Detailed English semantics glossary

Semantics Glosary

1


TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER 1: BASIC IDEAS IN SEMANTICS................................................................................3
UNIT 1: ABOUT SEMANTICS........................................................................................................3
UNIT 2: SENTENCES, UTTERANCES, AND PROPOSITIONS..............................................5
UNIT 3: REFERENCE AND SENSE............................................................................................10
CHAPTER 2: FROM REFERENCE................................................................................................13
UNIT 4: REFERRING EXPRESSIONS........................................................................................13
UNIT 5: PREDICATES....................................................................................................................17
UNIT 6 PREDICATES, REFERRING EXPRESSIONS, AND UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE
........................................................................................................................................................20
UNIT 7 DEIXIS AND DEFINITENESS........................................................................................23
UNIT 8: WORD AND THINGS: EXTENSIONS AND PROTOTYPES.................................26


Chapter 1: Basic ideas in semantics
UNIT 1: ABOUT SEMANTICS
I.
Definitions
1. Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
2. Speaker Meaning and Sentence Meaning
Definition 



SENTENCE Meaning
Sentence is a set of words that 

is complete in itself, typically
containing a subject and

predicate, conveying a
statement, question,
exclamation, or command.
Sentence meaning is what a
sentence means.

SPEAKER Meaning
What hearers are interested
in is what the speaker
means.
There is often a divergence
between the meaning of the
linguistic expression a
speaker uses and the
meaning he intends to
communicate by using it.

Example

“The bag is so heavy”

 Sentence meaning:
Abag being heavy

 Speaker meaning: The
speaker wants the hearer to
help her carry the bag.

 The same sentences are used by different speakers on different occasions to
mean (speaker meaning) different things.
3. THEORY is a precisely specified, coherent, and economical framework of
interdependent statements and definitions, constructed as large a number as possible
of basic facts can either be seen to follow from it or be describable in terms of it.
Example: Noisy means the opposite of quiet.

II.

Practice


Exercise 1: Clarify the sentence meaning and speaker meaning in the following
statement:
1. The headline of The Los Angeles Times: “John Smith collapsed face-down in a pool
of his own vomit”.
 Answer:
-

Sentence meaning: John Smith is fell down in a pool by slipping from his own vomit.

- Speaker meaning: John Smith got died because his lungs are slowly filled with
fluid due to excessive use of wine.
2. The headline of a newspaper: “Pakistan victory. Huge losses on both sides.”
 Answer:
-

Sentence meaning: Pakistan got victory and both countries got defeated.

- Speaker meaning: Pakistan got victory but suffered the loss of lives of many
people in the battle.
Exercise 2: Which of the following items appear to illustrate sentence meaning and
which illustrate speaker meaning?
1. A bachelor is an unmarried man.
2. A red light means ‘stop’.
3. A fine product THEY put out (THEY emphasized)
4. My feet are killing me.
 Answer:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Sentence meaning
Speaker meaning
Speaker meaning
Speaker meaning


UNIT 2: SENTENCES, UTTERANCES, AND PROPOSITIONS
I.
Definitions
1. UTTERANCE
 It is a continuous piece of speech beginning and ending with a clear pause by
one person.
 It is used by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion such as a sequence of
sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word.
Example: ‘Henry is not here’, ‘I am a student’
2. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF UTTERANCE

 It is spoken
 Physical event. Events are ephemeral (i.e. short-lived)
 May be grammatical or not
 A piece of language (a single phrase or even a single word)
 Meaningful or meaningless (e.g. "is")
 Identified by a specific time or on particular occasion
 By a specific person (in particular accent).
3. SENTENCE
 A grammatical string of words expressing a complete thought.
 Neither a physical event nor a physical object
 A set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and
predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and
consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.
Example: It is raining.
RULE:
A given sentence always consists of the same words, and in the same order. Any
change in the words, or in their order, makes a different sentence, for our purposes.
Example:
- She is beautiful
- She is beautiful
 The same sentences.
- Jack loves Mary
- Mary loves Jack
 The different sentences.


