- Unit 1: Basic Ideas in Semantics:

• What is Semantics? Semantics is the study of meaning.

This term is a recent addition to the English language. One of the earliest uses of the term was in
1894, in a paper entitled: “Reflected meanings: a point in semantics.” In this case, the term was used
to refer not to meaning only but to its development which is what we call now “historical
semantics”.
In 1900, a book called “Semantics: studies in the science of meaning” was published. The term
Semantics was treated in this book the way we use it today, to refer to the “science” of meaning not
the changes of meaning from a historical point of view.
• What is “meaning”? Meaning covers a variety of aspects of language, and there is no general
agreement about the nature of meaning.
Looking at the word itself, the dictionary will suggest a number of different meanings of the noun
“meaning” and the verb “mean”.
The word mean can be applied to people who use language, i.e. to speakers, in the sense of
“intend”. And it can be applied to words and sentences in the sense of “be equivalent to”. To
understand what meaning is, one has to keep in mind whether we are talking about what speakers
mean or what words (or sentences) mean.
• Utterance Meaning (Speaker Meaning): Is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he
uses a piece of language.
• Sentence Meaning (or Word Meaning): Is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e. what it counts as
the equivalent of in the language concerned.
- Example: “Nice day”: This sentence is equivalent to something like “This is a lovely day.”
However, depending on the situation and the speaker’s facial expressions, tone of voice, or the
relationship that exists between the speaker and hearer, it can mean the exact opposite, i.e. “This is
not a nice day.”
From what we discussed above, it becomes clear that there is a distinction between what would
seem to be the usual meaning of a word or a sentence, and the meaning it has in certain specific
circumstances or contexts. It is this distinction that allows us to say one thing and mean another.
This is a difference between Semantics and Pragmatics.
- One must not equate meaningfulness with informativeness in a narrow sense. While it is true that
many sentences do carry information in a straightforward way, it is also true that many sentences are
used by speakers not to give information at all, but to keep the social wheels turning smoothly.
- Once a person has mastered the stable meanings of words and sentences as defined by the language
system, he can quickly grasp the different conversational and social uses that they can be put to.
Sentence meaning and speaker meaning are both important, but systematic study proceeds more
easily if one carefully distinguishes the two, and, for the most part, gives prior consideration to
sentence meaning and those aspects of meaning generally which are determined by the language
system, rather than those which reflect the will of individual speakers and the circumstances of use
on particular occasions.
The gap between speaker meaning and sentence meaning is such that it is even possible for a
speaker to convey a quite intelligible intention by using a sentence whose literal meaning is
contradictory or nonsensical.
- The meanings of words and sentences in a language can safely be taken as known to competent
speakers of the language. Native speakers of languages are the primary source of information about
meaning. The student (or the professor) of semantics may well be good at describing meanings, or
theorizing about meaning in general, but he has no advantage over any normal speaker of a language
in the matter of access to the basic data concerning meaning.
- If semantics is the study of meaning, and speakers already know the meanings of all the expressions
in their language, surely they cannot learn anything from semantics! What can a book written for
English speakers, using English examples, tell its readers? The answer is that semantics is an attempt
to set up a theory of meaning.
• A Theory: is a precisely specified, coherent, and economical frame-work of interdependent
statements and definitions, constructed so that as large a number as possible of particular basic facts
can either be seen to follow from it or be describable in terms of it.
- Example: Chemical theory, with its definitions of the elements in terms of the periodic table,
specifying the structure of atoms, and defining various types of reactions that can take place between
elements, is a theory fitting the above definition.
- It is possible to translate any sentence of one language (at least roughly) into any other language
(however clumsily). Basic facts about meaning in all languages are, by and large, parallel.
- Semantic theory is a part of a larger enterprise, linguistic theory, which includes the study of syntax
(grammar) and phonetics (pronunciation) besides the study of meaning. It is a characteristic of
Linguistics as a whole that it concentrates on the similarities between languages.
- No theory, be it chemical theory, phonetic theory, mathematical theory, semantic theory, or
whatever, is complete. That is, no matter how many facts a theory actually succeeds in explaining or
predicting, there are always further facts in need of explanation, other facts about which the theory as
yet makes no prediction (or possibly about which it makes a false prediction), and facts which do not
seem to be readily describable in the terms provided by the theory. Human knowledge grows
cumulatively (with occasional drastic leaps and revolutions).
- Aristotle can be regarded as a forerunner of modern semantics. Aristotle was clearly concerned with
the same general areas that concern modern semanticists.
- A Semanticist has certain advantages and certain disadvantages in comparison to students of other
subjects. He is spared the physical labour and inconvenience of experiments or expeditions to
ascertain facts – he can do semantics from his armchair. (Of course he will need paper and pencil to
formulate his theories, and he will need to go to the library to compare his ideas with those of other
semanticists, but these are minimal efforts.)
Correspondingly, however, the mental labour, as with any theoretical discipline, can be quite
arduous. The semanticist needs to be able to think in abstractions. Doing semantics is largely a matter
of conceptual analysis, exploring the nature of meaning in a careful and thoughtful way, using a wide
range of examples, many of which we can draw from our own knowledge.
- Unit 1: Exercises:
1- Try to define each of the following terms and concepts:
- Semantics: Semantics is the study of meaning.
- Sentence (word) meaning: Is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e. what it counts as the
equivalent of in the language concerned.
- Speaker meaning: Is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he uses a piece of
language.
- Native speaker (informant): An informant or consultant in linguistics is a native speaker
who acts as a linguistic reference for a language being studied.
