2. Basic ideas in semantics
• Semantics is the study of MEANING in
LANGUAGE
• Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (i.e
intends to convey) when he uses a piece of
language.
• Sentence meaning (or word meaning is what a
sentence (or word) means, i.e. what it count
as the equivalent of in the language
concerned.
3. • Theory is precisely specified, coherent, and
economical framework of interdependent
statements and definitions, constructed so
that as large a number as possible of
particular basic facts can either be seen to
follow from it or be de scribable in terms of it.
4. SENTENCE, UTTERANCES AND
PROPOSITIONS
• An utterance is any stretch o talk, by one
person, before and after which there is silence
on the part of that person. Double quotation
marks (“…”) represents an utterance.
• An utterance is the use by a particular
speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of
language, such as a sequence of sentences, or
a single word.
Exp : “wow”, “thank you”, “help”, etc
5. • A sentence is neither a physical event nor a
physical object. It is conceived abstractly, a
string o words put together by the
grammatical rules of a language. Anything
italicized represents a sentence. A sentence
can be thought of as the IDEAL string of words
behind various realizations in utterances and
inscriptions.
6. • A SENTENCE is a grammatically complete
string of words expressing a complete
thought.
Exp :
I would like a cup of tea.
please put it in the bedroom.
7. • Proposition is that part of the meaning of the
utterance of a declarative sentence which
describes some state of affairs. True
proposition correspond to facts, in the
ordinary sense of the word fact. False
propositions do not correspond to facts.
8. • A proposition is an abstraction that can be
grasped by the mind of an individual person.
Exp :
An Aristotelian proposition may take the form :
"All men are mortal"
"Socrates is a man.“
“Socrates is mortal.”
9. REFERENCE AND SENSE
• Reference is a speaker indicates which things
in the world (including persons) are being
talked about.
Exp:
“my brother is in the coffee shop”.
identifies person identifies thing
10. • Sense of an expression is its place in a system
of semantic relationships with other
expressions in the language.
Exp :
Your gatepost doesn’t seem to be quite vertical
upright
We can talk about the sense, not only of
words, but also longer expressions.
11. REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
• A referring expression is any expression used
in an utterance to refer to something or
someone (or a clearly delimited collection o
things or people) i.e used with a particular
referring in mind.
Exp : When the speaker has a particular person
in mind when he says “a girl sitting on the wall
by the bus stop”. “a girl”, is referring
expression.
12. • Opaque context is a part o a sentence which
could be mad into a complete sentence by the
addition of a referring expression, but where
the addition of different referring expressions,
even though they refer to the same thing or
person, in a given situation, will yield sentence
with DIFFERENT meanings when uttered in a
given situation.
13. Example of Opaque context :
• Tia believes that Gary took the book.
• Tia believes that the person in the corner took
the book.
If, for example, Tia believes erroneously that
person in the corner is not Gary, then A and B
will mean different thing.
14. • An equative sentence is one which is used to
assert the identity of the referrents of two
referring expression, i.e to assert that two
referring expressions have the same referent.
Exp :
Gary is the person in the corner.
That man over there is my brother.
15. PREDICATES
• Predicator of simple declarative sentence is
the word (sometimes a group o words) which
does not belong to any of the referring
expressions and which, of the remainder,
makes the most specific contribution to the
meaning of the sentence.
Exp :
handsome is the predicator in Gary is
handsome.
16. • Predicate is any word (or sequence of words)
which (in a given single sense) an function as
the predicator of the sentence.
Exp :
cook, hungry, angry, show, hit, are all
predicates except conjunction and article
(and, or, but, not).
17. • Degree of predicate is a number indicating the
number of arguments it is normally
understood to have in simple sentence.
Exp :
She is angry (she as argument, angry as
predicator)
o Argument only one (I) so it called a one place
predicate.
