Semantics

Speaker meaning

Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he uses a piece of language

Sentence meaning (or word meaning)

is what a sentence or a word means, i.e. what it counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned

An utterances

is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that person

is the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word

• utterances are physical events

• utterances die on the wind

• written between single quotation marks

a sentence

is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances and inscriptions

Example: I would like a cup of coffee is a sentence

definition of proposition

a proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs

Example: Isobel loves Tony, Tony loves Isobel

George danced with Ethel, George didn’t danced with Ethel

rule of proposition

the notion of truth can be used to decide whether two sentences express the same proposition => If there is a conceivable set of circumstances in which one sentence is true while the other is false, we can be sure that they express different propositions.

Quy tắc: Khái niệm về tính đúng/sai (truth) có thể được dùng để xác định liệu hai câu có biểu đạt cùng một proposition hay không. → Nếu có thể tưởng tượng ra một hoàn cảnh mà ở đó một câu đúng, còn câu khác sai, thì ta có thể chắc chắn rằng hai câu đó biểu đạt hai proposition khác nhau.

definition of reference

by means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about

Example: my students are in room A124

• My students → identifies people

• Room A124 → identifies thing

Variable reference

Variable reference is a relation in which the same linguistic expression can be used to refer to different referents on different occasions, depending on the context in which it is uttered.

Example: The phrase "your left ear" has variable reference. Since everyone has their own left ear, the referent of this phrase changes depending on who is being addressed — when said to person A, it refers to A's left ear; when said to person B, it refers to B's left ear.

Constant reference

Constant reference is a relation in which a linguistic expression always refers to the same referent, regardless of the context in which it is used or who utters it.

Example: The phrase "the Moon" has constant reference. No matter who says it, or in what situation, "the Moon" always refers to the same single object — the Moon orbiting the Earth.

Referent

Referent is the real-world entity (a thing, person, place, etc.) that a linguistic expression refers to when it is used.

Example: In the sentence "Your left ear is bleeding," the phrase "your left ear" is the linguistic expression, and the actual, physical left ear it points to is the referent of that expression.

Sense

the sense of a word or a linguistic expression shows the internal relationship between that word or expression and others in the vocabulary of a language

example: teacher and students have a sense relationship

→ teacher: the one who gives lessons; student: the one who has the lesson given by the teacher

• the dog is chasing the cat → has some sense

• the dog is human → has no sense

• the King of Vietnam is bald → has some sense but the phrase the King of Vietnam has no reference