The word meaning is referred to as its

The
brunch of lexicology, that is devoted to the study of meaning is
known as semasiology. Semasiology
(from Gr. semasia
– “signification”) doesn’t deal with every kind of linguistic
meaning. The main objects of semasiological study are as follows:
semantic development of words, its causes and classification,
relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning,
polysemy
and semantic structure of word, semantic groupings and connections
in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, etc.

Meaning
is one of the most controversial terms in the theory of language. An
exact definition of lexical meaning becomes especially difficult due
to complexity of the process, by which human consciousness and
language serve to reflect outward reality. Since there is no
universally accepted definition of meaning we shall give a brief
survey of the problem as it is viewed in modern linguistics. There
are 3
approaches
to the problem: 1) the
referential approach,
which formulates the essence of meaning as the interdependence
between words and things or concepts they denote; 2) the
functional approach,
which studies the functions of a word in speech. This approach is
(sometimes described as contextual) based on the analysis of various
contexts; and 3) the
operational
approach,
which is centered on defining meaning through its role in the process
of communication (this approach is also called information-based).

Within
the framework of the referential approach lexical
meaning
is the content of the word, that is a correlation between the sound
form and an object or phenonmenon of reality, denoted by this string
of sounds, which is seen by the human mind.

The essential feature of the
first approach is that in distinguishes between the three components,
connected with meaning:

1)
the
sound form
of the lingual sign (sign or symbol);

2)
the
concept
underlying this sound form (meaning;
thought or reference).

3)
the actual referent,
i.e. the part or the aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign
refers (thing meant).

The conclusion is that meaning
is not to be identical with any of the three points of the triangle,
but is closely connected with them.

The
referential model of meaning is the so-called ‘basic triangle’
(Diagram 2):

The
sound form is
understood
as a sequence of sounds of the given language code (май,
mái,
my).
Referent
–
the part (aspect) of reality to which the linguistic sign refers
(objects, actions, qualities), etc. Concept
– a
generalized reverberation
in
the human consciousness of the properties of the objective reality
learned in the process of the latter’s cognition.

The
sound-form of the lingual sign dove
is connected with our concept of the bird which it denotes and
through it with the referent, i.e. the actual bird. The diagram
implies that meaning is in a way a correlation between the sound-form
of a word, the underlying concept and the concrete object it denotes.
Hence, in what waу
does meaning correlate with each element of the triangle? In what
relation does meaning stand to each of them?

1.
The sound-form of the
word
is not identical with its meaning. Namely there is no
inherent connection between the sound form dove
and the meaning of the word dove.
The connection is conventional and arbitrary. We may prove it by
comparing the sound-forms of different languages, conveying one and
the same meaning, cf. English dove
and Russian голубь.
On the contrary, the sound-cluster [on] in English is almost
identical to the sound form in Russian possessing the meaning of the
third person singular pronoun.

1. The
   word meaning is not identical with the concept. Concept is a
   category of human cognition. Concept is the thought of the object
   that singles out its essential features. Being the result of
   abstraction the concepts are thus almost the same for the whole of
   humanity, they do not convey emotional or evaluative component.
   Meaning is a linguistic category, it bears national specificity and
   fixes notion by language means. For example, –
   голубой,
   синий;
   dream – сон,
   мечта;
   человек
   – man,
   person.

The
linguistic expression of one and the same concept is different in
languages as Table 1 shows below:

Table
1.

concept language	a building for human habituation	fixed residence of family or household
English	house	home
Russian	дом	дом

One
and the same notion can be expressed by one or several words (quickly
– in the nick of time; limb – arm, hand, wrist; etc.), some
notions can be combined in one word (globalization, revolution).

Not
all words have concepts as a basis underlying them. For example,
proper names don’t express general meaning, pronouns don’t name
but only indicate some object, interjections don’t name but express
feeling and volition of the speaker: Hush!
Hush!.

Concepts
belong to the category of thinking, so they don’t bear emotional
charge. On the contrary, lexical meanings of many words, show the
speaker’s attitude to the reality: hack-writer,
notorious.

3.
The word meaning is not identical with the referent. To begin with,
meaning is linguistic, whereas the denoted object or the referent is
beyond the scope of language. One referent (for example, cat)
can be denoted by more than one word of a different meaning: cat,
animal,
pussy,
Tom,
this,
pet.
Besides,
there
are words that have distinct meaning but do not refer to any existing
thing: mermaid,
goblin.
In its turn, the meanings of the word is not bound to the only
referent, as the word can be used both in direct and figurative
meaning: дуб
– 1) дерево;
2) тупой
человек;
3) человек,
обладающий
крепким
здоровьем;
fork
– 1) implement used for lifting food to the mouth; 2) farm tool; 3)
place where a road, tree-trunk, etc. divides or branches.

The
referential definitions of meaning are usually criticized on the
ground that: 1) they cannot be applied to sentences; 2) they cannot
account for certain semantic additions emerging in the process of
communication; 3) they fail to account for the fact that one word may
denote different objects and phenomena (polysemy) while one and the
same object may be denoted by different words (synonymy).

The referential approach to
meaning is popular in lexicology.

The
functional approach
to meaning studies functioning of the word in speech. This approach
is sometimes called contextual, as it is based on the analysis of
different contexts. This approach maintains that
the meaning of a linguistic unit may be studied only through its
relation to other linguistic units and not through its relation to
either concept or referent.

Thus,
the meaning of the two words move
and movement
is different because they function in speech differently. Really,
they occupy different positions in relation to other words. (To)
move
can be followed by a noun (move
the chair),
preceded by a pronoun (we
move),
etc. The position occupied by the word movement is different: it may
be followed by a preposition (movement
of smth)
preceded by an adjective (slow
movement)
and so on. As the distribution (the position of a linguistic sign in
relation to other linguistic signs) of the two words is different
they come to the conclusion that they belong to different classes of
words and have different lexical meanings.

The
functional approach can be also applied to different meanings of the
same word. For example, we can observe the difference of meanings of
the verb to
take
if we examine its functions in different linguistic contexts
to
take a seat
(= to sit down), as opposed to to
take to smb.
(= to begin to like someone).

Thus,
within the framework of the functional approach meaning
may be viewed as the function of distribution. Semantic investigation
is confined to the analysis of the difference or sameness of meaning.
The functional approach to meaning is popular in grammar
studies, especially in syntax.

The
operational or information-oriented definitions
of meaning are centered on defining meaning through its role in the
process of communication. Thus, this approach studies words in action
and is more interested in how meaning works than in what it is.
Within the information-oriented approach meaning
is defined as information conveyed from the speaker to the listener
in the process of communication. The approach is more applicable to
sentences than to words and even as such fails to draw a clear
distinguishing line between the direct meaning and implication
(additional information).

Thus,
the sentence John
came at 6 o’clock besides
the direct meaning may imply that
John ‘was two hours late;
failed to keep his promise;
came though he didn’t want to;
was punctual as usual…’

The
direct information
conveyed
by the units constituting the sentence may be referred to as meaning
while the information added to the extralinguistic situation may be
called sense.

