2.3.

Theories of Meaning
• Semantic theories explain the nature of meaning by
utilizing a finite set of rules to explain a variety of
semantic phenomena.
• Any theory of semantics should provide statements that
explain meaning relationship – such as:
ambiguity
anomaly
contradiction
tautology
paraphrase
 entailment
synonymy
hyponymy
• Ambiguity: Where an expression has more than
one possible meaning.
• Since all expressions show some variation in
context the problem for semanticists is to identify
true ambiguity, where the same form can give
rise to different specific and distinct meanings.
• An example of lexical ambiguity is the noun
bark, which can mean “hard outer covering of a
tree” or “sound made by a dog.”
Anomalous, anomaly
• A semantically anomalous linguistic expression is
one that has an abnormal meaning or fails to make
sense, despite being grammatically well-formed.
This is due to a semantic incompatibility between
some of the constituent parts of the linguistic
expression, as in the examples below:
• #My brother is pregnant (clash between the property
of maleness and the possibility of becoming
pregnant).
• #The rain fell upwards (clash between directions of
vertical movement in the verb and adverb).
• The hash (#) symbol is used to mark semantically
anomalous but grammatically well-formed
expressions
Contradiction
• One meaning of contradiction is a type of
PROPOSITIONAL RELATION.
• A PROPOSITION P contradicts another
proposition Q if and only if the truth of P
ENTAILS the falsity of Q.
• For example, any sentence is contradicted by its
negation:
Jean ate snails contradicts Jean did not eat
snails.
• Tautology: In logic, a statement that cannot be
denied without contradiction. It is true under
any interpretation.
Ex:
 My mother is my mother
 Ethiopia is Ethiopia
 God is God
Paraphrases: Sentences with different
forms but the same meaning. Sometimes
described as, when uttered, having the
same truth conditions.
• Entailment: A relation between sentences
where the truth of one guarantees the truth of
the other, so John broke the window entails
The window broke.
Hyponymy: A relationship of inclusion in the
lexicon between more specific and more
general terms. The more specific term is the
hyponym and the more general term is either
called the superordinate or the hypernym. So
poodle is a hyponym of dog
2.3.1. The Ideational Theory of Meaning
 The 17th-century British empiricist John Locke
held that linguistic meaning is mental: words
are used to encode and convey thoughts, or
ideas.
 Successful communication requires that the
hearer correctly decode the speaker‟s words into
their associated ideas.
 So interpreted, the meaning of an expression,
according to Locke, is the idea associated with it
in the mind of anyone who knows and
understands that expression.
 But the ideational account of meaning, is
vulnerable to several objections.

 E.g. Suppose, that a person‟s idea of grass is

associated in his mind with the idea of warm
weather.

 It would follow that part of the meaning of grass,

for this person, is warm weather.

 If so, then the meaning of grass or any other word

may be different for each person.
 Thus, the ideational theory of meaning holds that meanings
lie in the minds of Speakers and Hearers.

 ‘Ideas’ or ‘internal Conceptions’ are independent of

words, but may be represented by words for the purposes
of communication; and so they constitute word meanings.

 Language cannot be learned until a child has ‘Ideas’

or concepts of his own, and recognizes that they may
correspond with the concepts others have, supposing
‘their Words to be Marks of the Ideas in the Minds
also of other Men, with whom they communicate‘
• From the linguist‟s viewpoint it is not satisfactory to define
meaning in terms of 'Ideas‟ or concepts, because it locates
meaning in the psyche of the individual.

• Even if concepts could be made public so as to be

postulated as meaning constituents for words, the linguist
has an impossible problem trying to define them.

• Thus the ideational theory of meaning cannot function as a

linguistic theory of meaning; and the hypothesis that
meanings are concepts is of no use to us.
• The trouble with a mentalistic theory of meaning is:

a) Not all words can be associated with

mental images and some words have a
range of meaning greater than any
single association.
b) We have no access to other people‟s
minds.
c) If semantics is a science, it cannot
operate scientifically by starting with
things that are not observable and not
comparable.
• Words in their primary or immediate Signification,
stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind o f him
that uses them.

