In this chapter we started with the observation that speakers use language to talk about the world, for example by referring to things or describing states of affairs. We introduced the distinction between sense and denotation, which is of fundamental importance in all that follows. Knowing the sense of a word is what makes it possible for speakers of a language to identify the denotation of that word in a particular context of use. In a similar way, as we discuss in Chapter 3, knowing the sense of a sentence is what makes it possible for speakers of a language to judge whether or not that sentence is true in a particular context of use. The issue of ambiguity (a single word, phrase, or sentence with more than one sense) is one that we will return to often in the chapters that follow. Finally, we demonstrated a number of ways in which this kind of descriptive meaning (talking about the world) is different from expressive meaning (expressing the speaker’s emotions or attitudes). In the rest of this book, we will focus primarily on descriptive meaning rather than expressive meaning; but it is important to remember that both “dimensions” of meaning are involved in many (if not most) utterances.
Table 2.1: The expressive uses of Spanish diminutive suffixes. (Data from Fortin 2011.)
Further reading
Birner (2012/2013: Ch. 4) provides a helpful overview of reference and various related issues. Abbott (2010: Ch. 2) provides a good summary of early work by Frege and other philosophers on the distinction between sense and denotation; later chapters provide in-depth discussions of various types of referring expressions. For additional discussion of expressive meaning see Cruse (1986; 2000), Potts (2007a), and Kratzer (1999).
Discussion exercises
A: Sense vs. denotation. Which of the following pairs of expressions have the same sense? Which have the same denotation? Explain your answer
a. cordates (=‘animals with hearts’) renates (= ‘animals with kidneys’)
b. animals with gills and scales fish
c. your first-born son your oldest male offspring
d. Ronald Reagan the Governor of California
e. my oldest sister your Aunt Betty
f. my pupils the students that I teach
g. the man who invented the phonograph the man who invented the light-bulb
Model answer for (a)
In our world at the present time, all species that have hearts also have kidneys; so these two words have the same denotation in our world at the present time. They do not have the same sense, however, because we can imagine a world in which some species had hearts without kidneys, or kidneys without hearts; so the two words do not have the same denotation in all possible situations.
B: Referring expressions. Which of the following NPs are being used to refer to something?
a. I never promised you a rose garden.
b. St. Benedict, the father of Western monasticism, planted a rose garden at his early monastery in Subiaco near Rome.a
c. My sister wants to marry a policeman.
d. My sister married a policeman.
e. Leibniz searched for the solution to the equation.
f. Leibniz discovered the solution to the equation.
g. No cat likes being bathed.
h. All musicians are temperamental.
awww.scu.edu/stclaregarden/eth...valgardens.cfm
Homework exercises
A: Idiomatic meaning. Try to find one phrasal idiom (an idiom consisting of two or more words) in a language other than English; give a wordfor-word translation and explain its idiomatic meaning.
B: Expressive meaning. Try to find a word in a language other than English which has purely expressive meaning, like oops and ouch; and explain how it is used.
C: Referring expressions. For each of the following sentences, state whether or not the nominal expression in italics is being used to refer.
a. Abraham Lincoln was very close to his step-mother.
Model answer
The phrase his step-mother is used to refer to a specific person, namely Sarah Bush Lincoln, so it does refer
b. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.
c. Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R-Provo, was back in the hospital this weekend after getting kicked by a horse. a
d. Police searched the house for 6 hours but found no drugs.
e. Edward hopes that his on-line match-making service will help him find the girl of his dreams.
f. Susan married the first man who proposed to her.
