Understanding English

Semantics - Lecture 1
• What is semantics?

• Semantics is the systematic study of

meaning in language. In other words, it is
the study of how language organizes and
expresses meaning

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 The meaning of what?
(What language units may be said to have meaning?)

• The levels of linguistic units:

morpheme - word - phrase - clause -
sentence/utterance - discourse
• These units do have meaning to a certain
extent
• Our approach: the morpheme and the
phrase are just intermediate levels
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 Reasons
• The morpheme does not occur
independently and is always attached to the
word
• It does not express a concept as the word
does.
• The phrase is simply a combination of
words
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 Our view
• There are three basic types of units: the word -
the sentence/the utterance - the discourse
• Reason: Language is seen as a medium of
thinking
• Language is connected to thinking through the
word which is connected to a concept - the means
by which thinking proceeds.
• The sentence expresses a judgment or
proposition
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• A combination of related judgments will
constitute a discourse - the real unit of human
communication.
• Discourse constitutes the goal of discourse
analysis - another popular discipline
• Therefore, in this course we will be giving an
account of:
- word meaning,
- sentence meaning and
- utterance meaning.
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 Scope of semantics
(1). Word meaning
- Literal vs. transferred
- Polysemy vs. homonymy
- Synonymy vs. antonymy
- Hyponymy
- Change and development of meaning
- Transference of meaning
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(2). Sentence meaning (context - independent)
- STIR (structural, textual, interpersonal, and
representational)
- Sentence types and their meaning
- Propositions (formal semantics)

(3). Utterance meaning (context-dependent)

- Reference
- Implicature
- Presupposition
- Speech acts 7
 Major philosophical theories of
meaning
(a). The referential theory.
(b). The ideational/mentalist theory.
(c). The behaviourist theory.
(d). The meaning-is-use theory.
(e). The verificationist theory.
(f). The truth-conditions theory.

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1. The referential / denotational theory

1. Definition

2. Variations and Objections

3. General Problem

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 Definition
Meaning of an expression
= What it refers to, denotes or stands for

E.g.: “Joe”

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• May be regarded as one of the simplest
and most dominant theories for quite a
while.
• Focuses primarily on nouns as the object
of its investigation.

• BUT: Many other word classes do not lend

themselves easily to this theory
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 Variations & Objections
Variation 1:

The meaning of a word = what it refers to

E.g.: “teacher”

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 Objection to variation 1

• An object may be referred to by different

expressions which have different meanings.

E.g.: my mother
the nurse
the young woman

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 Variations & Objections

Variation 2:
The meaning of a word = The relation
between the word and its referent.

Objection:
Many words ( and, if, about) don’t connect
to anything, i.e. they have no referents.
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 General Problems
• Not every word refers to an actual object
(articles, conjunctions, prepositions, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs)
• According to the referential theory, something
must have a referent to have meaning. Whole
sentences, paragraphs, and even books have
meanings but do not have a referent.

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• Some expressions point to non-existent or
fictional referents
Ex: elves, gnomes, fairies

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 2. Ideational/mentalist theory

• The first version (proposed by John Locke,

17th-century British philosopher)

The meaning of an expression is the idea or

concept associated with it in the mind of anyone
who knows and understands the expression

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 Assumptions

• Language is an instrument for the

communication of thought

• Thought is a succession of ideas in

consciousness only accessible to the

possessor
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 Summary
• The speaker’s meaning of a word is the idea in

the speaker’s mind associated with the word.

e.g. “book”: Its characteristics, its appearance,
etc.

• The speaker’s meaning of a whole sentence is a

stream of ideas.
e.g. The dog is chasing the cat
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• Communication is successful when a similar

stream of ideas is produced in the hearer’s

mind.

• That success depends on the recognition that

speakers generally associate a certain idea with

a certain word, which provides the link to word

and sentence meaning.