- Linguistics: The scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of
grammar, syntax, and phonetics.
- Language: A system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate.
- Components of language: Morphology, Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics,
Orthography and Lexicology.
2- Try to paraphrase each of the following uses of the word mean as it is employed in
the sentences below. Which sentences are more reflective of speaker meaning and which
are more reflective of sentence meaning? Briefly explain.
a- I mean to be there tomorrow: Speaker meaning.
b- A stalling car may mean a tune-up: Speaker meaning.
c- Calligraphy means beautiful handwriting: Sentence meaning.
d- It wasn’t what he said but what he meant: Speaker meaning.
e- What does the German word Hund mean? Sentence meaning.
f- Those clouds mean rain: Speaker meaning.
3- Which of the following items appear to illustrate sentence meaning and which
illustrate speaker meaning in the way these concepts were introduced in this unit? Be
able to explain your choice.
a- A bachelor is an unmarried man: Sentence meaning, this is an analytic sentence which
means this sentence cannot be false. The truth of this sentence comes from the meaning of
bachelor/unmarried man.
b- A red light means ‘stop’: Speaker meaning, because “red” doesn’t mean “stop”.
c- A fine product THEY put out!: Speaker meaning, because “They” is emphasized.
d- The sentences in the following pair appear to be opposite in meaning:
1) The bear killed the man: Sentence meaning.
2) The man killed the bear: Sentence meaning.
e- My feet are killing me: Speaker meaning.
4- Is meaningfulness synonymous with informativeness? Explain in your own words and
supply an illustration.
They aren’t. Meaningfulness refers to the fact that we have a piece that is meaningful “John
is a teacher”. But informativeness has to do with the amount of information in the sentence
“John is a good American teacher”.
Meaningfulness has to do with the minimal piece of language that can communicate an
idea “John is a teacher”. But we can make our sentence more informative by adding to it
“John is a good teacher”.
6- A semantic theory should account for items like the following, which we will study in
the following units. Can you guess now what aspect of meaning is involved in each
example?
a- She can’t bear children: This is an ambiguous sentence that can mean either “She can’t
give birth to children” or “She can’t tolerate children.”
b- You’re sitting in the apple-juice seat: This is reflective of speaker meaning.
c- How long did John stay in New York?: This is a question that is meant as a question.
(Form and function coming together).
d- A tulip is a flower: Hyponymy, because “tulip” is included in the meaning of “flower”.
Also this is an analytic sentence that can’t be false.
e- John’s present wife is unmarried: A contradiction (This is a contradictory sentence).
f- The car needs to be washed: A synthetic sentence (This sentence can be either true or false).
g- If John killed Bill is true, then so is Bill is dead: Entailment.
- Unit 2: Sentences, Utterances, and Propositions:
• 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 a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word.
- Utterances are physical events. Events are ephemeral. Utterances die on the wind. Linguistics
deals with spoken language.
• A SENTENCE: is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly,
a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A sentence can be
thought of as the IDEAL string of words behind various realizations in utterances and
inscriptions.
- Strictly, a book such as ours contains no utterances (since books don’t talk) or sentences
(since sentences are abstract ideals).
- A given sentence always consists of the same words, and in the same order. Any change in
the words, or in their order, makes a different sentence, for our purposes.
- 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, because a sentence itself is only associated with phonetic characteristics
such as accent and voice quality through a speaker’s act of uttering it. Accent and voice
quality belong strictly to the utterance, not to the sentence uttered.
- Not all utterances are actually tokens of sentences, but sometimes only of parts of sentences,
e.g. phrases or single words.
- A SENTENCE is a grammatically complete string of words expressing a complete thought.
This very traditional definition is unfortunately vague, but it is hard to arrive at a better one
for our purposes. It is intended to exclude any string of words that does not have a verb in it,
as well as other strings. The idea is best shown by examples:
I would like a cup of coffee is a sentence.
Coffee, please is not a sentence.
In the kitchen is not a sentence.
Please put it in the kitchen is a sentence.
- Utterances of non-sentences, e.g. short phrases, or single words, are used by people in
communication all the time. People do not converse wholly in (tokens of) well-formed
sentences. But the abstract idea of a sentence is the basis for understanding even those
expressions which are not sentences. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the meanings of
non-sentences can best be analysed by considering them to be abbreviations, or incomplete
versions, of whole sentences.
- Semantics is concerned with the meanings of non-sentences, such as phrases and incomplete
sentences, just as much as with whole sentences.
• A PROPOSITION: is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence
which describes some state of affairs.
- The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by expressions in the
sentence and the situation or action they are involved in. In uttering a declarative sentence, a
speaker typically asserts a proposition.
- Rule: The notion of truth can be used to decide whether two sentences express different
propositions. Thus if there is any conceivable set of circumstances in which one sentence is
true, while the other is false, we can be sure that they express different propositions.
- True propositions correspond to facts, in the ordinary sense of the word fact. False
propositions do not correspond to facts.
- One can entertain propositions in the mind regardless of whether they are true or false, e.g.
by thinking them, or believing them. But only true propositions can be known.
- In our definition of ‘proposition’ we explicitly mentioned declarative sentences, but
propositions are clearly involved in the meanings of other types of sentences, such as
interrogatives, which are used to ask questions, and imperatives, which are used to convey
orders. Normally, when a speaker utters a simple declarative sentence, he commits himself to
the truth of the corresponding proposition: i.e. he asserts the proposition. By uttering a simple
interrogative or imperative, a speaker can mention a particular proposition, without asserting
its truth.
