The words meaning and sentences meaning

I. Word meaning
1. Semantic feature and sematic field:

Semantic feature are smallest units of meanings of a word.

The same sematic feature may occur in different words => semantic field.

● Ex: emotion: happy, sad,... - cause: darken, kill, beautify,…

Synonymy occurs among words that have the same or nearly the same semantic features.

Actonymy occurs only if 2 words share a principle semantic feature in which they differ.

The semantic feature of a word determines what other words they can be combined with.

● Ex: An insect was swimming in a container of “goo”/ “ pouring goo”.

● Colorless grean ideas sleep furiously.
⇨ When semantic rules are broken => anomaly.
⇨ Semantic violations in poetry may form a strange but interesting aethetic images.

Semantic field is a set of words with identifiable semntic affinities.

⇨ Refering to the organization of related words or expressions into a system in which show their
relationship to another.
2. Denotation and connotation:

Denotation: the core meaning found in a dictionary – a set of semantic features that describes the
word.

Connotation: the additional meaning beyond its denotative meaning - pp’s attitudes/ emotions
towards that the word refers to.

⇨ Connotation are related to the real- world experience that one associaties with a word and
they will vary from individual to individual, community to community.
3. Literal meaning – figurative meaning

Literal meaning: the basic meaning of a word.

Figurative meaning: different from its literal meaning and creates vivid metal images to
readers/listeners

⇨ Figures of speech: simile, metaphor, metonymy, personification, hyperbole,…

When what appears to be anomaly is understood in term of meaning concept, the express becomes a
metaphor => no strict line bw anomaly and metaphor.

II. Sentence meaning and uttering meaning

1. Sentence meaning and uttering meaning

Sentence meaning: a string of words put together by a grammatical rules of a languague.

Uttering meaing: any stretch of talk, by a person, before and after which there is a silence on the
part of the person – the use of a piece of language of a speaker on a particular occasion.

Sentence meaning: what a sentence means, regrardless of the context and situation in which it may
be used.

Utterance meaning: what a speaker means ( intends to convey) when using a piece of language (
making an utterance).

Semantics gives prior consideration to sentence meaning and those aspects of meaning which are
determined by the language systems.

Semantic meaning is generally “ context-free”.

2. Proposition (= Sentence meaning)

It is a part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some states of
affairs ( person/things – action/situation they are involved in).

In uttering a declarative sentence, a speaker asserts a proposition => assert its truth.

An interrogative ( and imperative) carries the same proposition as its corresponding declarative.
Interrogative -> question whether it is truth or not and imperative makes it become truth.

Utterances Sentences Proposition

Loud / quiet ✔ × ×
Grammatical / not ✔ ✔ ×
True / False ✔ ✔ ✔
Particular accent ✔ × ×
Particular language ✔ ✔ ×

Reference and Sense

I. Reference and sense
2 distinct ways of talking about the meaning of words and other expressions: reference and sense.

Reference: relationships bw language and world.

Sense: relationships inside the language.

1. Reference:

By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things/persons in the world are being talked
about.

Reference: the relationship bw part of the language and things outside the language ( part of the
world).

Referent: an object or entity in the world that is being talked about.

Types of reference:

● Variable reference: the same expression can be used to refer to different things, depending
on the circumstances.
● Constant reference: one expression never refers to different things.
● Co-reference: > 2 expression refer to the same referent.
⇨ Constant is limt and Variable is the most.

Note: prep( behind, before,…) cannot be reference but have sense.

2. Sense ( Denotation)

The sense of an expression is

● Its indispensible core of meaning.

● Its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.

It shows the semantic relationship bw one expression and the others such as: sameness of meaning,
oppositeness of meaning,…

We can talk about the sense not only of the words but also of longer expressions such as phrases,
sentences.

The same word can have > one sense and so is the same sentence.

II. Reference and referring expession

1. Referring exression:

It is any expression used to refer to sth/ s.o ( used with a particular referent in mind).

Definite and indefinite noun phrases as reffering expressions?

⇨ Depend on speaker whether have a particular refferent in mind.

Ambiguous:

Ex: Nancy wans to marry a Norwegean.

The ambiguity can be resolved by the used if the word “certain”.

⇨ Whether an expression is a reffering expression or not is dependent on the linguistic context

and on the circumstances of utterance.
2. Equative sentences

It is one which is used to assert two reffering expression have the same refferent.

⇨ A feature of many equative sentences is that the order of the 2 reffering expressions can be
reversed without loss of acceptability.
⇨ However, some equative sentences are not reversible and some reversible sentences are not
equative ones.
3. Generic sentences:
It is one in which some statement is made about a whole unrestricted class of individuals, as
apposed to any particular individual.

Ex: The whale is a mammal.

Be introduced by a/the/neither.

4. Deixic:

Most words mean what they mean regardless of context.

However, all languages contain small sets of words whose meanings vary systematically according to
who use them and the context.

Deixis words is one which takes some element of it meaning from the context or situation of the
utterance in which it is used.

Since deictic terms take their meaning from the sitation of utterence, an utterance reporting an
utterance in a different situation cannot always use the deictic terms of the original utterance.

