CHAPTER ONE: Dr.

Najah Ali Aljahdali

STUDYING MEANING
 OVERVIEW
.Language= its body --------meaning
Semantics of a certain variety is related to that specific variety. (a word----- a specific meaning)
Semantics and pragmatics (both study meaning but with a different scope)
Semantics is the study of the “toolkit” for meaning: knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and its
.patterns for building more elaborate meanings up to the level of sentence meanings
.Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning in its most abstract way. Sentence: I am hungry
Pragmatics is concerned with the use of these tools in meaningful communication. It is about (the interaction of our
semantic knowledge+ our knowledge of the world “taking into account contexts of use”)
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning in relation to context. An utterance: “I am hungry.” different
.intentions that lead to different interpretations

Difference between semantics and pragmatics as in ex. 1.1

Example 1.1 (p. 1)
.Hold out your arm. That’s it
.Language is for communicating about the world outside of language
The outside world is all about: actions, activities, things, etc. (arm/ your arm/ hold out). People use the language:
.)read, write, talk, and listen

Denote (labels the connection between meaningful items of the language and aspects of the world (real or
:imagined))
.Arm denotes a part of a person’s body
.Your arm denotes an arm of the person spoken to
.Hold out denotes an action

An expression is any meaningful language unit or a sequence of meaningful units such as a sentence, a phrase, a
word, or a part of a word (free/ bound morphemes). [A linguistic expression] such as: hope/ful/ly (ly in hopefully is
different than ly in holy)
.That’s it is an expression that means it is OK, there's nothing to add
?We want to discuss That and it separately. What do they denote
What do we use that usually for? For many things. The basic meaning is something which is far/ an event/ etc. So
this leads to a very important conclusion: without context, you cannot guess the meaning intended. (semantics and
.pragmatics)

Context of ex. 1.1: A quotation from the first of Harry Potter’s books. (p. 2)

Table 1.1 p. 3

This means that human communication requires active collaboration on the part of any person the message is
.directed to, the addressee (i.e. a reader/ a listener)
.The addressee has the task of guessing what the sender (the writer/ the speaker) intends to convey
The sender’s task is to judge what needs to be written or said to enable the addressee to recognise what the sender’s
.wants to communicate
:There are three consequences of this

.different ways of communicating the same message .1

The active participation of the addressee sometimes allows a lot to be communicated with just a little having been .2
.said or written
Mistakes are possible. In face-to-face interactions, the speaker can monitor the listener’s (or listeners’) reactions- .3
whether these are grins or scowls, or spoken responses, or actions to judge whether or not the sending intention has
been correctly guessed, and can then say more to cancel misunderstandings and further guide the addressee towards
.what is intended. (chatting, phone conversations, all are cases of misunderstanding)

Competent users of the language use all of these information without giving thought to the details of what is going
.on
Linguistics, semantics and pragmatics with their detailed analysis on language show us these interesting things that
.happen without us taking any slight consideration of all the complicated and complex operations that are happening

They bring to our consciousness all of the knowledge and skills we are not aware of that we use automatically with
.great ease

Understanding these small bits of using language even in its most ordinary ways and how they work is really
.fascinating
PRAGMATICS DISTINGUISHED FROM SEMANTICS 1.1
1.1.1 UTTERANCES AND SENTENCES

:In our daily communication, we tend to use utterances

Example 1.2 (p. 4)

”.a. “Not so loud
”.b. “In H101
”.c. “People who buy these tickets often don’t have loads of money
.Context: speaker and listener, relation, topic, place, time, etc

.Each of the three utterances has its own context

Utterances are the raw data of linguistics. Each utterance is unique (produced by a particular sender in a specific
.situation)
Utterances are going to be used to cover both spoken and stretches of written language up to sentence size. Why? (tied to
.a sender and a time)
Utterances can never be repeated. (even if the same utterance was said twice!!)

