ngu nghia hoc

UNIT 1
WHAT IS SEMANTICS?
A. DEFINITION
Semantics (Greek, semantikos, “significant”), the study of the meaning of linguistic
signs—that is, words, expressions, and sentences. Scholars of semantics try to answer such
questions as “What is the meaning of (the word) X?” They do this by studying what signs are,
as well as how signs possess significance—that is, how they are intended by speakers, how they
designate (make reference to things and ideas), and how they are interpreted by hearers. The
goal of semantics is to match the meanings of signs—what they stand for—with the process of
assigning those meanings.
Semantics is studied from philosophical (pure) and linguistic (descriptive and
theoretical) approaches, plus an approach known as general semantics. Philosophers look at the
behaviour that goes with the process of meaning. Linguists study the elements or features of
meaning as they are related in a linguistic system. General semanticists concentrate on meaning
as influencing what people think and do.
Here are two senses for semantics:
1. Semantics is, generally defined, the study of meaning of linguistic expressions.
2. Semantics is, more narrowly defined, the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions
apart from consideration of the effect that pragmatic factors, such as the following, have
on the meaning of language in use:
• Features of the context
• Conventions of language use
• The goals of the speaker
In the scope of this course we only mention semantics in its narrow sense, namely
sentence (word) meaning which is independent of pragmatic context. We do not discuss such
aspects of meaning as with the speaker’s meaning which should be interpreted based on the
consideration of the extra-linguistic factors namely speaker’s intention, governing factors of
pragmatic context and situation such as time, place ….
As mentioned, semantics is the study of meaning of linguistic expressions. Here we
have to answer the questions: “What is meaning?” and “What is considered linguistic
expressions?” Meaning can be interpreted and understood in a variety of ways and perspectives.

Just look at some instances of meaning in the following sentences.
I. The meaning of meaning
In an important rarely book on the subject, C.K Ogden & I.A. Richards’s The Meaning
of Meaning (1923) (cited in Crystal (1987), 16 different meanings of the words ‘mean/
meaning’ were distinguished. Here are some of them:
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John means to write. ‘intends’
A green light means go. ‘indicates’
Health means everything. ‘has importance’
His look was full of meaning. ‘special import’
What is the meaning of life? ‘point, purpose’
What does ‘capitalist’ mean to you? ‘convey’
What does ‘cornea’ mean? ‘refer to in the world’
It is the last kind of use that comes closest to the focus of linguistic semantic; but even
this is a special kind of enquiry. The questions asks for a definition, which is a somewhat
unusual form of reply, found more in dictionaries than in everyday speech, that involves the
‘translation’ of the difficult word into ‘easier’ words. The study of the properties of definitions
is an important part of semantics, but it is only a part. Of greater importance is the study of the
way in which words and sentences convey meaning in the everyday situations of speech and
writing.
II. Three conceptions of meaning
1. Words and things
A popular view is that words ‘name’ or ‘refer to’ things – a view that can be found in
the pages of Plato’s Cratylus. Proper names like London, Bill Brown, and Daddy illustrate this
conception, as do several other words and phrases – the labels attached to objects for sales in a
shop, or those found on a pain colour chart. But there are large numbers of words whether it is
not possible to see what ‘thing’ the word refers to: verbs such as ask or find; adjectives such as
difficult or popular; nouns such as consistency or tradition. In fact, the majority of words seem
unable to relate to things, in any clear way.
2. Words, concepts and things

This view denies a direct link between words and things, arguing that the relationship
can be made only through the use of our minds. For every word, there is an associated concept.
One of the best known formulations of this position is the ‘semiotic triangle’ of Ogden Richards
(1923, p.99):
Thought
Symbol Referent
Figure 1.1 The ‘semiotic triangle’ of Ogden Richards (1923, p.99, cited in Crystal (1987))
The main criticism of this approach is the insuperable difficulty of identifying ‘concept’.
The ‘concept’ underlying a word such as tradition is no easier to define than the ‘thing; referred
to by tradition. Some words do have meanings that relatively easy to conceptualize, but we
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certainly do not have neat visual images corresponding to every word we say. Nor is there any
guarantee that a concept which might come to mind when I use the word table is going to be the
same as the one you, the reader, might bring to mind.
B. SOURCES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO STUDY OF MEANING
The study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, word, phrases, and sentences is
called semantics. Subfields of semantics are lexical semantics, which is concerned with
meanings of words and the meaning relationships among words; and phrasal or sentential
semantics, which is concerned with the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word. The
study of how context affects meaning – for example, how the sentence It’s cold in here comes
to be interpreted as “close the windows” in certain situations – is called pragmatics.
Contributions to semantics have come essentially from two sources – linguistics and
philosophy as mentioned above. Linguists have contributed primarily to the study of the core
meaning or sense of individual words. Philosophers, on the other hand, have contributed
primarily to the study of meaning of sentences. However, rather than trying to characterize the
core meaning or sense of sentences directly = which, as we have just seen, is a difficult
undertaking – they have approached the semantics of sentences from two other directions: the
study of reference and the study of truth conditions. Reference is the study of what objects
linguistic expressions (i.e. words, phrases, sentences, and so on) refer to. For example, in the
sentence Mulroney is the Prime Minister of Canada, the expression Mulroney and the

