Essay Networks

Meaning in western tradition develops under the general notion of semantics, in some different way. Whenever we are discussing about the meaning of a word, our basic inclination is to delimit our inquiry under the notion of “whatness”. But because of being a locus of infinite qualifications, the object of our inquiry always remains out of our reach, in this situation. Not a single answer is competent enough to explain the meaning of a word. Moreover, for a long time, we have some kind of “bad faith” that meaning of a particular word is always in equivalence relation with its objective counterpart. It is not a long time back, when we come to know about the fact that meaning of a word or a higher construction is not at all identical with its objective reality. That means the mental impression, which we consider as meaning is a mode of representation of its corresponding reality. Therefore for the first time our vortex of inquiry has shifted from the question “What is it?” to “How is it?”.

The meaning of the a particular “sign”, i.e. word or higher level construction, can only be explored by examining the manner or the way, which is followed by it to come into the existence. It is the manner or the way which determines the compositional potentiality of word or any higher construction. This fact is first brought into the light in its crude form by well-known scholar Frege. The meaning of a constituent part can be successfully revealed by determining its position and relation with respect to the whole. Basically, the task of the meaning is not to signify something of the objective reality, but to explore the causal path, by which it comes into existence.

Now to explain the causal path, as a modus operendi, leading towards the modus essendi (modes of existence), one has to establish a equivalence relation between syntax and semantics; because sentence is the vehicle to attain the divinity of the semantics. Even in case of word-level analysis also, nobody can deny the importance of the sentential environment. It is already proved that the categorical meaning is generally determined by the relation of the part with its whole. For example if two lexical entities inclusively share same distributional pattern then they will be considered as the member of the same category, otherwise the disjoint in their distributional pattern will reflect the difference in their categorical status.

In this point, one may raise the question, why the concept of category is important in case of determining the conceptual architecture of the language. Because it is the category which determines the manner or the way through which a lexical entity attains its compositional potentiality.

From the very beginning of the philosophical study, the categorical basis of the knowledge is not only practiced but also exaggerated and pretended to support the ontological analysis of the existence. Even in the present day situation also, linguists like Chomsky, Jackendoff, Pustejovsky etc. have given emphasis on the categorical analysis of the language. They have also introduced their own repertoire of categories to capture the hidden fragrance of the linguistic knowledge.

Particularly, in case of linguistic study the importance of the category shows the primacy of the syntactic structure in case of language structure. Because sentence, as an abstract representation of thought, is the only way to access and analyze the categorical status of an entity.

Therefore it seems quite clear that the conceptual structure of a lexical entity is a representation of a lexical entity is a representation to include both the syntactic featyres, either in terms of categorical status (Ref. Pustojovsky), or in terms of lexical insertion rule (Ref. Chomsky) and the conceptual structure (Ref. Pustejovsky, Jackendoff).

So thinking about semantics, means thinking beyond the syntax, but essentially residing inside the womb of syntax…