ENGL3000-002 WEEK 2 ( KINDS OF MEANING )

ENGL3000 L ANGUAGE AND M EANING (S ECTION 002)

Week 2 (9 & 12 Jan 2024): Kinds of meaning
Edwin Tsai

Roadmap

1. Different kinds of meaning (in semantics)

2. Truth-conditional semantics
3. Possible worlds and intension

1 Different kinds of meaning (in semantics)

1.1 Denotation/Reference vs. sense
One fundamental distinction of two kinds of meaning of noun phrase (NP) expressions:

指称含义 • Denotation: the object(s) in the actual world to which an expression refers/applies

• Sense: the “concept” or “presentation” of an expression (more “basic” than denotation)

(1) a. the President of the United States S - denotes Joe Biden

b. Joe Biden D

(2) a. I want to be the President of the United States!

b. I want to be Joe Biden!

(3) (in 2017)

a. The President of the U.S. could be a woman if the election had gone the other way.
b. Donald Trump could be a woman if the election had gone the other way.

(4) The denotation of the President of the U.S. (as of Jan 2024) is the person Joe Biden;
the sense of the same NP is whoever that has the property of being the President of the
U.S.

(5) Proper names (Joe Biden, Mary, Macao) are among the expressions referring to
designated individuals in the actual world.

(6) Expressions other than NPs have different denotations; more later.

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1.2 Lexical vs. structural meaning

The meaning of an expression can also be differentiated based on whether it is a word or a
phrase/sentence (i.e., lexical vs. structural meaning).

(4) a. book
b. the book
c. the book on my shelf

(5) a. John talked to Mary.

b. John talked to everybody.
c. John talked to nobody.

Our basic assumptions:

• Every word has its lexical meaning (concrete or abstract).

• The meaning of a phrase/sentence should be obtainable by combining the meaning of

each subpart (in the right order). The issue of how the meanings of subparts of a string
of words combine with one another is called semantic composition.

• Semantic composition relies on, and makes certain assumptions about, syntactic struc-
ture. More on the syntactic assumptions in week 7 (“Formal composition”) and onward.

1.3 Lexical vs. functional categories

The third kind of distinction that we can make in meaning is that between the two kinds of
categories exemplified in (6) and (7), respectively. The former have concrete, descriptive con-
tent and can provide a basis for categorization. These expressions belong to lexical categories.
(Here, lexical means “with content”.)

(6) a. John, car, cell phone, idea (nouns)

b. jump, cry, move, sing (verbs)
c. tall, blue, meaningful, professional (adjectives)

The latter are a group of heterogeneous expressions that do not have concrete, easily para-
phrasable meaning on their own; we can only try to describe their meaning by placing them
in a linguistic context. These belong to functional categories (some of them not full words).

(7) a. as, since, if, for, to, although, and, or. . . (coordinators, subordinators, prepositions)
b. the, a, all, most, some, no. . . (articles, determiners)
c. -ed, -en, -s, will, may, can, is. . . (inflectional morphemes, modals, auxiliaries)

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1.4 Towards a formal theory of semantics

The subsections just discussed altogether highlight two important features of the semantic
theory we are pursuing:

I. Denotational: We consider “meaning” a relation between linguistic expressions and ob-

jects in the real world; words and phrases refer to, or denote, things in the actual world
(which can be individuals, entities, situations, events, etc.). Our semantic theory is there-
我们认为“意义”是语言表达和现实世界中物体 之间的关系;单词和短语指的是或表示现实
fore denotational. 世界中的事物 (可以是个人、实体、情况、事件等)。因此，我们的语义理论是 指称性的。

II. Compositional: We assume the simple and intuitive idea that the meaning of a complex
linguistic expression (e.g., a sentence) is related, in a predictable way, to the meanings of
the parts from which it is constructed. Our semantic theory therefore will also be compo-
sitional. 我们假设一个简单而直观的想法，即一个复杂的
测的方式与组成它的 部分的意义相关。因此，我们的语义理论也将是合成的。
语言表达(例如，一个句子)的意义以一种可预

Finally, the truth and the way to the truth: To know the meaning of a sentence is to know
what the actual world must be like in order for it to be true, i.e., the truth-conditions. Our
semantic theory will need to pair sentences with their truth-conditions. In other words, it will
need to be truth-conditional. We turn to this third feature below.