expression the Prime Minister of Canada refer to the same entity, namely Brain Mulroney.
Truth conditional semantics, on the other hand is the study of the condition under which a
statement can be judged true or false. In actuality, much of what falls under the name of truth
conditions involves truth relations that hold between sentences. For example if the sentence
Fred is 80 years old is true, then the sentence Fred is over 50 years old is necessarily true.
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UNIT 2
SENTENCES, UTTERANCES & PROPOSITIONS
To understand the notions of sense, reference, denotation, connotation, extension and intension
we should master the basic notions such as sentence, utterance and proposition.
A. UTTERANCE
I. Definition:
An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is silence
on the part of that person.
An utterance is the USE by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of
language, such as sequence of sentences, or a single phrase or even a single word. (Hurford,
1983, p.15)
An utterance is a complete unit of talk, bounded by the speaker's silence.
(Source: Crystal 1985, Pei and Gaynor 1954)
An utterance is a string of speech found between breaths or pauses.
An utterance act is a speech act that consists of the verbal employment of units of
expression such as words and sentences.
(Source: Searle 1969)
II. Characteristics:
- Utterances are physical events/ objects, i.e. they are just uttered or actually used in a
particular occasion. When we refer to an utterance we mean a unit of talk or something
characterized as in spoken language. Thus, an utterance is realized by accent, phonetic factors
and if an utterance is recorded in written form, it is represented with double quotation marks in
books or novels as the voice of the characters or speakers or writers or generally the addresser
of the message. In communication we can usually hear utterances of non sentences: short

phrases or a single word …. For example,
- Not too bad. (as a response to the question “How are you?”)
- Fire! (as the warning of a fire)
Practice 2.1
Now decide whether the following could represent utterances. Please give your answer
as Yes or No and consider whether each of them meet the description of an utterance mentioned
in the definition.
1) “Hello”
2) “Not much”
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3) “Utterances are physical events/ objects, i.e. they are just uttered or actually used in a
particular occasion. When we refer to an utterance we mean a unit of talk in spoken language.
Thus, an utterance is realized by accent, phonetic factors and if an utterance is recorded in
written form, it is represented with double quotation marks in books or novels as the voice of
the characters or speakers or writers or generally the addresser of the message”.
4) “Pxgotmgt”
5) “Schplotzenpflaaaaaaaaargh!”
(Hurford, 1983, p. 15)
At this stage, for us to imagine the relationship between an utterance and a sentence we
can assume that an utterance act is a speech act that consists of the verbal employment of units
of expression such as words and sentences.
B. SENTENCE
I. Definition:
A sentence is a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language.
(Hurford, 1983, p. 16)
II. Characteristics:
A sentence is a linguistic entity conceived abstractly. We cannot hear it for the fact that
the formation of a sentence occurs in our mind. A sentence is never uttered and thus it is not
tied to a particular time or place
It is grammatical in that it must be conformed to the syntactic rules of a certain

language. For example, this sentence is comprehensible because it is structured with the
grammatical rules of English: It took Tom 2 hours to finish his enormous dinner.
A sentence can be thought of as the IDEAL string of words behind various realizations
in utterances and inscriptions. We can just realize a sentence by hearing its communicative
realization as the utterance or looking at its inscription in the book. A sentence is said to be
abstract because it is not associated to any phonetic characteristics. Therefore it would make
sense to say that an utterance was in a particular accent (i.e. a particular way of pronouncing
words). However, it would not make strict sense to say that a sentence was in a particular
accent.
A sentence expresses a complete thought, i.e. it typically is composed of a subject and a
predicate each of which correspond to the thing/person being talked about and the
characteristics about the subject.
E.g. Fred is handsome. (sentence)
Subject Predicate (linguistic function)
A person characteristic (meaning)
Sentence types: This is the basic classification of sentences into types:
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• Declarative, e.g., Ellen went to the library.
• Interrogative, e.g., Did Ellen go to the library?
• Imperative, e.g., (Ellen) Go to the library!
• Optative, e.g., I wish Ellen went to the library.
Normally, there is a default correspondence between sentence types and speech acts.
(see further reading below).
Practice 2.2
Which of the following sentences are tokens of whole (complete) sentences? and which is not?
1) “John” 4) “It’s mine”.
2) “Who is there?” 5) “Where shall I …?”
3) “Mine”
(Hurford, 1983, p.16; P.18)
C. PROPOSITION

