R.

Albu, Semantics

WORKSHEET 7

Review Exercises

I. Answer the following questions:

(1) Which is the superordinate term in the following list:
man, stallion, male, boy, bull, boar .............
(2) Is stallion a hyponym of horse? Yes / No
(3) Is This ram is female a contradiction? Yes / No
(4) Is This parrot is a bird a contradiction? Yes / No
(5) Which of the following statements is correct?
(a) The propositional connective & corresponds roughly to if ... then.
(b) The propositional connective → corresponds roughly to if ... then.
(c) The propositional connective → corresponds roughly to and.
Reminder: An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe (/ju ː/), an intact male as a ram or occasionally
a tup, a castrated male as a wether, and a younger sheep as a lamb.
Remember the concepts:
An analytic proposition is one which is true in all possible worlds; it is a proposition which is necessarily true
(in a logical sense) by virtue of its meaning, independently of contingent facts about the world. Ex A blind
person has impaired sight.
A synthetic proposition is one which is true in at least one possible world; it is a proposition whose truth
value is determined by the relation between its meaning and the way the world is, not by its meaning alone
Ex The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776.
A contradictory proposition is one which is false in all possible worlds; two propositions are contradictory if
the truth of one entails the falsity of the other, and the falsity of one entails the truth of the other. => they
cannot either both be true or both false. Ex This statement is true and This statement is false are
contradictory propositions. The term is also applied to lexical items related by complementarity.
Entailment: If in all worlds in which P is true, Q is also true, then P entails Q. Entailment is a logical
relation between propositions. A proposition P entails a proposition Q, if and only if the truth of Q follows
inescapably from the truth of P. ex if P is Pete killed the wasp and Q is The wasp died, then if P is true, Q
must also be true, and if Q is false, P must also be false. The logical relationship holds between the
propositions expressed by these sentences only if they are about the same wasp on the same occasion.
Symmetric relations: a relation R holding between two arguments x and y as xRy. If R is a symmetric
relation, then if xRy is true so is yRx and vice versa. For instance, if X is the same age as Y is true so is Y is
the same age as X and vice versa.
A GLOSSARY OF SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS 97
hence, is married to is a symmetric relation.
(based on A Cruse, A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics, 2006)
II.ANALYTIC SENTENCE, CONTRADICTION, and ENTAILMENT
If you feel you understand these notions, take the entry test below. Assume constancy of reference of
names in all questions.
(1) Is John is similar to himself analytic (A), synthetic (S), or a contradiction (C)? A / S / C
(2) Is John is different from himself analytic (A), synthetic (S), or a contradiction (C)? A / S / C
(3) What sense relation holds between these sentences?
John is married to Mary Mary is married to John ................
(4) What sense relation holds between these sentences?
John is the father of Henry Henry is the father of John ................
(5) What sense relation holds between the following two sentences?
Jim is fatter than Kathleen and Kathleen is fatter than Neil. Jim is fatter than Neil ........

III. The predicate Mary resembles Patricia. Resemble is a symmetric predicate.

(1) Do the following pairs of sentences entail each other? Tanzania is different from Kenya
Kenya is different from Tanzania Yes / No
(2) Is different a symmetric predicate? Yes / No
(3) Does Mary is married to Hans entail Hans is married to Mary? Yes / No
(4) Is married to a symmetric predicate? Yes / No
(5) Does Mary is devoted to Hans entail Hans is devoted to Mary? Yes / No
(6) Is devoted to a symmetric predicate? Yes / No

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IV. Put the idioms or proverbs in these sentences into your own words, showing that you
understand their meaning:
(1) He likes to have a finger in every pie.
(2) When Mr. Priestley made the hen-house, it seemed as though his fingers were all thumbs.
(3) “There are none so deaf as those who won’t hear.” (Proverb)
(4) I could see with half an eyethat al was not well in that factory.
(5) If he take sit into his head to buy that car, he’ll buy it whatever we say.
(6) The schoolmaster told the boy he would get it in the neck if he didn’t keep his nose to the
grindstone.
(7) The policemen kept an eye on the suspicious-looking stranger.
(8) I know that man. His name’s on the tip of my tongue.
(9) That secretary is too smooth-tongued for my liking.
(10)I’m going to put my foot down now. I won’t do any more sentences.

V. (1) Determine the meaning differences between five quasi synonyms of English road (e.g., street,
alley, motorway, lane, country road, avenue, artery, boulevard, highway, throughway, turnpike.... )
that you can find in the various dictionaries. Identify possible hierarchical relations between some of
them.
(2) Identify some quasi synonyms of the Romanian word drum and their specific uses.