- Example: In saying, ‘John can go’ a speaker asserts the proposition that John can go.In
saying, ‘Can John go?’, he mentions the same proposition but merely questions its truth. We
say that corresponding declaratives and interrogatives (and imperatives) have the same
propositional content.
- Propositions, unlike sentences, cannot be said to belong to any particular language. Sentences
in different languages can correspond to the same proposition, if the two sentences are perfect
translations of each other.
- Example: English I am cold, French J’ai froid, German Mir ist kalt, and Russian Mne
xolodno can, to the extent to which they are perfect translations of each other, be said to
correspond to the same proposition.
- One may question whether perfect translation between languages is ever possible. In point
of fact, many linguists disagree about this and it is likely that absolutely perfect translation of
the same proposition from one language to another is impossible. However, to simplify
matters here we shall assume that in some, possibly very few, cases, perfect translation IS
possible.
- It is useful to envisage the kind of family tree relationship between these notions shown in
the diagram. For example, a single proposition

could be expressed by using several different sentences (say, Prince William will inherit the
throne, or The throne will be inherited by Prince William) and each of these sentences could
be uttered an infinite number of times.
A proposition is an abstraction that can be grasped by the mind of an individual person. In
this sense, a proposition is an object of thought. Do not equate propositions with thoughts,
because thoughts are usually held to be private, personal, mental processes, whereas
propositions are public in the sense that the same proposition is accessible to different
persons: different individuals can grasp the same proposition. Furthermore, a proposition is
not a process, whereas a thought can be seen as a process going on in an individual’s mind.
Unfortunately, of course, the word thought may sometimes be used loosely in a way which
includes the notion of a proposition. For instance, one may say, ‘The same thought came into
both our heads at the same time.’ In this case, the word thought is being used in a sense quite
like that of the word proposition. The relationship between mental processes (e.g. thoughts),
abstract semantic entities (e.g. propositions), linguistic entities (e.g. sentences), and actions
(e.g. utterances) is problematic and complicated, and we will not go into the differences
further here.
- Unit 2: Exercises:
1- Try to define each of the following terms and concepts:
- Sentence: A grammatically complete string of words expressing a complete thought.
- Utterance: A spoken word, statement, or vocal sound.
- Proposition: 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.
- Declarative sentence: A declarative sentence states a fact or an argument and ends with a full stop.
- Interrogative sentence: An interrogative sentence asks a question and ends with a question mark.
- Imperative sentence: An imperative sentence gives a direct command. It can end in a full
stop or an exclamation mark, depending on the forcefulness of the command.
2- Is semantics concerned only with complete sentences? Semantics is concerned with
both, sentences and utterances.
3- Indicate whether each of the following sentence pairs expresses the same or different
propositions.
a- Mary read the book/The book was read by Mary: They have the same proposition. One
is in the active voice and the second is in the passive voice.
b- Fred took back the book/Fred took the book back: They have the same proposition.
“took back” is a phrasal verb and it's separable.
c- The cat chased the rat/The cat was chased by the rat: Different propositions. The First
one, the cat was chasing X, and the second, X is chasing the cat.
d- The chef cooked the meal/The chef had the meal cooked: In the first sentence, the chef
cooked the meal himself, but in the second one, there is an ambiguity, he could’ve asked his
helpers to cook the meal.
e- Hondas are easy to fix/It’s easy to fix Hondas: They have the same proposition.
4- In each of the following, indicate whether a proposition is asserted or not.
a- John left yesterday: Yes, the proposition here is asserted and the speaker commits himself to
the truth.
b- Did John leave yesterday?: No, the proposition is questioned.
c- Can John leave this afternoon?: No, the proposition is requested.
d- John, get out of here: No, the proposition is commanded.
e- John!: No, the proposition is commanded.
5- Decide whether each pair of sentences below has the same or different propositional
content. If they have the same propositional content, identify the proposition that they
both share.
a- Can John have some cake? / John has some cake: They have the same proposition. In
one case its questioned and in the other its asserted.

b- Take out the garbage/You will take out the garbage: They have the same proposition.
And both of them could be orders.
c- Can you pass the salt? / The salt shaker is nearly empty: They have different propositions.
6- Utterances can be loud or quiet, in a particular regional accent, and in a
particular language. Can you think of other characteristics of utterances?
Utterances can be whispered; they can be shouted.
- Unit 3: Reference and Sense:
- In this unit, you will learn the difference between two quite distinct ways of talking about
the meaning of words and other expressions. In talking of sense, we deal with relationships
inside the language; in talking of reference we deal with the relationships between language
and the world.
- By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons)
are being talked about.
- Example: My son -Identifies person- is in the beech tree -Identifies thing-.
- Further example: We have two things: The English expression this page (part of the
language) and the thing you could hold between your finger and thumb (part of the world).
We call the relationship between them ‘reference’.
- “Touch your left ear”. Write down the last three words in the previous instruction. “Your
left ear”: Your left ear refers to the thing you touched in response to above. We say that your left
ear is the referent of the phrase your left ear: reference is a relationship between parts of a language
and things outside the language (in the world).
- The same expression can, in some cases, be used to refer to different things. There are as
many potential referents for the phrase your left ear as there are people in the world with left
ears. Likewise, there are as many potential referents for the phrase this page as there are
pages in the world. Thus some (in fact very many) expressions in a language can have
variable reference.
- Two different expressions can have the same referent. The classic example is the Morning
Star and the Evening Star, both of which normally refer to the planet Venus.
