Group 5

SEMANTICS
UNIT 9 SENSE PROPERTIES AND STEREOTYPES
UNIT 10 SENSE RELATIONS (1) IDENTITY AND
SIMILARITY OF SENSE
UNIT 11 SENSE RELATIONS (2) OPPOSITENESS AND
DISSIMILARITY OF SENSE AND AMBIGUITY
By
Ragil Pungkasana
Adam Ismail
Ashari Gustaman Aji
 UNIT 9
SENSE PROPERTIES AND
STEREOTYPES

By Ragil Pungkasana
What are Sense Properties?
READING AS THE MAIN INGREDIENT
Sense properties of sentences include those of being analytic, synthetic and a contradiction.

With the exception of a few predicates such as bachelor, father, square, sphere, etc. it is not
possible to give complete definitions of the sense of most predicates by sets of necessary and
sufficient conditions.
What is a Sense example?
READING AS THE MAIN INGREDIENT
sense noun (ABILITY) an ability to understand, recognize, value, or react to something,
especially any of the five physical abilities to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel :

With her excellent sense of smell, she could tell if you were a smoker from the other side of the
room.
What are the 5 senses and
examples?
READING AS THE MAIN INGREDIENT
Your five senses :
• seeing,
• hearing,
• smelling,
• tasting, and
• touching — help you notice the world around you.

They're pretty powerful! You use your eyes to see, your ears to hear, your nose to smell, your
tongue to taste, and your skin to feel.
Entry Requirements
ONE-, TWO-, and THREE-PLACE PREDICATES (Unit 5), EXTENSION and
PROTOTYPE (Unit 8). If you feel unfamiliar with any of these ideas, review the
appropriate unit. Otherwise, take the entry test below.
Entry test
(1) Which of the following are two-place predicates? Circle your answer. below,
smother, sleep, come, annihilate, vanish, afraid (of)
(2) Write the terms ‘referent’, ‘extension’, and ‘prototype’ in the appropriate boxes
in the chart below:
(Set of things that could be referred
to using a particular predicate)
(Thing referred to on a particular ……………………………..
occasion of utterance)
……………………….. (Thing typically referred to using a
particular predicate)
………………………
1 STEPS
Introduction
It is sometimes hard to distinguish a factual (or ‘ontological’) question
from a semantic one.
(1) Have you ever been asked an apparently factual question about something (call
it ‘X’), and found it necessary to say to your questioner ‘Well, it depends on
what you mean by X’? (Yes/No)
(2) Have you ever been involved in an argument with someone over an apparently
factual matter, only to discover that some particularly crucial word in the
argument had a different meaning for the other person? (Yes/No)
(3) In a case where someone says, ‘Well, it depends what you mean by X’, is it
often possible, once the meaning of X has been agreed by both parties, for the
original factual question to be answered straightforwardly? (Yes/No)
(4) If two people can be said to agree on the meanings of all the words they
use, must any remaining disagreements between them be regarded as
disagreements about matters of fact? (Yes/No)
(5) If we could not agree about the meanings of any of the words we use,
could any disagreement about matters of fact even be formulated, let alone
resolved? (Yes/No)
Practice
Given below are three conversations which get stuck. In each one, speaker B seems to ignore some
particular convention about the meaning of one of the words involved, a convention universally accepted
in everyday English. For each conversation, write out a statement about the meaning of the word
concerned, a statement that speaker B seems not to accept.

(1) A: ‘I saw something strange in the garden this morning.’

B: ‘Oh! What was it?’
A: ‘An animal perched on top of the clothes pole.’
B: ‘How do you know it was an animal?’
A: ‘I saw it. It was a cat.’
B: ‘You might have seen a cat, but how can you be sure it was an animal?’
A: ‘Well, of course it was an animal, if it was a cat.’
B: ‘I don’t see how that follows.’
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Practice
(2) B: ‘My neighbour’s child is an adult.’
A: ‘You mean he was a child and is now grown up?’
B: ‘No. He is still a child, even though he’s an adult.’
A: ‘You mean that he’s a child who acts in a very grown up way?’
B: ‘No. He’s just an adult child, that’s all.’
……………………………………………………………………

(3) B: ‘I finally killed Ben’s parrot.’

A: ‘So it’s dead, then?’
B: ‘No, I didn’t say that. Just that I killed it.’
A: ‘But if you killed it, it must be dead.’
B: ‘No. I was quite careful about it. I killed it very carefully so it’s not dead.’
…………………………………………………………………………..
Definition (partial: The SENSE of
an expression is its indispensable
hard core of meaning. see also Unit
3)
2 STEPS
READING FOR COMPREHENSION
This definition deliberately excludes any influence of context or situation of utterance on the
senses of expressions. (Thus it is problematic to talk of the senses of deictic words (Unit 7),
but we will not go into that problem here.)

