Semantics I acknowledgements

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Page As a scientific study it should fulfill scientific procedures or what is included in scientific method. T consider linguistics as science, it is fruitful to make a brief description of linguistics development.
A linguist who criticized the work of Junggramatiker was
Ferdinand De Saussure. He contradicted the Junggramatiker’s idea that the sole means of studying language scientifically is to examine it historically.
He then noted that through synchronic method, that is a method which studies language particular time and which uses empirical data. According to him, language should be studied as it is. Apart of his contribution in linguistics is the distinctions among La Langue, a Parole, and La Langage.
La Langue is La Langage minus La Parole. Whereas La Langage is the sum of La Parole and the rules of language and La Parole is the individual manifestation of language which is called speaking. From the three aspects De Saussure chose La Langue to be the object of linguistics because it follows conditions It is collective and general.
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It is a sum of impressions deposited in the brain of each individual.
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It is a deposit of signs which each individual has received from other speakers of the community.
So, according to De Saussure La Langue can be studied scientifically, since it homogeneous. It is also stable, both through time and in the consciousness of the speakers. Whereas La Parole and La Langage constitute manifestation of individual and consist of an infinite number of individual choices as acts of articulation.

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Page The focus on La Langue as the object of language study caused a weakness of his insights. For he was influenced by Emile Durkheim who made sociology to bean autonomous science through social fact. The application of Durkheim’s idea to language study is obvious. Language is asocial fact since it is general throughout a community or it is a thing separate from our use of it as individuals, because it is inherited entirely from the other speakers who teach it to us and is not our product. So by this application, De Saussure hardly paid no attention to the speech sounds and their meanings, in other words, the two were not investigated in detail.
As result social fact which was applied to language study has not yet been considered as scientific, it still needs development.
It was Leonard Bloomfield who strictly managed to make linguistics both autonomous and scientific. His significant book is language, the revision of his earlier work contains new findings in linguistics. According to him to study language was not always depending upon deductive or normative approach, even with this method it will be misguiding because to use written data that the traditional did was just to apply the system of certain language which will not be on effect to others.
Then, Bloomfield stated that the most important in language study is to analyze it from the lower units. In this case, speech sounds should be the first to be analyzed and then morphemes, phrases, clauses, and sentences.
So, the hierarchy of language study is Phonology, is a study of language sounds.
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Morphology, is a study of morphemes and their arrangement informing words.

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Page Syntax, is a study of words construction into a larger units such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.
Leonard Bloomfield did not include semantics in the hierarchy,
because he considered meaning as the weak point in language study. His reason to consider so was based on his statement below :
“ We can define the meaning of a speech-form accurately when this meaning has to do with some matter of which we posses scientific knowledge. We can define the names of plants, or animals by means of the technical botany or zoology, but we have no precise way of defining love or hate and these latter are in the great majority (Bloomfield, 1933 : This statement suggests that linguistic is not fully autonomous,
since form, meaning and their associations be the linguistics work. But since science as a unified and integral body of knowledge, meaning cannot be separated from language study, or semantic is to be included in the hierarchy of language study.
Most contemporary linguists therefore emphasize that semantics must be regarded as an important branch or level of linguistic analysis.
And in semantics, theories have been developed from time to time like conceptual theory, Componential Analysis up to generative semantics.
The definition of linguistics as a scientific study of language then indicates us that it is a science, and sciences are by definition by logical systems. From this we can understand that language is related to logic.
Again it supported by Aristotle expression in Bolinger’s book :

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“ Aristotle assigned to language a position superior to logic,
that of meaningful expression in general (Bolinger, 1975 : Even though linguistic is not yet fully autonomous, but it is important that the end of nineteenth- century was the beginning of effort to make linguistics as scientific and autonomous. And that is why this period is taken as a starting point in linguistic development.
Linguistics classification cane viewed from its structural hierarchy,
approaching theory, function and its inter-disciplines. This general classification wherein this analysis the writer will not concern it in detail is as follows Based on structural hierarchy
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Phonology
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Morphology
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Syntax
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Semantic
Based on its theory
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Synchronic Linguistics
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Diachronic Linguistics
Based on its function
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Genera Linguistics
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Applied Linguistics
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Theoritical Linguistics
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Comparative Linguistics

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Page Based on its inter-disciplines
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Sociolinguistics
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Anthropological Linguistics
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Ethno-Linguistics
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Psycho-Linguistics
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Philosophical Linguistics
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Computational Linguistics
As has been mention in the previous section that linguistics is a scientific study of language. A science or sciences are by definition of logical system. As a logical system, language (the object of linguistics)
may be treated as data for description that can be tasted for truth and falsity. But is language in itself a logical system or does language contain devices like the ones used informal logic (will be discussed in separated chapter, and is it the purpose of language to be logical Or how we justify the linguist’s theory that there is logico-semantic representation (the meaning of sentence and their relation to its form) and what are the elements which build the logical system?
Concerning with those questions above, this book will talk about semantics as the view to logic of language.
This book involves two main aspects, Semantics and logic. Both
Semantics and Logic have a wide domain of analysis. It is possible to include all parts of them, therefore the analysis must be restricted to know which is which.
The analysis is based on semantics, of which analyzing the logic of language through proposition, not sentence. Because logic is concerned with proposition. To make a boundary between them is what will be discussed in later chapter.

SEMANTICS
Page The logic which is included in this analysis derives from formal logic and material logic. Formal logic occurs more because it is the most concerned or has a close link to semantics.
Despite of focusing semantic to logic, it does not mean that the other aspects are ignored, but at least in analyzing language (the four structural hierarchy) are involved, as a language unity. That is why the relation of semantics with other branches are also treated and available in the sub-item of the analysis. On the other hand not all semantic aspects are included, t is done to get rid of overlapping among the items being analyzed.

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