Meaning Lecture 1.1 Semantics and Pragmatics

Question 1

What is semantics the study of?

Answer 1

• Word Meaning
• Meaning within the sentence
• involves linguistic knowledge

Question 2

What is pragmatics the study of?

Answer 2

• The speaker’s meaning
• the meaning in context
• inference and interpretation

Question 3

What does semiotics investigate?

Who suggested it was part of linguistics?

Answer 3

The relationship between a sign and the object it represents

Ferdinand de Saussure

Question 4

In the example of the word ‘tree’, what is the signifier, and what is signified?

What is the referent?

Answer 4

Signifier - the word
Signified - the concept of a tree
Referent- a real-life tree

Question 5

What is ‘reference’?

Answer 5

The way relationships are drawn between language and the world

Question 6

What is ‘coreferentiality’?

Answer 6

When multiple distinct signifiers refer to the same referent

Question 7

What is the sense of a sentence?

Answer 7

‘its place in the system of semantic relationships with other expressions’

Question 8

What is the difference between a variable and a constant reference?

Answer 8

• A variable reference has many potential references ‘your left ear’
• A constant reference has only one ‘Elton John’

Question 9

Why is reference as a theory of meaning inadequate? (3)

Answer 9

Some words would be meaningless (so, not, very)

Some nominals do not have real-life references (Unicorn)

There is no 1-1 relationship between an expression and a referent