• The ideational theory of meaning holds that

meanings lie in the minds of Speaker and Hearer.

• „Ideas‟ or „internal Conceptions‟ are independent of

words, but may be represented by words for the
purposes of communication; and so they constitute
word meanings.
•
2.3.2. Behaviourists theory of Meaning
• The meaning of an expression, as uttered on a
particular occasion is either
(1) The behavioural stimulus that produces the
utterance
(2) The behavioural response that the utterance
produces, or
(3) A combination of both.
• Behaviourism holds that language behaviour is
a response to some kind of observable
stimulus;
• so it is known as stimulus response.
• The theory holds that since behaviour is the
result of learned responses to the environment,
if we knew enough about the external stimuli
on a person, and how he has learned to
respond to previous stimuli, we could predict
his language and behaviour in a given
situation.
 „The meaning of a linguistic form is the situation
in which the speaker utters it and the response
which it calls forth in the hearer.‟
 „The speaker‟s situation will usually present a
simpler aspect than the hearer‟s response;
 Therefore we usually discuss and define
meanings in terms of a speaker’s stimulus.‟
2.3.3. Referential theory of Meaning
• Reference is an apparent relation between a word
and the world.
• Linguistic expressions are signs of something
other than themselves.
• The meaning of an expression is whatever that
expression applies to, thus removing meaning
from the minds of its users and placing it squarely
in the world.
• In this theory the meaning of an expression is
what it refers to or denotes to.
Summary
1) In the referential (denotational) theory:- the
meaning of an expression is what it refers to or
denotes to or stands for
 Example: “watch means watch”. “Dog” means
either the general class of dogs or the essential
property which all they share.
2) In the ideational or mentalistic theory:-the
meaning of an expression is the idea, or concept
associated with it in the mind of anyone who knows
and understands the expression.
3) In the behaviourist theory: the meaning of an
expression is either the stimulus that evokes it or
the response that it evokes or the combination of
both on particular occasion of utterance.
4) In the verificationist theory: the meaning of an
expression, if it has one, is determined by
verifiability of the sentences or proposition.
5) In the truth conditional theory: meaning of an
expression is its contribution to the truth-condition
of the sentence containing it.
3. Reference and Sense
 Reference has to do with the relationship which holds between an
expression and what that expression stands for on particular
occasions of its utterance (Lyons, 1977).
 According to Saeed (2004), Reference is ―relationship by which
language looks onto the world.
 Thus, reference can be concluded as the meanings of a word in any
language which exist in the real world.
 The term 'reference', has to do with the relationship which holds
between an expression and what that expression stands for on
particular occasions of its utterance.
 Ogden and Richards (1923) employed the term
'referent' for any object or state-of-affairs in the
external world that is identified by means of a
word or expression and 'reference‟ for the
concept which mediates between the word or
expression and the referent.
Two words might have the same referential
meaning, but differ in emotive meaning.
 e.g. 'horse' and 'steed'.
 When a sentence like „Abebe is an Ethiopian' is
uttered to make a statement, we will say that the
speaker refers* to a certain individual (Abebe) by
means of the referring expression*.
 If the reference is successful, the referring
expression will correctly identify for the hearer
the individual in question: the referent*.
 According to this conception of the relation of
reference, it is the speaker who refers (by using
some appropriate expression): he invests the
expression with reference by the act of referring.
• It is terminologically convenient to say that an
expression refers to its referent.
• A linguistic expression refers if it „picks out‟ a
particular something (or set of something) in the
world.
• The referent of an expression is the thing it picks
out.
• There are a number of ways in which referring
expressions can be used to refer.
• One distinction is that between:
 reference to individuals and
reference to whole classes of individuals.
• The latter type is called generic reference, and is
illustrated by the sentences below, all of which
refer to the class of elephants in general, rather
than to a particular individual elephant or
elephants:
1) An elephant never forgets. („any member of the
class of elephants‟)
2) The elephant is the largest land mammal. („the
elephant species‟)
3) Elephants live in Africa and Asia. („elephants in
general‟)
• Generic reference can take three forms in English:
 with an indefinite article as in (1)
 definite article as in (2)
 bare plural as in (3)
 An important characteristic of generic reference is
that it refers to the members of a class „in general‟
 that is, it describes typical properties of the class
of referents.
 Generic reference contrasts with singular reference,
which involves reference to an individual member or
individual members of a class, as in (4):
(4) An elephant tried to steal my sandwiches.
 Singular reference can either be definite or
indefinite. While an elephant in the sentence
above is indefinite,
The elephant tried to steal my sandwiches
 would involve definite reference and
PRESUPPOSE that the hearer can uniquely identify
which particular elephant is being talked about.