Word
meaning is not homogeneous, but it is made up of various components,
which are described as types of meaning. There are three types of
meaning to be found in words and word forms:

1. the
   lexical meaning;

2. the
   grammatical meaning;

3. the
   part-of-speech meaning.

By
the lexical
meaning
we designate the meaning proper to the given lingual unit in all its
forms and distributions. This component is identical in all the forms
of the word. Thus the word-forms go,
goes,
went,
was going
possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person and so on,
but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic
component denoting the process of movement.

In
most cases the lexical meaning is rendered by the root morpheme,
that’s why the lexical meaning has no regular expression unlike the
grammatical meaning. The common lexical meaning is most vividly seen
in word-building paradigms (all possible derivatives from the
same root morphemes): magic,
magically,
magician
– (connected with the use of) supernatural forces; boy,
boyhood,
boyish,
boyishness
– young man, time of man’s youth, young man’s behaviour; etc.

The
degree of expression of the lexical meaning can be different. The
lexical meaning reveals to the fullest in notional words, and least
of all in functional words as their function is to connect words but
not to render concepts. For example, the preposition in
has the lexical meaning of its own in the expression in
the box
while its meaning is vague and dependent on the meaning of the verb
in the expression to give in.

By
the grammatical
meaning
we designate the abstract meaning proper to sets of word forms common
to all words of a certain class having some regular expression in the
language. The markers of the grammatical meaning can be different
while the meaning being common. For example, the words chairs,
children,
phenomena,
indices are
united by the common grammatical meaning of plurality while the
markers of number are different in them. Grouping of words on the
basis of their grammatical meaning is not a semantic one as it
doesn’t render common conceptual content for them. This function is
performed by the lexical meaning.

Grammatical
meaning must be taken into consideration in so far as it bears a
specific influence upon lexical meaning. The
lexical meaning is closely connected with the grammatical meaning and
they often make a single entity. For example, the suffix -ry
(peasantry,
toiletry)
has the grammatical meaning of a noun and at the same time renders
the collective meaning (the lexical meaning).

By
the
part-of-speech meaning
we designate the generalized meaning rendered by the class of words
the word belongs to. The part-of speech meaning for a noun is
thingness, a verb – action or state; adjectives denote properties
of nouns, and adverbs denote properties of verbs.

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Chapter 7 what is «meaning»?

Language is the amber in which

a thousand precious and subtle

thoughts have been safely

embedded and preserved

(From Word and Phrase by J. Fitzgerald)

The question posed by the title of this chapter is one of those questions which are easier to ask than answer The linguistic science at present is not able to put forward a definition of meaning which is conclusive.

However, there are certain facts of which we can be reasonably sure, and one of them is that the very function of the word as a unit of communication is made possible by its possessing a meaning. Therefore, among the word’s various characteristics, meaning is certainly the most important.

Generally speaking, meaning can be more or less described as a component of the word through which a concept is communicated, in this way endowing the word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities actions and abstract notions. The complex and somewhat mysterious relationships between referent (object, etc. denoted by the word), concept and word are traditionally represented by the following triangle [35]:

By the «symbol» here is meant the word; thought or reference is concept. The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate relation between word and referent: it is established only through the concept.

On the other hand, there is a hypothesis that concepts can only find their realization through words. It seems that thought is dormant till the word wakens it up. It is only when we hear a spoken word or read a printed word that the corresponding concept springs into mind.

The mechanism by which concepts (i. e. mental phenomena) are converted into words (i. e. linguistic phenomena) and the reverse process by which a heard or a printed word is converted into a kind of mental picture are not yet understood or described. Probably that is the reason why the process of communication through words, if one gives it some thought, seems nothing short of a miracle. Isn’t it fantastic that the mere vibrations of a speaker’s vocal chords should be taken up by a listener’s brain and converted into vivid pictures? If magic does exist in the world, then it is truly the magic of human speech; only we are so used to this miracle that we do not realize its almost supernatural qualities.

The branch of linguistics which specializes in the study of meaning is called semantics. As with many terms, the term «semantics» is ambiguous for it can stand, as well, for the expressive aspect of language in general and for the meaning of one particular word in all its varied aspects and nuances (i. e. the semantics of a word = the meaning(s) of a word).

As Marip Pei puts it in The Study of Language, «Semantics is ‘language’ in its broadest, most inclusive aspect. Sounds, words, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions are the tools of language. Semantics is language’s avowed purpose.» [39]

The meanings of all the utterances of a speech community are said by another leading linguist to include the total experience of that community; arts, science, practical occupations, amusements, personal and family life.

The modern approach to semantics is based on the assumption that the inner form of the word (i. e. its meaning) presents a structure which is called the semantic structure of the word.

Yet, before going deeper into this problem, it is necessary to make a brief survey of another semantic phenomenon which is closely connected with it.

Polysemy. Semantic Structure of the Word

The semantic structure of the word does not present an indissoluble unity (that is, actually, why it is referred to as «structure»), nor does it necessarily stand for one concept. It is generally known that most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.

Two somewhat naive but frequently asked questions may arise in connection with polysemy:

1. Is polysemy an anomaly or a general rule in English vocabulary?

2. Is polysemy an advantage or a disadvantage so far as the process of communication is concerned? Let us deal with both these questions together. Polysemy is certainly not an anomaly. Most English words are polysemantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language. Sometimes people who are not very well informed in linguistic matters claim that a language is lacking in words if the need arises for the same word to be applied to several different phenomena. In actual fact, it is exactly the opposite: if each word is found to be capable of conveying, let us say, at least two concepts instead of one, the expressive potential of the whole vocabulary increases twofold. Hence, a well-developed polysemy is not a drawback but a great advantage in a language.

On the other hand, it should be pointed out that the number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited. Therefore at a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary. From this, it should be clear that the process of enriching the vocabulary does not consist merely in adding new words to it, but, also, in the constant development of polysemy.

The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the centuries, as more and more new meanings are either added to old ones, or oust some of them (see Ch. 8). So the complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the appearance of new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and in this way to provide for a quantitative and qualitative growth of the language’s expressive resources.

When analysing the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, it is necessary to distinguish between two levels of analysis.

On the first level, the semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the semantic structure of the noun fire could be roughly presented by this scheme (only the most frequent meanings are given):

The above scheme suggests that meaning I holds a kind of dominance over the other meanings conveying the concept in the most general way whereas meanings П—V are associated with special circumstances, aspects and instances of the same phenomenon.

Meaning I (generally referred to as the main meaning) presents the centre of the semantic structure of the word holding it together. It is mainly through meaning I that meanings II—V (they are called secondary meanings) can be associated with one another, some of them exclusively through meaning I, as, for instance, meanings IV and V.

It would hardly be possible to establish any logical associations between some of the meanings of the noun bar except through the main meaning:1

Bar, n

II III

 

I

	Any kind of barrier to prevent people from passing.