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 Objections
1. The theory does not say what an idea is.
2. Do we have ideas corresponding to each word
in a sentence, including the small words: is,
on, etc?
3. Meaning is social and public while ideas are
private and differ from person to person
4. A string of idea is unstructured and so cannot
capture structural ambiguity such as: “John
was a Victorian furniture salesman.”

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The second version: Conceptual theory

Thought

Symbol Referent
(By Ogden and Richards, 1923)

Meaning is seen as an indirect association

between the symbol and the referent

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 Problems
• Mental concepts are elusive things which are not
directly available to introspection.
• Assuming that meaning is language-based and that
concepts reside outside language, can meaning still be
identified with a concept?
• How are concepts acquired and do they evolve?
• If concepts change in the process children mature,
does meaning then evolve parallel to the evolution of
the concept which the expression is related to?
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 3. The behaviorist theory
(Stimulus - response theory)

• The meaning of an expression is either the

stimulus that evokes it or the response
that it evokes, or a combination of both, on
particular occasions of utterance.

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 Bloomfield’s view

• 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.

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 Problems
• On different occasions, different responses are
made to the utterance of a given expression.
• Sometimes, there is no overt response at all to
the utterance of a given expression.
e.g.
Jill: Could you give me that apple, Jack?
Jack : (silent)

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 Example
On the bus, a girl is reading a dictionary. The
guy next to her is staring at the book. The girl
said softly:
- Do you know what it means by ‘POLITE’?
The guy snatched the book from the girl’s
hands.
- Let me look for it. You’ve just kept silent and
not asked for help.
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 Charles Osgood’s view
• Meaning is the fractional implicit response
which the word elicits.
• Implicit actions:
 internal muscular
contractions
 glandular secretions
 neural processes
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 Two unanswered questions

• How to discover fractional implicit

responses ?
• Does a given word lead to exactly same
implicit responses every time?

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 Charles Morris’s View

• Meaning is the production of certain

disposition which depends on many factors
other than the statement.

Example
Mary: The bell is ringing, honey.
(1) Nick: stays silent.
(2) Nick: Let me go open the door.
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 Problems

• It works for statements that apply to the

immediate environment
• Numerous dispositions can be produced to
a statement
Example
Mary: The bell is ringing, honey.
Nick: Let me go open the door.
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 4. Meaning-is-use theory

• Speech act theory

• (J. Austin & Searle) Meaning-is-use
theory
• Theory of meaning
• (Wittgenstein)

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• The meaning of an expression is determined
by, if not identical with, its use in the
language.

• Don’t look for the meaning of a word

(expression), look for its use.

• Saying is doing. Many acts may be

performed as a speaker speaks.

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 Speech act

Locutionary Illocutionary Perlocutionary

act act act

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 Locutionary act
The act of making an utterance according
to the rules of a given language.

Eg. You are stepping on my foot.

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 Illocutionary act
The purpose of the speaker (apologizing,
complaining, congratulating, greeting…)

Eg. You are stepping on my foot.

 informing/complaining/warning

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 Perlocutionary act
The effects of the saying.

Eg. You are stepping on my foot.

 The hearer apologizes/ has no
reaction.

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 Summary
Locutionary Illocutionary Perlocutionary
act act act

Act of Purpose of the Effects of the

making speaker saying
utterance

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1. You are talking too much.
2. You can do better.
3. - I have a pair of tickets for “Spiderman
II” tonight.
- But I’m having a presentation tomorrow.
4. You may be late.
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 5. Verification theory
• The meaning of an expression is determined by
the verifiability of the sentences, or propositions,
containing it. In other words:

- the meaning of each meaningful sentence is

its verification condition

- the meaning of a sentence depends on how

we can establish its truth

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 What is the aim?

• To distinguish meaningful sentences from

meaningless marks or sounds by saying
they are verifiable in terms of future
experiences.

