What Exactly Is Meaning?
◮
Meanings are messages that get communicated by language
utterances.
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What are messages?
◮
Animal communication systems:
◮
‘I’m ready to mate’, ‘Watch out (for the X)!’, ‘I’m the alpha
male here’, ...
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Semantics vs. Pragmatics
Hummingbirds:
◮
Utterance: ‘raucous chatter and the shrill, metallic wing trill
of adult males.’ (National Geographic)
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Semantics: ‘I’m the alpha male here’
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Usage1 : ‘Get away from that female!’
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Usage2 : ‘Get away from that food!’
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Usage3 : ‘Get away from that ...!’
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Human Language
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Utterance: [nob2di d2z n2P@n hir wIóawt^maj sejso]
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Semantics: ‘Nobody can do anything here without the
speaker’s permission to do it’.
◮
Usage1 : ‘Get away from that female!’
◮
Usage2 : ‘Get away from that food!’
◮
Usage3 : ‘Get away from that ...!’
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The Semantics Hypothesis
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It’s useful to separate the purely linguistic contribution to
communicated meaning from the theory of use.
Semantics: the theory of linguistic meaning.
Pragmatics: the (more general) theory of language use.
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How do People Communicate with Language?
◮
Make assertions.
◮
Ask questions.
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Issue commands.
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....
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What do People Communicate with Language?
Types of Message
◮
Propositions (asserting)
(claims about the way the world is or could be; the abstract
entities that are true or false depending on the way things
really are...)
◮
Questions (asking)
(abstract entities that are either true or false once an answer
is supplied)
◮
Directives (commanding)
◮
...
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Semantics
◮
How are messages organized?
◮
What is the structure of messages?
◮
...
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What are lexical meanings?
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Semantics: The Study of Linguistic Meaning
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Lexical Semantics: The linguistic meanings of words.
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Compositional Semantics: How the linguistic meanings of
larger expressions are composed.
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What Exactly are (Lexical) Meanings?
◮
Meanings are images
(mental pictures and diagrams)
The meaning of Mona Lisa
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What’s Wrong with Images?
We probably often have different images, e.g....
‘dog’, ‘cat’...
The meaning of ‘triangle’ ?
The meaning of ‘kick’ ?
The meaning of ‘only’ ?, ‘hello’ ?, ‘not’, ‘the’ ?...
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What Exactly Is Meaning? 2
◮
Meanings are concepts (mentally represented categories).
But what are concepts, exactly?
Whatever they are, they are subjective.
(meanings have to be something more objective)
Prototype effects? The meaning of ‘bird’ ? The meaning of
‘furniture’ ?
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What Exactly Is Meaning? 3
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Meaning as Use
The meaning of an expression is its use in the language
community.
The meaning of ‘hello’ is the way ‘hello’ used in the
community
The meaning of ‘George W. Bush’ is the way that name is
used.
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What Exactly Is Meaning? 4
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Meaning as Reference (denotation):
The meaning of an expression is the thing it denotes (its
denotation).
The denotation of the name Barack Obama is that guy in
the White House.
The denotation of I, said by some person x is simply x.
The denotation of the noun republican is the set of people
who are registered as members of the Republican Party.
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What’s Wrong with this Theory?
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What’s Wrong with this Theory?
What’s the denotation of the expression the president?
‘The president is the president’.
‘Barack Obama is Barack Obama’.
‘Barack Obama is the president’.
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What Exactly Is Meaning? 5
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Meaning as Sense (Frege 1892)
The meaning of an expression is its sense, an abstract object
that determines its reference.
An abstraction over the concepts of the members of a given
language community.
Often formalized as functions that pick out the appropriate
reference.
Each linguistic expression has both a sense and a reference.
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The meaning (sense) of the president =

[USA,1789]

[USA,1795]

. . .


[USA,1994]

. . .

[USA,2011]

...

→ George Washington

→ George Washington




→ Bill Clinton




→ Barack H. Obama 

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The meaning (sense) of the name Barack Obama =

[USA,1789]

[USA,1795]

. . .


[USA,1994]

. . .

[USA,2011]

...

→ Barack H. Obama

→ Barack H. Obama




→ Barack H. Obama



→ Barack H. Obama

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Systematic Relations among Word Meanings
(Lexical Senses)
Synonymy
Homophony
Hyponymy/Hypernymy
Antonymy
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Synonymy
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Synonym: ‘A word having the same or nearly the same
meaning as another word or other words in a language.’
◮
automobile/car, H2 0/water, cat/feline,...
◮
muskmelon/cantelope?
◮
Are there any true synonyms?
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Homophony:
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Two semantically unrelated words are homophones if they
are (accidentally) pronounced the same:
too and two
lead (the metal) and led (the past tense)
bank1 (‘sloped embankment’) and
bank2 (‘financial institution’)
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Polysemy:
◮
A single word is polysemous if it has several meanings that
are related in some way:
pig (the animal) and pig (‘sloppy person’)
pool (of water on the ground) and (swimming) pool
bank2 (‘financial institution’) and bank3 (‘a similar
institution’) [blood bank; egg bank; sperm bank]
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Hyponymy (literally ‘under-name’)
◮
Hyponymy is the relation between a more general and more
specific word, a relation of inclusion.
If you can say all Xs are also Ys then this means X is a
hyponym of Y
The opposite relation is that Y is a superordinate of X (also
called hypernym ‘above-name’).
vehicle/car, plant/flower/tulip,..
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◮
Antonymy
Complementary antonyms: alive/dead,
mortal/immortal, married/unmarried...
Gradable antonyms: tall/short, big/little,...
Relational antonyms (converses): parent/child,
teacher/student, buy/sell...
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Generally speaking, some adjectives are gradable while others
are not.
Gradable properties can be said to exist to a degree (unlike
complementary properties.
The simplest test for gradable adjectives is whether you can
modify the word with very.
◮
Gradable: very large/very small; very sad/very happy; very
wet/very dry
◮
Nongradable: *very first/*very last; *very alive/*very dead;
*very single/*very married.
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Other Semantic Relations
Metaphor
“a figure of speech in which a term is transferred from the
object it ordinarily designates to an object it may designate
only by implicit comparison or analogy.”
the twilight of her career
He’s a leech
Kim’s a chicken, a goose, a cow, a dog, a cat, a crab, or a
bitch.
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Metonymy and Synecdoche
Metonymy is “a figure of speech in which an attribute or
commonly associated feature is used to name or designate
something.”
The White House says...; the law referring to a policeman.
Synecdoche is “a figure of speech by which a more inclusive
term is used for a less inclusive one, or vice versa.”
All hands on deck,
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The Many Uses of the SF Chronicle
I bought the SF Chronicle this morning. (a copy of the
newspaper)
Murdoch is trying to buy the SF Chronicle. (the
newspaper-publishing company)
The SF Chronicle endorsed Obama. (the newspaper’s
editorial staff)
Lee is parked on 33rd St. (Lee’s car)
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