ENGL 412

SEMANTICS & PRAGMATICS Dr. Safaa Khalil

THE MEANING OF MEANING

3.1 Truth as a guide to sentence meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

3.2 Analytic sentences, synthetic sentences, and contradictions . . . 36
3.3 Meaning relations between propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4 Presupposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1 TRUTH AS A GUIDE TO SENTENCE MEANING

Truth:

There is a circle in a square.

It turns out that a sentence by itself is neither true nor false

3.1 TRUTH AS A GUIDE TO SENTENCE MEANING

Truth:
There is a circle in a square.

true false
3.1 TRUTH AS A GUIDE TO SENTENCE MEANING
•The meaning of a simple declarative sentence is called a proposition.
•A proposition is a claim about the world which may (in general) be
true in some situations and false in others.
•Some scholars hold that a sentence, as a grammatical entity, cannot
have a truth value.
•Speakers speak truly when they use a sentence to perform a certain
type of speech act.
3.1 TRUTH AS A GUIDE TO SENTENCE MEANING

•When we speak of sentences as being true or false we are using a

common but imprecise manner of speaking.
•It is the proposition expressed by the sentence, rather than the
sentence itself, which can be true or false.
•The meaning of a sentence determines its truth conditions.
3.2 ANALYTIC SENTENCES, SYNTHETIC SENTENCES, AND CONTRADICTIONS

•Some propositions are true under all circumstances.

•There are no situations in which such a proposition would be false.
sentences which express such propositions as analytic sentences, or
tautologies.
Analytic sentences, or Tautologies
Examples:
oToday is the first day of the rest of your life.
o“What will be, will be”
3.2 ANALYTIC SENTENCES, SYNTHETIC SENTENCES, AND CONTRADICTIONS

Analytic sentences, or Tautologies

Why to use them:
oBecause they are always true, they are not very informative.
oThe truth of the sentence depends only on the meaning of the
words.
oWe say them because they do in fact have communicative value,
comes from the pragmatic inferences which they trigger
3.2 ANALYTIC SENTENCES, SYNTHETIC SENTENCES, AND CONTRADICTIONS

Contradictions
oPropositions which are false in every situation.
“Your children are not your children”
oPropositions of this type are said to be contradictions.
oA speaker is not making a truth conditional claim about the state of the
world, since there are no conditions under which the sentence can be
true.
oThe communicative value of the utterance must be derived by pragmatic
inference.
3.2 ANALYTIC SENTENCES, SYNTHETIC SENTENCES, AND CONTRADICTIONS

Synthetic
oPropositions which are neither contradictions nor analytic.
oThey may be true in some situations and false in others.
oDetermining their truth value requires not only understanding their
meaning but also knowing something about the current state of the
world or the situation under discussion.
oMost of the (declarative) sentences that speakers produce in
everyday speech are of this type.
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

a. The burglar broke the window

b. ………………………………….
c. …………………………………..
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

a. The burglar broke the window.

b. The window is broken.
c. Somebody broke the window.
▪Sentence can entail another one when the truth of the first guarantees the truth
of the second.
▪This kind of relationship is known as entailment; sentence (a) entails sentence
(b),
▪or more precisely, the proposition expressed by (a) entails the proposition
expressed by (b).
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

a. John and Marry are twins.

b. Marry and John are twins.

a. Ringo Starr is my grandfather. a. Al is taller than Bill.

b. Ringo Starr is not my grandfather. b. Bill is taller than Al.
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

a. Hong Kong is warmer than Beijing (in December).

b. Beijing is cooler than Hong Kong (in December).
▪Two sentences which mutually entail each other are said to be
synonymous, or paraphrases of each other.
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

“Take some more tea”

▪Presupposition: Information which is linguistically encoded as being
part of the common ground at the time of utterance.
▪Common ground: Everything that both the speaker and hearer
know or believe in common.
▪Facts about the world: one sun, one moon
▪Observation in the situation: cloth, things
▪Facts mentioned earlier in that same conversation
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

“Take some more tea”

▪The word or grammatical construction which indicates the presence of a
presupposition is called a trigger.
▪More “triggers” the presupposition that she has already had some tea.

▪Can you guess what is Presupposition Failure?

3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

“The neighbor’s dog killed my cat”

▪Entailment: ………………………………………………………..
▪Presupposition: ………………………………………………………..
3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS

“The neighbor’s dog killed my cat”

▪Negation: The neighbor’s dog didn’t kill my cat
▪Question: Did the neighbor’s dog kill my cat?

The presupposition still holds but entailment does not.

3.3 MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS