1. Semantics and Pragmatics

Question 1

Semantics according to Morris

Answer 1

Semantics deals with the relation of signs to their designata and so to the objects they may denote

Question 2

Syntactics according to Morris

Answer 2

Syntactics deals with the relation of signs to one another

Question 3

Pragmatics according to Morris

Answer 3

Pragmatics deals with the relation of signs to their interpreters

Question 4

Four areas of pragmatics according to Yule

Answer 4

1. Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning
2. pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning
3. Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said
4. Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance

Question 5

Pragmatics as the study of speaker meaning

Answer 5

P is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by the speaker and interpreted by a listener

Question 6

Pragmatics as the study of contextual meaning

Answer 6

Study of what people mean in the particular context

Question 7

Pragmatics as the study of how more gets communicated than said

Answer 7

the investigation of invisible meaning

Question 8

Pragmatics as the study of the expression of relative distance

Answer 8

what determines the choice between the said and unsaid

Question 9

Division of labor between semantics and pragmatics

Answer 9

The semantic representation of a sentence is distinct from its pragmatics interpretation. Semantics is rule-governed and pragmatics is principle controlled.

Question 10

Problem with semantics and pragmatics distinction

Answer 10

Even though we know that he is a third person singular for a male without referent we still don’t know who he is without a prior context and pragmatics without a prior context is not fully propositional and the truth condition cannot be stated

Question 11

Message model

Answer 11

A linguistic communication between the transmitter and receiver.
Speaker communicating the message to the hearer who needs to decode the message by using the linguistic knowledge.
Successful when the receiver is able to decode the same message as encoded by the transmitter.

Question 12

Problems with the message model

Answer 12

1. Ambiguity - the receiver must determine which of the possible meanings of an expression is the one that the transmitter wanted to communicate when the message is ambiguous
2. Under determination of reference - the transmitter may want to communicate A but by not providing enough information the receiver interpret the message as B
3. Under determination of communicative intention - transmitter’s communicative intention that is not determined by the meaning of the expression, but it is a part of the message communicated
4. Non-linearity - not meaning what the speaker is literary saying (irony, sarcasm)
5. Indirection - not communicating directly what the speaker wants to communicate
6. Non-communicative acts - saying something without wanting to communicate anything

Question 13

Inferential model

Answer 13

IM takes into consideration that there are different ways of communicating the same message and also that the same words can mean something else

Question 14

Inferential meaning

Answer 14

the hearer is expected to infer the meaning based on contextual clues and prior knowledge

Question 15

Entailment

Answer 15

• Not a pragmatic phenomenon
• When reading a sentence there is something we know even though it is not explicitly mentioned but due to the semantics qualities
• IF SENTENCE P ENTAILS SENTENCE Q IT MEANS THAT IF P IS TRUE THEN Q IS TRUE AND IF P IS FALSE THEN Q IS FALSE
• But it doesn’t work the other way around (-if Q is true doesn’t mean the P is true)
• Entailment CANNOT be cancelled: Peter killed the spider. The spider is not dead.
• Entailment DOESN’T survive negation: Peter didn’t kill the spider. The spider died.

Question 16

Presupposition

Answer 16

• A pragmatic phenomenon
• The phenomenon whereby people mark linguistically the information that is presupposed or taken for granted
• People talking to each other assume some shared knowledge (geography)

Question 17

Common ground

Answer 17

The sum of information that people assume they share

Question 18

Presupposition triggers

Answer 18

Existential
Factive
Non-factive
Lexical
Structural
Counterfactual