 

Meanings II and III have no logical links with one another whereas each separately is easily associated with meaning I: meaning II through the traditional barrier dividing a court-room into two parts; meaning III through the counter serving as a kind of barrier between the customers of a pub and the barman.

Yet, it is not in every polysemantic word that such a centre can be found. Some semantic structures are arranged on a different principle. In the following list of meanings of the adjective dull one can hardly hope to find a generalized meaning covering and holding together the rest of the semantic structure.

Dull, adj.

I. Uninteresting, monotonous, boring; e. g. a dull book, a dull film.

II. Slow in understanding, stupid; e. g. a dull student.

III. Not clear or bright; e. g. dull weather, a dull day, a dull colour.

IV. Not loud or distinct; e. g. a dull sound.

V. Not sharp; e. g. a dull knife.

VI. Not active; e. g. Trade is dull.

VII. Seeing badly; e. g. dull eyes (arch.). VIII. Hearing badly; e. g. dull ears (arch.).

Yet, one distinctly feels that there is something that all these seemingly miscellaneous meanings have in common, and that is the implication of deficiency, be it of colour (m. Ill), wits (m. II), interest (m. I), sharpness (m. V), etc. The implication of insufficient quality, of something lacking, can be clearly distinguished in each separate meaning.

In fact, each meaning definition in the given scheme can be subjected to a transformational operation to prove the point.

Dull, adj.

I. Uninteresting ——> deficient in interest or excitement.

II. … Stupid ——> deficient in intellect.

III. Not bright ——> deficient in light or colour.

IV. Not loud ——> deficient in sound.

V. Not sharp ——> deficient in sharpness.

VI. Not active ——> deficient in activity.

VII. Seeing badly ——> deficient in eyesight.

VIII. Hearing badly ——> deficient in hearing.

The transformed scheme of the semantic structure of dull clearly shows that the centre holding together the complex semantic structure of this word is not one of the meanings but a certain component that can be easily singled out within each separate meaning.

This brings us to the second level of analysis of the semantic structure of a word. The transformational operation with the meaning definitions of dull reveals something very significant: the semantic structure of the word is «divisible», as it were, not only at the level of different meanings but, also, at a deeper level.

Each separate meaning seems to be subject to structural analysis in which it may be represented as sets of semantic components. In terms of componential analysis, one of the modern methods of semantic research, the meaning of a word is defined as a set of elements of meaning which are not part of the vocabulary of the language itself, but rather theoretical elements, postulated in order to describe the semantic relations between the lexical elements of a given language.

The scheme of the semantic structure of dull shows that the semantic structure of a word is not a mere system of meanings, for each separate meaning is subject to further subdivision and possesses an inner structure of its own.

Therefore, the semantic structure of a word should be investigated at both these levels: a) of different meanings, b) of semantic components within each separate meaning. For a monosemantic word (i. e. a word with one meaning) the first level is naturally excluded.

Types of Semantic Components

The leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word is usually termed denotative component (also, the term referential component may be used). The denotative component expresses the conceptual content of a word.

The following list presents denotative components of some English adjectives and verbs:

Denotative components

lonely, adj. ——> alone, without company ……………

notorious, adj. ——> widely known ……………

celebrated, adj. ——> widely known ……………

to glare, v. ——> to look ……………

to glance, v. ——> to look ……………

to shiver, v. ——> to tremble ……………

to shudder, v. ——> to tremble ……………

It is quite obvious that the definitions given in the right column only partially and incompletely describe the meanings of their corresponding words. To give a more or less full picture of the meaning of a word, it is necessary to include in the scheme of analysis additional semantic components which are termed connotations or connotative components.

Let us complete the semantic structures of the words given above introducing connotative components into the schemes of their semantic structures.

The above examples show how by singling out denotative and connotative components one can get a sufficiently clear picture of what the word really means. The schemes presenting the semantic structures of glare, shiver, shudder also show that a meaning can have two or more connotative components.

The given examples do not exhaust all the types of connotations but present only a few: emotive, evaluative connotations, and also connotations of duration and of cause. (For a more detailed classification of connotative components of a meaning, see Ch. 10.)

Meaning and Context

In the beginning of the paragraph entitled «Polysemy» we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of this linguistic phenomenon. One of the most important «drawbacks» of polysemantic words is that there is sometimes a chance of misunderstanding when a word is used in a certain meaning but accepted by a listener or reader in another. It is only natural that such cases provide stuff of which jokes are made, such as the ones that follow:

Customer. I would like a book, please.

Bookseller. Something light?

Customer. That doesn’t matter. I have my car with me.

In this conversation the customer is honestly misled by the polysemy of the adjective light taking it in the literal sense whereas the bookseller uses the word in its figurative meaning «not serious; entertaining».

In the following joke one of the speakers pretends to misunderstand his interlocutor basing his angry retort on the polysemy of the noun kick:

The critic started to leave in the middle of the second act of the play.

«Don’t go,» said the manager. «I promise there’s a terrific kick in the next act.»

«Fine,» was the retort, «give it to the author.»1

Generally speaking, it is common knowledge that context is a powerful preventative against any misunderstanding of meanings. For instance, the adjective dull, if used out of context, would mean different things to different people or nothing at all. It is only in combination with other words that it reveals its actual meaning: a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull weather, etc. Sometimes, however, such a minimum context fails to reveal the meaning of the word, and it may be correctly interpreted only through what Professor N. Amosova termed a second-degree context [1], as in the following example: The man was large, but his wife was even fatter. The word fatter here serves as a kind of indicator pointing that large describes a stout man and not a big one.

Current research in semantics is largely based on the assumption that one of the more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is by studying the word’s linear relationships with other words in typical contexts, i. e. its combinability or collocability.

Scholars have established that the semantics of words characterized by common occurrences (i. e. words which regularly appear in common contexts) are correlated and, therefore, one of the words within such a pair can be studied through the other.

Thus, if one intends to investigate the semantic structure of an adjective, one would best consider the adjective in its most typical syntactical patterns A + N (adjective + noun) and N + l + A (noun + link verb + adjective) and make a thorough study of the meanings of nouns with which the adjective is frequently used.

For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first pattern will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.), b) bright metal (gold, jewels, armour, etc.), c) bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.) and some others. These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, c) capable, d) gay, etc.

For a transitive verb, on the other hand, the recommended pattern would be V + N (verb + direct object expressed by a noun). If, for instance, our object of investigation are the verbs to produce, to create, to compose, the correct procedure would be to consider the semantics of the nouns that are used in the pattern with each of these verbs: what is it that is produced? created? composed?

There is an interesting hypothesis that the semantics of words regularly used in common contexts (e. g. bright colours, to build a house, to create a work of art, etc.) are so intimately correlated that each of them casts, as it were, a kind of permanent reflection on the meaning of its neighbour. If the verb to compose is frequently used with the object music, isn’t it natural to expect that certain musical associations linger in the meaning of the verb to compose?

Note, also, how closely the negative evaluative connotation of the adjective notorious is linked with the negative connotation of the nouns with which it is regularly associated: a notorious criminal, thief, gangster, gambler, gossip, liar, miser, etc.