UTTERANCE
 An utterance is any stretch of talk
(spoken rather than written), before
and after which there is silence on the

part of that person.
 An utterance is a physical event (time,
place, language, speaker) such as a
sequence of sentences, or a single
phrase, or even a single word.
 An utterance is short-lived.
 An utterance can be ungrammatical.
 Convention: quotation marks (e.g. ‘I
love you’)

SENTENCE
 A sentence is both spoken and
written.

 A sentence is neither a physical
event nor a physical object.

 A sentence is a string of words
expressing a complete thought.
 A sentence is grammatical.
 Convention: italicized (e.g. I love
you)

4. PROPOSITION
 A part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes
some state of affairs (persons or things).
 A statement or assertion that expresses a judgment or opinion.
 In uttering a declarative sentence a speaker typically asserts a proposition.
 A proposition can be TRUE or FALSE (only true propositions correspond to
facts)

Example:
-

There are lions in Africa
The state of Arkansas is uninhabited by human beings




A proposition can be entertained in the mind regardless of whether it is true or
false

Example: I want to believe or think that clouds are made of glass





II.

A proposition can be expressed in different types of sentences:
- Declarative: assert the proposition
- Interrogative: question the truth of the proposition
- Imperative: demand the implementation of the proposition
A proposition does not belong to any particular language.

Practice

Exercise 1: Decide whether the following could represent utterances. Indicate your
answer by circling Yes or No.

(1) ‘Hello’

Yes/ No

(2) ‘So many’

Yes/ No

(3) ‘Pxgotnghhh’

Yes/ No

 Answer: 1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. Yes
Exercise 2: Indicate whether each of the following sentence pairs expresses the same or
different propositions.
a. Laila read the book
The book was read by Laila.
b. Freih took back the book
Freih took the book back.
c. The cat chased the rat
The cat was chased by the rat.
d. The chef cooked the meal
The chef had the meal cooked.
e. Hondas are easy to fix
It's easy to fix Hondas.
 Answer: a. Same; b. Same; c. Different; d. Different; e. Same
Exercise 3: In each of the following, indicate whether a proposition is asserted or not,
and explain why.

a. Ali left yesterday.
b. Did Ali leave yesterday?
c. Can Ali leave this afternoon?
d. Ali, get out of here.
e. Ali!
 Answer: a. Yes; b. No; c. No; d. No, imperative; e. No
Exercise 4: Decide whether each pair of sentences below has the same or different
propositional content. If they have the same propositional content, identify the
proposition that they both shares.


a. Can Ali have some cake?
b. Take out the garbage
c. Can you pass the salt?
 Answer: 1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. No; 4.No; 5. Yes


UNIT 3: REFERENCE AND SENSE
I.
Definitions
1. REFERENT
 The referent of an expression is often a thing or a person in the world, whereas
the sense of an expression is not a thing at all.
 Every expression that has meaning has sense, but not every expression has
reference.
 The relationship between language and the real world
- Variable reference: multiple referents for the same expression
Example: the president of the United States (Obama, Trump,….)
-

Constant reference: only one referent for an expression Ex: the president of
the United States in 2020

2. SENSE
 Sense deals with relationships inside the language while reference deals with
relationships between language and the world.
 One such relationship is sameness of meaning.
 Words, phrases, and sentences all have sense
 A same word can have more than one sense
Example:


I have an account at the Bank of Scotland
We steered the raft to the other bank of the river
Other categories of sense: homonymy and polysemy (in addition to sameness)


Referent

Sense

3. Referent & Reference & Referring Expression
Reference is relationship
A referent is a thing or a
between piece of language person that is identified by
and the things in the world. a word, a phrase or an
expression.

A referring expression is
any expression or a piece

of language used in an
utterance to refer to
something or someone
outside the language

Example:
-

II.

Princess Diana is the referent of Rose of England.
Rose of England is the referring expression of Princess Diana
The relationship between Princess Diana and Rose of England is called reference.

Practice

Exercise 1: Do the bold words have sense or reference, or both sense and
reference?
1. I saw Peter yesterday. – reference (there is no sense)
2. Peter phoned. He said that he passed the exam. – sense and reference (little
sense; third person singular, male) (its reference is very variable; it could refer to
anyone male).


