Sense and reference

1. Reference and meaning Two ways of talking about the meaning of words and other expressions: Reference Sense We deal with relationships between language and world. We deal with relationships inside the language.     The world X 1 x 2 language The world y X language Both reference and sense are different but related aspects of semantics

2. Reference - By means of reference a speaker indicates which thing or people are being talked about . - Reference is something haring physical existence. Example: My son is in the beech tree . Referent: person referent: things Note: Referent of a part of language: things or people exist in the world even something or someone that not exist but we believe they are available.

3. So we have 2 things: *the English expression (part of language) *thing \ person (part of the world)

4. Can a part of language (word\ expression) have more than one referent?? Some other expressions never refer to different references Example : The moon " “ Have a constant reference Some expressions in a language can have variable references Example : Orange Fruit color

5. Note : There is very little constancy of reference in language , almost all of the fixing of references comes from the context and according to the circumstances "time , place ..etc " in which expressions are used .   Example : the president of USA in 1997 was George w Bush in 2006 was Bill Clinton in 2009 was Obama .

6.     Two different expressions can have the same referent .   Example : the morning star & the evening star (planet venus ) Mohamed Nagib & the 1 st president .

7. SENSE   - The sense of a part of language ( words\expressions) is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expression in the language.   - Sense is something which doesn't have any physical existence.

8.   - Sense deals with intra-linguistic relationships " semantic relationships "   - One of the semantic relationships is " sameness of meaning in words, phrases and sentences "     More than one word can have the same sense . - same language I (almost\nearly)fell over . - school école sidewalk (A.E)------- pavement (B.E)

9.   Also more than one expression\sentence can have the same sense : Rupert took off his jacket = Rupert took his jacket off .   in some cases the same word can have more than one sense :   Example : - I have an account at the bank of Scotland . - we steered the raft to the other bank of river.   In some cases alike sentences have different sense :   Example : - the chicken is ready to eat . - the chicken is ready to be eaten . - the chicken is ready to eat something .

10.   The relationship between sense and reference   - the referent of an expression is often a thing or person in the world .   - the sense of an expression is not a thing at all it is an abstraction that can be entertained in the mind of a language user.   - it's difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an expression is .. it is useful to think of sense as that is a part of meaning of an expression that is left over when reference is factored out .   - it's much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the same sense .

11. rule : every expression that have meaning have sense , but not every expression has reference almost , probable , if and above don't refer to a thing in the world but they all have a sence

12. circularity : * there is something essential circular about the set of definitions in a dictionary & defining the sense of words and other expressions . * not a bad thing * often unavoidable >> ( e.g. cases of expressions that have no referent " and " , etc. ) there is no way of indicating the meaning of the expression exept with the words

13. sence and proposition there is something semantically complete about a proposition as opposed to the sense of a phrase of single word . one might say , roughly , that a proposition corresponds to a complete independent thought . _____________________________________________________ grammatically complete >> whole sentence >> smaller expressions e.g. a phrase or a single word . _____________________________________________________ semantically complete >> a proposition >> sense of a phrase oryy a single word _____________________________________________________

14. sense and different languages can the same sense to belong to expressions in different languages ??   to the extent that perfect translation between languages is possible ( a very debatable point ) essentially the same sense can be said to belong to expressions in different languages . Ex: the pyramid of Khufu is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza . it's the only one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world to remain largely intact the relationship between : * sense and propositions >> direct >> similarity * sense and utterance >> not so direct >> similarity _______________________________________________________ - both referring and uttering are acts performed by particular speaker on particular occasion . - most utterances contain , or are accompanied by , one or more acts of referring . - an act of referring is the picking out of a particular referent by a speaker on a course of a particular utterance

15.   -- although the concept of reference is fundamentally related to utterances , in the acts of reference only actually happen in the course of utterances . -- when talking about reference in connection with sentences , or parts of sentences , we are imagining a potential utterance of the sentence or expression in question . -- in every day conversation , the words ( meaning _ means _ mean _meant _etc ) are sometimes used to indicate reference and som times to indicate sense .