All this leads us to the conclusion that context is a good and reliable key to the meaning of the word. Yet, even the jokes given above show how misleading this key can prove in some cases. And here we are faced with two dangers. The first is that of sheer misunderstanding, when the speaker means one thing and the listener takes the word in its other meaning.

The second danger has nothing to do with the process of communication but with research work in the field of semantics. A common error with the inexperienced research worker is to see a different meaning in every new set of combinations. Here is a puzzling question to illustrate what we mean. Cf.: an angry man, an angry letter. Is the adjective angry used in the same meaning in both these contexts or in two different meanings? Some people will say «two» and argue that, on the one hand, the combinability is different (man — name of person; letter — name of object) and, on the other hand, a letter cannot experience anger. True, it cannot; but it can very well convey the anger of the person who wrote it. As to the combinability, the main point is that a word can realize the same meaning in different sets of combinability. For instance, in the pairs merry children, merry laughter, merry faces, merry songs the adjective merry conveys the same concept of high spirits whether they are directly experienced by the children (in the first phrase) or indirectly expressed through the merry faces, the laughter and the songs of the other word groups.

The task of distinguishing between the different meanings of a word and the different variations of combinability (or, in a traditional terminology, different usages of the word) is actually a question of singling out the different denotations within the semantic structure of the word.

Cf.: 1) a sad woman,

2) a sad voice,

3) a sac? story,

4) a sad scoundrel (= an incorrigible scoundrel)

5) a sad night (= a dark, black night, arch. poet.)

How many meanings of sad can you identify in these contexts? Obviously the first three contexts have the common denotation of sorrow whereas in the fourth and fifth contexts the denotations are different. So, in these five contexts we can identify three meanings of sad.

All this leads us to the conclusion that context is not the ultimate criterion for meaning and it should be used in combination with other criteria. Nowadays, different methods of componential analysis are widely used in semantic research: definitional analysis, transformational analysis, distributional analysis. Yet, contextual analysis remains one of the main investigative methods for determining the semantic structure of a word.

Exercises

I. Consider your answers to the following.

1. What is understood by «semantics»? Explain the term «polysemy».

2. Define polysemy as a linguistic phenomenon. Illustrate your answer with your own examples.

3. What are the two levels of analysis in investigating the semantic structure of a word?

4. What types of semantic components can be distinguished within the meaning of a word?

5. What is one of the most promising methods for investigating the semantic structure of a word? What is understood by collocability (combinability)?

6. How can one distinguish between the different meanings of a word and the different variations of combinability?

II. Define the meanings of the words in the following sentences. Say how the meanings of the same word are associated one with another.

1.I walked into Hyde Park, fell flat upon the grass and almost immediately fell asleep. 2. a) ‘Hello’, I said, and thrust my hand through the bars, whereon the dog became silent and licked me prodigiously, b) At the end of the long bar, leaning against the counter was a slim pale individual wearing a red bow-tie. 3. a) I began to search the flat, looking in drawers and boxes to see if I could find a key. b) I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano, c) Now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher, d) Someone with a positive manner, perhaps a detective, used the expression ‘madman’ as he bent over Welson’s body that afternoon, and the authority of his voice set the key for the newspaper report next morning. 4. a) Her mouth opened crookedly half an inch, and she shot a few words at one like pebbles. b) Would you like me to come to the mouth of the river with you? 5. a) I sat down for a few minutes with my head in ray hands, until I heard the phone taken up inside and the butler’s voice calling a taxi. b) The minute hand of the electric clock jumped on to figure twelve, and, simultaneously, the steeple of St. Mary’s whose vicar always kept his clock by the wireless began its feeble imitation of Big Ben. 6. a) My head felt as if it were on a string and someone were trying to pull it off. b) G. Quartermain, board chairman and chief executive of Supernational Corporation was a bull of a man who possessed more power than many heads of the state and exercised it like a king.

III. Copy out the following pairs of words grouping together the ones which represent the same meaning of each word. Explain the different meanings and the different usages, giving reasons for your answer. Use dictionaries if necessary.

smart, adj.

smart clothes, a smart answer, a smart house, a smart garden, a smart repartee, a smart officer, a smart blow, a smart punishment

stubborn, adj.

a stubborn child, a stubborn look, a stubborn horse, stubborn resistance, a stubborn fighting, a stubborn cough, stubborn depression

sound, adj.

sound lungs, a sound scholar, a sound tennis-player, sound views, sound advice, sound criticism, a sound ship, a sound whipping

roof, n.

edible roots, the root of the tooth, the root of the matter, the root of all evil, square root, cube root

perform, v.

to perform one’s duty, to perform an operation, to perform a dance, to perform a play

kick, v.

to kick the ball, to kick the dog, to kick off one’s slippers, to kick smb. downstairs

IV. The verb «to take» is highly polysemantic in Modern English. On which meanings of the verb are the following jokes based? Give your own examples to illustrate the other meanings of the word.

1. «Where have you been for the last four years?» «At college taking medicine.» «And did you finally get well?»

2. «Doctor, what should a woman take when she is run down?»

«The license number, madame, the license number.»

3.Proctor (exceedingly angry): So you confess that this unfortunate Freshman was carried to this frog pond and drenched. Now what part did you take in this disgraceful affair?

Sophomore (meekly): The right leg, sir.

V. Explain the basis for the following jokes. Use the dictionary when in doubt.

1. Caller: I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged9

Willie: Engaged! She’s married.

2. Booking Clerk (at a small village station):

You’ll have to change twice before you get to York.

Villager (unused to travelling): Goodness me! And I’ve only brought the clothes I’m wearing.

3. The weather forecaster hadn’t been right in three months, and his resignation caused little surprise. His alibi, however, pleased the city council.

«I can’t stand this town any longer,» read his note. «The climate doesn’t agree with me.»

4.Professor: You missed my class yesterday, didn’t you?

Unsubdued student: Not in the least, sir, not in the least.

5. «Papa, what kind of a robber is a page?» «A what?»

«It says here that two pages held up the bride’s train.»

VI. Choose any polysemantic word that is well-known to you and illustrate its meanings with examples of your own. Prove that the meanings are related one to another.

VII. Read the following jokes. Analyse the collocability of the italicized words and state its relationship with the meaning.

1. Ladу (at party): Where is that pretty maid who was passing our cocktails a while ago?

Hostess: Oh, you are looking for a drink?

Lady: No, I’m looking for my husband.

2. Peggy: I want to help you, Dad. I shall get the dress-maker to teach me to cut out gowns.

Dad: I don’t want you to go that far. Peg, but you might cut out cigarettes, and taxi bills.

3. There are cynics who claim that movies would be better if they shot less films and more actors.

4. Killy: Is your wound sore, Mr. Pup?

Mr. Pup: Wound? What wound?

Kitty: Why, sister said she cut you at the dinner last night.

VIII. Try your hand at being a lexicographer. Write simple definitions to illustrate as many meanings as possible for the following polysemantic words. After you have done it, check your results using a dictionary.