I. Definition:
A proposition is the basic meaning which a sentence expresses. A proposition consists
of
(a) something which is named or talked about (known as argument, or entity);
(b) an assertion or predication which is made about the argument.
A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence
which describes some state of affairs. (Hurford, 1983, p.19)
(In speech act semantics) A proposition is that part of the meaning of a clause or sentence
that is constant, despite changes in such things as the voice or illocutionary force of the clause.
Here a distinction is made between the propositional meaning of a sentence, and its
illocutionary force (i.e. the use made of the sentence in communication, e.g. as a request, a
warning, a promise). (Richard (1985), p.297)
E.g.
a) Anh đi.
b) Anh đi à?
c) Anh đi ư?
d) Anh đi nhé.
e) Anh đi đi.
These utterances have the same proposition P [anh đi]. However, each of them has a
distinctive voice or illocutionary force F as follows.
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a) Anh đi. (Informing)
b) Anh đi (questioning)
c) Anh đi ư? (questioning with surprise)
d) Anh đi nhé. (Informing with attention)
e) Anh đi đi. (request/order)
We can have the semantic structure of an utterance as follows:
F (P)
F: Illocutionary force (stating the purpose of the utterance: whether it is a statement, a
question or an order …)

P: Proposition (that part of meaning of a sentence/ an utterance: constant)
II. Characteristics:
The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by expressions in the
sentence. In uttering a declarative sentence a speaker typically asserts a proposition.
The meaning of a sentence or utterance can be judged by examing the truth condition of
the proposition. If a particular speaker utters two sentences and only one of these sentences is
true whereas the other is false, we can say that these two sentences express two different
propositions.
E.g. We can say the sentences i) and ii) have the same proposition if both of them are true or
false (Assuming in each case the same name Harry refers to the same person), but the sentences
iii) and iv) express different propositions.
i) Harry took out the agarbage.
ii) Harry took the garbage out.
iii) Harry loves Mary.
iv) Mary loves John.
Thus, when a speaker utters a simple declarative sentence, he commits himself to the
truth of the corresponding proposition. We can know a proposition is true if we know that the
state-of-affairs mentioned in the proposition is true to our knowledge about the world. In this
case, a true proposition is a fact.
For example, in the present-day world we know that it is a fact that there are lions in
Africa or it is a fact that Mr. Nguyen Tan Dung is the present Prime Minister of Vietnam.
Practice 2.3
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Now let us think about the truth of the following propositions. Is each of these
propositions is true or false regarding your knowledge about the present-day world?
1) Portugal defeated Germany in the quarter final of Euro 08 tournament.
2) Nicole Kidman is American.
3) The champions of Euro 08 are German.
4) Semantics is the study of speech sounds.
D. THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROPOSITIONS-SENTENCES-UTTERANCES

I. Proposition vs. Thought:
Proposition is an object or product of thought. A proposition can be thought of as
something to entertain in an individual’s mind. On the other hand, the same proposition can be
grasped by many different people. In this sense, it can be private or public. For example, a
Vietnamese person and an English person may look into the sky and at the same time each of
them may have the same proposition about the state-of-affairs in their own mind.


A sentence expresses a complete thought (a proposition) which consists of a noun (to
refer to a particular thing) and a predicate (a verb, adjective to specify the thing denoted by a
noun)
II. Sentences vs utterances:
1. A sentence is a linguistic unit/entity whereas an utterance is an action of
communicating. A sentence is a linguistic unit in that this entity is composed of units of
language such as words, phrases and put together by grammatical rules of a certain
language (Vietnamese or English). An utterance is a speech act in that it in making an
utterance we have to make an act of uttering a sentence or a phrase to communicate a
message. In this sense, whatever we say, the significance is that we actually
communicate a message. For example, whatever we say like “How do you do, Good
morning, Hi… we are actually making an act of greeting, i.e. a speech act.
2. A sentence is realized by an utterance or many different utterances. We can only realize
the words, phrases and sentence structure of what we say as a sentence through the
realization of an actual utterance. Briefly, a sentence may have different utterances as
tokens.
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P[mưa]
P[rain
]

