Meaning, Thought

and Reality
Semantics
Chapter 2
 Referring vs. Denoting
 The action of picking out or identifying with words
referring or denoting (referent or denotatum)
1) I saw Nelson Mandela on TV last night. OR
 Referring is what speakers do. (e.g. Lyons (1977))
 Denoting is a property of words.
If I say A sparrow flew into the room, I am using the
nouns to refer to things, while the nouns denote
certain classes of items.
 Denotation- a stable relation in a lg
Reference- a moment-by moment relationship
 Referential vs. Representational
 Different views of how semantics should approach the
ability to talk about the world
 Referential- we can give the meaning of words and
sentences by showing how they relate to situations.
3) There is a casino in Grafton Street.
4) There is not a casino in Grafton Street.
 Difference arises from the fact that they describe different
situations.
 Referential vs. Representational
 Representational- A lg represents a theory about the types of
things and situations in the world.
5) John is sleeping (activity). vs. John is asleep (state).
6) English: You have a cold. (possession)
8) Irish: A cold is on you. (location)
 The emphasis in on the way our reports about reality are
influenced by the conventionalized conceptual structures.
 These two focus on different aspects of the same process: talking
about the world.
 In ref. theories, meaning derives from lg being attached to reality.
 In rep. theories, meaning derives from lg. being a reflection of
our conceptual structures.
 Types of Reference
 Referring vs. non-referring expressions
A) Expressions which can not be used to refer e.g. so,
very, maybe, if, not, all
B) Potentially referring expressions
9) They performed a cholecystectomy this morning.
10) A cholecystectomy is a serious procedure.
Generic interpretation non referring
 Types of Reference
 Constant vs. Variable reference
A. Expressions that have the same referent across a
range of utterances. e.g. the Eiffel Tower,
the Pacific Ocean
A. Expressions whose referents depend on context
11) I wrote to you.
c.f. extention of an expression- the set of things which
could be the referent of that expression
• Could the following possibly be used as referring expressions?
John, my uncle, and, the girl sitting on the wall by the bus stop, a man, my
parents, send, under
1) When a speaker says, “A man was in here looking for you last night”, is a
man being used to refer to a particular man?
2) So, is a man in (1) a referring expression?
3) When a speaker ways, “The first sign of the monsoon is a cloud on the
horizon no bigger than a man’s head”, is a man being used to refer to a
particular person?
4) Is a man in this example a referring expression?
5) Is forty buses, in “Forty buses have been withdrawn from service”, a
referring expression?
6) Is forty buses, used in “This engine has the power of forty buses”, a
referring expression?
 Types of Reference
Referent- the thing picked out by uttering the
expression in a particular context
Extension- the set of things which could
possibly be the referent of that expression
Denotation- the relationship btw an
expression and its extension
 Nouns and NPs
 Nouns and NPs can be used to refer
14) I spoke to the/a woman about the noise.
 Definite NPs can form definite descriptions where the referent is
who/whatever fits the description.
15) She has a crush on the captain of the hockey team.
 NPs can be either distributive or collective
17) The people in the lift avoided each other’s eyes/ proved too
heavy for the lift motor.
 Nominals can denote substance, actions and abstract ideas.
Who candescription-
Definite afford coffee?/Sleeping
an NP whichisrefers
his hobby./ She hasentity,
to a definite a
passion
and whichforcontains
justice. descriptive info necessary to identify the
entity e.g. that frail old man (Cruse 2006: 42-43)
 Nouns and NPs
 Nominals can denote substances, actions, and abstract ideas.
19) Who can afford coffee?
20) Sleeping is his hobby.
 Trickier cases
22) No student enjoyed the lecture.
23) For each student x, x did not enjoy the lecture
 Quantifier: a class of words which allow us to predicate
something of a whole class or some subpart (each, all, every,
some, none, no, etc.)
27) Every American doesn’t drink coffee.
 Reference as a Theory of Meaning
Proper names denote individuals
Common names denote sets of individuals
Verbs denote actions
Adjectives denote properties of individuals
Adverb denote properties of actions
 Problematic. Why?
 Reference as a Theory of Meaning:
Problems
A. Words whose referents are hard to find e.g. so, not,
very, but, of
B. Nominal expressions which do not have a referent
e.g. unicorn, World War Three, Father Christmas,
Hogwart, etc
 Reference as a Theory of Meaning:
Problems
C. No one-to-one correspondence between expressions and the
referred items.
32) Anwar E1 Sadat was assassinated.
33) The president of Egypt was assassinated.
The president of the U.S./the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S./
Mr. Obama
 There is more to meaning than reference!
 Other ways of describing the same person differ in sense but
have the same reference.
 Mental Representations
 The view that sense places a new level between
words and world: a level of mental
representation
 What are these mental representations?
The intension of a concept or a word is the set of criteria for
identifying the concept together with the properties which relate
it to other concepts. (Cognitive psychology & formal semantics)
 Mental Representation
A. MR as images thanks to resemblance
e.g. Paris, your mother, Batman
Problem 1: variation among speakers e.g. triangle, animal, love?
B. MR as concepts: abstract elements
Advantage 1: concepts can contain the non-visual features which
make a dog a dog, etc.
Advantage 2: linguists can pass on some of the labour to
psychologists.
 Unless we have a good idea of concepts, we are left with empty
definitions like ‘the sense of the word dog is the concept DOG.’
 Concepts
 What form can we assign to concepts?
 Why some concepts are lexicalized and others not? 
due to utility
37) On the shopping channel, I saw a tool for compacting
dead leaves into garden statuary.
e.g. phreaking ‘ gaining unauthorized access into
telecommunication systems, e.g., to avoid paying
telephone call charges.
 Concepts
 Children operate with concepts that are quite different:
 underextending e.g. dog only for their pet, not the
one next door
 overextending e.g. daddy for every male adult
 Prototypes
 Viewing concepts as structured so that there are
central/typical members of a category, but then shading
off into less typical/peripheral members
chair vs. lamp FURNITURE
sparrow vs. penguin BIRD
 An experiment: Speakers tend to agree more readily on
typical member than on less typical members
 Borderline uncertainty: an item in the world might bear
some resemblance to two different prototypes
 Relation between Concepts
 Relational nature of conceptual kn.
 The crucial element is not the amount of kn. but its
integration into existing kn.
e.g. peccary (a kind of pig)/ pecorino (a kind of
Italian cheese)
 Relation between Concepts
 Conceptual hierarchies on p. 39
HAS SKIN
ANIMAL CAN MOVE AROUND
EATS/ BREATHES
BIRD FISH

CANARY OSTRICH SHARK SALMON

 Inclusion- the lower category inherits the attributes of the

higher one.
 Relation between Concepts
 A superordinate level- basic level- subordinate level
 The levels differ in their balance btw informativeness and
usefulness
 The basic level is identified as cognitively important: it is
the level most used in everyday life, acquired first by
children, etc.
 The relationship btw the basic level and the intermediate
level varies depending on
i) domain: man-made categories differ from natural kind terms
ii) A person’s experience of the categories influence the
relationship btw the basic and subordinate levels.