Lexical semantics

Question 1

What is reference

Define

Example

Inadequacies

Answer 1

Reference
(Saeed, 2003)
The relationship by which language gets linked to the real world

The relationship between linguistic elements/words and sentences and non linguistic world experiences.

The relationship between linguistic expression and the real world entity it refers to.

Therefore, according to reference meaning of a word is a person,place,object or a state that exist in the real world.

Kempson (1977)
Proper nouns denote individuals.
Common nouns denote groups of individuals.
Verbs denote actions.
Adjectives denote properties of individuals.
Adverbs denote properties of verbs.

Reference as a theory of meaning says that meaning is reference.

According to Kempson its imperfect
Physical objects ✅
Abstract notions ❌

Inadequacies of
• Referring to non-existing phenomena
Russells (1905) : the king of 🇫🇷 is bald
Saeed (2003) : unicorn, 3rd world war

•words like very,but, so stii do no have real world references

• theres no one to one correspondence between words and entities
Morning star, evening star- Venus

•words with compositional meaning

Question 2

What is sense

Answer 2

The inadequacies of reference ➡️extra dimension to meaning

‘SENSE’
•the intuitive,abstract, internal part of meaning involves mental representations of the speaker and hearers.
• is its place is a system of semantic relationships with other expressions.
•don’t have a physical existence.
•due to sense of linguistic expressions they tend to have same meanings.

Every linguiste expression has sense but not every expression had reference

As (Lyons,1981)
A lexeme related to other words is related to them by sense
A lexeme that is related to the outside world is related it by reference