The sense of an expression can be thought of as the sum of its sense properties and sense
relations with other expressions. For the moment, we will concentrate on three important sense
properties of sentences, the properties of being analytic, of being synthetic, and of being
contradictory.
3 STEPS
Definition
• An ANALYTIC sentence is one that is necessarily TRUE, as a result of
the senses of the words in it. An analytic sentence, therefore, reflects a
tacit (unspoken) agreement by speakers of the language about the
senses of the words in it.
• A SYNTHETIC sentence is one which is NOT analytic, but may be
either true or false, depending on the way the world is.
Example
• Analytic: All elephants are animals
The truth of the sentence follows from the senses of elephant and
animal.
• Synthetic: John is from Ireland
There is nothing in the senses of John or Ireland or from which
makes this necessarily true or false.
Practice
1. Label the following sentences either T for true, F for false, or D for
don’t know, as appropriate.
(a) Cats are animals T / F / D
(b) Bachelors are unmarried T / F / D
(c) Cats never live more than 20 years T / F / D
(d) Bachelors cannot form lasting relationships T / F / D
(e) Cats are not vegetables T / F / D
(f) Bachelors are male T / F / D
(g) No cat likes to bathe T / F / D
(h) Bachelors are lonely T / F / D
Practice
(2) Were you able to assign T or F to all the above sentences? Yes
/ No
(3) Which of the above sentences do you think ANY speaker of
English could assign T or F to?
(4) Which of the sentences in (a)–(h) above would you say are
true by virtue of the senses of the words in them?
(5) Which of the sentences above would you say might be true or
false as a matter of fact about the world?
Practice
Here are some more sentences. Circle A for analytic, or S for
synthetic, as appropriate. For some, you will have to imagine
relevant situations.
(1) John’s brother is nine years old A / S
(2) John’s nine-year-old brother is a boy A / S
(3) Sam’s wife is married A / S
(4) Sam’s wife is not German A / S
(5) My watch is slow A / S
(6) My watch is a device for telling the time A / S
4 STEPS
Definition
• A CONTRADICTION is a sentence that is necessarily FALSE, as a
result of the senses of the words in it. Thus a contradiction is in a way
the opposite of an analytic sentence.
Example
• This animal is a vegetable is a contradiction.
• This must be false because of the senses of animal and vegetable.
• Both of John’s parents are married to aunts of mine is a contradiction.
• This must be false because of the senses of both parents, married, and
aunt.
Practice
Circle the following sentences A for analytic, S for synthetic or C
for contradiction, as appropriate. For some you will have to
imagine relevant situations.
(1) That girl is her own mother’s mother A / S / C
(2) The boy is his own father’s son A / S / C
(3) Alice is Ken’s sister A / S / C
(4) Some typewriters are dusty A / S / C
(5) If it breaks, it breaks A / S / C
(6) John killed Bill, who remained alive for many years after A /
S/C
Example
• That man is human has the sense property of analyticity (or of
being analytic).
• That man is tall has the sense property of syntheticity (or of
being synthetic).
• That man is a woman has the sense property of being a
contradiction.
Practice
(1) Does the analyticity of That man is human depend in some crucial way on a
semantic relationship between the sense of man and that of human? Yes / No
(2) Which of the following statements seems to express this semantic relationship
between man and human correctly? Circle your choice.
(a) The sense of man includes the sense of human.
(b) The sense of human includes the sense of man.
(c) The sense of man is identical to the sense of human.
(3) Does the semantic relationship that exists between man and human also exist
between man and tall? Yes / No
(4) Does the absence of this semantic relationship between man and tall account
for the fact that This man is tall is not analytic, like This man is human? Yes / No
5 STEPS
Definition
• A NECESSARY CONDITION on the sense of a predicate is a
condition (or criterion) which a thing MUST meet in order to
qualify as being correctly described by that predicate.
• A SUFFICIENT SET OF CONDITIONS on the sense of a
predicate is a set of conditions (or criteria) which, if they are
met by a thing, are enough in themselves to GUARANTEE that
the predicate correctly describes that thing.
Example
• Take the predicate square, as usually understood in geometry. ‘Four-sided’ is a
necessary condition for this predicate, since for anything to be a square, it must
be four-sided.
• ‘Plane figure, four-sided, equal-sided, and containing right angles’ is a
sufficient set of conditions for the predicate square, since if anything meets all
of these conditions, it is guaranteed to be a square.
• ‘Four-sided and containing right angles’ is not a sufficient set of conditions for
square. Many non-square shapes, such as rectangles and trapezoids, meet these
conditions.
• ‘Three-sided’ is not a necessary condition for square.
Practice
(1) Is ‘three-dimensional object’ a necessary condition for the predicate sphere?
Yes / No
(2) Is ‘three-dimensional object’ a necessary condition for the predicate circle?
Yes / No
(3) Is ‘three-dimensional object and circular in cross-section’ a sufficient set of
conditions for sphere? Yes / No
(4) Is ‘three-dimensional object and with all points on surface equidistant from a
single point’ a sufficient set of conditions for sphere? Yes / No
(5) Is ‘male’ a necessary condition for bachelor? Yes / No
(6) Is ‘adult, male, human, and unmarried’ a sufficient set of conditions for
bachelor? Yes / No
Practice
(1) Is father adequately defined as male
parent? Yes / No
(2) Is female spouse an adequate definition of
wife? Yes / No
(3) Is parent’s father an adequate definition of
grandfather? Yes / No
(4) Is hexagon adequately defined as five-
sided plane figure? Yes / No
Practice
Given below are two definitions of the word game, taken from
dictionaries of modern English. For each definition, give, if possible, (a)
the name of at least one game (e.g. football, chess) not covered by the
definition, and (b) at least one thing that is not a game (e.g. piano-
playing, watching television) but which falls within the given definition.
(1) An amusement or diversion
(a) ............................................... (b) ...............................................
(2) A contest, physical or mental, according to set rules, undertaken for
amusement or for a stake
(a) ............................................... (b) ...............................................
Practice
(1) Is the sense of activity a necessary part of the sense of game (i.e.
must something be an activity to be a game)? Yes / No
(2) Is the sense of game a necessary part of the sense of tennis (i.e. must
some activity be a game to be tennis)? Yes / No
(3) Is the sense of chess a sufficient part of the sense of game (i.e. is the
fact that something is chess sufficient evidence to call it a game)? Yes /
No
(4) A witty literary lady coined the memorable sentence, A rose is a rose
is a rose, implying that definition could go no further. One can actually
go at least a little further. Is the sense of flower a necessary part of the
sense of rose? Yes / No
6 STEPS
Definition
• The STEREOTYPE of a predicate is a list of the TYPICAL
characteristics or features of things to which the predicate may be
applied.
Example
• The stereotype of cat would be something like: Quadruped,
domesticated, either black, or white, or grey, or tortoise-shell, or
marmalade in colour, or some combination of these colours, adult
specimens about 50 cm long from nose to tip of tail, furry, with sharp
retractable claws, etc., etc.
Practice

