'n Forensies-semantiese beskouing van die woordgebruik 'onkoste' in die hofsaak Commissioner for South African Revenue Service v Labat Africa Limited

Abstract

The world of law requires a thorough knowledge and command of language at all times. It happens quite often that a legal dispute revolves around language and the use thereof. One such example is the case of Commissioner for South African Revenue Service v. Labat Africa Limited. In this case of appeal, as well as in the cases that led to it, the judgement is based on the interpretation of the word ‘expenditure’. This article tries to determine whether the interpretation is correct by using Shuy’s (1986) model to analyse the word semantically. The semantic analysis focuses on the definition of words, semantic field analysis, componential analysis and contextualisation.