REFERENCE AND SENSE

On this page and the following ones you will learn the difference between two 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 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 is in the beech tree.
identifies identifies
person thing

The phrase this page above identifies a particular sheet of paper. So, 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).

The same expression can, in some cases, be used to refer to different things. There are so 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 phrases this page as there are pages in
the world. Thus some (in fact very many) expressions in a language can have variable
reference.

EXERCISE 1
(1) What would be the referent of the phrase the present Prime Minister used in Romania: (a) in
1991? (b) in 1994? (c) at present?
(2) Therefore we can say that the phrase the present Prime Minister has ........... .
(3) What would be the referent of the phrase the Prime Minister used in a conversation about
(a) Romanian politics in 1990?
(b) Romanian politics in 2018?
(c) British politics in 1982?
(d) British politics in 1944?
(4) In the light of the preceding question, does the reference of an expression vary according to
(a) the circumstances (time, place etc) in which the expression is used, or (b) the topic of the
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conversation in which the expression is used, or (c) both (a) and (b)?

There are cases of expressions which in normal everyday conversation never refer to different
things ---> they have constant reference (the moon, The People's Republic of China, Halley's
Comet, Angela...). However, there is very little constancy of reference in language. In everyday
discourse almost all the fixing of reference comes from the context in which expressions are
used. Two different expressions can have the same referent. Classic ex.: the Morning Star and
the Evening Star both normally refer to the planet Venus.

EXERCISE 2
(1) In a conversation about Britain in 1982 can the Prime Minister and the leader of the
Conservative Party have the same referent?
(2) If we are talking about a situation in which John is standing alone in the corner, can John
have the same referent as the person in the corner?

The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other
expressions in the language: sameness of meaning (synonymy) or difference of meaning; same
word, more than one sense (homonymy and polysemy); same sentence, different senses
(ambiguity, e.g., The chicken is ready to eat)

The referent of an expression is often a thing or a person in the world, whereas the sense of an
expression is not a thing at all. In fact, it is difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an
expression is. It is much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the same sense. (It is
much like being able to say that two people are in the same place without being able to say
where they are.) The sense of an expression is an abstraction, but it is helpful to note that it is
an abstraction that can be entertained 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
expressions.

Every expression that has meaning also has sense, but not every expression has reference.

EXERCISE 3
(1) Do the following words refer to things in the world?
(a) almost (b) probable (c) and (d) if
(2) When you look up the meaning of a word in a dictionary, what do you find there, its referent,
or an expression with the same sense?
(3) Could a foreigner learn the meanings of his very first words in English by having their typical
referent pointed out to him?
(4) Could a foreigner learn the meanings of his very first words of English by looking them up in
an English dictionary?

To the extent that perfect translation between languages is possible (and this is a very debatable
point), the same sense can be said to belong to expressions in different languages: M. Berger
s'est rasé ce matin; Mr.Berger shaved himself this morning .

Just as one can talk about the same sense in different languages, so one can talk of expressions
in different dialects of one language as having the same sense:
BE pavement vs AmE sidewalk;
pal vs chum;
People walking in close spatio-temporal proximity vs People walking near each other.

Although the concept of reference is fundamentally related to utterances in the sense that acts
of reference only actually happen in the course of utterances, it is useful to talk about reference

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in connection with sentences, or parts of sentences. What we are really doing in cases like
this is imagining a potential utterance of the sentence or expression in question.

In everyday conversation the words meaning, means, mean, meant etc. are sometimes used to
indicate reference and sometimes to indicate sense.

EXERCISE 4 What is intended by the word mean, meaning etc. in the following examples,
reference or sense?
(1) When Helen mentioned "the fruit cake", she meant that rock-hard object in the middle of the
table.
(2) When Albert talks about "his former friend" he means me.
(3) Daddy, what does unique mean?
(4) Purchase has the same meaning as buy.
(5) Look up the meaning of apoplexy in your dictionary.
(6) If you look out of the window now, you'll see who I mean.

The notions of sense and reference are central to the study of meaning. The idea of reference is
relatively solid and may be understood. The idea of sense is more elusive. Even semanticists
aren't sure exactly what sense is.

EXERCISE 5 Which of the following is a correct description or "reference"?

(a) a relationship between expressions and other expressions which have the same meaning:
(b) the set of all objects which can potentially be referred to by an expression;
(c) a relationship between a particular object in the world and an expression used in an utterance
to pick that object out.