Face, heart, nose, smart, to lose.

IX. Try your hand at the following research work.

a. Illustrate the semantic structure of one of the following words with a diagram; use the dictionary if necessary.

Foot, п.; hand, п.; ring, п.; stream, n.; warm, adj.; green, adj.; sail, n.; key, n.; glass, п.; eye, n.

b. Identify the denotative and connotative elements of the meanings in the following pairs of words.

To conceal — to disguise, to choose — to select, to draw — to paint, money — cash, photograph — picture, odd — queer.

c. Read the entries for the English word «court» and the Russian «суд» in an English-Russian and Russian-English dictionary. Explain the differences in the semantic structure of both words.

In semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemantics, meaning «is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify».^[1]

The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. Namely:

• There are the things, which might have meaning;
• There are things that are also signs of other things, and so, are always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind);
• There are things that are necessarily meaningful such as words and nonverbal symbols.

The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of meaning:

• Psychological theories, involving notions of thought, intention, or understanding;
• Logical theories, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with extension, reference, or denotation;
• Message, content, information, or communication;
• Truth conditions;
• Usage, and the instructions for usage; and
• Measurement, computation, or operation.

Truth and meaningEdit

The question of what is a proper basis for deciding how words, symbols, ideas and beliefs may properly be considered to truthfully denote meaning, whether by a single person or by an entire society, has been considered by five major types of theory of meaning and truth.^[2][3][4] Each type is discussed below, together with its principal exponents.^[2][5][6]

Substantive theories of meaningEdit

Correspondence theoryEdit

Correspondence theories emphasise that true beliefs and true statements of meaning correspond to the actual state of affairs and that associated meanings must be in agreement with these beliefs and statements.^[7] This type of theory stresses a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or objects on the other. It is a traditional model tracing its origins to ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.^[8] This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle entirely by how it relates to «things», by whether it accurately describes those «things». An example of correspondence theory is the statement by the thirteenth-century philosopher/theologian Thomas Aquinas: Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus («Truth is the equation [or adequation] of things and intellect»), a statement which Aquinas attributed to the ninth-century neoplatonist Isaac Israeli.^[9][10][11] Aquinas also restated the theory as: «A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality».^[12]

Correspondence theory centres heavily around the assumption that truth and meaning are a matter of accurately copying what is known as «objective reality» and then representing it in thoughts, words and other symbols.^[13] Many modern theorists have stated that this ideal cannot be achieved without analysing additional factors.^[2][14] For example, language plays a role in that all languages have words to represent concepts that are virtually undefined in other languages. The German word Zeitgeist is one such example: one who speaks or understands the language may «know» what it means, but any translation of the word apparently fails to accurately capture its full meaning (this is a problem with many abstract words, especially those derived in agglutinative languages). Thus, some words add an additional parameter to the construction of an accurate truth predicate. Among the philosophers who grappled with this problem is Alfred Tarski, whose semantic theory is summarized further below in this article.^[15]

Coherence theoryEdit

For coherence theories in general, the assessment of meaning and truth requires a proper fit of elements within a whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple logical consistency; often there is a demand that the propositions in a coherent system lend mutual inferential support to each other. So, for example, the completeness and comprehensiveness of the underlying set of concepts is a critical factor in judging the validity and usefulness of a coherent system.^[16] A pervasive tenet of coherence theories is the idea that truth is primarily a property of whole systems of propositions, and can be ascribed to individual propositions only according to their coherence with the whole. Among the assortment of perspectives commonly regarded as coherence theory, theorists differ on the question of whether coherence entails many possible true systems of thought or only a single absolute system.

Some variants of coherence theory are claimed to describe the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics.^[17] However, formal reasoners are content to contemplate axiomatically independent and sometimes mutually contradictory systems side by side, for example, the various alternative geometries. On the whole, coherence theories have been rejected for lacking justification in their application to other areas of truth, especially with respect to assertions about the natural world, empirical data in general, assertions about practical matters of psychology and society, especially when used without support from the other major theories of truth.^[18]

Coherence theories distinguish the thought of rationalist philosophers, particularly of Spinoza, Leibniz, and G.W.F. Hegel, along with the British philosopher F.H. Bradley.^[19] Other alternatives may be found among several proponents of logical positivism, notably Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel.

Constructivist theoryEdit

Social constructivism holds that meaning and truth are constructed by social processes, are historically and culturally specific, and are in part shaped through power struggles within a community. Constructivism views all of our knowledge as «constructed», because it does not reflect any external «transcendent» realities (as a pure correspondence theory might hold). Rather, perceptions of truth are viewed as contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, including race, sexuality, and gender, are socially constructed.

Giambattista Vico was among the first to claim that history and culture, along with their meaning, are human products. Vico’s epistemological orientation gathers the most diverse rays and unfolds in one axiom – verum ipsum factum – «truth itself is constructed». Hegel and Marx were among the other early proponents of the premise that truth is, or can be, socially constructed. Marx, like many critical theorists who followed, did not reject the existence of objective truth but rather distinguished between true knowledge and knowledge that has been distorted through power or ideology. For Marx, scientific and true knowledge is «in accordance with the dialectical understanding of history» and ideological knowledge is «an epiphenomenal expression of the relation of material forces in a given economic arrangement».^[20]

Consensus theoryEdit

Consensus theory holds that meaning and truth are whatever is agreed upon—or, in some versions, might come to be agreed upon—by some specified group. Such a group might include all human beings, or a subset thereof consisting of more than one person.

Among the current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of «truth» is the philosopher Jürgen Habermas.^[21] Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation.^[22] Among the current strong critics of consensus theory is the philosopher Nicholas Rescher.^[23]

Pragmatic theoryEdit

The three most influential forms of the pragmatic theory of truth and meaning were introduced around the turn of the 20th century by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Although there are wide differences in viewpoint among these and other proponents of pragmatic theory, they hold in common that meaning and truth are verified and confirmed by the results of putting one’s concepts into practice.^[24]

Peirce defines truth as follows: «Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.»^[25] This statement stresses Peirce’s view that ideas of approximation, incompleteness, and partiality, what he describes elsewhere as fallibilism and «reference to the future», are essential to a proper conception of meaning and truth. Although Peirce uses words like concordance and correspondence to describe one aspect of the pragmatic sign relation, he is also quite explicit in saying that definitions of truth based on mere correspondence are no more than nominal definitions, which he accords a lower status than real definitions.

William James’s version of pragmatic theory, while complex, is often summarized by his statement that «the ‘true’ is only the expedient in our way of thinking, just as the ‘right’ is only the expedient in our way of behaving».^[26] By this, James meant that truth is a quality, the value of which is confirmed by its effectiveness when applying concepts to practice (thus, «pragmatic»).

