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W E E K 2

7 M A R C H 2 0 1 2

Units of Meaning

Sense and Reference

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What is Semantics?

Semantics is the study of meaning (Lyons 1977, Riemer 2010) Semantics is the study of meaning in language (Hurford &

Heasley 1983) Semantics is the study of meaning communicated through

language (Saeed 1997) Semantics is the study of the meanings of words and

sentences (Saeed 2009) Linguistic semantics is the study of literal, decontextualized,

grammatical meaning (Frawley 1992) Semantics is the part of linguistics that is concerned with

meaning (Lbner 2002) Linguistic semantics is the study of how languages organize

and express meanings (Kreidler 1998)

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What is Meaning?

Speaking involves communicating information to somebody The speaker has something in his/her mind (an idea, a feeling,

an intention), and decides to communicate it linguistically

Vocal noises are then emitted that are perceived by the hearer,

who translates these noises back into ideas, with the resultbeing that this hearer somehow knows what the first personhad in mind.

That something that was at first in the speakers mind and nowis also in the hearers mind can be called meaning.

But this "something" can be virtually anything: objects (concrete,abstract or imaginary), events and states(past, present, future orhypothetical), all sort of properties of objects, feelings, emotions,intentions, locations, etc. We can talk about almost anything wecan think of.

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Why do we have meaning?

Either language evolved as a means of communication,

Or, language exists primarily for mental representation(i.e., language is a way of representing the world in ourminds). This would offer humans the advantages of

performing certain manipulations of those representations,allowing us to conceive hypothetical scenarios, complexreasoning patterns, conditionals, etc.

In either case, meaning is crucial.

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Units of Meaning

When you think of a meaningful unit of language,what do you think of?

Words Open-class words--can express all types of meaning

Open-class - can express all types of meaning. Easilyadded to lexicon (for example, loan words)

Nouns, verbs; adjectives, adverbs

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Closed-class --express limited range of meanings

Not easily added to lexicon

Prepositions: used to indicate relations of place,time and other things such as manner, causality, etc.

Determiners: used to indicate reference. They helpto clarify whether something has been mentioned

before or not, or we are referring to all the instancesof the entity or a particular one, etc.

Conjunctions: used to relate bigger chunks ofmeaning;we use them to indicate causality,coordination, etc

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Non-word morphemes; affixes

Inflectional morphemes (which do not change thegrammatical category of the stem; e.g., the plural)

Limited range of meanings (plurality, gender,size,person &number, aspect)

Derivational morphemes (used to change thegrammatical category of the stem; e.g., -er ofworker

Wider range of meanings

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Phonology

Do sounds themselves have meanings?

The traditional answer is that the sounds of language

are arbitrary (Saussure 1913) /nada/

Spanish nothing

Hindi thread Slovene hope

Indonesian tone

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Grammar

Does grammar have meaning?

Meaning derived from syntactic structure allows us toconstruct many sentences with different meanings from

the same words: The rat that bit the dog chased the cat

The cat that chased the dog bit the rat

The rat that chased the cat bit the dog

The dog that chased the rat bit the cat

The dog that bit the rat chased the cat

Etc.

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Grammatical constructions can be combined indefinitely,within the limitations of human memory:

The car broke down because Tom forgot to fill the tankbecause he was running late because Bill rang him justwhen he was leaving because Bill wanted to sell John ahome gym because he doesnt use it any more and heneeds the money because he spent too much last month

because he went for a quick holiday because he needed abreak because

This is the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow withthe crumpled horn that tossed the dog that chased the catthat killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the housethat Jack built.

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New words and new grammatical constructions arerelatively rare; new sentences and utterances areused all the time.

The property of embedding one phrase insideanother of the same kind is called recursiveness.

This property shows that we do not memorizeexpressions, but rather combine lexical and

grammatical meanings to produce infinite possiblemeaningful utterances.

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The dictionary and the encyclopaedia

Should we (or can we) distinguish between:Knowledge of a words meaning (dictionary

knowledge), and Knowledge of facts about theobjects to which the word refers, or things in theworld (encyclopaedic knowledge)?

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What do we know about coffee?

We know that coffee is a drink, made of certain plantbeans, that is black, has a particular smell, a strong

taste, that we can put sugar or cream in it, that it hasa particular effect (stimulating), that it containscaffeine that it can be taken hot or iced, that we canconsume it in other forms (ice cream, cakes), we

know how to prepare coffee in different ways, thedevices you use to prepare coffee (Italian stovetop,professional cafeteria

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espresso-maker, filter, French press, packets, etc.), that theseproduce varying strengths, flavours and quantities of coffee;that you need different grinds of coffee for these differentmethods; the receptacles where you put the coffee when itsdone (a cup, a thermos, etc.), when you take coffee or how

many times a day, that if you drink it in the evening you mighthave trouble sleeping, that it wakes you up in the morningand/or relieves symptoms of caffeine deprivation in theaddict, that other beverages such as colas also have caffeine,types of coffee and espresso drinks (latte, cappuccino, flat

white, long black, mocha, etc.), you know how expensive it is(depending on whether you buy it in a shop, in a caf, in ahotel, in an airport, etc.), where to buy it so you can prepare it

yourself or where to buy it to take away or

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where you can sit and drink it, that decaf has little caffeine butoften tastes worse, you know its produced in countries likeBrazil and Colombia, you know the social occasions in whichcoffee is the typical drink (think of the expression go out for acoffee, which implies that you will talk, possibly about

informal or personal matters); that its a civilized andinformal first date to go for a coffee, that students drink coffeeduring exam preparation, you know that too much is bad for

your health, that coffee culture and drinks are different indifferent countries, that you must store it in a dry and freshplace, that in aeroplanes the option is either tea or coffee, that

stains from coffee are difficult to clean, that there is a coffeehour, or a coffee break during which you stop work oranother activity and may or may not have coffee (you can havetea at a coffee break, or nothing), and so on.