.No-one keeps a record of every utterance that is being said or written unless been recorded

Table p. 5

.The abstract linguistic object on which an utterance is based is a sentence

In H101.” was based on the sentence The class will be in room H101. (because it was said in response to me asking “
“Where is the class going to be?”)
.Utterances are interpreted in context
Three stages of interpretation 1.1.2
The essential difference between sentences and utterances is that sentences are abstract, not tied to context, whereas
.utterances are identified by their contexts
.I am hungry
”.I am hungry“
.Pragmatics: is the study of utterance meaning
Semantics: is the study of sentences meaning and word meaning. (production of dictionaries)
That was the last bus. (italics used to denote a sentence) 1.3

:The three distinguishable stages

The semantic one: literal meaning of a sentence is based on just the semantic information that you have from your -1
knowledge of English. (word meaning in the most abstract way)
The first pragmatic interpretation: Explicature is a basic interpretation of an utterance using contextual -2
information and world knowledge to work out what is being referred to and which way to understand ambiguous
expressions. Example last (2 possible contexts and this will lead to different explicatures (read p. 6))
These two explicatures of utterances go beyond the literal meaning of the sentence That was the last bus. They are
based on the linguistic context of (Ann’s and Charley’s) utterances respectively and the non-linguistic context (it is
late at night in Ann’s case; Charley and the bus driver can both see bus after bus departing). Background knowledge
about buses and their departures are very imp. (all of this is pragmatics (context)). Context facilitates disambiguation.
.All the above two interpretations are probable since there might be other possible interpretations
The second pragmatic interpretation: In Implicature, we go further and ask what is hinted at by an utterance in its -3
particular context (i.e. what the sender’s “agenda” is). We want to know more about the kind of the relationship that
.Ann and Bess have, and the about Charley and the look of the driver’s face

We cannot forget about the literal meaning of the sentence (1.3) because literal meaning is the foundation for
.explicature, on which implicatures are based. Each stage is built on the previous one

:In conclusion

.Literal meaning: the semantic of sentences in the abstract

.Explicature: the pragmatics of reference and disambiguation
.Implicature: the pragmatics of hints
A first outline of pragmatics 1.1.3

A crucial basis for making pragmatic inferences is the contrast between what might have been uttered and what •
.actually was uttered

: Example (1.4)

Alcohol & Smoking

You are welcome to bring your own alcohol
provided you are buying a meal. There is no
.charge for doing so

.The above ex. is a short, headed written section (written utterance) from an info. flyer about a restaurant

The leaflet then switches to another topic, inviting us to infer that no section is made for smoking. We cannot be •
certain. They might simply have forgotten to add something permissive that they intended to say about smoking, but it
could be a pointedly negative hint to smokers. Nothing in the leaflet actually says that smoking is unwelcome or
disallowed; so this implicature from (1.4) and its context is an elaboration well beyond the literal meaning of what
.appears in the leaflet

The pragmatic inferences called implicatures and explicatures occur all the time in communication, but they are •
.merely informed guesses. It is one of their defining features that they can be cancelled
Types of Meaning 1.2

.Sender’s meaning is the meaning that the speaker /writer intends to convey by means of an utterance
.Sender’s meaning is something that addressees are continually having to make informed guesses about

.Addressees can give indications, in their own next utterances, of their interpretations

The sender or addressees or bystanders will sometimes offer confirmations, corrections, elaborations, etc. (You misunderstood me….., let me
explain more…….)
.Sender’s meanings, then are the communicative goals of senders and the interpretational targets for addressees. They are rather private

Senders will sometimes not admit that they intended to convey selfish or hurtful implicatures and, at times, may be unable to put across the
.intention behind an utterance of theirs any better than they have already done producing the utterance

.Sender’s thoughts are private, but utterances are publicly observable

.Typed or written utterances can be studied on paper or on the screens of digital devices
.Spoken utterances can be recorded and played back
.Other people who were present can be asked about when an utterance was produced can be asked what they heard, or saw being written
As language users, we gain experience as both senders and addressees and develop intuitions about the meaning an
.utterance is likely to carry in a given context

.Utterances are instances of sentences in use

.Ambiguous (double meaning) sentences such as I went to the bank

‫عين‬

.The meaning of a word is the contribution it makes to the meanings of sentences in which it appears

:Contradictory sentences
a. He is married. (T)
.b. He is a bachelor
c. * He is married but he is a bachelor. (problematic)
Denotation, sense, reference and deixis 1.2.1
The denotation of an expression is whatever it denotes. (literal representation of a word)
‫سعاد شمس‬ ‫هذه شمس‬
For many words, the denotation is a big class of things (places, things, people). If expressions did not have denotations,
.languages would hardly be of much use (How would we express?)
 
