Paradigmatic Relations: Vertical relations outside or beyond the sentence level.

Componential Analysis (Lexical Decomposition):

The structuralist approach views the sense of lexemes as atoms or component

parts.

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 6

 Examples:

Man = [+male] [+human] [+adult]

Woman = [-male] [+human] [+adult]

Boy = [+male] [+human] [-adult]

Girl = [-male] [+human] [-adult]

4. Cognitivist Semantics
Context: Late 20th century reaction against Structuralism

Main Ideas:

Word meanings are psychological entities in the human mind rather than
just relations between words

Linguistic knowledge is an integral part of human cognition

Studies language in use

Lexical meanings are associated with the user's bodily, perceptual, and
cognitive experiences

The function of words is to evoke conceptual patterns in the cognitive

system

Meaning is negotiated, dynamic, and context-sensitive (no stable

meaning)

Connects meaning to psychology, sociology, and other disciplines

Words as Domains or Frames:

Some domains are basic or innate (colors, tastes, space, time, emotions).
Example - "Banana":

Specification for space in the spatial domain

A color in the color domain

Location in domains of taste and smell

Abstract domain specifications: grows on trees, comes from tropical areas,

etc.

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 7

 Key Quote: Croft and Cruse (2004): "No concept exists autonomously: all are
understood to fit into our general knowledge of the world in one way or
another."

5. Generativist Semantics
Proponents: Chomsky (1956, 1967); Katz and Fodor (1963)
Main Ideas:

Native speakers can produce and understand an unlimited number of

sentences never heard before

The phonological component is input to the syntactic component, which is

input to the semantic component

There is an underlying (deep) structure and a surface structure of

sentences

Semantic competence: What a speaker knows about the language

structure that enables understanding and use

Speakers must know lexical components and projection rules that

constitute sentences

Grammaticality, Meaningfulness, and

Acceptability
Grammaticality
Definition: The extent to which a sentence conforms to the rules of a
language's grammar (well-formedness).

Examples:

✓ Grammatical: "The dog runs quickly"

✗ Ungrammatical: "The dog run quickly"

Relation to meaning:

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 8

 Grammatical meaning is based on word function in a sentence

Related to word classes (noun, verb, etc.)

Conveyed through semantic roles and word order

Word Order Example:

"He had his car polished" (someone else polished it)

"He had polished his car" (he did it himself)

"Only" placement example:

1. "Only I asked him a question about history" (I was the only person)

2. "I only asked him a question about history" (asking was all I did)

3. "I asked only him a question about history" (him and no one else)

4. "I asked him only a question about history" (just a question, nothing more)

5. "I asked him a question only about history" (about history, not other
subjects)

Meaningfulness
Definition: The extent to which a sentence conveys a meaningful or
interpretable message (semantic well-formedness).
Examples:

✓ Meaningful: "The cat sat on the mat"

✗ Meaningless (but grammatical): "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"

(Chomsky)

✗ Meaningless (but grammatical): "Thursday is in bed with Friday"

Criteria for semantic well-formedness:

1. The speaker's lexical competence

2. Lexemes' syntactic structure

3. Lexical competence includes both:

Inferential knowledge (relation of lexeme to other words in language)

Referential knowledge (ability to map word to outside world)

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 9

 Acceptability
Definition: The degree to which a sentence is considered acceptable or natural
by native speakers, considering context, pragmatics, and sociolinguistic norms.
Examples:

✓ Acceptable: "I'm going to the store. Want to come?"

Less acceptable: "I'm going store. Want come?" (grammatical but awkward)

Factors Affecting Acceptability:

1. Context of Situation

Formal vs. informal language

Situation, purpose, audience

2. Sociocultural Adequacy

"His father died last week" (neutral)

"My father died last week" (personal, requires different response)

"Tu" vs. "vous" in French (informal vs. formal)

3. Rationality and Logical Coherence

"I believe it happened because it is impossible" (illogical)

Relationship Between the Three Concepts:

Grammaticality and Acceptability: A sentence can be grammatically

correct but not acceptable in certain contexts

Example: "Tu dois augmenter mon salaire" (grammatical but

unacceptable from employee to employer in French)

Acceptability and Meaningfulness: A sentence can be acceptable but not

meaningful if it doesn't convey a clear message

Grammaticality and Meaningfulness: A sentence can be grammatically

correct but not meaningful

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 10

 Example: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" (syntactically well-
formed but meaningless)

Example: "The horse raced past the barn fell" (grammatical but difficult
to process)

Speech Act Theory

Founder: J.L. Austin
Main Challenge: Austin challenged the descriptive fallacy - the view that the
only function of language is to make true or false statements.
Austin's Focus: Conventionality, actuality, and intentionality in language use.

Constative vs. Performative Utterances

Constative Utterance: Simply making a statement (describing something).

Performative Utterance: The speaker is performing an act of doing, not just

saying.

Example: "I promise to pay you five dollars" - not stating truth/falsehood,
but committing to action

Explicit vs. Implicit Performatives:

Explicit Performative: An expression that makes the act performed explicit.

"I promise to buy you a bike"

Implicit Performative: The performative act is not explicitly stated.

"I will buy you a bike"

The Three Types of Speech Acts

1. Locutionary Act: The act of performing an utterance itself

Phonetic: Act of pronouncing sounds

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 11

 Phatic: Act of producing words according to phonological and syntactic
structure

Rhetic: Act of producing an utterance with sense and definite reference

2. Illocutionary Act: The force of the act - what you're doing in uttering
something
S does something in uttering an utterance to H (hearer) in context C.
Examples: Stating a fact, confirming, denying, making a prediction, making a
promise, making a request, offering thanks, issuing an order, giving advice,
giving permission, naming a child, swearing an oath.

Austin's Five Types of Illocutionary Acts:

Verdictives: Judgement

Exercitives: Influence or exercise power

Commissives: Assume obligation or declare intention

Behabitives: Adopt an attitude or express feeling

Expositives: Clarify reasons, argument, or communication

3. Perlocutionary Act: The effect of the utterance on the hearer

Speakers want their opinions recognized, assertions agreed with, requests
enacted, questions answered, advice taken, warnings heeded, commands
complied with, thanks appreciated, apologies accepted, etc.

Felicity Conditions
Definition: Conditions that must be met for a speech act to be successful or
"happy" (felicitous).

Austin's Felicity Conditions:

(A.1) There must exist an accepted conventional procedure having a certain
conventional effect, that procedure to include the uttering of certain words by

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 12

 certain persons in certain circumstances.
(A.2) The particular persons and circumstances in a given case must be
appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked.

Violation of A.1 or A.2 = Misfire

(B.1) The procedure must be executed by all participants correctly.

(B.2) The procedure must be executed completely.

(Γ.1) Where the procedure is designed for use by persons having certain
thoughts or feelings, a person participating must actually have those thoughts
or feelings, and participants must intend to conduct themselves accordingly.
(Γ.2) Participants must actually conduct themselves subsequently as intended.
Violation of Γ.1 or Γ.2 = Abuse

Examples:
Divorce Example: "I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you."

Requires Muslim convention where uttering these words performs divorce

Speech situation must include shared linguistic conventions

Baptism Example: "I baptize thee in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

Speaker must be a Christian priest

Hearer must be appropriate (e.g., infant)

Must be in appropriate circumstances (church, parents present)

Command Example: "I order you to release the prisoners."

Requires hierarchical relationship

Speaker has authority to command

For speaker's interest, not hearer's

Disobedience may have consequences

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 13

 Grice's Cooperative Principle and
Conversational Implicature
Source: Grice (1975) - "Logic and Conversation"

Main Idea: Explains how speakers convey meaning beyond literal interpretation
through a cooperative conversational effort.

The Cooperative Principle

Definition: "Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange."
Conversation is governed by a set of rules called maxims.

The Four Conversational Maxims

Speakers can:

Fulfill a maxim

Violate a maxim (may generate wrong interpretation or mislead)

Flout a maxim (violate it obviously and exaggeratedly for effect)

Opt out altogether

1. Maxim of Quantity
Rule: Make your contribution as informative as required, but not more so.

Sub-maxims:

Do not make your conversation more informative than required

Do not say that of which you lack evidence

Examples:
Fulfilling:

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 14

 "I've washed most of the windows" → Implicature: Haven't washed all
(otherwise would have said "all")

"The sister is pretty" → Implicature: The mother is less pretty (said only
what's positive)

Violating:

You want to hire someone. I tell you: "He is honest, hardworking, and
punctual."

But I don't tell you he was fired for yelling at his boss and misbehaving with
customers

I violated quantity by withholding crucial information

Flouting (exaggerating):

"I am dying of hunger" (obvious exaggeration to make a point)

"A: How do you like my new dress? B: I like the color!" (saying less than
expected to imply reservations)

2. Maxim of Quality
Rule: Be truthful and provide accurate information. Do not say what you believe
is false.

Examples:

Violating:

Lying is a violation of the maxim of quality

Flouting (exaggeration):

"I am parked in front of the market" (semantically false - you're not parked,
your car is)

"I have got a ton of onions on this sandwich" (obvious exaggeration)

These are semantically false but used for emphasis.

3. Maxim of Relevance

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 15

 Rule: Make your contribution relevant to the conversation.
Sub-maxims:

Avoid obscurity of expression

Be brief

Examples:
Flouting:

A: "Did you see the ridiculous hat Chris was wearing?"

B: "Um, nice day we're having."

(B is being obviously irrelevant to avoid answering)

Threat example: "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something

happened to her mom."

Seems like an unrelated compliment but implies a threat through violated

relevance

4. Maxim of Manner
Rule: Be clear, concise, and orderly in your contribution.

Examples:

Fulfilling:

"This morning I had a cup of coffee and went out for a walk" (clear
temporal order)

Violating:

A: "Where does C live?"

B: "Somewhere in the South of France?" (vague, unclear)

Conversational Implicature

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 16

 Definition: Inferences that can be drawn from conversation based on the
maxims.

Two Types:
1. Generalized Conversational Implicature: Arises from use of specific words
or phrases

"Some" implies "not all"

"I can speak some French" → Implicature: Not fluent in French

2. Particularized Conversational Implicature: Depends on the context

"It's cold in here" → Implicature: "Open the window" (or close it, turn on
heat, etc.)

Examples:

A: "Do you have any salt?"

B: "Yes, I do."

Implicature: B is unwilling to pass the salt (violated cooperation by being

unhelpful)

"Jordan ate half of the pizza"

Implicature: Jordan didn't eat all the pizza (otherwise would have said "all")

Key Insight: Grice's theory highlights the importance of context, inference,

and cooperation in understanding language beyond literal meaning.

💡 Summary of Key Themes

This document demonstrates that meaning in language operates on
multiple levels - from dictionary definitions to contextual implications.
Semantics focuses on the linguistic meaning itself, while pragmatics
examines how context, speaker intention, and social conventions shape what
we actually communicate. Together, these fields reveal that successful

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 17

 communication requires not just grammatical correctness, but shared
understanding of conventions, cooperation, and the ability to infer meaning
beyond literal words.

Semantics & Pragmatics: Key Concepts & Definitions 18