Section

SENTENCE MEANING
3

“SENTENCE MEANING is what a sentence means,

regardless of the context and situation in which it may be used.”
[Hurford and Heasley, 1984: 269]

3.1 Proposition, utterance and sentence

3.1.1 “A PROPOSITION is that part of the meaning of the
utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some
state of affairs. The 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 proposition.”
[Hurford and Heasley, 1984: 19]

Ex1. The following pair of sentences expresses the same

proposition:
1(a) Harry took out the garbage.
1(b) Harry took the garbage out.
The following pair of sentences expresses different propositions:
2(a) Isobel loves Tony.
2(b) Tony loves Isobel.

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i cách vit ca câu nhng câu không b i ngha -> same proposition

Ex2. The following pair of sentences expresses the same

proposition:
3(a) John gave Mary a book.
3(b) Mary was given a book by John.
The following pair of sentences expresses different propositions:
4(a) George danced with Ethel.
4(b) George didn’t dance with Ethel. Ph nh là 1 cách vit different proposition

Exercise 27: Do the two following sentences have the same

proposition?
(1) Mr Dindlay killed Janet.
(2) Mr Dindlay caused Janet to die.
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Exercise 28: Explain why the two members of each of the

following pairs of sentences35 do not share the same
proposition.

35
This means the two members of each pair are not paraphrases of each other.
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reversed meaning in ...

1(a) John is the parent of James. 3(a) The fly was on the wall.
1(b) James is the parent of John. 3(b) The wall was under the fly.

2(a) The hunter bit the lion. 4(a) Jack was injured by a stone.
2(b) The lion bit the hunter. 4(b) Jack was injured with a stone.

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3.1.2 Distinction between a proposition and a sentence

“Propositions, unlike sentences, cannot be said to belong to
any particular language. Sentences in different languages can
correspond to the same proposition, if the two sentences are
perfect translations of each other.” [Hurford and Heasley, 1984:
21-22] For example, English I’am cold, French J’ai froid, German
Mir ist kalt and Vietnamese Toâi laïnh can, to the extent to which
they are perfect translations of each other, be said to correspond to
the same proposition.

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same meaning, different language -> same proposition
 3.1.3 Distinction between an utterance and a sentence
“An UTTERANCE is the USE by a particular speaker, on a
particular occasion, for a particular purpose, of a piece of
language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase,
or even a single word.” [Hurford and Heasley, 1984: 15]
“A SENTENCE is neither a physical event nor a physical
object. It is conceived abstractly, a string of words put
together by the grammatical rules of a language. A sentence
can be thought of as the IDEAL string of words behind various
realizations in utterances and inscriptions.” [Hurford and Heasley,
1984: 16]
Jane: ‘Coffee?’ ← Would you like some coffee?
Steve: ‘Sure!’ ← I’m sure to love it.
Jane: ‘White?’ ← Would you like (black coffee or) white coffee?
Steve: ‘Black.’ ← I’d like black coffee, please.
(One-word utterances) (Well-formed sentences)
“The distinction between sentence and utterance is of
fundamental importance to both semantics and pragmatics.
Essentially, we want to say that a sentence is an abstract
theoretical entity defined within a theory of grammar, while
utterance is the issuance of a sentence.” [Levinson, 1983: 18]
“Utterances of non-sentences, e.g. short phrases or
single words, are used by people in communication all the time.
People do not converse wholly in (tokens of) well-formed
sentences. But the abstract idea of a sentence is the basis for
understanding even those expressions, which are not

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sentences. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the meaning of
non-sentences can be best analysed by considering them to be
abbreviations, or incomplete versions, of whole sentences.”
[Hurford and Heasley, 1984: 18]
“The term ‘utterance’ can be used to refer either to the
process (or activity) of uttering or to the product of that
process (or activity). Utterances in the first of these two senses
are commonly referred to nowadays as speech acts; utterances in
the second sense may be referred to — in a specialized sense of
the term — as inscriptions36.” [Lyons, 1995: 235]
3.1.3 Distinction between a proposition, a sentence and an
utterance
3.1.3.1 “It is useful to envisage the kind of family tree
relationship between the three notions shown in the diagram. For
example, a single proposition could be expressed by using
several sentences (say The Monday Club deposed Mrs Thatcher, or
Mrs Thatcher was deposed by The Monday Club) and each of these
sentences could be uttered an indefinite number of times.”
[Hurford and Heasley, 1984: 23]
PROPOSITION

SENTENCE SENTENCE SENTENCE

UTTERANCE UTTERANCE UTTERANCE UTTERANCE UTTERANCE UTTERANCE

36
The term ‘inscriptions’ is “not widely used by linguists. It must be interpreted
as being more appropriate to the written than it is to the spoken language.”
[Lyons, 1995: 235]
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 3.1.3.2 Also, it is interesting to note that the same
proposition can be expressed by different sentences and that
the same sentence can be realised by different utterances on
particular occasions.
Exercise 29: Fill in the following chart given by Hurford and
Heasley [1984: 23] with ‘+’ or ‘–’ as appropriate. Thus, for
example, if it makes sense to think of a proposition being a
particular regional accent, put a ‘+’ in the appropriate box; if
not put a ‘–.’

Utterances Sentences Propositions

Can be loud or quiet

Can be grammatical or not

Can be true or false

In a particular regional accent

In a particular language

3.2 Sentence types (classified according to truth value37)

37
“You can understand well-formed sentences of your language without knowing
their truth value. Knowing the truth conditions is not the same as knowing the
actual facts. Rather, the truth conditions, the meaning, permit you to examine
the world and learn the actual facts … Knowing a language includes knowing
the semantic rules for combining meanings and the conditions under which
sentences are true or false.” [Fromkin and Rodman, 1993: 146]
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