(1) Suggest four characteristics which should be included in the

stereotype of the predicate elephant. (Be sure not to include any
more basic term, properly belonging to the SENSE of elephant.)
(2) Give two characteristics which should be included in the
stereotype of mother.
(3) Give four characteristics which should be included in the
stereotype of cup.
(4) Give four characteristics which should be included in the
stereotype of building.
Summary
The sense of an expression can be thought of as the sum of its sense
properties and sense relations. Sense properties of sentences include those
of being analytic, synthetic, and a contradiction.
With the exception of a few predicates such as bachelor, father, square,
sphere, etc. it is not possible to give complete definitions of the sense of
most predicates by sets of necessary and sufficient conditions. Stereotypes
defined in terms of typical characteristics account for the fact that people
usually agree on the meanings of the words they use.
 THANKS!
Are there any questions?
ragilpungkasana@gmail.com
082328854224
mas_ragilpungkasana

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 UNIT 10
SENSE RELATIONS (1)
IDENTITY AND
SIMILARITY OF SENSE
By Adam Ismail
5 SUBTOPICS

01 HYPONYMY 04 PARAPHRASE

BASIC RULE OF SENSE

02 SYNONYMY 05 INCLUSION

03 ENTAILMENT
HYPONYMY
Hubungan antarpredikat, di mana arti satu predikat ada di predikat yang lain

HYPONYMY is a sense relation between predicates such that the meaning of one predicate is included in the
meaning of other.