.The meaning of a word or other kind of expression simply is its denotation
.In early childhood our first words are probably learnt by processes of live demonstration and pointing known as ostension
:It is not plausible as a general approach to meaning, however, because

It ignores the fact that after early childhood we usually use language not ostension to explain the meanings of words flee-1
.’to mean ‘to run away
 
When people really do resort to ostension for explaining meanings, their accompanying utterances may be carrying a lot -2
.of the burden
 
There are all kinds of abstract, dubiously, existent and relational denotations that cannot conveniently be shown. -3
 (happiness, idea, etc.)
There are two general solutions, which are compatible but differ in their preoccupations. 

1-Formal semantics: the most rigorous varieties of semantics (because they use systems of formal logic to set out
descriptions of meaning and theories of how the meanings of different sorts of expressions) 
.Example: singular names to denote individuals, spatial relation words as in

Sense which is those aspects of the meaning of an expression that give it the denotation it has. Bank is an example .2
.where there are two different senses (listing them in the dictionary separately)

.Sense relations are semantic relationships between the senses of expressions. Operation in different sentences
‫ضرب‬

Reference is what speakers or writers do when they use expressions to pick out for their audience particular
people(“my sister”) or things (“the Parthenon Marbles”) or times (“2007”) or places (“that corner”) or events ((“her
birthday party”) or ideas (the plans we were told about”). These are referring expressions and the entities outside
the language are called the referents. Apple

Reference is a pragmatic act performed by senders and interpreted at the explicature stage. Reference has to be done
.and comprehended in relation to context
.We drove to Edinburg today.” (We, today) Deictic expressions“ )1.10(
Deictic expressions are words, phrases and features of grammar that have to be interpreted in relation to the situation
.in which they are uttered

”.the first tutorial will be held next week“ 1.11

.Deixis is pervasive in languages indicating “where’, ‘who’, ‘what’ and so on

:There are different kinds of deixis

……Time: now, soon, ago, last week
Place: here, there, two kilometers, upstairs……(physical context)
..…Participants: she, her, his, they, this, that
.…Discourse itself: this sentence, the next paragraph
Our semantic knowledge of the meaning of deictic expressions (in utterances) guides us on how, pragmatically, to
.interpret them in context
 SEMANTICS 1.3

Semantics is the study of word meaning and sentence meaning, abstracted away from contexts of use, is a
.descriptive subject

It is an attempt to describe and understand the nature of the knowledge about meaning in their language that people
.have from knowing the language

Semantic description of language knowledge is different from the encyclopedia maker’s task of cataloguing general
knowledge. Tangerine and clementine illustrate distinctions that are not part of our knowledge of English, but rather
.a fruiterer’s kind of expertise, which some of people know, but which most users of English do not have to know
Propositions 1.3.1

Different sentences can carry the same meaning, as in

.a. Sharks hunt seals )1.12(
.b. Seals are hunted by sharks
.c. Seals are prey to sharks
.d. These chase and kill others

Four grammatical sentences and one semantic proposition. (Focus)

.bring the same proposition into play )1.12a–c(

A proposition is the term for a kind of core sentence meaning, the abstract idea that remains the same in cases such as
(1.12a–c). (semantic content)

Helen wrote the letter and John did, too. (one grammatical sentence and two propositions)

.Propositions in this technical sense are very abstract, not tied to particular words or sentences

Test of propositions: T/F

.The feature of proposition is that it is reasonable to wonder whether they are true or false
As with (1.12d), you would need to know what is referred to by “These” and “others” before it becomes sensible to ask whether it is true, and that is
.going to require information about the particular context in which an utterance based on the sentence is used