Some deixic words: person ( 1st and 2nd ), spatial ( here,there), temporal ( then,now), verbs (bring-
take, go-come) and tenses.

5. Definiteness

Definiteness is a feature of noun phrase selected by a speaker.

To convey his assumption that hearer will be able to identify the referent of the NP.

Ussually if it is the only thing of its kind in the context of the utterance, or beacause it is unique in
the universe of discourse.

The definiteness of referring expression tells us nothing about the referent itself but rather ralates to
the question of whether the referent has been mentioned in the preceding discourse.

Sense relation between words

I. Synonymy
The relation between 2 words that have the same or nearly the same sense.

It’s hard to find perfect synonyms as there is little point in a dialect having 2 words with exactly the
same meaning.

Synonymous words may differ in terms of connotative meaning.

However, in considering the sense of a word, semantists do not take into account any stylist that the
word may have.

*Different in style: in another context, they are longer synonymous.

Because of the various senses a word may have, pairs of synonymous words may not share all their
senses (partial synonymy).

II. Hyponymy
Hyponymy is a sense relation between expressions such that the meaning of one expression is
included in the meaning of another.

● Superordinate / hypernym: the “high”, more general expression.

● Hyponym: the “lower”, more specific expression.
⇨ Hyponymy can exist at more than one level resulting in multiple layers of hyponymic
relationship.
❖ Realtionship between hyponymy and synonymy

Synonymy is a speacial case of hyponymy.

⇨ Symmetrical hyponymy ( 2-way hyponymy).

III. Antonymy:
1. Binary antonyms:

Words that come in pairs and between them, exhaust all the relevant possibilities (mutual exclusive).
If one is applicable, then the other is not, and vice verse.

Combination of the binary antonyms to produce a four-way contrast.

Ex: male vs female + adult vs on-adult.

2. Converses:

Words that express a relationship between 2 things such as that one of the expressions conveys the
relationship in one order and the other expression conveys the relationship in the opposite order.

Converseness can be applied to example in which 3 things/persons can be mentioned.

3. Multiple incompatibles ( same semantic field):

Expressions in sets of more than 2 members which are mutual and together, all the members of the set
cover the entire semantic field (non-binary antonyms).

4. Gradable antonyms:

2 expressions which are at the opposite ends of a continous scale of values (a scale which can vary
according to the context of use).

A good test of gradability, having a value on some continuous scale, is to see whether a word can
combine with very, very much,…

IV. Homonymy – Polysemy:

Homonymy: when the word has different senses are for apart from each other and not obviously
related to each other.

Polysemy: when the word has several very closely related senses.
 ⇨ To indicate the different senses of an ambiguous word, we can provide different enviroment in
which the word may br used or the different parts of speech the words belong to.

Sense properties and sense relations between words

I. Sense properties of sentences
1. Analyticity

An analytic sentence is one that is necessarily TRUE, as a result of the senses of the words in it.

It reflects a tacit agreement by speakers of the language about the senses of the sentence.

Ex: The man is a human.

2. Syntheticity

A synthetic is the one that is not analytic, but may be either TRUE or FALSE, depend on the world is.

Ex: The man is tall.

3. Contrdictoriness

A contradiction is one that is necessarily FALSE, as a result of the sense of the words in it.

❖ The interdependence of the sense relation and sense properties.

⇨ Sense properties of sentences depend on the sense relation between the words they contain
⇨ Contradictions can be used figuratively to communication a strong emotional judment.
⇨ Syntheticity: information in the real world.
⇨ Analyticity, Contradictioness: not information if we know the meaning.
II. Some relations between sentences:
1. Entailment:

A proposition X entails a proposition Y if the truth of Y follows from the truth of X.

It is not possible to think of any circumstance in which sentence X is true and sentence Y false.

⇨ One-way entailment (asymmetric).

❖ The relationship between hyponymy and entailment

The bare rule of sense inclusion, 2 sentences:

● A contain a word X
● B contain a word Y

If X is hyponymy of Y => A entails B.

Ex: He was chewing a tulip => He was chewing a flower.

Negative sentences:

If X is hyponymy of Y => B entails A.

Ex: He was not chewing a flower => He was not chewing a tulip.
“All” word:

If X is hyponymy of Y, B entails A.

Ex: He chew up all my flowers => He chew up all my tulips

Gradable words:

Upsets the normal relationship between hyponymy and entailment.

John saw a big mouse >< John saw a big animal

2. Paraphrase:

Have the same proposition between to sentences ( despite minor different in emphasis).

⇨ Two-way entailment.

The relationship: entailment, paraphrase vs hyponymy, synonymy.

Relation between pair of Relation between pair od words

sentences
Not neccessarily symmetric E H
Symmetric P S

Ambiguous sentences: have more than 2 senses.

1. Lexical ambiguity: any ambiguous result from the ambiguity of a word.

Ex: They are waiting at the bank. ( 1. The building contain money, 2 the edge of the river/lake).

2. Structural ambiguity: when words relate to each other in different way eventhough some of
the individual words are ambiguous.

Ex: I observed John in the garden. ( 1.I was in the garden and observed John, 2. I saw John in the
garden in the far distance.)