Basic Ideas in Semantics

• Reference & Sense• Utterance, Sentence, &

Proposition

Reference (1)

The meaning of linguistic expressions derives from two sources: the language they are part and the world they describeWords allow people to identify parts of the world and make statement about them.The relationship by which language hooks onto the world is called reference.In talking about reference, we deal with the relationships between language and the world.

Reference (2)

Thus, reference is a relationship between parts of a language and things outside the language (the world)e.g. My son is in the beech tree

identifies identifies person thing

There is a very little constancy of reference in a language. Two different expressions can have the same referent

e.g. Morning star & Evening star refer to planet Venus

Sense

Sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in a languagee.g. I almost fell over

nearlyI’ll see you on Wednesday

ThursdayWe can talk about sense, not only of words, but also of longer expression such as phrases and sentencese.g. Rupert took off his Jacket

Rupert took his Jacket offBachelors prefer the redheadsGirls with red hair are preferred by unmarried

man

Reference & Sense

Thus, referent of an expression is often a thing or a person in the world; whereas the sense of an expression is not a thing at all.e.g. almost and and do not refer to things in the world.Every expression that has meaning has sense but not every expression has reference

Utterances

An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that personAn utterance is the USE by particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences or a single phrase, or even a single word

Are they utterance?

HelloNot MuchUtterance may consist of a single word, single phrase, or a single sentence. They may also consist of one or more grammatically incomplete sentence-fragments. In short, there is no simple relation of correspondence between utterances and sentences pxgotmgtSchollptzenpflaaaaaaargh!

Sentences

A sentence is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by grammatical rules of language.A sentence can be a thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterance and inscriptionse.g “Help” represents an utterance

The postillions have been struck by lightning represents a sentence“The postillions have been struck by

lightning” represents an utterancePostillions represents a word conceived as

part of a sentence

Sentence & Utterance

A sentence is a grammatically complete string of words expressing a complete thought e.g. I would like a cup of coffee is a sentence

In the kitchen is not a sentenceAn utterance can be in form of complete sentence or incomplete sentencee.g. “I would like a cup of coffee” is an

utterance “In the kitchen” is an utterance of non-

sentence

A proposition

A proposition is that part of meaning of an utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairsThe state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by expressions in the sentence. In uttering a declarative sentence, a speaker typically asserts a propositionsTrue propositions correspond to facts, in the ordinary word fact. False propositions do not correspond to facts.

Proposition, sentence, & utterance

A single proposition could be expressed by using several different sentences and each of these sentences could be uttered an infinite number of timesA proposition is an abstraction that can be grasped by the mind of an individual person (an object of thought). We can put the thought in linguistic entities to be sentences and do some actions about it (realize it) in form of utterance

Proposition, sentence, & utterance

Literal & Non-literal meaning

Literal meaning refers to meaning of a sentence or other expression as determined solely by those ascribed to the separate words, etc. of which it is composed and to the syntactic relations in which they stand compositional meaning e.g. I’m hungry

I’m starvingNon-literal use of language are traditionally called figurative (e.g. metaphore, irony, hyperbole, etc)e.g. I could eat a horse

My stomach thinks my throat’s cut