Course name: Linguistics

Course code: ENG 421

Teacher’s name: Dr. Enas Elsheikh
4th Year
General
1 The meaning of meaning
1.1 Semantics and pragmatics

• Semantics is concerned with the inherent meaning of

words and sentences as linguistic expressions, in and of
themselves.

• Pragmatics is concerned with those aspects of meaning that

depend on or derive from the way in which the words and
sentences are used. (Textbook, p. 23)
1.2 Three “levels” of meaning

1. word meaning

2. sentence meaning

3. utterance meaning (also referred to as “speaker

meaning”)
sentences vs. utterances

In order to understand the third level, “utterance meaning”,

we need to distinguish between sentences vs. utterances.

A sentence is a linguistic expression, a well-formed string of

words, while an utterance is a speech event by a particular
speaker in a specific context. When a speaker uses a sentence
in a specific context, he produces an utterance. (p.25)
Sentences meaning vs. utterance meaning

• Sentence meaning refers to the semantic content of the

sentence: the meaning which derives from the words
themselves, regardless of context.
• Utterance meaning refers to the semantic content plus any
pragmatic meaning created by the specific way in which
the sentence gets used.
• Cruse (2000: 27) defines utterance meaning as “the totality
of what the speaker intends to convey by making an
utterance.”
Context-dependent meaning

• A single sentence can be used to express two or more

different utterance meanings, depending on the context.

• See Kroeger’s (2005: 1) example where in one context the

sentence is used to greet someone, while in another
context the same sentence is used to request information
(p.25-6).
1.3 Relation between form and meaning

• For most words, the relation between the form (i.e., phonetic shape)
of the word and its meaning is characterized as both:
1. Arbitrary (see p. 27 for exceptions)
2. Rule-governed (i.e. agreed-upon by a speech community)
• The relation between the form of a sentence (or other multi-word
expression) and its meaning is generally not arbitrary, but
compositional. This term means that the meaning of the expression is
predictable from the meanings of the words it contains and the way
they are combined. (see p. 28-9 for examples and exceptions)
1.4 What does mean mean?

• The primary concerns of linguistic semantics, are for the most

part limited to the kinds of meaning that people intend to
communicate via language.
• Meaning communicated non-linguistically (e.g. body language, facial
expressions) is of no interest in semantics.
• Similarly, of no interest in pragmatics is the type of meaning which a hearer
may acquire by listening to a speaker, and which the speaker does not intend
to communicate. See Grice’s “natural meaning p. 33
• There are two ways for approaching the question ‘what does
meaning mean?’
1. Reference Theory
It focuses on how speakers use language to talk about
the world. The meaning of the word chair, for example,
would be the class of objects in a particular situation,
or universe of discourse, which this word can be used
to refer to.
2. Truth Theory
• The meaning of a (declarative) sentence is the knowledge or
information which allows speakers and hearers to determine
whether it is true in a particular context. To know the meaning of
a sentence is to know its truth conditions.

• Technically, sentences are neither true nor false. Only an

utterance of a certain kind (namely, a statement) can have a truth
value.

• When a speaker utters a sentence like ‘It is raining’ at a particular

time and place, we can look out the window and determine
whether or not the speaker is telling the truth. The statement is
true if its meaning corresponds to the situation being described: is
it raining at that time and place?
1.5 Saying, meaning, and doing
• In order to fully understand a given utterance, the
addressee (= hearer) must try to answer three fundamental
questions:
1. What did the speaker say? i.e., sentence meaning.
2. What did the speaker intend to communicate? i.e.,
aspects of utterance meaning which are not part of the
sentence meaning.
3. What is the speaker trying to do? i.e., what speech
act is being performed? (See p. 37-8 for illustration)