3. A Centaur has the body and legs of a . – sense (no reference; not a determined
centaur in particular or an existing one –it does not have a real independent
existence-).
4. Those were years of Happiness in my life. – sense and reference (you can
define what happiness is and relate it to a moment of the life)
5. The present king of Andorra is bald. – sense (there is no reference because there

is no such a thing as a king in andorra)


Chapter 2: From reference . . .
UNIT 4: REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
I.
Definitions
1. REFERRING EXPRESSION
 A referring expression is any expression used in an utterance to refer to
something or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or people), i.e.
used with a particular referent in mind.
Example:

“John’s rabbit is so cute.”

 “John’s rabbit” is a referring expression because the speaker has a particular
animal in his mind when he says, “John’s rabbit”.
 Referring expression come in various kinds:
- Proper names (i.e. John, Mary)
- Personal pronouns (i.e. he, it)
- Longer descriptive expressions (i.e. the man who unified the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia.)
 Whether an expression is a referring expression is heavily dependent on linguistic
context and on circumstances of utterance.
2. OPAQUE CONTEXT
 A part of a sentence which could be made into a complete sentence by the
addition of a referring expression, but where the addition of different referring
expressions, even though they refer to the same thing or person, in a given
situation, will yield sentences with different meanings when uttered in a given
situation.



Opaque context typically involves a certain kind of verbs, such as want, believe,
think, and wonder about

Example:
-

Dick believes that John killed Smith.
Dick believes that the person in the corner killed Smith.

3. EQUATIVE SENTENCE:




An equative sentence is one which used to assert the identity of the referents of
two referring expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have the
same referent.

Example: Tony Blair is The Prime Minister. => TB = PM
Tony Blair

The
Prime



A feature of many equative sentence is that the order of the two referring
expressions can be reversed without loss of acceptability

Example: The Prime Minister is Tony Blair. => equative => reversible + acceptable
II.

Practice

Exercise 1: Identify the following statement as either TRUE or FALSE:
1. Not all language expressions are referring expression.
2. The cat in ‘The cat looks like the tiger’ is a referring expression.
3. The cat in ‘Have you seen the cat?’ is a referring expression.
4. The tree in ‘The tree may be evergreen or not’ is a referring expression.
 Answer: 1.T; 2.F; 3.T; 4.T
Exercise 2: Decide whether the following sentences are referring expressions or not. If
the sentence is ambiguous, explain why.
1. His father married a teacher.
2. John wants to marry a teacher.
3. The whale is the largest mammal.
4. I am looking for a pencil.
 Answer: 1. Ambiguous; 2. Yes; 3. Yes; 4. Ambiguous


Exercise 3:
1. John is standing alone in the corner. Do ‘John’ and ‘the person in the corner’ have
the same referent?
2. Jim believes that William killed James.
Jim believes that the person in the corner killed James.
Could one of these utterances be true or false?
3. Create a set of circumstances under which the sentence ‘Ali believes that

……. signed the bill’ is an opaque context.
 Answer: 1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. the bill’ is an opaque context.
Exercise 4: Which of the following are equative sentences?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Ali is the man with the camel.
Abraham Lincoln is the President of the United States.
Cairo is a nearby city.
Adam is a genius.
A box of cookies is what I would like.

 Answer: 1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. No; 4.No; 5. Yes


UNIT 5: PREDICATES
I.
Definitions
1. PREDICATOR
 PREDICATOR means a verb phrase considered as a constituent of clause
structure, along with subject, object, and adjunct.
Note:
-

The predicators in sentences can be of various parts of speech: Adjectives,
verbs, prepositions and nouns.
Words of other parts of speech, such as conjunctions, and articles cannot serve

as predicators in sentences.

Example:
- Fred showed Jane his BMW.
 predicator: show; arguments: Fred, Jane, his BMW.
- The hospital is outside the city.
 predicator: outside, arguments: the hospital, the city.