 A distinction is typically made between specific

and non-specific reference.
• A specific referring expression refers to a particular
entity which the speaker has in mind while non-
specific expressions refer to a hypothetical or virtual
entity.
• Definite reference is usually specific, but indefinite
reference may be either specific or non-specific.
• While (4) above involves specific reference to a
particular elephant that took an interest in my
sandwiches.
• in (5) an elephant most likely has non-specific
reference in that I do not have any particular elephant
in mind, any elephant would do:
(5) I’d love to be able to ride an elephant.
• Non-specific reference can be viewed as being
non-referential because it does not pick out any
particular referent in the world.
• In some accounts generic reference is also seen as
non-referential, but other approaches maintain
that generic referring expressions do refer,
although to a class.
Sense
sense is the semantic aspect of meaning – the
definitional properties that determine which things are
referred to when an expression is used.

 Sense is a decontextualized meaning, abstracted from

innumerable occurrences in texts.

 Sense relates to the complex system of relationships between

the linguistic elements themselves (mostly the words).

 Concerned only with intra-linguistic relations (Palmer, 1981).

 According to Saeed (2009), the semantic links between
elements within the vocabulary system is an aspect of their
sense.
 It can be concluded that sense exists in the word and this is
a word to word relation.
 The reference of a word is the relation between the
linguistic expression and the entity in the real world to
which it refers.

 In contrast to reference, sense is defined as its relations to

other expressions in the language system.
• The relationship by which language hooks onto
the world is usually called reference.
• The semantic links between elements within the
vocabulary system is an aspect of their sense, or
meaning.
4. Literal and Non-Literal Meaning
 According to Saeed (2003), Literal Meanings is a meaning told
by a dictionary of that language are called conventional meanings.

 These meanings are a description of the word to which it refers to

in the real world.

 These are instances where the speaker speaks in a neutral, factually

accurate way.

 E.g. ―I am hungry or I am starving.

 The source of these meanings is a society which gives meaning to

the words.

 These meanings are also called conceptual meaning.

• Non-Literal Meanings are instances where the speaker
deliberately describes something in untrue or impossible
terms in order to achieve special effects.

E.g. I could eat a horse or ―my stomach is screaming for

food.

• Non-Literal Meanings are also traditionally called

figurative and are described by a host of rhetorical terms
including metaphor, irony, metonymy, etc.

• These are associated meaning of the words - symbolic

meaning.
• Literal meaning is determinable outside of context; it
comes with its own set of facts.
• Literal meaning is thus said to be decontextualized.
• Implicational meaning is not so decidable; everything
must be calculated by a hearer, working from the
expression in relation to perceived intentions and
circumstances.
• Implicational meaning is thus said to be contextualized.
• Linguistic semantics is concerned with literal,
decontextualized meaning that is associated with the
grammatical structure of language.
• LEXICALRELATION