III. Propositions-Sentences-Utterances

We can say that the same proposition can be encoded by a sentence or more than one
sentence with different structures and words. For example, when we look into the sky and
see this , we can express our thought about this phenomenon with one of the following
sentences:
It’s raining.
It rains.
It has started raining.
Here comes the rain.
It’s rainy.
At this stage, these potential sentences are conceived as abstract units of language that
stay in your mind. When we already determine on what sentence to speak it out, we just make
an act of uttering this sentence and we actually make an utterance. However, the same sentence
can be realized into many different utterances depending on the context of utterance, such as the
time and place of utterance, who utters it, who is intended to receive the message of the
utterance. For example, the same sentence It’s raining can be uttered by different speakers in
different contexts, and accordingly can be interpreted as different utterances with different
implications or purposes.
Man to girlfriend: “It’s raining”. (Please stay here)
Girl to mother: “It’s raining”. (I can’t go to buy the salt for you)
Wife to husband: “It’s raining”. (Please collect the clothes on the hanging rope in the garden)
To sum up, to make a verbal communicate act, a speaker typically starts with the
process of producing a proposition in his/her mind. Then he/she may have the need to speak it
out. To do this, he/she has to put words together into a sentence. Now, if he decides to speak it
out, he/she just says it loud in the form of speech sounds with a certain intonation pattern. This
is an action of communication with an utterance as a unit of talk. If the same speaker or another
speaker utters this sentence in a different particular occasion with a different intention or
purpose, they are said to make different utterances. This process can be represented in the
diagrams below.
The representation of the three-phase process of making an utterance
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Further reading />Propositional meaning:
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Each sentence has two components in its meaning, namely the conventional meaning of the
sentence, sometimes called the proposition associated with this sentence, and the intended
speech act. Thus, if we represent the skeleton of the meaning (the proposition) in a semi-
formalized way and add the grammatical information carried by each sentence type in the
example in A, we get the following possibilities with the same proposition (B):
A.
a. Emma went to the supermarket.
b. Did Emma go to the supermarket?
c. Emma, go to the supermarket!
d. If only Emma would go to the supermarket.
B.
a. EMMA GO TO THE SUPERMARKET + declarative = statement
b. EMMA GO TO THE SUPERMARKET + interrogative = question
c. EMMA GO TO THE SUPERMARKET + imperative = order
d. EMMA GO TO THE SUPERMARKET + optative = wish
Sentence vs proposition:
/>A sentence (S) has no inherent truth value, but has truth conditions: certain conditions must
be met for a sentence meaning to be true (or false)
Determining whether S is true or false is its propositional content
Sentence
expresses a complete thought, can be free-standing, not inherently true/false
Proposition
attributes some property to an entity or a relation between two entities. It is the thought that
the sentence expresses, which is true or false. It consists minimally of a predicate (the verb)
and its arguments (noun phrases, e.g. its subject and object)
i.
We walk in the park

ii.
Our walk in the park
iii.
For us to walk in the park
i. is a sentence; all three express the same proposition
the differences among them are grammatical not semantic/propositional
Practice 2.4
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Fill in the chart below with (+) to represent the presence of this characteristic with
utterances, sentences or propositions, or (-) to represent the absence of this characteristic
with each of these semantic entities.
Utterances Sentences Propositions
Can be loud or quiet
Can be grammatical or not
Can be true of false
In a particular regional action
In a particular language
(Source: Hurford, 1996 , p. 22)
UNIT 3
MEANING - COMPONENTS OF MEANING
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There are various approaches defining meaning as having two components. To start with the
distinction of the two components of meaning we will deal with the two basic concepts:
reference and sense. Then we will present the other related issues of reference and sense such
as the contrast between denotation and connotation, between the extension and intension.
A. REFERENCE AND SENSE: THE TWO COMPONENTS OF MEANING
Meaning is a notion in semantics classically defined as having two components:
Reference and sense
I. Reference:
1. Definition:

Reference is the relationship between words and the things, actions, events, and
qualities they stand for.
Reference in its wider sense would be the relationship between a word or phrase and
entity in the external world (see DENOTATION). For example, the word tree refers to the object
“tree” (the referent).
Reference, in its narrow sense is the relationship between a word or phrase and a
specific object, e.g. a particular tree or a particular animal. For example, Peter’s horse would
refer to a horse which is owned, ridden by, or in some way associated with Peter.
Further reading Lyons 1981
(Richard (1985) p.310)