Semantic roles

2. PREDICATE
 The PREDICATE is the part of a sentence that tells us about the subject.
Example:
- John walked faster than James.
 “walked faster than James” is the predicate.
- She recited a poem to her classmate.
 “recited a poem to her classmate” is the predicate.


Difference between predicate and predicator
PREDICATE
Identifies elements in the language system.
Independently of particular example
sentence.
Can envisage a list of predicates in English.
Ex: A tall, handsome stranger entered the
saloon.
→ “tall, handsome, stranger,
saloon” are predicates.

PREDICATOR
Identifies semantic roles.
Played by a word (or more) in a
particular sentence.
Cannot list the predicators of English.
Ex: A tall, handsome stranger entered
the saloon.
→ “enter” is predicator.

3. DEGREE OF PREDICATE
 Definition:
The DEGREE of a predicate is a number indicating the number of arguments it is
normally understood to have in simple sentences.
Example:
- Ricky is asleep.
 “asleep” is a predicate of degree one (often called a one-place predicate).
- She hit the rabbit.
 “hit” is a two-place predicate.
NOTE:
II.

A verb that is understood most naturally with just two arguments.
The majority of adjectives are one-place predicates.
Most nouns are one-place predicates.
Practice

Exercise 1:
(1) Elvis lives.
(2) I love my mom.

(3) Ivan jumped.
(4) My phone is charging.
(5) Bob is content to his child.
 Answer:


(1) predicator: live, argument: Elvis
(2) predicator: love, argument: I, my mom
(3) predicator: jump, argument: Ivan
(4) predicator: charge, argument: my phone
(5) predicator: content, argument: Bob, his child.

Exercise 2: Are the following predicates?
(1) sleep
(2) visit
(3) met
(4) My mother
(5) and
 Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) Yes (4) No (5) No

Exercise 3: For each of the following sentences, say whether it seems somewhat
elliptical.
(1) The cat
(2) The cat is
(3) the cat is eating.
(4) The cat is eating the dog’s food
(5) How many referring expressions are there in sentence (4)?
 Answer: (1) Yes (2) No (3) Yes (4) Yes (5) two

UNIT 6 PREDICATES, REFERRING EXPRESSIONS, AND
UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE
I.
Definitions
1. GENERIC SENTENCE
 GENERIC SENTENCE is a sentence in which same statement is made about a
whole unrestricted class of individuals, as opposed to any particular individuals.
 A generic sentence is one expressing a truth ( or falsehood) the truth value of
which cannot, in general, be ascertained solely with reference to any particular
localized time.
Example:
-

“Superheroes have superpowers” is a generic sentence.
“The superhero has superpower” is not a generic sentence.

RULE: Generic sentences can be introduced by either, a, or the (or neither).

Common sentence
- Contains a subject, which is a
referring expression.
- And a predicate
- (and possibly other expressions).

Generic sentence
- A generic sentence is a sentence.
- In which some statement is made.
- About a whole unrestricted class of
individuals.
- As opposed to any particular individual.

2. LANGUAGE
 Language is used to talk about the REAL world, and can be used to talk about an
infinite variety of abstractions and even of entities in imaginary, unreal worlds.
 Language is used for talking about things
In the real world/exist

Non-existence things/ creates unreal
worlds.
- Like parrots, paper-clips, babies.
- Like superheroes, aliens, talking animals.
- Reference→ a
relationship - Reference→ we use words in a
between part of an utterance and a way which suggests that a relationship
thing in the world.
exactly like reference holds between a
part of an utterance & non-existence
things.
- The classic case is that of the word
“unicorn”.


3. SEMANTICS
 Semantics is concerned with the meaning of the words and sentences.
 It can refer to any entity in this REAL or IMAGINARY world.
4. UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE
 The UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE for any utterance is the particular world, real
or imaginary (or part real, part imaginary), that the speaker assumes he is talking
about at the same time.
NOTE:

-

The real world.
An infinite variety of abstractions.
Entities in imaginary, unreal worlds.

Example:
-

Tony Stark is a fictional character in the marvel universe.
Santa Claus is a fiction, but the toy telephones he might bring do actually
exist.

Successful communication
- Assuming the same universe of
discourse is essential

II.