Example:
Red and Scarlet
The meaning of red is included in the meaning of scarlet.
Red is the superordinate term
Scarlet is a hyponym of red.
SYNONYMY
Hubungan dua predikat yang memiliki arti yang sama/hampir sama

SYNONYMY is the relationship between two predicates that have the same sense.
 Synonymy can be seen as a special case of hyponymy: SYMMETRICAL HYPONYMY
 When talking about synonymy, we concentrate on cognitive or conceptual meaning of word (away from
stylistic, social, or dialectal associations the pair of predicates may have)

Example:
How many kids have you got?
How many children have you got?
Kids and children have the same sense, even when they differ in style or formality.
Kids and children are an example of symmetrical hyponymy.
SYNONYMY
Hubungan dua predikat yang memiliki arti yang sama/hampir sama

A pair of words may share at least one sense in common, but do not share all their senses.
Example:
Deep/profound
You have my deep/profound sympathy.
This river is deep (This river is very profound is UNNACEPTABLE)

The notion of synonymy can be extended to hold between words of different parts of speech.
Example:
Sleeping (verb)/asleep (adjective)
Devina is sleeping on the couch.
Arka is asleep during the Math class.
ENTAILMENT
Hubungan antar kalimat, di mana kebenaran pada Y membutuhkan kebenaran pada X

A proposition X entails a proposition Y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from the truth of X
Example:
John ate all the cake (X) entails Someone ate something (Y).
John killed Bill (X) entails Bill died (Y)

Entailment applies cumulatively. Thus if X entails Y, and Y entails Z, THEN X entails Z.

Example:
Some boys ran down the street (X) entails Some kids ran down the street (Y)
Some kids ran down the street (Y) entails Some kids went down the street (Z)
THEREFORE
Some boys ran down the street (X) entails Some kids went down the street (Z)
PARAPHRASE
Parafrase membutuhkan dua kalimat yang bisa entail satu sama lain

Two sentences may be said to be PARAPHRASES of each other IF AND ONLY IF they have the same set of
ENTAILMENTS

OR

IF AND ONLY IF they mutually entail each other so that whenever one is true, the other must also be true.

Examples:
Bachelor prefer redhaired girls is a paraphrase of Girls with red hair are preferred by unmarried men.
It is hard to lasso elephants is a paraphrase of Elephants are difficult to lasso.
BASIC RULE OF SENSE INCLUSION
Aturan sense inclusion jika berhadapan dengan dua kalimat

Given two sentences A and B, identical in every way except that A contains a word X where B contains a
different word Y, and X is a hyponym of Y, then sentence A entails sentence B.

Example:
(A) Henry was chewing a tulip
(B) Henry was chewing a flower
tulip is a hyponym of flower
Then, sentence A entails sentence B
EXCEPTIONS - BASIC RULE OF SENSE INCLUSION
Pengecualian dalam aturan sense inclusion

There are exceptions when certain logical words, such as not and all, and gradable words are used.

Example:
(A) Mary did not buy a house
(B) Mary did not buy a building
The correct completion of the rule is NOT sentence A entails sentence B, BUT sentence B entails sentence A.
EXCEPTIONS - BASIC RULE OF SENSE INCLUSION
Pengecualian dalam aturan sense inclusion

There are exceptions when certain logical words, such as not and all, and gradable words are used.

Example:
(C) Mary bought all the houses in the town
(D) Mary bought all the building in town
The correct completion of the rule is NOT sentence C entails sentence D, BUT sentence D entails sentence C.
However, the entailment from D to C only holds when the set of things to by phrase including all actually exist.
EXCEPTIONS - BASIC RULE OF SENSE INCLUSION
Pengecualian dalam aturan sense inclusion

There are exceptions when certain logical words, such as not and all, and gradable words are used.

Example:
(E) Mary bought a big house
(F) Mary bought a big building
There are no entailment relations between these sentences. A big building is not a big house. The presence of
gradable words upsets the normal relationship between hyponymy and entailment
 Relation between Relation between
pairs of sentences pairs of words
Not necessarily
symmetric (i.e. can Entailment Hyponymy
be ‘one-way’)
Symmetric (i.e. both
Paraphrase Synonymy
ways)
 UNIT 11
SENSE RELATIONS (2)
OPPOSITENESS AND
DISSIMILARITY OF SENSE
AND AMBIGUITY
By Ashari Gustaman Aji
BINARY ANTONYMS
BINARY ANTONYMS are predicates which come in pairs and between them
exhaust all the relevant possibilities.