John Dewey, less broadly than James but more broadly than Peirce, held that inquiry, whether scientific, technical, sociological, philosophical or cultural, is self-corrective over time if openly submitted for testing by a community of inquirers in order to clarify, justify, refine and/or refute proposed meanings and truths.^[27]

A later variation of the pragmatic theory was William Ernest Hocking’s «negative pragmatism»: what works may or may not be true, but what fails cannot be true, because the truth and its meaning always works.^[28] James’s and Dewey’s ideas also ascribe meaning and truth to repeated testing, which is «self-corrective» over time.

Pragmatism and negative pragmatism are also closely aligned with the coherence theory of truth in that any testing should not be isolated but rather incorporate knowledge from all human endeavors and experience. The universe is a whole and integrated system, and testing should acknowledge and account for its diversity. As physicist Richard Feynman said: «if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong».^[29]

Associated theories and commentariesEdit

Some have asserted that meaning is nothing substantially more or less than the truth conditions they involve. For such theories, an emphasis is placed upon reference to actual things in the world to account for meaning, with the caveat that reference more or less explains the greater part (or all) of meaning itself.

Logic and languageEdit

The logical positivists argued that the meaning of a statement arose from how it is verified.

Gottlob FregeEdit

In his paper «Über Sinn und Bedeutung» (now usually translated as «On Sense and Reference»), Gottlob Frege argued that proper names present at least two problems in explaining meaning.

1. Suppose the meaning of a name is the thing it refers to. Sam, then, means a person in the world who is named Sam. But if the object referred to by the name did not exist—i.e., Pegasus—then, according to that theory, it would be meaningless.
2. Suppose two different names refer to the same object. Hesperus and Phosphorus were the names given to what were considered distinct celestial bodies. It was later shown that they were the same thing (the planet Venus). If the words meant the same thing, then substituting one for the other in a sentence would not result in a sentence that differs in meaning from the original. But in that case, «Hesperus is Phosphorus» would mean the same thing as «Hesperus is Hesperus». This is clearly absurd, since we learn something new and unobvious by the former statement, but not by the latter.

Frege can be interpreted as arguing that it was therefore a mistake to think that the meaning of a name is the thing it refers to. Instead, the meaning must be something else—the «sense» of the word. Two names for the same person, then, can have different senses (or meanings): one referent might be picked out by more than one sense. This sort of theory is called a mediated reference theory. Frege argued that, ultimately, the same bifurcation of meaning must apply to most or all linguistic categories, such as to quantificational expressions like «All boats float».

Bertrand RussellEdit

Logical analysis was further advanced by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead in their groundbreaking Principia Mathematica, which attempted to produce a formal language with which the truth of all mathematical statements could be demonstrated from first principles.

Russell differed from Frege greatly on many points, however. He rejected Frege’s sense-reference distinction. He also disagreed that language was of fundamental significance to philosophy, and saw the project of developing formal logic as a way of eliminating all of the confusions caused by ordinary language, and hence at creating a perfectly transparent medium in which to conduct traditional philosophical argument. He hoped, ultimately, to extend the proofs of the Principia to all possible true statements, a scheme he called logical atomism. For a while it appeared that his pupil Wittgenstein had succeeded in this plan with his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Russell’s work, and that of his colleague G. E. Moore, developed in response to what they perceived as the nonsense dominating British philosophy departments at the turn of the 20th century, which was a kind of British Idealism most of which was derived (albeit very distantly) from the work of Hegel. In response Moore developed an approach («Common Sense Philosophy»^[30]) which sought to examine philosophical difficulties by a close analysis of the language used in order to determine its meaning. In this way Moore sought to expunge philosophical absurdities such as «time is unreal». Moore’s work would have significant, if oblique, influence (largely mediated by Wittgenstein) on Ordinary language philosophy.

Other truth theories of meaningEdit

The Vienna Circle, a famous group of logical positivists from the early 20th century (closely allied with Russell and Frege), adopted the verificationist theory of meaning, a type of truth theory of meaning.^[31] The verificationist theory of meaning (in at least one of its forms) states that to say that an expression is meaningful is to say that there are some conditions of experience that could exist to show that the expression is true. As noted, Frege and Russell were two proponents of this way of thinking.

A semantic theory of truth was produced by Alfred Tarski for formal semantics. According to Tarski’s account, meaning consists of a recursive set of rules that end up yielding an infinite set of sentences, «‘p’ is true if and only if p», covering the whole language. His innovation produced the notion of propositional functions discussed on the section on universals (which he called «sentential functions»), and a model-theoretic approach to semantics (as opposed to a proof-theoretic one). Finally, some links were forged to the correspondence theory of truth (Tarski, 1944).

Perhaps the most influential current approach in the contemporary theory of meaning is that sketched by Donald Davidson in his introduction to the collection of essays Truth and Meaning in 1967. There he argued for the following two theses:

• Any learnable language must be statable in a finite form, even if it is capable of a theoretically infinite number of expressions—as we may assume that natural human languages are, at least in principle. If it could not be stated in a finite way then it could not be learned through a finite, empirical method such as the way humans learn their languages. It follows that it must be possible to give a theoretical semantics for any natural language which could give the meanings of an infinite number of sentences on the basis of a finite system of axioms.
• Giving the meaning of a sentence, he further argued, was equivalent to stating its truth conditions. He proposed that it must be possible to account for language as a set of distinct grammatical features together with a lexicon, and for each of them explain its workings in such a way as to generate trivial (obviously correct) statements of the truth conditions of all the (infinitely many) sentences built up from these.

The result is a theory of meaning that rather resembles, by no accident, Tarski’s account.

Davidson’s account, though brief, constitutes the first systematic presentation of truth-conditional semantics. He proposed simply translating natural languages into first-order predicate calculus in order to reduce meaning to a function of truth.

Saul KripkeEdit

Saul Kripke examined the relation between sense and reference in dealing with possible and actual situations. He showed that one consequence of his interpretation of certain systems of modal logic was that the reference of a proper name is necessarily linked to its referent, but that the sense is not. So for instance «Hesperus» necessarily refers to Hesperus, even in those imaginary cases and worlds in which perhaps Hesperus is not the evening star. That is, Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, but only contingently the morning star.

This results in the curious situation that part of the meaning of a name — that it refers to some particular thing — is a necessary fact about that name, but another part — that it is used in some particular way or situation — is not.

Kripke also drew the distinction between speaker’s meaning and semantic meaning, elaborating on the work of ordinary language philosophers Paul Grice and Keith Donnellan. The speaker’s meaning is what the speaker intends to refer to by saying something; the semantic meaning is what the words uttered by the speaker mean according to the language.

In some cases, people do not say what they mean; in other cases, they say something that is in error. In both these cases, the speaker’s meaning and the semantic meaning seem to be different. Sometimes words do not actually express what the speaker wants them to express; so words will mean one thing, and what people intend to convey by them might mean another. The meaning of the expression, in such cases, is ambiguous.