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 Objection 1
• Verificationism only applies to descriptive
language, not questions, commands, jokes,
etc.
1. Why on earth are you so late?
2. Read after me, please!
3. Tom: Look at that guy over there. How cool he
is!
4. Mary: You naughty boy! He is just a kid!

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 Objection 2
• We seemingly need to first know what a
sentence means in order to figure out how to
verify it. However, the verificationist says the
opposite.
• To determine how to verify the presence of a
virus, say, we must know what viruses are and
where, in general, they are to be found; thus it
seems we must understand talks of viruses in
order to verify statements about viruses, rather
than vice versa. 43
 Objection 3
• If the meaning is the verification condition then a
sentence is about the observations and not
about what lies behind them
• If …
Observation is my own private sense
impressions
Then…
Verificationism denies the reality of material
world
• Last night, I saw a ghost.
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• If …
Observation is directly observable public
characteristics of ordinary objects

• Then…

• Verificationism denies the reality of theoretical

entities such as electrons

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 Objection 4
• According to verification principle, a meaningful
sentence must be either analytic or verifiable.
• However, it is hard to verify a sentence or to
show
- it is analytic
- it is verifiable

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 Objection 5

• Verification condition does not capture the

meaning of most sentences.

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• "There is a chair at the head of the table."
What is its verification condition?
If you walk into the room from the direction of
this door here, you will have an experience as of
a chair at the head of the table. But even that
depends. It depends on whether you have your
eyes open, and it depends on whether your
sensory apparatus is functioning properly, and it
depends on whether the lights are on, and....

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 6. Truth-conditions theory
• The meaning of an expression is its contribution
to the truth-conditions of the sentence containing
it.
• The meaning of a sentence is the conditions
under which it is true.
• The meanings of the parts of a sentence
(usually statements) lie in their contribution to
the truth conditions.

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 Example

It is possible that Tom Cruise is

going to walk through that door
 “It is possible that Tom Cruise is going to
walk through that door” is true if there is
some possible world in which Tom Cruise
is going to walk through that door.
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 Objections
• It offers just a semantic account of statements

• We need to know the sentence meaning in

order to be able to figure out its truth
conditions, which is the opposite of what the
theory says.
• It depends on an account of truth, which may
entail defining what is expressed.
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 Components of words meaning

• Denotative meaning

• Connotative meaning

• Structural meaning

• Categorial meaning
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 Concepts
The meaning a word acquires
DENOTATION by virtue of what it refers to
The meaning a word acquires
by virtue of where, when, how,
CONNOTATION and by whom, for what purpose
and in what context it is or may
be used.

STRUCTURALM The meaning a word acquires

EANING by virtue of its membership in a
system or a set

The meaning a word acquires

CATEGORIAL
by virtue of grammatical
MEANING
classification 53
 Denotative
Conceptual meaning Referential meaning
The definitional, 'literal', Objects or things (referent)
'obvious' or 'commonsense' that the word refers to
meaning of a word