- To turn from reference to sense, the SENSE of an expression is its place in a system of
semantic relationships with other expressions in the language. The first of these semantic
relationships that we will mention is sameness of meaning, an intuitive concept which we
will illustrate by example later on.
- We can talk about the sense, not only of words, but also of longer expressions such as
phrases and sentences.
- Every expression that has meaning has sense, but not every expression has reference.
- Both referring and uttering are acts performed by particular speakers on particular occasions.
- Sense and Reference:
Sense and reference are two very distinct ways of talking about the meaning of words and
other expressions.
- Sense deals with the relationships inside the language.
- Reference deals with the relationship between the language and the world.
• Sense: The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other
expressions in the language.
E.g. The relationship between “big” and “small” is oppositeness of meaning (antonymy). The
relationship between “rich” and “wealthy” is sameness of meaning (synonymy).
- Notes:
1- In some cases, the same word-form can have more than one sense. E.g. Look at the word-form
“bank” in the following sentences:
“I have an account at the bank/We took the boat to the other bank of the river”. In these
examples, “bank” has a different sense in each sentence
2- We can talk about the sense, not only of words, but also of longer expressions such as phrases
and sentences. E.g.: “Rupert took off his jacket/Rupert took his jacket off”. We say that both of
these sentence have the same sense.
3- One sentence can have different senses. E.g.: “The chicken is ready to eat”. This sentence has
two different senses. The first sense is that the chicken is ready to be eaten. The second sense is
that the chicken is ready to eat something.
• Reference: Reference is a relationship between parts of a language (words and phrases) and
things outside the language (in the world).
By reference a speaker indicates which things and persons in the world are being talked about.
E.g.: “My son is in the house”. “My son” here refers to a person in the world and “the house”
refers to a thing in the world.
To make the term reference clearer to you, hold a book in your hand and describe it in a
sentence. For example: “This book is about Semantics”.
The English expression “this book” is part of the language. This expression can refer to any
book. In the example, we used it to refer to part of the world which is the book you are holding
in your hand. So “Reference” is the relationship between the language expression and the real
world object.
- After looking at the previous example, we can give the following two definitions:
- A referring expression is any expression used in an utterance to refer to something or someone.
- A referent is the person or thing in the world speakers refer to by using a referring expression.
The relation between a referring expression and a referent is what we call reference.
- Notes:
1- The same referring expression can, in some cases, be used to refer to different referents. E.g.:
The referring expression “this book” can be used to refer to different books.
2- Two different referring expressions can have the same referent. E.g.: The two expressions
“Riyadh” and “the capital of Saudi Arabia” both refer to the same place.
- Comparing Sense and Reference:
1- The referent of an expression is often a thing or person in the world; whereas the sense of an
expression is not a thing at all.
The sense of an expression is an abstraction in the mind of a language user. When a person
understands fully what is said to him, it is reasonable to say that he grasps the sense of the
expression he hears.
2- Every meaningful expression has sense, but not every meaningful expression has reference.
E.g.: The words “almost”, “if” and “probable” have sense, but they do not refer to a thing in the
world.
- Unit 3: Exercises:
1- Try to define each of the following terms and concepts:
- Sense: Sense deals with the relationships inside the language.
- Reference: In semantics, reference is generally construed as the relationships between nouns or
pronouns and objects that are named by them.
- Referent: A referent is the person or thing in the world speakers refer to by using a referring
expression.
- Context: The parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its
meaning or the situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it.
- Dialect: A regional variety of language distinguished by features of vocabulary, grammar, and
pronunciation from other regional varieties.
2- Can different expressions have the same referent? Give an example: Yes, such as: The
President of the United States/the Commander-in-Chief/The Leader of the Republican Party.
3- Can the same expression have different referents? Give an example: Yes, such as: My
government/My university/My mother.
4- Give an example of an expression that has an invariable referent and of one that has no
referent: Rome, Atlantic Ocean (Constant referent). Therefore, moreover (Has no referent in the
outside world).
5- Explain this sentence from this unit in your own words: ‘Every expression that has
meaning has sense, but not every expression has reference’. All words in language have
sense, but not all words have reference. Some only have sense.
6- Characterize a typical dictionary definition of a word. Does the definition include
everything a typical native speaker knows about the word’s meaning? Is it possible to write
such an entry which is complete? Yes, that is true. Dictionary compilers/lexicographers document
a sense of a word in the dictionary.
7- Comment on the following examples, making reference to concepts introduced in this unit.
- The Evening Star/the Morning Star: This is variability in expression, they refer to Venus.
- The President of the United States/the Commander-in-Chief/The Leader of the
Republican Party: This is variability in expression, they refer to Donald Trump.
- Visiting relatives can be boring: This is an ambiguous sentence. This sentence could mean
two things: The relatives who visit us are boring, or the act of visiting relatives is boring. It
depends on the way we look at the part “Visiting relatives”.
- The planet Mars: Constant reference. It is a unique entity.
- Smoking grass can be dangerous: This sentence is ambiguous; it relates to the concept of
ambiguity. The ambiguity here is both lexical and structural -grammatical-. “Grass” could mean
drugs and it could mean ordinary grass. Also the word “Smoking”, are we talking about grass
that is giving off smoke? Or the act of smoking grass?
- Unit 4: Referring Expressions:
- In this unit we develop the notion of reference, and consider more closely the range of
expressions that speakers may use to refer to some object or person in the world. We will see that
some expressions can only be used as referring expressions, some never can, and some
expressions can be used to refer or not, depending on the kind of sentence they occur in. We
introduce a notion (equative sentence) that is closely bound up with the idea of referring
expressions.
