Semantics and Pragmatics – Handout #1
Spring 2015
Institute of English and American Studies
University of Debrecen
Instructor: Éva Kardos
SENSE, DENOTATION, AND TRUTH CONDITIONS
I. The focus of this course: the discovery of literal meaning, which is the primary
objective of semantics.
(1)
(2)
I forgot the paper.
I remember the story.
Meaning in a broader sense can also involve pragmatic meaning.
We will not pay much attention to issues of pragmatics in this course.
II. Lexical versus Structural Meaning
(3)
a. Ben who loved Mary wanted the BMW
b. Mary who loved Ben wanted the BMW.
c. Ben who wanted Mary loved the BMW.
d. Mary who wanted Ben loved the BMW.
etc.
Q: Do we (human beings) have an unrestricted capacity to produce language? How do
we know the answer to this question?
Compositionality: the property of being composed from parts.
III. How can we define the meaning of a word?
a. by pointing to an object that is described by the word in question:
(4)
desk, book
b. by paraphrasing the meaning of the word:
(5)
linguistics, English
IV. Various kinds of meaning
a. denotation
When we specify the denotation of an expression, we determine what this expression
picks out in the world around us.
1
expression
the horse
type
noun phrase
horse
common noun
Barack Obama
name
break
intransitive verb
denotation
a particular equine entity,
the one referred to on a
particular occassion of
utterance
a set of animals, all of
them equines
Barack
Obama
(the
person)
the set of things that break
NB: the denotation of a noun phrase is also called its reference
Q: What is the denotation of the word baby? What are the political/social
consequences of the answer to this question?
b. sense
This may be more interesting than the term denotation, but sense is less clear than
denotation.
Let’s illustrate this:
(6)
a. the President of the United States of America
b. the CEO of Apple Inc.
c. smart
d. bird
NB: A word may have many senses. Dictionary definitions define sense. Names are
exceptional in this respect as they have reference.)
different senses and identical denotations
Venus
the morning star
the Hungarian government
the evening star
the evening star
the President of the European Union
between January 1, 2011 and June 30,
2011
2004
the year of Hungary’s EU accession
c. two kinds of denotation: extension versus intension
We need to extend the term denotation. In order to do this, we need to introduce the
notions actual world and possible world.
the actual world: the world we live in
a possible world: an alternative to the actual world
2
word
cat
extension
the set of all cats in the
actual world
the set of all red things in
the actual world
the set of all creatures that
yell in the actual world
red
yell
intension
the set of all dogs in all
possible worlds
the set of all red things in
all possible worlds
the set of all creatures that
yell in all possible worlds
Q: Can you think of an area of grammar where the above distinction is necessary to
characterize the meaning of a sentence?
A quick illustration:
extension
Egon
Jeremy
Becky
barks
dog
SVal(Egon) = Egon
SVal(Jeremy) = Jeremy
SVal(Becky) = Becky
SVal(barks) = the set of creatures that bark
SVal(dog) = Egon, Jeremy, Becky
intension
w1
w2
w3
w4
Jeremy, Egon, Becky
Jeremy, Becky
Egon, Becky
Jeremy, Becky, Rex
The table above is the intension of the word dog. The table is of course incomplete.
V. What is sentence meaning?
(7)
Peter runs.
The extension of a sentence: its truth value, true or false.
For example, the sentence Peter runs is true if and only if Peter is a member of the set
of creatures that run.
The intension of a sentence: the set of all possible worlds in which that sentence is true.
the intension of Queen Elizabeth II
w1
w2
w3
w4
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II
the intension of the Head of the Commonwealth
3
w1
w2
w3
w4
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Ann II
Queen Mary II
Queen Elizabeth II
the intension of Queen Elizabeth II smiles
w1
w2
w3
w4
true
true
true
false
the intension of the Head of the Commonwealth smiles
w1
w2
w3
w4
true
true
false
false
The truth value of a sentence stays the same when expressions with identical
denotations are substituted into it.
VI. Compositional semantics
Let’s illustrate this with the sentence Mary smiles.
Step 1: Provide the syntactic rules for the sentence.
Step 2: Illustrate how this sentence is interpreted.
VII. Homework
Provide the interpreted tree for the following sentence. Use extensions.
(8)
Ann smiles and Mary laughs.
4