Critiques of truth theories of meaningEdit

W. V. O. Quine attacked both verificationism and the very notion of meaning in his famous essay, «Two Dogmas of Empiricism». In it, he suggested that meaning was nothing more than a vague and dispensable notion. Instead, he asserted, what was more interesting to study was the synonymy between signs. He also pointed out that verificationism was tied to the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, and asserted that such a divide was defended ambiguously. He also suggested that the unit of analysis for any potential investigation into the world (and, perhaps, meaning) would be the entire body of statements taken as a collective, not just individual statements on their own.

Other criticisms can be raised on the basis of the limitations that truth-conditional theorists themselves admit to. Tarski, for instance, recognized that truth-conditional theories of meaning only make sense of statements, but fail to explain the meanings of the lexical parts that make up statements. Rather, the meaning of the parts of statements is presupposed by an understanding of the truth-conditions of a whole statement, and explained in terms of what he called «satisfaction conditions».

Still another objection (noted by Frege and others) was that some kinds of statements don’t seem to have any truth-conditions at all. For instance, «Hello!» has no truth-conditions, because it doesn’t even attempt to tell the listener anything about the state of affairs in the world. In other words, different propositions have different grammatical moods.

Deflationist accounts of truth, sometimes called ‘irrealist’ accounts, are the staunchest source of criticism of truth-conditional theories of meaning. According to them, «truth» is a word with no serious meaning or function in discourse. For instance, for the deflationist, the sentences «It’s true that Tiny Tim is trouble» and «Tiny Tim is trouble» are equivalent. In consequence, for the deflationist, any appeal to truth as an account of meaning has little explanatory power.

The sort of truth theories presented here can also be attacked for their formalism both in practice and principle. The principle of formalism is challenged by the informalists, who suggest that language is largely a construction of the speaker, and so, not compatible with formalization. The practice of formalism is challenged by those who observe that formal languages (such as present-day quantificational logic) fail to capture the expressive power of natural languages (as is arguably demonstrated in the awkward character of the quantificational explanation of definite description statements, as laid out by Bertrand Russell).

Finally, over the past century, forms of logic have been developed that are not dependent exclusively on the notions of truth and falsity. Some of these types of logic have been called modal logics. They explain how certain logical connectives such as «if-then» work in terms of necessity and possibility. Indeed, modal logic was the basis of one of the most popular and rigorous formulations in modern semantics called the Montague grammar. The successes of such systems naturally give rise to the argument that these systems have captured the natural meaning of connectives like if-then far better than an ordinary, truth-functional logic ever could.

Usage and meaningEdit

Throughout the 20th century, English philosophy focused closely on analysis of language. This style of analytic philosophy became very influential and led to the development of a wide range of philosophical tools.

Ludwig WittgensteinEdit

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was originally an ideal language philosopher, following the influence of Russell and Frege. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus he had supported the idea of an ideal language built up from atomic statements using logical connectives (see picture theory of meaning and logical atomism). However, as he matured, he came to appreciate more and more the phenomenon of natural language. Philosophical Investigations, published after his death, signalled a sharp departure from his earlier work with its focus upon ordinary language use (see use theory of meaning and ordinary language philosophy). His approach is often summarised by the aphorism «the meaning of a word is its use in a language». However, following in Frege’s footsteps, in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein declares: «… Only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning.»^[32]

His work would come to inspire future generations and spur forward a whole new discipline, which explained meaning in a new way. Meaning in a natural language was seen as primarily a question of how the speaker uses words within the language to express intention.

This close examination of natural language proved to be a powerful philosophical technique. Practitioners who were influenced by Wittgenstein’s approach have included an entire tradition of thinkers, featuring P. F. Strawson, Paul Grice, R. M. Hare, R. S. Peters, and Jürgen Habermas.

J. L. AustinEdit

At around the same time Ludwig Wittgenstein was re-thinking his approach to language, reflections on the complexity of language led to a more expansive approach to meaning. Following the lead of George Edward Moore, J. L. Austin examined the use of words in great detail. He argued against fixating on the meaning of words. He showed that dictionary definitions are of limited philosophical use, since there is no simple «appendage» to a word that can be called its meaning. Instead, he showed how to focus on the way in which words are used in order to do things. He analysed the structure of utterances into three distinct parts: locutions, illocutions and perlocutions. His pupil John Searle developed the idea under the label «speech acts». Their work greatly influenced pragmatics.

Peter StrawsonEdit

Past philosophers had understood reference to be tied to words themselves. However, Peter Strawson disagreed in his seminal essay, «On Referring», where he argued that there is nothing true about statements on their own; rather, only the uses of statements could be considered to be true or false.

Indeed, one of the hallmarks of the ordinary use perspective is its insistence upon the distinctions between meaning and use. «Meanings», for ordinary language philosophers, are the instructions for usage of words — the common and conventional definitions of words. Usage, on the other hand, is the actual meanings that individual speakers have — the things that an individual speaker in a particular context wants to refer to. The word «dog» is an example of a meaning, but pointing at a nearby dog and shouting «This dog smells foul!» is an example of usage. From this distinction between usage and meaning arose the divide between the fields of pragmatics and semantics.

Yet another distinction is of some utility in discussing language: «mentioning». Mention is when an expression refers to itself as a linguistic item, usually surrounded by quotation marks. For instance, in the expression «‘Opopanax’ is hard to spell», what is referred to is the word itself («opopanax») and not what it means (an obscure gum resin). Frege had referred to instances of mentioning as «opaque contexts».

In his essay, «Reference and Definite Descriptions», Keith Donnellan sought to improve upon Strawson’s distinction. He pointed out that there are two uses of definite descriptions: attributive and referential. Attributive uses provide a description of whoever is being referred to, while referential uses point out the actual referent. Attributive uses are like mediated references, while referential uses are more directly referential.

Paul GriceEdit

The philosopher Paul Grice, working within the ordinary language tradition, understood «meaning» — in his 1957 article — to have two kinds: natural and non-natural. Natural meaning had to do with cause and effect, for example with the expression «these spots mean measles». Non-natural meaning, on the other hand, had to do with the intentions of the speaker in communicating something to the listener.

In his essay, Logic and Conversation, Grice went on to explain and defend an explanation of how conversations work. His guiding maxim was called the cooperative principle, which claimed that the speaker and the listener will have mutual expectations of the kind of information that will be shared. The principle is broken down into four maxims: Quality (which demands truthfulness and honesty), Quantity (demand for just enough information as is required), Relation (relevance of things brought up), and Manner (lucidity). This principle, if and when followed, lets the speaker and listener figure out the meaning of certain implications by way of inference.

The works of Grice led to an avalanche of research and interest in the field, both supportive and critical. One spinoff was called Relevance theory, developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson during the mid-1980s, whose goal was to make the notion of relevance more clear. Similarly, in his work, «Universal pragmatics», Jürgen Habermas began a program that sought to improve upon the work of the ordinary language tradition. In it, he laid out the goal of a valid conversation as a pursuit of mutual understanding.