Speaker Act of pointing/referring Referent (thing being referred to)
Based on the relationship between the linguistic expression my dog and the referent the
living creature being talked about in that situation, we can say that reference is the relationship
between a particular linguistic expression and the referent being pointed at in a particular
occasion or context. This relationship can be illustrated in the diagram below.
Linguistic expression Reference Referent
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“Look at my dog”
“My dog”
(Referential meaning)
Here we can see that by an act of pointing or referring to a particular thing in the world,
a particular speaker is making an act of connecting a linguistic expression (my dog) to a
particular thing in the world (the actual thing/creature that we can see or imagine in that
particular context of utterance).
2. Characteristics:
Typically, the thing we are pointing at or talking about can be seen or heard or even
touched (e.g. when a particular speaker says to us “Touch your left ear” we actually touch our
left ear and we can feel something with its thickness between our fingers …). But we should
remember that we can only do this if the linguistic expression “your left ear” is comprehensible,

i.e. we can understand this piece of language to fulfill the order “Touch your left ear”.
Table 3.1. Reference and the function of connecting language to the world
Reference:
the relationship between
the expression
The referent:
part of the world:
touchable, visible and audible
(part of the language)
and the referent
(part of the world)
The expression
part of the language:
readable and intelligible
II. Sense:
1. Definition:
The place which a word or phrase (a LEXEME) holds in the system of relationships with
other words in the vocabulary of a language. For example, the English words bachelor and
married have the sense relationship of bachelor = never married.
The sense of a word is its cognitive meaning as determined by its place within the
semantic system of the language. The word mother has the sense ‘parent and female’, in
contrast to father ‘parent and male’, both of the words contrasting with child, son, and daughter
in a set of related kinship terms. Football is definable as a ball game with certain characteristics,
in contrast with other words for ball games, such as basketball and netball. Come is a verb of
movement in contrast with go; sad is an adjective of emotion, a synonym of unhappy and an
antonym of happy; down and up are contrasting pairs of prepositions of direction; and and or
are contrasting co-ordinating conjunctions, the first indicating merely a link between two items
and the second a disjunction. Words may have more than one sense. In one sense, brother is a
kinship term, in another sense it is a religious terms.
Further reading

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
/> In discussions about semantic analysis, a sense is the meaning of a lexical unit.
E.g. "define each sense of the lexeme"
"compare lexically related senses"
Sense:
/>Sense is determined by how the expression at hand relates to other expressions in the same
language. Frege's (1892) classical example illustrates this: the planet Venus has two names,
namely the morning star and the evening star. They share the same referent but differ in their
sense. Other types of intra-linguistic (i.e. inside language) relations on which sense depends
are relations of semantic opposition, typically called antonymy, relations of equivalence,
called synonymy, and the like.
2. Characteristics:
1. The same word can have more than one sense.
E.g. the word bank has two senses: (1) the financial institution & (2) the river side
2. The same word can have more than one interpretation and therefore, can cause
ambiguity due to polysemy and homonymy.
E.g. The sentence I don’t like this fork is ambiguous because it may have two interpretations:
(1) fork = the division of a road & (2)
3. Lexical decomposition (Componential Analysis)
One method that the linguists have used to characterize the sense of words is called lexical
decomposition. This method represents the sense of a word in terms of the semantics features
that comprise it. For example, consider the words man, woman, boy and girl. The sense of each
of each of these words can be partly characterized by specifying a value (+ or -) for the features
[+ adult] and [+ female] as follows.
man woman boy girl
[adult] + + - -
[male] + - + -
The lexical decomposition or componental analysis makes use of the semantic features
or semantic properties in its process of assigning the value [+] or [-] to a linguistic expression,

namely the morphemes and words. To understand more about this semantic analysis we should
pay our attention to the basic notions related to sense as presented in the following subsections.
a) Semantic properties (also, semantic components, semantic features):
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These are the basic units of a word. The semantics of a word may be described as a
combination of semantic features, e.g. the semantic feature [+ male] is part of the meaning of
father, and so is the feature [+ adult] but other features are needed to give the whole concept or
sense of father
These are also piece of information we have about a word which may be stored in our
mental lexicon dictionary. For example the word assassinate may arouse in the speaker’s and
hearer’s mind these pieces of information:
[agent: human, murderer; person killed: important person]
- The same semantic property may be part of the meaning of many different words, e.g. female
is a semantic property that helps to define tigress, hen, doe, ewe, mare, actress, widow, woman,
maiden
- The same semantic property may occur in words of different categories, e.g. female in breast-
feed (V), pregnant (A), and cause in kill, darken, beautify
b) Semantic features are also understood as semantic categories/ properties that indicate the
relations or classes that a word may have or share with other words.
This can be illustrated in the overlap in meaning between 2 or more words where they share
some but not all the semantic features.
E.g. sister niece aunt mother nun mistress
[human] + + + + + +
[male] - - - - - -
[kin] + + + + - -

Figure 3.1 Illustration of overlap (adapted from Parker, 1994, p.42)
- A certain semantic category may imply others, e.g. human implies animate
- redundancy rules:
• one feature automatically contains another,

