Structural semantics (also structuralist semantics) is a linguistic school and paradigm that emerged in Europe from the 1930s, inspired by the structuralist linguistic movement started by

Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss Linguistics, linguist, Semiotics, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 2 ...

's 1916 work "''

Cours De Linguistique Generale ''Course in General Linguistics'' (french: Cours de linguistique générale) is a book compiled by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye from notes on lectures given by historical-comparative linguist Ferdinand de Saussure at the University of Gen ...

''" (A Course in General Linguistics).Geeraerts, D. (2009)
Structuralist Semantics
' in Geeraerts (2009) ''Theories of Lexical Semantics'' ch.2 Examples of approaches within structural semantics are

Lexical field theory Lexical field theory, or ''word-field theory'', was introduced on March 12, 1931 by the German linguist Jost Trier. He argued that words acquired their meaning through their relationships to other words within the same word-field. An extension of ...

(1931-1960s),

relational semantics Kripke semantics (also known as relational semantics or frame semantics, and often confused with possible world semantics) is a formal semantics for non-classical logic systems created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Saul Kripke and André Jo ...

(from the 1960s by John Lyons) and componential analysis (from the 1960s by

Eugenio Coseriu Eugenio is an Italian and Spanish masculine given name deriving from the Greek ' Eugene'. The name is Eugénio in Portuguese and Eugênio in Brazilian Portuguese. The name's translated literal meaning is well born, or of noble status. Similar de ...

Bernard Pottier Bernard ('' Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern'' "bear" and ''hard'' "bra ...

and

Algirdas Greimas Algirdas Julien Greimas (; born ''Algirdas Julius Greimas''; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France. Greimas is known among other things for th ...

). From the 1960s these approaches were incorporated into generative linguistics. Other prominent developer of structural semantics have been

Louis Hjelmslev Louis Trolle Hjelmslev (; 3 October 189930 May 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Copenhagen School of linguistics. Born into an academic family (his father was the mathematician Johannes Hjelmslev), Hjelmslev studie ...

, Émile Benveniste, Klaus Heger,

Kurt Baldinger Kurt Baldinger (November 17, 1919 – January 17, 2007) was a Swiss linguist and philologist who made important contributions to Romance studies in the Gallo-Romanic and Ibero-Romanic branches, with works of lexicography, historical linguistics, e ...

and

Horst Geckeler Horst may refer to: Science * Horst (geology), a raised fault block bounded by normal faults or graben People * Horst (given name) * Horst (surname) * ter Horst, Dutch surname * van der Horst, Dutch surname Places Settlements Germany * Horst, ...

.Rastier, F. (1987) ''Sémantique interprétative'' (3rd edition 2009) Logical positivism asserts that structural semantics is the study of relationships between the meanings of terms within a sentence, and how meaning can be composed from smaller elements. However, some critical theorists suggest that meaning is only divided into smaller structural units via its regulation in concrete social interactions; outside of these interactions, language may become meaningless.
Structural semantics is that branch that marked the modern

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

movement started by Ferdinand de Saussure at the break of the 20th century in his posthumous discourse titled "''Cours De Linguistique Generale''" (A Course in General Linguistics). He posits that language is a system of inter-related units and structures and that every unit of language is related to the others within the same system. His position later became the bedding ground for other theories such as componential analysis and relational predicates. Structuralism is a very efficient aspect of Semantics, as it explains the concordance in the meaning of certain words and utterances. The concept of sense relations as a means of semantic interpretation is an offshoot of this theory as well. Structuralism has revolutionized semantics to its present state, and it also aids to the correct understanding of other aspects of linguistics. The consequential fields of structuralism in linguistics are sense relations (both lexical and sentential) among others.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Structural Semantics Logical positivism Semantics Structuralism

See also

References