- 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.
- Example: The name Fred in an utterance such as ‘Fred hit me’, where the speaker has a
particular person in mind when he says ‘Fred’, is a referring expression.
Fred in ‘There’s no Fred at this address’ is not a referring expression, because in this case a
speaker would not have a particular person in mind in uttering the word.
- Could the following possibly be used as referring expressions?
1- John: Yes. 2- My uncle: Yes.
3- And: No. 4- The girl sitting on the wall by the bus stop: Yes.
5- A man: Yes, as in “A man was in here looking for you”.
6- My parents: Yes, (My parents refers to a pair of things. For convenience at this point we use
the idea of reference to include clearly delimited collections of things).
7- Send: No. 8- Under: No.
- The same expression can be a referring expression or not (or, as some would put it, may or may
not have a ‘referring interpretation’), depending on the context. This is true of indefinite noun
phrases.
- 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? Yes.
- So, in the above example, is “a man” a referring expression? Yes.
- When a speaker says, “The first sign of the monsoon is a cloud on the horizon no bigger than a
man’s hand”, is “a man” being used to refer to a particular man? No.
- Is “a man” in this example a referring expression? No.
- Is “forty buses” used in “Forty buses have been withdrawn from service by the Liverpool
Corporation”, a referring expression? Yes, assuming that the speaker has 40
specific buses in mind.
- Is “forty buses” used in “This engine has the power of forty buses”, a referring expression? No.
- In the above examples the linguistic context often gave a vital clue as to whether the
indefinite noun phrase was a referring expression or not. But it does not always give a clear
indication.
- Are the following referring expressions? (Imagine normal circumstances for the utterance).
1- a Norwegian, used in “Nancy married a Norwegian”: Yes.
2- a Norwegian, used in “Nancy wants to marry a Norwegian”: Yes, and No. The sentence is
ambiguous. It depends on whether the speaker has in mind a particular person whom Nancy
wants to marry.
3- a car, used in “John is looking for a car”: Yes, and No. The sentence is ambiguous. It depends
on whether the speaker has a particular car in mind.
4- a man with a limp, used in “Dick believes that a man with a limp killed Bo Peep”: Yes, and No.
5- a man with a limp, used in “A man with a limp killed Bo Peep”: Yes, it can be.
6- a swan, used in “Every evening at sunset a swan flew”: Yes, and No.
- All of the ambiguities in the above examples could in fact be resolved by the use of the word
certain immediately following the indefinite article a, as in, for example: ‘Nancy wants to marry
a certain Norwegian’ or ‘John is looking for a certain car’.
All of the above examples involve indefinite noun phrases. It is clear that, given our
definitions, which allude to what is in the mind of the speaker on a particular occasion of
utterance, indefinite noun phrases can be referring expressions. Other definitions could yield
different results. What the above examples show is that, in our terms, whether an expression is a
referring expression is heavily dependent on linguistic context and on circumstances of utterance.
- Definite noun phrases of various kinds, proper names (e.g. John), personal pronouns (e.g. he, it),
and longer descriptive expressions can all be used as referring expressions. Indeed, definite noun
phrases such as these most frequently are used as referring expressions. But, even with definite
noun phrases, there are examples in which they are not (or not clearly) referring expressions.
- Are the following expressions referring expressions?
1- “He” in “If anyone ever marries Nancy, he’s in for a bad time”: No, the speaker has no
particular individual in mind as Nancy’s possible future husband.
2- “It” in “Everyman who owns a donkey beats it”: No, it doesn’t refer to any particular donkey
here.
3- “The person who did this” in “The person who did this must be insane”, spoken by someone on
discovering a brutally mutilated corpse, where the speaker has no idea who committed the crime: Not
such a clear case, but it could be argued that the person who did this is not a referring expression in
this example.
4- “Smith’s murderer” in “Smith’s murderer must be insane”, uttered in circumstances like the
above, where the corpse is Smith’s: Similarly, an unclear case, but again it could be argued that
Smith’s murderer is not a referring expression here.
- An Equative Sentence: is one which is used to assert the identity of the referents of two
referring expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have the same referent. The
following are equative sentences: “Tony Blair is the Prime Minister”, “That woman over there is
my daughter’s teacher”.
- Are the following equative sentences?
1- John is the person in the corner: Yes.
2- Henry the Eighth is the current President of the USA: Yes, equative sentences can be false.
3- Cairo is not the largest city in Africa: No.
4- Cairo is a large city: No, this sentence does not state identity of reference.
5- Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde: Yes.
6- Ted is an idiot: No.
- A feature of many equative sentences is that the order of the two referring expressions can be
reversed without loss of acceptability. Example: “The largest city in Africa is Cairo”, “Cairo is the
largest city in Africa”.
- The ‘reversal test’ applied here is not a perfect diagnostic for equative sentences, however. In
What I need is a pint of Guinness, a pint of Guinness is not a referring expression, because a user
of this sentence would not have any particular pint of Guinness in mind, but the sentence is
nevertheless reversible, as in A pint of Guinness is what I need. And the sentence That is the man
who kidnapped my boss definitely is equative, but it is not reversible, as The man who kidnapped
my boss is that is unacceptable.
- Unit 4: Exercises:
1- Try to define each of the following terms and concepts:
- Referring expression: 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.