Noam ChomskyEdit

Although he has focused on the structure and functioning of human syntax, in many works^{[33][34][35][36]} Noam Chomsky has discussed many philosophical problems too, including the problem of meaning and reference in human language. Chomsky has formulated a strong criticism against both the externalist notion of reference (reference consists in a direct or causal relation among words and objects) and the internalist one (reference is a mind-mediated relation holding among words and reality). According to Chomsky, both these notions (and many others widely used in philosophy, such as that of truth) are basically inadequate for the naturalistic (= scientific) inquiry on human mind: they are common sense notions, not scientific notions, which cannot, as such, enter in the scientific discussion. Chomsky argues that the notion of reference can be used only when we deal with scientific languages, whose symbols refers to specific things or entities; but when we consider human language expressions, we immediately understand that their reference is vague, in the sense that they can be used to denote many things. For example, the word “book” can be used to denote an abstract object (e.g., “he is reading the book”) or a concrete one (e.g., “the book is on the chair”); the name “London” can denote at the same time a set of buildings, the air of a place and the character of a population (think to the sentence “London is so gray, polluted and sad”). These and other cases induce Chomsky to argue that the only plausible (although not scientific) notion of reference is that of act of reference, a complex phenomenon of language use (performance) which includes many factors (linguistic and not: i.e. beliefs, desires, assumptions about the world, premises, etc.). As Chomsky himself has pointed out, ^[37] this conception of meaning is very close to that adopted by John Austin, Peter Strawson and the late Wittgenstein.^[38]

Inferential role semanticsEdit

Michael Dummett argued against the kind of truth-conditional semantics presented by Davidson. Instead, he argued that basing semantics on assertion conditions avoids a number of difficulties with truth-conditional semantics, such as the transcendental nature of certain kinds of truth condition. He leverages work done in proof-theoretic semantics to provide a kind of inferential role semantics, where:

• The meaning of sentences and grammatical constructs is given by their assertion conditions; and
• Such a semantics is only guaranteed to be coherent if the inferences associated with the parts of language are in logical harmony.

A semantics based upon assertion conditions is called a verificationist semantics: cf. the verificationism of the Vienna Circle.

This work is closely related, though not identical, to one-factor theories of conceptual role semantics.

Critiques of use theories of meaningEdit

Sometimes between the 1950-1990s, cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor said that use theories of meaning (of the Wittgensteinian kind) seem to assume that language is solely a public phenomenon, that there is no such thing as a «private language». Fodor thinks it is necessary to create or describe the language of thought, which would seemingly require the existence of a «private language».

In the 1960s, David Kellogg Lewis described meaning as use, a feature of a social convention and conventions as regularities of a specific sort. Lewis’ work was an application of game theory in philosophical topics.^[39] Conventions, he argued, are a species of coordination equilibria.

Idea theory of meaningEdit

Memberships of a graded class

The idea theory of meaning (also ideational theory of meaning), most commonly associated with the British empiricist John Locke, claims that meanings are mental representations provoked by signs.^[40]

The term «ideas» is used to refer to either mental representations, or to mental activity in general. Those who seek an explanation for meaning in the former sort of account endorse a stronger sort of idea theory of mind than the latter.

Each idea is understood to be necessarily about something external and/or internal, real or imaginary. For example, in contrast to the abstract meaning of the universal «dog», the referent «this dog» may mean a particular real life chihuahua. In both cases, the word is about something, but in the former it is about the class of dogs as generally understood, while in the latter it is about a very real and particular dog in the real world.

John Locke considered all ideas to be both imaginable objects of sensation and the very unimaginable objects of reflection. He said in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that words are used both as signs for ideas and also to signify a lack of certain ideas. David Hume held that thoughts were kinds of imaginable entities: his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section 2. He argued that any words that could not call upon any past experience were without meaning.

In contrast to Locke and Hume, George Berkeley and Ludwig Wittgenstein held that ideas alone are unable to account for the different variations within a general meaning. For example, any hypothetical image of the meaning of «dog» has to include such varied images as a chihuahua, a pug, and a black Labrador; and this seems impossible to imagine, since all of those particular breeds look very different from one another. Another way to see this point is to question why it is that, if we have an image of a specific type of dog (say of a chihuahua), it should be entitled to represent the entire concept.

Another criticism is that some meaningful words, known as non-lexical items, don’t have any meaningfully associated image. For example, the word «the» has a meaning, but one would be hard-pressed to find a mental representation that fits it. Still another objection lies in the observation that certain linguistic items name something in the real world, and are meaningful, yet which we have no mental representations to deal with. For instance, it is not known what Newton’s father looked like, yet the phrase «Newton’s father» still has meaning.

Another problem is that of composition—that it is difficult to explain how words and phrases combine into sentences if only ideas are involved in meaning.

Eleanor Rosch and George Lakoff have advanced a theory of «prototypes» which suggests that many lexical categories, at least on the face of things, have «radial structures». That is to say, there are some ideal member(s) in the category that seem to represent the category better than other members. For example, the category of «birds» may feature the robin as the prototype, or the ideal kind of bird. With experience, subjects might come to evaluate membership in the category of «bird» by comparing candidate members to the prototype and evaluating for similarities. So, for example, a penguin or an ostrich would sit at the fringe of the meaning of «bird», because a penguin is unlike a robin.

Intimately related to these researches is the notion of a psychologically basic level, which is both the first level named and understood by children, and «the highest level at which a single mental image can reflect the entire category» (Lakoff 1987:46). The «basic level» of cognition is understood by Lakoff as crucially drawing upon «image-schemas» along with various other cognitive processes.

Philosophers Ned Block, Gilbert Harman and Hartry Field, and cognitive scientists G. Miller and P. Johnson-Laird say that the meaning of a term can be found by investigating its role in relation to other concepts and mental states. They endorse a «conceptual role semantics». Those proponents of this view who understand meanings to be exhausted by the content of mental states can be said to endorse «one-factor» accounts of conceptual role semantics and thus to fit within the tradition of idea theories.

See alsoEdit

• Definitions of philosophy
• Meaning (existential)
• Semiotics
• Semeiotic

ReferencesEdit

Further readingEdit

• Akmajian, Adrian et al (1995), Linguistics: an introduction to language and communication (fourth edition), Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Allan, Keith (1986), Linguistic Meaning, Volume One, New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Arena, Leonardo Vittorio (2012), Nonsense as the Meaning (ebook).
• Austin, J. L. (1962), How to Do Things With Words, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Berger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann (1967), The Social Construction of Reality : A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (first edition: 240 pages), Anchor Books.
• Davidson, Donald (2001), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (second edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dummett, Michael (1981), Frege: Philosophy of Language (second edition), Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Frege, Gottlob (ed. Michael Beaney, 1997), The Frege Reader, Oxford: Blackwell.
• Gauker, Christopher (2003), Words without Meaning, MIT Press.
• Goffman, Erving (1959), Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Anchor Books.
• Grice, Paul (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Searle, John and Daniel Vanderveken (1985), Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Searle, John (1969), Speech Acts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Searle, John (1979), Expression and Meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Stonier, Tom (1997), Information and Meaning: An Evolutionary Perspective, London: Springer.

External linksEdit

• «Meaning and Communication». Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• «Meaning and Context-Sensitivity». Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.