Microsoft Word Revised Syllabus Ver doc

Marking of Meaning by Semotaxis 
In addition to syntactic marking, in many instances the semotactic environment of 
words is also essential to differentiate meanings. 
As the categories of meanings which are said to be compatible or incompatible, and 
which mutually select or eliminate each other are being dealt here, it is the area of semantics, 
that is involved, and hence, the semotactic classes are very numerous, often quite small and 
even arbitrary, often overlap in multidimensional ways, and are seldom formally marked. A 
good number of them are highly specific, but it is possible at least in part to describe the 
components of meaning that are involved in particular selections of meanings. Quite often the 
syntactic and the semotactic markings interact to pinpoint specific meanings. But they remain 
in essence quite distinct. 
This distinction between syntactic and semotactic functions will become more evident 
as special examples and problems are studied. Compare, for example, the following 
sentences: 
1.
He cut his hand. 
2.
He cut off a hand of bananas. 
3.
Hand me the book. 
Sentence 3 is clearly distinguished from the other two syntactic marking, in that hand 
is used as a verb (as seen from presence of the indirect and direct object), whereas the other 
two are both nouns. What differentiates these two? In sentence 1, the presence of his makes it 
quite clear, in the absence of any contradictory features in the environment, that we should 
understand the most common sense of hand as a part of the body at the end of the arm. 
However, of bananas quite specifically marks the area or domain in which hand is being 
used: it is the quite specific one relating to bananas, in which hand means “a number of 
bananas in a single or double row and still fastened to each other at the base.” 
Connotative Meaning 
The analytical procedures by which we come to understand the message we want to 
translate involve two quite distinct but closely related aspects of the message (1) the 
grammatical (2) the semantic. But we not only understand the reference of words: we may 
also react to them emotionally, strongly, weakly, affirmatively or negatively. This aspect of 
the meaning, which deals without emotional reactions to words, is called connotative 
meaning. 
The associations surrounding some words sometimes become so strong that we avoid 
using these words at all: this is what we call verbal taboo. On the one hand, there are negative 
taboos, with associated feelings of revulsion against such words as the famous four-letter 
words in English, which refer to certain body organs and function. The fact that the taboo is 
against the word and not the referent can be seen from the fact that there are quite innocent 
scientific terms which refer to the same things and which are perfectly acceptable. But the 
feeling against the words is such that even though everyone knows them, they are not used in 
polite society, and even many dictionaries refuse to print them. Such words are thought to 
defile the user. 

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On the other hand, there are positive taboos, associated with feelings of fear or awe: 
certain words (often the names of powerful beings) are also regarded as powerful, and the 
misuse of such words may bring destruction upon the hapeless user. A good example is the 
traditional. Jewish avoidance of the name of God, written in Hebrew with the four letters, 
YHWH; another is the existence of a great many euphemisms, in Indo-European languages, 
for ‘bear’. 
Less intense feeling are nevertheless strong enough, in the name of propriety, to cause 
many to substitute euphemisms such as washroom, comfort station, lounge, powder room, 
and numerous colloquial and baby talks terms for the word toilet. Similar cases are those of 
sanitary engineer, substituted for garbage man, and mortician, substituted for undertaker. The 
entire complex of euphemisms surrounding death and burial undoubtedly contains a strong 
ingredient of fear. 
The connotations of words may be highly individual. For example, because of some 
experience in a doctor’s office, the word doctor may be quite abhorrent to a child. But such 
individual connotations are quickly lost, while the socially determined connotations (which 
are often purely conventional and therefore learned) are acquired by each speaker as part of 
his language-learning experience.