• Some semantic redundancy rules reveal negative properties,
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meaning
of sister

meaning
of niece
[+human]
[-male]
[+kin]
e.g. [ +human] [- abstract]
B. DENOTATIVE MEANING & CONNOTATIVE MEANING
I. Denotative meaning (Denotation):
According to some linguists, namely Fromkin, Blair and Collins (1990), denotation is a
type of meaning that can be described in terms of a set of semantic properties which serve to
identify the concept associated with the word in question. To some other linguists, denotation is
that part of meaning of a word or phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real word or in a
fictional or possible world. For example, the denotation of the English word bird is a two-
legged, winged, egg-laying, warm-blooded creature with a beak. In a meaning system,
denotative meaning may be regarded as the “central” meaning or “core” meaning of a lexical
item. It is often equated with referential meaning and with cognitive meaning and conceptual
meaning although some other linguists and philosophers make a distinction between these
concepts.
II. Connotative meaning (Connotation):
The connotations are the additional meanings that a word or phrase has beyond its
central meaning. These meanings show people’s demotion and attitudes towards what the word
or phrase refers to. For example, child could be defined as a young human being but these are
many other characteristics which different people associate with child, e.g. affectionate,
amusing, lovable, sweet, mischievous, noisy, irritating, grubby.
Some connotations may be shared by a group of people of the same cultural or social

background, sex, or age; others may be restricted one or several individuals and depends on
their personal experience.
In a meaning system, that part of the meaning which is covered by connotation is
sometimes referred to as effective meaning, connotative meaning or emotive meaning.
In short, connotations are affective or evaluative associations that a word may have
besides denotative meaning.
C. EXTENSION AND INTENSION
I. Extension:
The extension of word is all the set of all individuals to which that word can truthfully
be applied. It is the set of things which can potentially be referred to by using a linguistic
expression.
E.g. the extension of window is the set of all windows (in the past, present, future) in the
universe.
II. Intension:
The intension of a word corresponds to the semantic properties or features or notions
that describe or define the entities denoted by that word.
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E.g. the word wolf may evoke such notions that define a category of wolves as [+ wild animal],
[+ canine], [+ beastie].
As mentioned earlier, extension is the set of entities that constitutes a category denoted
by a word. As compared, the intension of a word can be understood as the attributes that define
a category, e.g., what makes a cat a cat, and not, e.g., a zebra. Whereas a word’s extension
corresponds to the set of entities that it picks out in the world, its intension corresponds to
inherent senses, the concepts that it evokes. Thus the extension of woman would be a set of real
world entities (women) while its intension would involves notions like ‘female’ and ‘human’.
Similarly, the phrase Prime Minister of Great Britain would have as its extension an individual
(‘Gordon Brown’), but its intension would involve the concept ‘leader of the majority party in
Parliament’. The distinction between a word’s intension and its extension simply permits us to
pose the question of meaning in a new way: what is the nature of a word’s inherent sense or
intension?

Phrase Extension Intension
Prime Minister of Britain Gordon Brown leader of the majority party in Parliament
Wimbledon Champion (2008) Rafael Nadal winner of the tennis championship
capital of California Sacramento city containing the state legislature
Table 3.2. Extension versus intension (Adapted from O’Grady (1993, p.215)
Further reading
/>How does the extension and the intension of a word differ?
EXTENSION AND INTENSION
extension of a lexical item is the set of entities which it denotes. Extension of DOG includes all
Dobermans, Chihuahuas, hounds, collies that have ever lived will ever exist or have ever been
accepted as a dog.
Some expressions have a set of one entity they refer to Caspian Sea
intension of a lexical expression is the set of properties or features shared by all members of the
extension. Extension relates to reference (Caspian Sea has unique reference). Extension may
change, but intension remains constant.
President of the United States or Prime Minister of Great Britain always has the same intension
(the properties which define someone as being the President or Prime Minister)
Extension changes every time someone else becomes it
Further reading
/>Componential analysis:
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An approach to representing word meaning which employs a formal metalanguage. Using this
approach the meaning of words is decomposed into smaller components of meaning, called
features. The meaning of "man" for instance, can be decomposed into:
[HUMAN] [MALE] [ADULT]. One of the conventions in componential analysis is to use
capital letters for the feature labels to suggest that this is a metalinguistic use of language.
Another convention is to employ binary features (i.e. the +/- sign) to signal the presence
or absence of a certain feature. This way of encoding is more advantageous and more
economical than using the opposite of the feature, such as [MALE] versus [FEMALE], and so
on.