Example:
true and false are binary antonyms.
(1) chalk – cheese Yes / No
(2) same – different Yes / No
(3) copper – tin Yes / No
(4) dead – alive Yes / No
(5) married – unmarried Yes / No
(6) love – hate Yes / No
BINARY ANTONYMS

Man Woman
Boy Girl
CONVERSES (relational opposites)
If a predicate describes a relationship between two things (or people) and some other
predicate describes the same relationship when the two things (or people) are mentioned
in the opposite order, then the two predicates are CONVERSES of each other.
Example Parent and child are converses, because X is the parent of Y (one order)
describes the same situation (relationship) as Y is the child of X (opposite order)

(1) below – above Yes / No

(2) grandparent – grandchild Yes / No
(3) love – hate Yes / No
(4) conceal – reveal Yes / No
(5) greater than – less than Yes / No
(6) own – belong to Yes / No
.
GRADABLE
Two predicates are GRADABLE antonyms if they are at opposite
ends of a continuous scale of values (a scale which typically varies
according to the context of use).

Example Hot and cold are gradable antonyms.

(1) tall – short Yes / No
(2) long – short Yes / No
(3) clever – stupid Yes / No
(4) top – bottom Yes / No
(5) love – hate Yes / No
CONTRADICTORY PROPOSITION
A proposition is a CONTRADICTORY of another proposition if it is
impossible for them both to be true at the same time and of the same
circumstances.
Example This beetle is alive is a contradictory of This beetle is dead
AMBIGUOUS
A word or sentence is AMBIGUOUS when it has more than one
sense.
Example We saw her duck is a paraphrase of We saw her lower her head and of We saw
the duck belonging to her, and these last two sentences are not paraphrases of each other.
Therefore We saw her duck is ambiguous.

Practice The chicken is ready to eat.

The chicken is ready to be eaten The chicken is ready to eat some food
 AMBIGUOUS
(In the case of words and phrases)
In the case of words and phrases, a word or phrase is AMBIGUOUS if
it has two (or more) SYNONYMS that are not themselves synonyms
of each other.

Example Trunk is synonymous with elephant’s proboscis and with

chest, but these two are not synonyms of each other, so trunk is
ambiguous.
Similarly coach is synonymous with trainer and with charabanc (or
bus) but these two are not synonyms of each other, so coach is
ambiguous.
 HOMONYMY AND POLYSEMY

In the case of ambiguous words, a distinction is sometimes

made between polysemy and homonymy. This distinction has
basically to do with the closeness, or relatedness, of the senses
of the ambiguous words.
HOMONYMY
A case of HOMONYMY is one of an ambiguous word whose different
senses are far apart from each other and not obviously related to each
other in any way with respect to a native speaker’s intuition. Cases of
homonymy seem very definitely to be matters of mere accident or
coincidence.
Examples
Mug (drinking vessel vs gullible person) would be a clear case of
homonymy.
Bank (financial institution vs the side of a river or stream) is another
clear case of homonymy.
POLYSEMY
A case of POLYSEMY is one where a word has several very closely
related senses. In other words, a native speaker of the language has
clear intuitions that the different senses are related to each other in
some way.

Example
Mouth (of a river vs of an animal) is a case of polysemy.
The two senses are clearly related by the concepts of an opening from
the interior of some solid mass to the outside, and of a place of issue at
the end of some long narrow channel.
Practice Decide whether the following words are examples of homonymy
(H) or polysemy (P).

(1) bark (of a dog vs of a tree) H/P

(2) fork (in a road vs instrument for eating) H/P
(3) tail (of a coat vs of an animal) H/P
(4) steer (to guide vs young bull) H/P
(5) lip (of a jug vs of a person) H/P
(6) punch (blow with a fist vs kind of fruity alcoholic drink) H / P
STRUCTURALLY (or
GRAMMATICALLY) AMBIGUOUS
A sentence which is ambiguous because its words relate to each other in
different ways, even though none of the individual words are ambiguous.
Example
The chicken is ready to eat. (and many of the other sentences we have
used) is structurally ambiguous.
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY
Any ambiguity resulting from the ambiguity of a word is a LEXICAL
AMBIGUITY.

Example The captain corrected the list is lexically ambiguous

REFERENTIALLY VERSATILE
A phrase is REFERENTIALLY VERSATILE if it can be used to refer to a
wide range of different things or persons.

Example
The pronoun she can be used to refer to any female person. On a given
occasion she might be used to refer to Mary, on another occasion to Lucy,
etc., but this does NOT mean that she is ambiguous, because although it is
used to refer to different people this is not a matter of a difference in sense.
THANKS!
Are there any questions?

CREDITS: This presentation template was created by

Slidesgo, including icons by Flaticon, infographics & images
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