Part 2 – Practice: - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Part 2 – Practice: 5-12And 13-15

Semantic Unit 3Slide2

Sense

The

sense

of an expression is its place in the system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.

Words, Phrases, and Sentences have sense

Sameness of Meaning

:

I

almost / nearly

fell over. S/D

It is

likely / probable

that Raymond will be here tomorrow. S/D

Your gatepost doesn’t seem to be quite

vertical / upright

. S/D

He painted the fireplace

aquamarine / vermillion

. S/D

I’ll see you on

Wednesday / Thursday

. S/D

 Slide3

Sense of Phrases and Sentences

Intuitively, do the following pairs mean the same thing?

(1) Rupert took off his jacket

Rupert took his jacket off

(2) Harriet wrote the answer down

Harriet wrote down the answer

(3) Bachelors prefer redheads

Girls with red hair are preferred by unmarried men

In some cases, the same word can have more than one sense!

Does the word

bank

have the same meaning in the following sentence pairs?

(1) 1 have an account at the Bank of Scotland

We steered the raft to the other bank of the river Yes/No

(2)

The DC-10 banked sharply to avoid a crash

I banked the furnace up with coke last night Yes/No Slide4

Sentences can have more than one Sense

(1) Write down two sentences bringing out clearly the two different

meanings of

The chicken is ready to eat.

(2) Write down two sentences 'bringing out clearly the two different senses of

He greeted the girl with a smile.

(3) Do likewise for

He turned over the field.

On the relationship between sense and reference:

Referent

of an expression is often a

thing or a person

in the world;

Sense

of an expression is

not a thing at all

.

In fact, it is difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an expression is.

It is much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the same sense. Slide5

.

When a person understands fully what is said to him, it is reasonable to say that he grasps the sense of the expressions he hears

Every expression

that has

meaning has sense

, but

not

every expression has

reference

.

Do these words refer to things in the world?

1. Almost 2. Probable 3. And 4.If

1. When you look up the meaning of a word in the dictionary, what do you find there, it’s referent, or an expression with the same sense?

(2) Is a dictionary full of words or full of things, like a box or a sack?Slide6

Sense

-

continued

(3) Could a foreigner learn the meanings of his very first

words of English by having their typical referents

pointed out to him?

Yes / No

(4) Could a foreigner learn the meanings of his very first

words of English by looking them up in an English

dictionary?

Yes /No

Comment: 

There is something essentially circular about the set of definitions in a

dictionary. Similarly, defining the senses of words and other

expressions often has something of this circular nature. This is not

necessarily a bad thing, and in any case it is often unavoidable, since in

" many cases (e.g. cases of expressions that have no referents:

and,

etc.)

there is no way of indicating the meaning of an expression except with

other words.

Slide7

Circular Nature of DefinitionsSlide8

Propositions are Complete Independent Thoughts

Are the senses of the following expressions propositions?

(1) Johnny has got a new master Yes

/

No

(2) A new master

(not understood as an elliptical sentence-

fragment)

Yes

/

No

(3) Johnny

(not understood as an elliptical sentence-

fragment)

Yes

/

No

(4) This is the house that Jack built Yes /No

To the extent that perfect translation between languages is possible

(and this is a very debatable point), the same sense can be said to belong

to expressions in different languages. Slide9

(I) Do

AI. Berger s '

est

rase

ce

marin

and

AI. Berger shaved

himself this morning

express the same proposition?

Yes/No

(2) Do the two sentences in (I) have the same sense?

Yes/No

(3) Do the expressions

ce

marin

and

this morning

have the

Yes/No

same sense?

(4) Do the expressions

s '

est

rase

and

shaved

himselfhave

the same sense?

Yes/No

(5) Does

ein

unverheirateter

Mann

have the same sense as

an unmarried man? Yes

/

No

Comment 

Just as one can talk of the

same sense in different

L

anguages

, so

one can

talk of expressions in

different dialects

of one language as having the

same sense

. Slide10

Different Dialects, Same Sense

(l

) Do

pavement

in British English and

sidewalk

in American

English have the same sense?

Yes/No

(2) Do

pal

and

chum

have the same sense?

Yes/No

(3) Can expressions with entirely different social

conno

-

tations

have the same sense? For example, can the

following have the same sense?

People

walking in close

spatio

-temporal proximity

People

walking near each other

Yes/No

 Slide11

Both referring and uttering are acts performed, by

par-

ticular

speakers on particular occasions.

Imagine that a friend of yours says to you, "John is putting on weight

these days", and imagine that a friend of ours (Le, the authors of this

book) happens to utter the same sentence to us one day.

(1) Would this be a case of one utterance or two?

-----------------------------------

(2) Would the John refereed to be the same John or two different Johns? '

-----------------------------------

In the two separate utterances above, there are

two separate acts of

referring

.

In fact, most utterances contain, or are accompanied by, one

or more acts of referring. An

act of referring is the

picking out of a .

particular referent by a speaker

in the course of a particular utterance.

Slide12

Reference VS Sense

What is intended by the word

mean, meaning,

etc. in the following

examples, reference

(R)

or sense (S)? .

(I) When' Helen mentioned "the fruit cake", she meant that

rock-hard object in the middle of the table.

R/S

(2) When Albert talks about "his former friend" he means me. R/S

(

3) Daddy, what does

unique

mean?

R/S

(4) Purchase

has the same meaning as

buy.

R/S

(5) Look up the meaning of

apoplexy

in your dictionary.

R/S

(6) If you look out of the window now, you'll see who I mean.

R/SSlide13

Sense

Reference

Idealization of our understanding of meaning

We must act more certain than we are about expressions and if they have the same sense

More elusive than reference

More abstract

More concrete

Easier to be certain of

Can grasp the concept more readily

Slide14

Assignment for Next Class

Unit 4 – Referring Expressions

Practice: 1-6

Mid. 1

Wednesday, Oct. 17

In ClassSlide15