Features are considered primitives of semantic analysis, which means that each feature is not
further decomposable into smaller units.
Denotation:
The class of entities in the world a word selects. Denotation is constant and context-
independent; for example, the word "dog" always denotes the whole class, or species, called
dogs and whenever this word is used, one has the set-association. It has been suggested by
Lyons (1995) that denotation includes both extension and intension. Denotation is related to
the word as a dictionary entry, that is, the word in isolation and not as part of a phrase.
(See extension, prototype & stereotype P. 76-100)
The emotive function: An orientation towards the addresser characterizes the emotive function
of language and is employed whenever the speaker tries to express an attitude or an emotion by
using language.
D. REFERENCE VS SENSE, EXTENSION AND DENOTATION
1. In talking of sense we deal with relationships inside the language, bachelor = never
married. In this sense, sense is the intension of a lexical unit.
2. In talking of reference we deal with the relationship between language and the world. In
this sense, reference has something to do with the extension of a word or phrase, and in
its broader sense, for some linguists, it can be understood as denotation. Like extension,
the denotation of a word is the relationship between the word and the set of entities,
situations, and attributes that exist outside the language. In its most common use of the
word cat denotes (or refers to) a class of small four-legged domesticated animals; the
adjective round denotes a particular shape; talk denotes a type of activity. The word
unicorn denotes a particular shape; talk denotes a type of activity.
3. The referent of an expression in its narrow sense, is often a thing or a person (i.e.
something more concrete than abstract entity).
4. The sense of an expression is not a thing at all. The senses of a word are also the
concepts or notions that define a set of things. Every expression that has meaning has
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sense, but not every expression has reference. Whereas every word has one or more
senses, not every word has a denotation. For example the articles a and the and the

conjunctions and and because have sense that can be defined for their use in the
language, but they do not denote anything outside the language.
E. SENSE VS PROPOSITION
1. A proposition corresponds to a complete independent thought. As we have mentioned
earlier, a proposition is the basic meaning which a sentence expresses and thus it consists of
(a) something which is named or talked about (usually linguistically realized as subject
or object of a sentence);
(b) an assertion or predication which is made about the that thing (usually linguistically
realized as predicate/verb phrase).
2. The sense of a single word or phrase only indicates concepts, not complete thought.
Practice 3.0
Are the senses of the following expressions propositions?
1) John has got a new typewriter.
2) A new master (not understood as an elliptical sentence)
3) John (not understood as an elliptical sentence)
3) This is the house that Jack built.
(Hurford, 1983, p. 31)
Further reading
/>Reference:
In contrast to denotation, reference is concrete, specific and context-dependent. As such, it is
related to expressions rather than words. In a type of referring expression called definite
descriptions (e.g., phrases like "the man", "John's father", "that man over there") one can
recognize two parts: a referential part and a descriptive part. For instance, in "the President",
the definite article "the" takes care of pointing to a specific entity in the real world ("pointing
words" are technically called deictic words), and, as such performs a referential function,
whereas the noun "President" describes what kind of entity the referent is. This example
justifies keeping denotation and reference separate and supports the idea that reference can be
attributed only to complex expressions, since only phrases are likely to include deictic words,
such as the article or demonstrative pronouns.
The referential approach to meaning:

Suggests that meaning should be sought in the extra-linguistic entity an expression (the
smallest expression being a word) picks out in the real world (the referent). The main
justification for this type of approach is that language is used to talk about the world and the
objects "out there" which attract our attention. Thus, from this perspective, the most natural
thing to do in order to interpret messages encoded in language is to look at the referents,
whether objects, classes of objects or situations.
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Problems with the referential approach:
For some words there are simply no referents (e.g. all functional words, like e.g. a and the).
Some expressions point to non-existent or fictional referents: elves, gnomes, the President (in
a country which is a monarchy).
The idea, held by some, that things out in the world do not have an inherent structure and that
any structure we perceive is just that, i.e. perceived.
Further reading
/>The difference between the denotation and connotation of a word. How these concepts relate to
homonyms or synonyms.
denotation
knowledge speakers have about a particular language expression that makes its use in a
particular instance of reference successful, a generally agreed upon set of features generally
shared among all, the `central aspect' of a word's meaning
connotation
is the emotive of affective responses associated with a particular linguistic expression; this may
differ radically from speaker to speaker and culture to culture
DOG denotes a four-legged, furry mammal, belonging to the genus canis connotes VERY
DIFFERENT things to different people/cultures:
- pet, friendly,
- used for hunting, guarding, sled-pulling
- smelly, vicious
- makes a good meal
synonyms frequently have more or less identical denotations, but quite different connotations

