SYNTAX OR SEMANTICS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

Abstract

The aim and purpose of this study was to investigate whether semantics was more important for a language or syntax. In other words, it is proposed to know whether meaning is more important for a language or structure. It aimed to investigate why semantics or syntax has more importance and how. This study was proposed to answer the research questions that how and why semantics is comparatively more important than syntax for a language. The research was conducted to analyze both the domains comparatively and analytically. The findings suggest that semantics is more important for a language because meaning is both internal and external to language unlike structure which is internal to language as the world and the context rely on the words and the text. Furthermore, the findings suggest that semantics is preferred over syntax because the violated categories of syntax have a potential to convey a meaning whereas the ambiguous meaning can result in the failure of cooperative communication. The common syntactic patterns of the languages e.g. SOV, VSO and SVO can still make the meanings clear if they are not patterned appropriately except for some cases according to the findings. The findings illustrate that the assumptions of semantics have more potential to be focused than syntactic elements. The results suggest that semantics fits into usefulness of language in real life unlike syntax which is an internal reality of a language. Accordingly, meaning is concerned with linguistic and non-linguistic elements whereas structure deals with only linguistic elements. Semantics gained importance because semantics has more significance in comparison with syntax in language comprehension and in terms of semantic characteristics.

Keywords: Semantics, Syntax, Structure, Meaning, Language, Importance, Comparison.