.Utterances based on some other sentence patterns cannot comfortably be reacted to like this
:Try imaginary conversations in which such responses are made to examples like those in (1.13)

?a. What’s your name )1.13(

.b. Please help me

.Even though most conceivable explicatures of the sentences in (1.13) would not express propositions, they nonetheless involve propositions
The question in (1.13a) carries a proposition with a gap ‘addressee’s name is ___’ and cooperative addressees supply their name to fill the gap. The
.request (1.13b) presents a proposition ‘addressee help sender’ and the sender hopes that the addressee will act to make that proposition come true
.walk in the park
.Our walk in the park
.We enjoyed our walk in the park

:Ambiguities are another reason for needing the concept of propositions as in

.She took the right turn )1.14(
.can express at least two propositions )1.14(

.
1.3.2COMPOSITIONALITY

We need to account for sentence meaning in order to develop explanations of utterance meaning, because utterances are sentences
.put to use

The number of sentences in a human language is potentially endless; so our account cannot list of all the sentences with an
interpretation written next to each one. We have to generalise, to try to discover the principles that enable people to choose
sentences that can, as utterances in particular contexts, have the intended meanings and that make it possible for their addressees to
.understand what they hear or read

Semanticists, therefore, aim to explain the meaning of each sentence as arising from, on the one hand, the meanings of its parts and,
on the other, the manner in which the parts are put together. Operation (The patient had a successful operation)

That is what a compositional theory of meaning amounts to. The meaningful parts of a sentence are clauses, phrases and words; and
.the meaningful parts of words are morphemes

Happy/ unhappy/ happily/ happiness

 In syntax too there can be differences in meaning depending on the order that operations apply.

‫انما يخشى هللا من عباده العلماء‬

I ate the cookies on the sofa. (syntactic ambiguity)

Idioms are exceptions. An expression is an idiom if its is not compositional, that is to say it cannot be worked out from knowledge
of the meanings of its parts and the way they have been put together.

Come a cropper means 'fall heavily' but we cannot derive this meaning from the meanings of come, a, crop and -er.

Idioms simply have to be learned as wholes.  

 
ENTAILMENT 1.3.3

. N.P.: CHECK THE TRUTH OF THE PROPOSITION FIRST AND THEN BUILD YOUR ENTAILMENT
.Entailment is an important type of inference in semantics

(an intersection between semantics and logic)

Notation ⇒ represents entailment

(1.19) a. The accommodation was excellent ⇒ The accommodation was very good

b. The accommodation was excellent ⇒ The accommodation was good

c. The accommodation was excellent ⇒ The accommodation was OK.

Using the notation ⇒ for entailment, (1.19a) indicates that when The accommodation was excellent is true, we can be sure that
it (the same accommodation at the same point in time) was very good. The statement in (1.19b) signifies that if it was excellent,
it was (at least) good; and (1.19c) signifies that it was (at least) OK.

Entailment holds between propositions.

 (1.20) a. Moira has arrived in Edinburgh.

b. Moira is in Edinburgh.

c. Moira has arrived in Edinburgh ⇒ Moira is in Edinburgh.

d. *Moira has arrived in Edinburgh and she is not in Edinburgh.

When (1.20a) is true we can be sure that (1.20b) is also true.

(1.20c) is a statement about entailment. Attempting to cancel an entailment leads to contradiction, as in (1.20d). If the first clause in
(1.20d) is true, it entails the proposition expressed by a non-negative version of the and … clause.

.Examples (1.21a, b) show other entailments of (1.20a)

(1.21) a. Moira has arrived in Edinburgh ⇒ Moira is not in Birmingham

b. Moira has arrived in Edinburgh ⇒ Moira went to Edinburgh

The word arrived is an important contributor to (1.21a) having the entailments shown. For instance, if lived or been were substituted
for arrived, the entailments would be different.
To conclude, word senses affect the entailments that a sentence carries.

Entailments are propositions that follow when a given proposition is true. If it is true that a particular person has arrived in
Edinburgh, then it must be true that the person is in Edinburgh at that time and made a journey from somewhere else.

Entailments are understood and do not have to be expressed (a great saving of time when we are communicating).
Thank you