Meaning in Language: An

Introduction to Semantics and

Pragmatics (2011)

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 1

Chapter 2

LOGIC AND MEANING

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 2

 PROPOSITIONS

• Features some property to an entity or a relation between

two or more entities.
• It is either true or false
• Truth or falsehood shows at least one proposition made
• The same proposition may be expressed by an indefinite
and large number of sentences.

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 3

How Propositions Relate
1. Sentences: type-level entity where definite referring
expressions have to be assigned referents
2. Statements: must be energized illocutionary force
3. Utterances: token-level entity where multiple
utterances can be produced from one sentence

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 4

Logical Operators
• Negative Operator:
Switches truth value
• Implication:
"P and/or Q": PvQ is true as long as at least one of
the two propositions P and Q is true. The order of
the propositions is significant for this relation.

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 5

Logical Operators
• Conjunction:
• P&Q is true only if both P and Q are true.
• The order of the propositions is irrelevant.
• Disjunction
• "P and/or Q": PvQ is true as long as at least one of the two propositions P and
Q is true. T
• The order of the propositions is irrelevant.
• Equivalence
• P"Q is true only if both P and Q have the same truth value.
• The order of the propositions is irrelevant.

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 6

Natural Language Application
• Entailment:
• Relation which holds between the propositions listed under P and the
corresponding propositions under Q
• Equivalence:
• mutual entailment
• Contrariety:
• may not be simultaneously true
• may be simultaneously false.
• Contradiction:
• must have opposite truth values in every circumstance

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 7

COMPATIBILITY
• truth values vary independently of one another
• May be both true, both false, or one true and the other
false
• relations described have an important role in the
analysis of meaning relations between words

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 8

INNER STRUCTURE OF PROPOSITIONS

• Known as second-order logic

• Predicate Calculus:
• system of representing the structure of propositions

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 9

ARGUMENTS AND PREDICATES
• closely linked pair of concepts
• absolutely fundamental to both logic and semantics
are argument and predicate.
• Argument: designates some entity or group of
entities
• Predicate: attributes some property to the entity
denoted by the argument

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 10

Valency
• The number of arguments a predicate takes is
known as its valency
• Logical Valency: determined by the number of
arguments for it to be logically complete

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 11

Paradoxical, analytic and Synthetic Propositions
• Paradoxical:
• Automatically express false propositions
• Synthetic propositions:
• Truth values made up by their correspondence or otherwise
with the facts
• Analytic:
• they automatically express true propositions

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 12

Logic of Classes
See The logic of relations P.39
Useful set of concepts drawn from logic of classes:
• Identity
• Inclusion
• Disjunction
• Intersection
• Union
• Class Relations
• Mapping
ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 13
Presuppositions

• Truth is assumed to be common knowledge shared by

speaker and addressee.
• Speaker presupposes knowledge about listener

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 14

Useful Distinctions to Remember
• Reference: things in the world referred to by a
particular expression
• Denotation: word denotes a specific point of
reference
• Sense: word is associated with some kind of mental
representation

ENG350: Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics 15