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What if you dont know all of these things aboutcoffee?

Are you then unable to talk about coffee?

Which information about coffee should beconsidered dictionary information and which belongto encyclopaedic knowledge?

Can we all agree on a dictionary entry for coffee?

We can say that meaning is characterized withrespect to domains: facets of experience whichencapsulate what we know about something

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Sense and Reference

Words appear to be the key to expressing many ofthe concepts we store in our heads.

According to some estimates (e.g., Aitchison, 1994:

7) an educated adult speaker of English knowsbetween 50.000 and 135.000 words (the numbersvary according to the individual, to the measuringmethod, speaking vs. writing vocabulary, passive vs.

active vocabulary, etc.).

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Reference is the action by which a speaker picks out an object(the referent) in the world.

It can be variable, depending on context, user, etc.

A word has only one specific referent each time it is used.

Do all words have reference? Referring vs. non-referring expressions

Do all nouns have reference?

Nouns without physical referents in the world pose a problem for

theories that characterize meaning in terms of reference andtruth conditions (denotational theories, to which we willreturn).

We will see thatpossible worlds are proposed as one solution tothis problem.

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Ways of Referring 1a.A/the chair is the most basic piece of furniture in todays home 1b.I bumped into a chair this morning

Though we are looking at the same noun, chair, and the phrase inwhich it occurs is the same (a chair), in (1a) we are not referring toany particular chair.

In (1a) we are dealing with a generic or non-referring reading ofchair.

In (1b), the speaker is presumably referring to some particularchair; we call this a specific or referring reading.

So generic expressions are a kind of non-referring expression (alongwith very, because, etc.)

All specific expressions are referring expressions

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Many expressions are specific/generic ambiguous(2)Im looking for a blonde.

Constant reference: the Eiffel Tower, the Pacific Ocean,Queen Cleopatra

Variable reference:I want to go there in your cartomorrow

Who wants to go where in whose car when?

Expressions that depend on context are called deictics (I,

there, your, tomorrow) Depending on who says them, when, and where, they

change their referent

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Denotation & Connotation Denotation

The class of possible objects, situations, etc., to which aword can refer is its denotation.

queen Vs. Queen Cleopatra For some authors, meaning should be studied by

learning how words are mapped to the objects they refer

to. This is called the denotational view of meaning. This is the view adopted in truth-conditional semantics

and logic.

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Types and Tokens

Types: categories or classes of tokens to which an expressioncan refer; instances of denotation

Tokens: instances of a category/class/type, often referents incontext

This duality is often referred to as the token-type distinction.

Generic expressions refer to types

Specific expressions refer to tokens

1a.A chair is the most basic piece of furniture in todayshome./The chair has become outdated in the modern home.

1b.I bumped into a chair this morning.

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A rose is a rose is a rose. How many word tokens are there?

How many word types are there?

We can correctly say that there are either 3 or 8words in the sentence.

A rose is a rose is a rose.

How many tokens and types are there of the

sentence itself? In constant reference, all tokens of a given type of

expression have the same referent

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Sense General meaning of an expression such as the queen has

fallen off the table (Riemer 2010) Words & expressions have multiple senses and/or

meanings A distinction can be made betweenpolysemous senses

(multiple related senses of a word) and sense used incontrastto reference.

Classically, sense indicates the manner in which a

referent is accessed. Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) noted that the Evening Star

and the Morning Star have the same referent: the planetVenus,but seen at different times of the day.

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To someone who did not know that both objects referto Planet Venus, we could meaningfully say:

(5) a. The Evening Star is the Morning Star

b. The Morning Star is the Evening Star On the other hand, (6) sounds tautological and

absurd:

(6) ?Planet Venus is Planet Venus

Frege suggested that these manners of accessing thereferent could be called senses.

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Many scholars find this distinction useful for describingword meaning apart from reference.

Having many different expressions which are exactlyequivalent would not make sense psychologically;

Why should we overload our minds learning and storingmany different labels for the same thing?

Therefore a label is needed for these differentexpressions.

A second example: Clark Kent and Superman arguably

have the same referent. However, Clark Kent is Superman or Superman is

Clark Kent are far from trivial or tautologicalstatements.

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Much can be said about either Clark Kent or Superman that does notnecessarily apply to the other sense, though both have the same referent.

If Lois Lane loves Superman is true, is Lois Lane loves Clark Kentnecessarily true?

Same referent:

Bill Clinton Former U.S. president Hillarys husband Monica Lewinskys lover Dad (speaker: Chelsea)

Even if we all know the referent of these expressions is the same, theyinvolve:

Different contexts Different connotations

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Connotation Connotation refers to the aspects of meaning that do notaffect

a words reference or denotation. Similar denotations but different connotations: Child vs Brat Mare vs Nag Police officer vs Cop Personal response device vs Clicker Slim vs Skinny

Inexpensive vs Cheap Thrifty vs Miserly New vs Unproven

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Different senses usually have different connotations(former U.S. President vs. Monica Lewinskys lover)

Summary Sense vs. reference

Generic vs. specific reference; referring vs. non-referring expressions

Reference vs. denotation (tokens vs. types)

Denotation vs. connotation