Literal Meaning

Abstract

The semantic reading is a technique of paraphrase that anyone can learn independently of his philosophical views on the nature of meaning. Students of logic and students of linguistics acquire the fundamentals of semantic reading already during their first term. In semantics and pragmatics the system of semantic paraphrases is instinctively employed as a way of giving a direct and ideal expression to the meaning of expressions. The system of semantic paraphrases is treated as being almost the meanings themselves (or at least as being the ideal representations of the meanings).