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2 Truth-conditional semantics
The bulk of our course will be concerned with the truth-condition of a sentence, namely the
conditions under which a sentence is true or false. The study of meaning from this perspective
is called truth-conditional semantics. Below, we start with the most basic element of a sen-
tence, a proper name, and then discuss what predicates mean, and finally address the meaning
of a sentence. We will use the word denote/denotation to mean refer to/reference.

2.1 Proper names

The simplest case: Proper names (e.g. Mary, Joe Biden, Macao)

The denotation of a proper name is the individual/entity that it refers to in the actual
world.

2.2 Predicates
Nouns, verbs and adjectives (i.e., lexical categories) are predicates, that is, expressions that
state some property of a subject phrase in a simple “subject-predicate” sentence.

(8) a. Daisy is a dog. (Daisy has the property of being a dog)

b. Daisy barks. (Daisy has the property of barking)
c. Daisy is white. (Daisy has the property of being white)

The denotation of a predicate is the set of things of which this predicate holds true. 集合

• The denotation of dog is the set of dogs (in the actual world).

• The denotation of bark is the set of things that bark.

• The denotation of white is the set of things that are white.

Syntactically, all expressions that can appear in the blank in (9) are predicates.

(9) [Subject] (is) (a) .

(10) a. Edwin is a professor.

b. This book is heavy.
c. John weights 120 pounds.
d. They ran over the hill and died.

The concept of set (in mathematics) will be important throughout the semester.



[Quick exercises] What are the denotations of the following underlined expressions?

(11) a. Peter talked to Tony yesterday.

b. Peter talked to Tony yesterday.
c. Peter talked to Tony yesterday.

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2.3 Sentences
We discussed the denotations of proper names and predicates. Now, what is the denotation of
a sentence? E.g., what is the denotation of (12)?

(12) Daisy is barking.

First take (to be revised):

The denotation of a sentence is a truth value (“true” or “false”), depending on whether

the event/state described by the sentence is part of the actual world.

ñ Knowing the denotation of a sentence is knowing when the sentence is true and when it is
false.

• So the denotation of (12) is true if (we know that) the dog Daisy is barking in the actual
world, and false if otherwise.

• Note that the two truth values form a set as well: tT, Fu

But if we look at more cases we see things are not that simple.

(13) a. Daisy is not black.

b. Daisy is not brown.

• In the actual world, Daisy is white.

• Now, according to the current theory, the denotation of (13a) is true, and the denotation
of (13b) is also true.

• Result: We can’t tease apart the difference between (13a) and (13b). We don’t know how
the truth-conditions of (13a) and (13b) differ; they are both true in our world.

• This shows: Simply referring to the actual world is not enough to determine the denota-
tion of a sentence. We need to make our theory more complicated to explain cases like
(13a) and (13b).

• The tool we need is called possible worlds, which will be briefly introduced below and
further discussed much later.

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3 Possible worlds and intension

3.1 Extension vs. intension
A possible world is an abstract, hypothesized world.

• There are infinitely many possible worlds which are not the same as (but can be very
similar to) our actual world.

• The semantics theory where the truth-condition of a sentence has to do with possible
worlds is called possible-world semantics. This is the theory we are studying.

• One clear case where possible-world semantics is motivated: Modal sentences.

(14) a. John is possibly a fan of stinky tofu.

b. John might be a fan of stinky tofu.
c. It is likely that John is a fan of stinky tofu.

Hence, there are two kinds of denotations of a sentence: extension vs. intension (“truth set”).

• The extension of (13a) (Daisy is not black) denotes a truth value (“true”).