18. • Risa eat meet ball ( Risa :argument, eat :
predicator, and meet ball : argument)
o There are two argument, so it called two place
predicate.
19. PREDICATES, REFERRING
EXPRESSIONS, AND UNIVERSE OF
DISCOURSE
• A generic sentence is a sentence in whch
some statement made about a whole
unrestricted class o individuals, as opposed
particular individual.
Exp:
The lion is carnivore (understood by every
people in the universe).
20. • Universal of discourse for any utterance as
the particular world real, real or imaginary (or
part real, part imaginary) that the speaker
assumes he is talking about at the time.
Exp :
Santa clause is fiction, but the toy telephones
he might bring do actually exist.
21. DEIXIS AND DEFINITENESS
• Deictic word is one which takes some element
of its meaning from the situation (i.e the
speaker, addressee, the time and place) of the
utterance in which it is used.
Exp:
I enjoy living in this city.
She was sitting over there.
22. • The context of an utterance is a small subpart
of the universe of discourse shared by speaker
and hearer, and includes facts about the topic
of the conversation in which the utterance
occurs, and also facts about the situation in
which the conversation itself takes place.
23. • Definiteness is feature of a noun phrase selected
by a speaker to convey his assumption that the
hearer will be able to identify the referent of the
noun phrase, usually because it is the only thing
of its kind in the context of the utterance.
Exp :
The snake is a cold blood animal. It is the only thing
in a normal universe of discourse known by this
name.
24. WORD AND THINGS : EXTENSION AND
PROTOTYPE
• Extension of one-place predicate is the set o
all individuals to which that predicate can
truthfully be applied.
Exp:
The extension of table is the set of all table in
the universe
The extension of rabbits is the set of all rabbits
in the universe
25. • Prototype of a predicate is an object which
is held to be very typical of the kind of object
which can be referred to by an expression
containing the predicate.
Exp :
‘creatures that are covered with feathers,
have two wings and two legs, and the
majority of which can fly‘ could be a
prototype of the predicate bird in the world.
26. SENSE PROPERTIES AND STEREOTYPES
• An analytic sentence is one that necessarily
TRUE, as a result of the senses of words in it.
Exp:
All lions is animals. Frozen water is ice.
• A synthetic sentence is one which is NOT
analytic, but maybe either true or false,
depending on the way the world is.
Exp :
My computer is on. Rian is handsome
27. • A contradiction is a sentence that is
necessarily FALSE, as a result of the senses o
the words in it.
Exp :
jellyfish are plans. (this mush be false, because
jellyfish are animals, not plans but animals)
28. • A necessary condition on the sense of a
predicate is a condition (or criterion) which a
thing MUST meet in order to qualify as being
correctly described by that predicate.
• A sufficient set of conditions on the sense of
a predicate is a set of conditions (or criteria)
which, if they are met by a thing, are enough n
themselves to GUARANTEE that the predicate
correctly describes that thing.
29. • The stereotype of a predicate is a list of the
typical characteristics of things which the
predicate may be applied.
Exp:
The stereotype of girls would be something
like :
Girls are not good at sports , Girls are messy
and unclean, girls are good at cooking, etc
30. SENSE RELATION
• Synonymy is the relationship between two
predicates that have the same sense.
Exp :
o Beautiful: Attractive, Pretty, Lovely, Stunning
o Funny: Humorous, Comical, Hilarious,
Hysterical
o Unhappy: Sad, Depressed, Melancholy,
Miserable
31. • Paraphrase is a sentence which expresses the
same proposition as another sentence.
Exp :
The gray clouds were a warning of an
approaching storm. The coming storm was
foretold by the dark clouds.
32. • Hyponymy is a sense relation between
predicates (or sometimes longer phrases) such
that the meaning of one predicate (or phrase)
is included in the meaning of the other.
Exp :
It describes what happens when we say 'An X
is a kind of Y‘. A jasmine is a kind of flower, or
simply, jasmine is a flower."