Some synonymous expressions are more appropriate in certain contexts than others
E.g. died, passed away, is taking a dirt nap, is pushing daisies etc.
It is unlikely to use these in the same contexts, although they all denote the same state
E.g. thin, slender, svelte, skinny
UNIT 4
REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
TYPES OF REFERENCE & DEICTIC FUNCTIONS
The referential function:
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When the message is informative and says something about entities present in the
communicative context, language is used with a referential function. The question here is how
can this function be achieved?
In everyday conversations, very often we make use of body language such as pointing with our
finger at the thing we are taking about. And in most cases, linguistic expressions of various
types may be utilized to fulfill this referential function. This will be discussed in section below.
A. REFERRING EXPRESSION
I. Definition:
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. (Hurford, 1983, p.35)
E.g. the name Fred in the utterance Fred hit me (where the speaker has a particular person in
mind when he says Fred) is a referring expression.
But when the speaker says “There is no Fred at this at this address” and he would not
have a particular person in mind in uttering the word “Fred”, this is not a referring expression.
II. Characteristics:
1. The same expression can be a referring expression or not depending on the context,
E.g. A/ an + NP
A man was here looking for you yesterday.
I’m a man.
2. The linguistic context often gives a vital clue as to whether the indefinite noun phrase is

a referring expression or not, but sometimes it does not give a clear indication.
E.g. A man was here looking for you yesterday.
The first sign of the monsoon was the dark cloud no bigger a man’s hand at the
horizon.
3. The ambiguity caused by indefinite noun phrase can be solved by the use of the word
certain immediately following the indefinite article a.
John is looking for a car.
John is looking for a certain car.
III. Linguistic realizations of referring expressions
1. Proper names: E.g. John
2. Personal pronouns: E.g. he/she/you/I/we
3. Complex noun phrases: the girl sitting over there
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4. Cases of general type with every/ what/ whoever/ all/ and modal expressions are not
clear. For example, in Every man who owns a donkey beats it, the pronoun is not a
referring expression, due to the presence of the universal quantifier every in the
same sentence. The pronoun it here may be used to talk about any member of the set
of donkeys.
Practice 4.1
Could the following possibly be used as referring expressions? Circle the answer of
your choice.
1) John 5) a man
2) My uncle 6) my parents
3) and 7) send
4) the girl sitting on the wall by the bus stop 8) under
IV. Referring expressions in a broader view:
Any expression that can be used to refer to any entity in the real world or any imaginary world
will be called a referring expression, e.g. God, Moses, that unicorn. In this sense, we accept that
the referential realm is anything, real or imagined, that a person may talk about.
Referent – physical object or not physical object?

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, e.g. my chair, British
National Anthem
Practice 4.2
How can you point at the person(s) in the pictures below? (You can use different referring
expressions, for example, the full name, the first name, the title, the nickname …).
1) 2) 3)

4) 5) 6)
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7) 8)

B. TYPES OF REFERENCE
I. Variable reference:
The same expression can be used to refer to different things. In this case, the act of
referring much depends on the particular time/occasion of a particular utterance. For example,
each time we say touch your left ear to a particular listener or addressee, the phrase your left ear
may be used to point at a particular ear, i.e. the ear which belongs to the addressee being talked
to.
If we say the phrase the present Prime Minister of Britain in different definite points of
time, we may mean or refer to different persons:
“the present Prime Minister of Britain” (uttered in 1945)
“the present Prime Minister of Britain” (uttered in 1980)
“the present Prime Minister of Britain” (uttered in 1980)
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“the present Prime Minister of Britain” (uttered in 1995)
Or we just help the addressee to identify who is being talked about by the use of the
post-modifier to make the reference more specific. For example, “the Prime Minister of Britain
in 1995” or “the Prime Minister of Britain in 2008)

II. Constant reference:
This is the situation where some expressions can never refer to different things
regardless of the linguistic or situational context they are used or uttered. The referent of the
words or phrases is typically a unique thing or person in this world or universe and this
knowledge is shared by many speakers in the same speech community. For example, the
linguistic expression “the moon”, “the earth” always refer to same thing that we know that it is
unique in the universe.
The same thing can be said to proper names such as name denoting a particular
individual or name denoting a particular country … like Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher,
Vietnam, Angola, The People’s Republic of China.
According to the knowledge shared by the speaker and the hearer we also have definite
reference and indefinite reference. The former is the situation when the referent or the image of
the referent is unique to the known/relevant world for the speaker and hearer. For example, the
use of the proper name “Tom Cruise” or the complex noun phrase with pre-modifier/post-
modifier “my uncle”, the boy standing in the corner” to refer to a particular thing or person in a
particular context.
III. Co-reference:
1. Definition:
Co-reference is the reference in one expression to the same referent in another
expression. Two linguistic expressions that have the same extra-linguistic referent are said to be
co-referential. In other words this is a case of two or more words/morphemes referring to the
same entity.
E.g. In the following sentence, both you's have the same referent:
You said you would come.
Or in the sentence The Earth is the third planet from the Sun, the expressions The Earth and the
third planet from the Sun are co-referential because they both refer to the same extra-linguistic
object, namely the heavenly body that we are spinning around on right now.
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