•General: The word denotes • Concrete: The word refers

the whole class of entities. to a specific entity.
•Context-independent: • Context-dependent:
Denotation is related to the Reference is related to the
word in isolation, not as part expression rather than the
of a phrase. word.
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 Notes
• Conceptual meaning is based on two structural
principle: contrastiveness and constituent
structure. These two principles represent the
way language is organized on what linguists
have termed the PARADIGMATIC (or
selectional) and SYNTAGMATIC (or
combinatory) axes of linguistic structure
• E.g. The word “woman” is defined conceptually
by three semantic features: +human, -male,
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+adult
 Example: CHAIR
• Conceptual meaning
Chair: a piece of furniture designed for one
person to sit upon
• Referential meaning
Would you mind bringing me a chair into
the kitchen?:
It could be any specific chair that happens
to be in the speakers’ home. 56
 Connotative
• Connotative meaning is the communicative
value an expression has by virtue of what it
refers to, over and above its purely conceptual
content
• Unstable: Connotations vary considerably
according to culture, historical period, and
personal experience.
• It is undetermined and open-ended in a sense in
which conceptual meaning is not
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 Examples of connotation
• dog
• In Arabic culture: negative connotation of dirt and
inferiority
• In British culture: positive connotation of
friendship and loyalty
• snake
• To people in general: neutral connotation: a cold-
blooded, legless reptile, has little emotional
content
• To a snake-bitten person: negative connotation: a
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horrible, dangerous, scary animal
 Comparison
Denotative meaning Connotative meaning
The explicit, literal meaning, Values, judgments, evaluative
dictionary definition implications behind the literal
meaning
• Denotation involves a • Connotative meaning is
broader consensus. The determined by the cultural
denotative meaning of a word codes to which the interpreter
would be broadly agreed upon has access.
by members of the same
culture, and by different
cultures.
• The denotative meaning has • The connotative meaning of
neutral content. a word can have a strong
emotional content 59
 1 word with both
denotation and connotation

Denotation Connotation

new recent origin better improved

excuse explanation weak reason

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 2 or more words with the same
denotation but different connotations

Denotation Connotation

house living material

accommodation
home spiritual

skinny thin negative

slender positive
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 Structural meaning

• Reflected meaning

• Collocative meaning

• Associative meaning

• Thematic meaning
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 a. Reflected meaning
• The meaning arises in cases of multiple
conceptual meaning, when one sense of a
word forms part of our response to another
sense…One sense of a word seems to
“rub off” on another sense"
• It is what is communicated through
association with another sense of the
same expression.
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• The case where reflected meaning intrudes
through the sheer strength of emotive suggestion
is most strikingly illustrated by words which have
a taboo meaning. Since their popularization in
senses connected with the physiology of sex, it
has become increasingly more difficult to use
terms like “intercourse, ejaculation, or erection” in
“innocent” senses without conjuring up their
sexual association

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 b. Collocative meaning
• The associations a word acquires on account of
the meanings of words which tend to occur in its
environment. i.e. what is communicated through
association with words which tend to occur in the
environment of another word.
• Eg.
artificial limb/ flower/ sweetener
But false teeth/ passport/ promise

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 c. Associative meaning

• The meaning arises because of its

association with other meanings

• Eg. high - low

beautiful - ugly
large - narrow
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 d. Thematic meaning
• What is communicated by the way in
which the message is organized in terms
of order and emphasis.
• Eg.
Jenny often pairs me off with her cousin.
I am often paired off with Jenny’s cousin.

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 Categorical meaning
• Categorical meaning: one part of grammatical
meaning which words derive from being a
member of one category rather than another.

• Eg.
strength (n) strong (adj)
strengthen (v) strongly (adv)

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 Exercise 1

• Identify the denotation and connotation

meanings of the word “bug” in the
following sentences

- This place is crawling with bugs!

- He is as cute as a bug.

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 Exercise 2
Match the terms with their corresponding
definitions
Conceptual emotional implication influenced by culture, historical period
and individual experience
Referential the meaning a word acquires on account of the meanings of
words which tend to occur in its environment
Connotative the meaning that serves as a classificatory basis
Reflected definitional or literal meaning of a word

Collocative the meaning acquired by the organisation of the message in

terms of order, focus and emphasis.
Associative the meaning which arises in cases of multiple conceptual
meaning
Thematic what the word refers to
Categorial the meaning which arises because of its association with other
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meanings
Lexical and grammatical meaning
• Lexical meaning is the individual meaning each
word has in the system of language. This
meaning brings together different forms of one
and the same word, whereas the grammatical
meanings distinguish between them. Different
forms of the word will share the same lexical
meaning, but they have different grammatical
meanings.

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• Grammatical meaning is the meaning of a word
that depends on its role in a sentence and varies
with inflectional form.
• The grammatical categories of English are
tense, mood, aspect, voice, number, person and
comparison.

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