• The intension of (13a) denotes the set of possible worlds in which (13a) is true.

• The extension of (13b) (Daisy is not brown) denotes a truth value (“true”).

• The intension of (13b) denotes the set of possible worlds in which (13b) is true.

Crucially, the set of possible worlds in which (13a) is true is not identical to the set of possible
worlds in which (13b) is true. In other words, we are now able to differentiate their meaning:
The intension of (13a) is different from that of (13b). This can’t be achieved if we only look at
the extension of these sentences.

The complete denotation of a sentence is a set of worlds in which the sentence is true.
These worlds include our own world (the basis of the extensional denotation) as well
as possible worlds (intensional denotation). We say that the complete denotation of a
sentence is the truth-condition of the sentence.

Now consider the declarative sentence (15):

(15) Daisy is purple.

• In the actual world, Daisy is white. So we may be tempted to say the denotation of (15)
is simply false, period.

• But then we get the same result for sentences like Daisy is red and Daisy is yellow. Conse-
quently, we cannot tell the difference of their truth-conditions.

• Solution: We also consider the intension of (15), i.e., the set of possible worlds in which
the sentence Daisy is purple stands true.

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Summary: Two components in the denotation of a sentence

Extension: a truth value (true or false), with reference to the actual world
Intension: the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true (aka the truth set)

• Three semantic phenomena for which possible-world semantics is instrumental:

– meaning of negative sentences (week 2)

– entailment (week 3)
– meaning of logical connectives (week 4)

• Modal sentences constitute another phenomenon where possible-world semantics is im-

portant, as mentioned.

3.2 Extending the extension vs. intension distinction

We now apply this distinction to proper names and predicates.

• Proper names:

– The extension of a proper name denotes its actual referent.

– The intension of a proper name denotes its referent in all possible worlds.

(16) Joe Biden might not have been the President of the U.S.
(The intension of Joe Biden in this example is the referent Joe Biden in all possible
worlds where he is not the President of the U.S.)

• Predicates (e.g., dog, white):

– The extension of a predicate denotes the set of things in the actual world that it
applies to, or is true of.
– The intension of a predicate denotes the set of things it is true of in all possible
worlds.

(17) Edwin could be a woman.

(The intension of woman is the set of women in certain possible worlds.)

The “sense vs. denotation/reference” distinction in the beginning of this handout is essentially
one of intension vs. extension.



As you should have learned, possible worlds and possible-world semantics are important tools
for understanding what “meaning” is. You should remember, from now on, that in the seman-
tic theory we are studying “possible worlds” are semantic objects not any less concrete than
our actual world, because they form part of our knowledge in linguistic meaning.
正如你应该知道的，可能世界和可能世界语义是理解“意义”的重要工具 。从现在起，你应该记住，在语义学 理论中，我们所
研究的“可能世界”是语义学对象，并不比 我们的实际世界更具体，因为它们构成了我们语言意义知识的一部分。

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4 Exercises
I. [Truth value] We said that the extension of a sentence is a truth value. Do proper names
and predicates also have truth values?

II. [Denotation] Provide the extension or intension of the following expressions.

(18) a. What is the extension of clock?

b. What is the extension of James Bond?
c. What is the intension of James Bond?
d. What is the intension of knife?
e. What is the extension of It is raining?
f. What is the truth set of It is raining?

III. [Denotation] In your own words, explain how the following two sentences differ in their
meaning.

(19) (In the actual world, John bought a book and nothing else.)
a. John didn’t buy two books.
b. John didn’t buy two socks.

IV. [Truth-conditions] Recall that possible worlds theory analyzes the meaning of a sentence
as its truth set, or the set of all possible worlds in which the sentence is true. This doesn’t
always work out, however. Can you identify the problem for the two groups of sentences
below?

(20) a. Every circle in the pattern was round.

b. Either God exists or God doesn’t exist.
(21) a. Two plus two is five.
b. Spain is bigger than Iceland and Iceland is bigger than Spain.