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The Difference Between Utterance, Sentence and Proposition

An utterance is a group of words spoken between pauses that may or may not convey a complete meaning, whereas a sentence is a group of words that conveys a full meaning either spoken or written. The main difference is that an utterance does not necessarily have a complete meaning and is associated with spoken language. A proposition is an assertion that can be either true or false, such as "A dog is an animal" or "A dog is not a cat", and it can be expressed through different sentences while maintaining the original message.

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229 views1 page

The Difference Between Utterance, Sentence and Proposition

An utterance is a group of words spoken between pauses that may or may not convey a complete meaning, whereas a sentence is a group of words that conveys a full meaning either spoken or written. The main difference is that an utterance does not necessarily have a complete meaning and is associated with spoken language. A proposition is an assertion that can be either true or false, such as "A dog is an animal" or "A dog is not a cat", and it can be expressed through different sentences while maintaining the original message.

Uploaded by

Natasa Zejak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The difference between utterance, sentence and proposition

These three words are frequently used in semantics. To describe better the meaning
of these words, first we should understand the meaning of the word semantics. In the late
1800s, Michel Bréal coined the term “sémantique” to describe the psychology of language,
and it is the study of the meaning in language. Using semantics we can find the meaning not
only of the phrase, but also of a single word.

A sentence is a group of words that has a meaning. An utterance is also a group of


words or a part of speech in between pauses. A sentence can be in both written and spoken
language. But an utterance is usually related to the spoken language. The main difference
between sentence and utterance is that the sentence conveys a complete meaning, either
spoken or written, but utterance does not necessarily convey a complete meaning. The
utterance is a statement, something said by somebody, and they don’t exist in written
language. It does not focus on the grammatical aspect. It is used by a particular speaker, on
a particular occasion, and it can be or a phrase, a clause or just a word. A sentence is a set
of words that is complete in itself, containing a subject, a predicate and an object, and
consisting of a main and the subordinate clauses. To differentiate utterance and sentence,
we usually use quotation mark in written form of utterance. This car is the most expensive
car of the year would be a sentence and “This car is the most expensive car of the year”
would be the utterance. “Not much” would be an utterance, because there is a silence, a
stretch of talk, at least once every person used this phrase. This phrase makes sense and it is
a part of a sentence. On the other hand “cbschhhhewuidhh” is not the utterance because it
has no meaning, does not make sense. Welcome to the jungle, we have got a lot of funny
games is a sentence where we can see the grammatical rules that are perfectly applied, as a
string.

A proposition is a statement in which anything is whatsoever is affirmed or denied,


and it can be either true or false. It must be one or the other, but it cannot be both. An
example “A dog is an animal” or “A dog is not a cat”. The proposition can be expressed in
different sentences but it has the original message. Proposition is always found in the
declarative sentences. A proposition is an assertive statement while a sentence can be
declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative or optative.

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