Unsuccessful communication
- Assuming different universe of discourse
is one reason for breakdown of
communication.
- Both participants assuming that exactly
the same entities exist in the world, but
referring to them by different words (an
extreme case of this would be two
participants speaking different languages).
- Sheer inarticulacy.

Practice

Exercise 1: Are the following generic sentences?
(1) Ladies like flowers.
(2) Tigress bear its baby.
(3) Cat is a carnivore animal.
(4) A dog that barks at nights is annoying.
(5) Rabbits are rodents.


 Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) Yes (4) No (5) Yes
Exercise 2: Do the following expressions refer to physical objects?
(1) The cat
(2) My house
(3) World war II
(4) Vietnamese national anthem
(5) Vietnam war
 Answer: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) No (4) No (5) No
Exercise 3: Is the universe of discourse in each of the following cases the real world (as
far as we can tell) (R) or a (partly) fictitious world (F)?
(1) Mother to child: “The dragon set fire to the woods with his hot breath”.
(2) Dad to child: “Santa will give you a present”.
(3) Teacher to students: “The distance from Earth to the sun is called an astronomical
unit, or AU, which is used to measure distances throughout the solar system”.
(4) Doctor to patient: “Depression can cause headaches, chronic body aches, and pain
that may not respond to medication”.
(5) Mother to child: “You can come Middle Earth from the Lord of the Ring”.
 Answer: (1) F (2)F (3)R (4)R (5)F

UNIT 7 DEIXIS AND DEFINITENESS
I.
Definitions
1. DEIXIS is the general phenomenon of its occurrence
2. DEICTIC WORD
 A deictic word is a word or phrase (i.e. this, that, these, those, now, then, here,
etc.) pointing to the time, place, or situation that the speaker is referring to.
Example:
If a visitor coming back from Paris says: “I took many pictures there.”


 “there” referring to “Paris” is deictic word.
Types of Deixis
- Personal deixis: I, you, he, etc.
- Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
- Spatial deixis: here, there, etc.
- Temporal deixis: yesterday, today, tomorrow, etc.
- Some verbs have deictic ingredient: come, take, bring, go, etc.
Ex: “Go to the school “ (speaker is not at the school).
-

Tenses are also regarded as deictic.

Ex: “ I graduated from high school in 2004.”
 This utterance can be made in or after the year 2004

3. CONTEXT
 The context of an utterance is the point at which the thought is expressed. It
includes a speaker, a hearer, a time of utterance, a world of utterance, and facts
about the topic of the conversation.

Example:
In this picture, the children may be taking about facts about the weather (i.e. it is
raining; it is cold), facts about the bus stop (the bus is so late) or facts about the
speakers (i.e. their name, age, sex) that are part of the context of utterances in this
conversation.


4. DEFINITENESS
 Definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between
referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context and entities which
are not. The prototypical definite noun phrase picks out a unique, familiar,
specific referent.
Example:
-



II.

The sun, the moon, the star => definiteness because there are only one sun,
one star, on moon in the context.
The light was on when I opened the door. => The light and the door is definite
(The light and the door in my house).

Three main types of definite noun phrases in English:
- Proper names: John, Lyly, …
- Personal pronouns: he, she, it, …
- Phrases introduced by a definite determiner: the, that, this

Practice:

Exercise 1: Are the following words deictic?
1. Monday
2. now
3. table
4. that
5. she

Yes / No
Yes / No
Yes / No
Yes / No
Yes / No

 Answer: 1. No; 2. Yes; 3. No; 4. Yes; 5. Yes


Exercise 2: Can you point out which words are deictic?
“I was there yesterday.”
 Answer: I (personal); there (spatial); yesterday (temporal)
Exercise 3:
1. In the sentence “The tiger is a carnivore”, as most typically used, which particular
tiger is being referred to?
2. Is the tiger in the sentence just mentioned a referring expression? Yes / No
3. Is the phrase the tiger semantically definite in the sentence mentioned (i.e. would
a user of this sentence presume that the hearer would be able to identify the
referent of the expression)?
 Answer: 1. None at all; 2. No; 3. No.