INTRODUCING SEMANTICS Nick Riemer (CHAPTER 1)

CHAPTER 1

Meaning in the empirical study of language

CHAPTER PREVIEW

In this chapter we will introduce some important concepts for the study of semantics. In
1.1 we place the notion of linguistic meaning in the wider context of human communication
and behaviour. Section 1.2 then examines some of the vocabulary that English and
other languages use for ordinary talk about meaning in language and related phenomena.
A consideration of how this everyday non-technical vocabulary varies cross-linguistically
can show some of the important different aspects of linguistic meaning. In section 1.3 the
semiotic triangle of mind, world and language is discussed, followed in 1.4 by an introduction
to five fundamental concepts:
◆ lexemes;

◆ sense and reference;
◆ denotation and connotation;
◆ compositionality; and
◆ levels of meaning.
Next (1.5), we introduce the concepts of object language and metalanguage, and distinguish
a number of different possible relations between the language in which meanings
are described (the ‘metalanguage’) and the language whose meanings are described (the
‘object language’). We will then consider three different identifications of meaning: meanings
as objects in the world (referents: 1.6.1), as objects in the mind (concepts: 1.6.2), and
as brain states (1.6.3). An alternative identification is the notion of meanings as uses, discussed
in 1.6.4. To end the chapter, we consider a view of meaning on which meanings
are unobservable, hypothetical constructs posited to explain facts about language use (1.7).



SUMMARY

• The meaningfulness of language is an instance of the meaningfulness of behaviour

The meaningfulness of language can be seen as just one instance of
the meaningfulness of human behaviour and communication in general,
and is one of the systems of structured meaningfulness studied in
semiotics.

• ‘Meaning’ is a very vague term

‘Meaning’ is a very vague term: in English it refers to a variety of different
relations between the world, language and speakers. Most languages
do not have precise equivalents for the English term ‘meaning’,
and some use a very different stock of lexical resources to talk about
meaning-like phenomena.

• The semiotic triangle

For the purposes of linguistics, we can isolate three particularly
important factors relevant to the study of meaning: the psychology of speakers, which creates and interprets language, the referent of the
language expression as projected by the language user’s psychology,
and the linguistic expression itself: these three points constitute the
semiotic triangle.

• Lexemes

In providing a semantic description of a language, we do not need to
treat all the variant morphological forms of a single word separately.
Instead, we describe the meanings of a language’s lexemes, or the
abstract units which unite all the morphological variants of a single
word.

• Sense, reference, denotation and connotation

There are several different aspects of the meaning of a lexeme: its referent
on any one occasion of use, its denotation, which is the set of all
its referents, and its sense, or the abstract, general meaning which can
be translated from one language to another, paraphrased, or defined
in a dictionary. Connotation names those aspects of meaning which
do not affect a word’s sense, reference or denotation, but which have
to do with secondary factors such as its emotional force, its level of formality,
its character as a euphemism, etc.

• Compositionality

Meaning is often compositional, which means that the meanings of
sentences are made up, or composed, of the meanings of their constituent
lexemes.

• Sentence and utterance meaning

Sentence meaning is the compositional meaning of the sentence as
constructed out of the meanings of its individual component lexemes.
Utterance meaning is the meaning which the words have on a particular
occasion of use in the particular context in which they occur.
Semantics studies sentence meaning, whereas pragmatics studies
utterance meaning and other aspects of language use.

• Object language and metalanguage

In analysing meaning we distinguish the object language, or the language
whose meanings are being described, from the metalanguage,
the language in which we describe these meanings.

• Explanations of meaning in terms of meanings are circular

When we propose a definition in a metalanguage as an analysis of the
meaning of an object language term, the more basic questions, ‘what
is meaning?’ and ‘what is it to understand a meaning?’ are left unanswered.
All definitions of meaning in language, therefore, are ultimately
circular because they use one kind of meaning to explain another.

• Four ways of breaking the circle

There are four important answers to the question ‘what is meaning?’:
the referential/ denotational theory of meaning, the conceptual theory
of meaning, the brain states theory and the use theory. We do not
have to categorically choose between these theories. Instead, recognizing
that the notion of meaning in linguistics is a way of talking about
the factors which explain language use, we can see referents, concepts,
brain states and uses as all relevant to this task.