- Indefinite noun phrase (Generic expression, notice that here, the authors are confused, they
are using grammatical terms when this is semantic, rather than grammar. So when we talk about a
noun phrase, we are talking about referring expressions and generic expressions.):
- Equative sentence: The term equative is used in linguistics to refer to constructions where two
entities are equated with each other. For example, the sentence Susan is our president, equates two
entities "Susan" and "our president". In English, equatives are typically expressed using a copular
verb such as "be", although this is not the only use of this verb. Equatives can be contrasted with
predicative constructions where one entity is identified as a member of a set, such as Susan is a
president.
2- Which of the following could be used as referring expressions? Be able to explain
why or why not.
a- My table: Yes. It can be used as a referring expression.
b- A unicorn: Yes. It is imaginary but can be used as a referring expression.
c- No love: No.
d- Travel: No.
e- Or: No.
f- Mary: Yes.
g- A book: Yes.
h- Abraham Lincoln: Yes.
3- For the sentences below, decide whether the underlined noun phrases (Arguments) are
referring expressions or not, and explain why (or why not). If the sentence is ambiguous
explain why it is ambiguous.
a- His father married a dancer: It is a referring expression, he married one particular dance.
b- John wants to marry a dancer: This is ambiguous; it could be one particular dancer or any
dancer.
c- The whale is the largest mammal: This is a generic expression.
d- The man who shot Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald: This is a referring expression. And this
is an equative sentence.
4- Which of the following are equative sentences? Explain why.
a- Fred is the man with the gun: This is an equative sentence.
b- William the Conqueror is the current King of England: This is an equative sentence.
c- Detroit is a nearby city: This is not an equative sentence.
d- Mary is a genius: This is not an equative sentence.
e- A box of cookies is what I would like: This is not an equative sentence, despite the fact that it is
reversible. This is a matter of focusing. The original sentence is “I would like a box of cookies”.
f- Detroit is not the largest city in the USA: This is not an equative sentence. Equative sentences
can’t be negative, it must be affirmative.
- Unit 5: Predicates:
- We start by examining the semantic structure of simple declarative sentences, such as My dog bit
the postman or Mrs. Wraith is waiting for the downtown bus. Typically, such sentences contain
one or more referring expressions, plus some other words that do not form part of any of the
referring expressions. It is on these other words that we shall now concentrate.
- In the following sentences, delete the referring expressions (It could be generic expressions,
so delete the arguments) and write down the remainder to the right of the example (Here
you can relate this to the discussion of arguments structure of sentences):
1- My dog bit the postman: Bite.
2- Mrs. Wraith is writing the Mayor’s speech: Write.
3- Cairo is in Africa: In.
4- Edinburgh is between Aberdeen and York: Between.
5- This place stinks: Stink.
6- John’s car is red: Red.
7- Einstein was a genius: Genius.
- In each case it is possible to discern one word (or part of a word) which ‘carries more meaning’
than the others. For instance, write in example (2) carries more specific information than is and
the suffix -ing. If one strips away such less meaningful elements, one is left with a sequence of
words, which, though ungrammatical and inelegant, can still be understood as expressing a
proposition. The result is a kind of ‘Tarzan jungle talk’, e.g. Boy bad for The boy is bad, or
Woman write speech for The woman is writing the speech.
- Listed below are the remainders from the above examples. In each case, write down the single
word (or part of a word) which carries the most specific information:
1- Is writing: Write. 2- Is in: In.
3- Is between, and: Between. 4- Stinks: Stink.
5- Is red: Red. 6- Was a genius: Genius.
- The words we have just isolated from their original sentences we call the “predicators of those
sentences”.
- The Predicator of a simple declarative sentence is the word (sometimes a group of words) which
does not belong to any of the referring expressions (Not necessarily referring expressions, any of
the arguments, the authors are not accurate here) and which, of the remainder, makes the most
specific contribution to the meaning of the sentence. Intuitively speaking, the predicator describes
the state or process in which the referring expressions are involved. - Examples:
• “Asleep” is the predicator in “Mummy is asleep”, and describes the state Mummy is in.
• “Love” is the predicator in “The white man loved the Indian maiden”, and describes the process
in which the two referring expressions the white man and the Indian maiden are involved.
• “Wait for” is the predicator in “Jimmy was waiting for the downtown bus” and describes the
process involving Jimmy and the downtown bus.
- Note that some of the elements that we have stripped away in isolating the predicator of a
sentence do carry a certain amount of meaning. Thus the indicators of past and present tense are
clearly meaningful. The semantics of tense is interesting, but its contribution to the meaning of a
sentence is of a different type from the contribution made by the predicator, and will not be
pursued here. Notice also that the verb be in its various forms (is, was, are, were, am) is not the
predicator in any example sentence that we have seen so far.
- Strip away referring expressions and the verb be (and possibly other elements) to identify
the predicators in the following sentences:
1- I am hungry: Hungry.
2- Joe is in San Francisco: In.
3- The Mayor is a crook: Crook.
4- The man who lives at number 10 Lee Crescent is whimsical: Whimsical.
5- The Royal Scottish Museum is behind Old College: Behind.
- The predicators in sentences can be of various parts of speech: adjectives (red, asleep, hungry,
whimsical), verbs (write, stink, place), prepositions (in, between, behind), and nouns (crook,
genius). Despite the obvious syntactic differences between these different types of words,
semantically they all share the property of being able to function as the predicators of sentences.
Words of other parts of speech, such as conjunctions (and, but, or) and articles (the, a), cannot
serve as predicators in sentences.
The semantic analysis of simple declarative sentences reveals two major semantic roles played
by different subparts of the sentence. These are the role of predicator, illustrated above, and the
role(s) of argument(s), played by the referring expression(s).
- Example:
• Juan is Argentinian: Predicator: Argentinian, Argument: Juan.
• Juan arrested Pablo: Predicator: arrest, Arguments: Juan, Pablo.
• Juan took Pablo to Rio: Predicator: take, Arguments: Juan, Pablo, Rio.
- In the following sentences, indicate the predicators and arguments as in the above examples:
1- Dennis is a menace: Predicator: Menace, Argument: Dennis.
2- Fred showed Jane his BMW: Predicator: Show, Argument: Fred, Jane, his BMW.
3- Donald is proud of his family: Predicator: Proud, Argument: Donald, his family.
4- The hospital is outside the city: Predicator: Outside, Argument: The hospital, the city.
- The semantic analysis of a sentence into predicator and argument(s) does not correspond in most
cases to the traditional grammatical analysis of a sentence into subject and predicate, although
there is some overlap between the semantic and the grammatical analyses, as can be seen from the
examples above. We shall be concerned almost exclusively in this book with the semantic analysis
of sentences, and so will not make use of the notion ‘grammatical predicate (phrase)’. But we will
use the term ‘predicate’ in a semantic sense, to be defined below, developed within Logic.
- A Predicate is any word (or sequence of words) which (in a given single sense) can function as
the predicator of a sentence.
- Are the following predicates?
1- Dusty: Yes. 2- Drink: Yes. 3- Woman: Yes.
4- You: No. 5- Fred: No. 6- About: Yes
- The definition of ‘predicate’ above contained two parenthesized conditions. The first, ‘(or
sequence of words)’, is intended to take care of examples like wait for, in front of, which are
longer than one word, but which it seems sensible to analyse as single predicates.
The second parenthesized condition, ‘(in a given single sense)’, is more important, and
illustrates a degree of abstractness in the notion of a predicate. A ‘word’, as we use the term, can
be ambiguous, i.e. can have more than one sense, but we use ‘predicate’ in a way which does not
allow a predicate to be ambiguous. A predicate can have only one sense. Normally, the context in
which we use a word will make clear what sense (what predicate) we have in mind, but
occasionally, we shall resort to the use of subscripts on words to distinguish between different
predicates.
- Example: The word bank has (at least) two senses. Accordingly, we might speak of the
predicates bank1 and bank2.
 Similarly, we might distinguish between the predicates man1 (noun) human being, man2 (noun)
male adult human being, and man3 (transitive verb) as in The crew manned the lifeboats.
- Notice that ‘predicate’ and ‘predicator’ are terms of quite different sorts. The term ‘predicate’
identifies elements in the language system, independently of particular example sentences. Thus, it
would make sense to envisage a list of the predicates of English, as included, say, in a dictionary.
The term ‘predicator’ identifies the semantic role played by a particular word (or group of words)
in a particular sentence. In this way, it is similar to the grammatical term ‘subject’: one can talk of
the subject of a particular sentence, but it makes no sense to talk of a list of ‘the subjects of
English’: similarly, one can talk of the ‘predicator’ in a particular sentence, but not list ‘the
predicators of English’. A simple sentence only has one predicator, although it may well contain
more than one instance of a predicate.
- Example: “A tall, handsome stranger entered the saloon”. This sentence has just one predicator,
enter, but the sentence also contains the words tall, handsome, stranger, and saloon, all of which
are predicates, and can function as predicators in other sentences, e.g. John is tall, He is handsome,
He is a stranger, and That ramshackle building is a saloon.
- In which of the following sentences does the predicate male function as a predicator?
a- The male gorilla at the zoo had a nasty accident yesterday.
b- The gorilla at the zoo is a male.
c- The gorilla at the zoo is male.
- In which of the following sentences does the predicate human function as predicator?
a- All humans are mortal.
b- Socrates was human.
c- These bones are human.
- The Degree of a predicate is a number indicating the number of arguments it is normally
understood to have in simple sentences.
- Example: Asleep is a predicate of degree one (often called a one-place predicate) Love (verb) is
a predicate of degree two (a two-place predicate).
- Are the following sentences acceptable?
a- Thornberry sneezed: Yes.
b- Thornberry sneezed a handful of pepper: No, because “Sneeze” is a one place predicate. If we
change the verb to “Smelled” it would be acceptable.
c- Thornberry sneezed his wife a handful of pepper: No, because “Sneeze” is a one place
predicate. If we change the verb to “Gave” it would be acceptable.
d- So is sneeze a one-place predicate? Yes.
- A verb that is understood most naturally with just two arguments, one as its subject, and one as
its object, is a two-place predicate.
- Example: In Martha hit the parrot, hit is a two-place predicate: it has an argument, Martha, as
subject and an argument, the parrot, as direct object.
- Are the following sentences acceptable?
a- Keith made: No, because “Make” is either a two place predict or three. Not one.
b- Keith made this toy guillotine: Yes.
c- Keith made this toy guillotine his mother-in-law: No. But if we change the words order, it can
be acceptable: Keith made his mother-in-law this toy guillotine.
d- So is make a two-place predicate? Yes.
- There are a few three-place predicates; the verb give is the best example.
- We have concentrated so far on predicates that happen to be verbs. Recall examples such as
Cairo is in Africa, Cairo is dusty, Cairo is a large city. In these examples in (a preposition), dusty
(an adjective), and city (a noun) are predicates.
In the case of prepositions, nouns, and adjectives, we can also talk of one-, two-, or three-place
predicates.
- The majority of adjectives are one-place predicates.
- You may have wondered about the role of the prepositions such as of and from in afraid of and
different from. These prepositions are not themselves predicates. Some adjectives in English just
require (grammatically) to be joined to a following argument by a preposition. Such prepositions
are relatively meaningless linking particles. You might want to think of the combination of
adjective plus linking particle in these cases as a kind of complex or multi-word predicate with
basically one unified meaning. Notice that one can often use different linking prepositions with no
change of meaning, e.g. (in some dialects) different to, or even different than.
- Most nouns are one-place predicates. But a few nouns could be said to be ‘inherently relational’.
These are nouns such as father, son, brother, mother, daughter, neighbor.
- Sometimes two predicates can have nearly, if not exactly, the same sense, but be of different
grammatical parts of speech. Typically in these cases the corresponding predicates have the same
degree, as in the following examples.
- Examples:
- Ronald is foolish, Ronald is a fool.
- Timothy is afraid of cats, Timothy fears cats.
- My parrot is a talker, My parrot talks.
- We conclude this unit by discussing one special relation, the identity relation. This is the relation
found in equative sentences. In English, the identity of the referents of two different referring
expressions is expressed by a form of the verb be.
- All of the following sentences contain a variant of the verb be. In which sentences does a
form of be express the identity relation? Underline your choices.
1- This is a spider.
2- This is my father: This is equative, assuming that you have someone there and you said “This is
my father”. Notice that this sentence is not reversible because X here is a pronoun.
3- This is the person I was telling you about at dinner last night: This is equative.
4- The person I was telling you about at dinner last night is in the next room.
5- The person I was telling you about at dinner last night is the man talking to Harry: This is equative.
6- The whale is a mammal.
- The identity relation is special because of its very basic role in the communication of
information. In English, one must analyse some instances of the verb be (e.g. those in sentences
(2), (3), (5) above) as instances of the identity predicate. Other instances of the verb be, as we have
seen, are simply a grammatical device for linking a predicate that is not a verb (i.e. an adjective,
preposition, or noun) to its first argument, as in John is a fool or John is foolish. The verb be is
also a device for ‘carrying’ the tense (present or past) of a sentence.
- The predicates of a language have a completely different function from the referring expressions.
The roles of these two kinds of meaning-bearing element cannot be exchanged. Thus John is a
bachelor makes good sense, but Bachelor is a John makes no sense at all. Predicates include words
from various parts of speech, e.g. common nouns, adjectives, prepositions, and verbs. We have
distinguished between predicates of different degrees (one- place, two-place, etc.). The relationship
between referring expressions and predicates will be explored further in the next unit.
- Unit 5: Exercises:
1- Indicate the arguments and predicator(s) in each sentence.
a- John is a linguist: Predicator: Linguist, Arguments: John.
b- John loves Mary: Predicator: Love, Arguments: John and Mary.
c- Mary loves John: Predicator: Love, Arguments: Mary and John.
d- John gave Mary a ring: Predicator: Give, Arguments: John, Mary and ring.
e- Chicago is between Los Angeles and New York: Predicator: Between, Arguments: Chicago,
Los Angeles and New York.
f- Jane is Mary’s mother: Predicator: Be/Mother, Arguments: Jane and Mary’s mother.
g- Jones is the Dean of the College: Predicator: Be/Dean, Arguments: Jones and The Dean of the
College.
h- John stood near the bank (How should the ambiguity be handled?): Predicator: Stand near
-Near is not predicted by the language system-, Arguments: John and the bank. And to
disambiguate: - John stood near the bank1. - John stood near the bank2.
i- Ed is a fool: Predicator: Fool, Arguments: Ed.
j- Ed is foolish: Predicator: Foolish, Arguments: Ed.
2- How does the concept of predicate in the semantic sense differ from the concept of
grammatical predicate? Does one seem to be more revealing than the other?
If we look at a sentence like “John stood near the bank”, if we wanted to describe this in terms
of grammar, we say that this sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. That is how sentences
are described in terms of grammar.
But we don’t know whether John was standing near a financial institution or near a bank of a
river… In semantics, we have to use superscripts to say: “John stood near the bank1” and “John
stood near the bank2”. The concept in semantic is very revealing because a word can be ambiguous
and this is can’t be shown in syntax. But in semantic, we have the concept of predicates where we
deal with different senses of a word, and each sense of a word is a separate predicate. And a
predicate is a word in one specific sense. It can’t be ambiguous.
3- What are the functions of the verb be in these sentences (i.e. does it function as an identity
predicate or as a grammatical device for linking a non-verbal predicate to its first
argument)? Do all instances of be carry tense?
a- Mary is happy: The predicator of this sentence is an adjective “Happy”. And “Be” is a linking
device.
b- A tulip is a flower: “Be” here is a linking device.
c- George W. Bush is the US President: “Be” here is an identity predicate.
d- God is: This is elliptical. For example, who is all knowing? The answer is: God is. So “Be”
here is a linking device.
4- Does it make sense to say that the verb be has a meaning of its own, independent of
whether it is used as a linking device or as the identity predicate? Speculate about what it
could mean, and don’t be concerned if your answer is quite abstract. Many lexical items in
the world’s languages have very abstract meanings.
- “Be” carries semantic content only when it expresses an identity relation. If not, then it is used
only as a linking device. So if we drop it, for example: “John is a mechanic”: we still have the
same meaning. So dropping this doesn’t affect the semantics of the sentence, but it affects the
grammaticality of the sentence.