- SUBTITULOS AUTOMÁTICOS -
Hi good morning a margarita
I'm in today's session. We're gonna revise a few ideas and a few concepts that are important because of two things
One of them is because they seem to pop up every year
over and over again and
The second thing is because those concepts would be part of both the final exam and also
The online auto evaluation that's called PED and
That will help you this is a kind of a mock exam that will help you to to check how much you've learned
And it'll be open some time
at the beginning of December
Today's talk have
First of all a reflection about meaning
Also a reflection and some thinking about the difference between
communication and cognition in language and the third part of today's talk
Will focus on these important differentiation and distinctions that are so important
That as I explained before
Will be part of the final exam
these concepts
Are the differences between
Utterances sentences and propositions and also the concepts of denotation sense and reference
First of all let's
Think a little bit about the semantics background. What is meaning and what do we use language for?
Meaning is basically information the information that we want to transmit and
It could be different kinds of information it could be feelings it could be states of mind it could be warnings. It could be
Trying to deceive someone in trying to negotiate something that's meaning
That's the core of meaning what we the information that we want to transmit
And then what language is for because this two questions are somehow related
These two questions
Have to do with the two main functionalities of language according to John Noids. Who is a
very relevant
linguist
communication and cognition are the two main functionalities of language
Basically these two things is what we use language for we use language to communicate
And we also use language to understand
to
Give form to
certain thoughts and certain ideas
Language can be used in
Kind of a quotation for various things
Basically to communicate with other people and to make contact
When we say hi oh my seeing you here
But the main thing is to transmit information
Which is the third thing that I put that in in
And
Kind of italics
We can also use language to lie to say no I wasn't there
Yes, there's a corpse here, but I didn't kill that person we can use it to negate
No, I'm not hungry, and I'm starving or to make wishes I wish it was there and
Also to organize knowledge, and this is very very important in our course
Because when we put ideas into words what we are doing is basically organizing knowledge or to a state a fact
The two things involved there are
Both transmitting information and stating a fact the example down there
John knows about possible snakes in the trail
It could be a warning or could be just
Transmitting information. We are telling someone that
someone like John
About to start a trip or to start
trekking in the mountains
That he knows about this possible danger, or to state a fact simply
John knows about possible snakes on the trail, so there's nothing to be worried about
so we can do more things with your symptoms your
Knows about possible snakes in the trail, John who's about possible snakes in the trail?
Notice that the meaning I'm transmitting when I'm using my voice my tone in this way
Shows totally different things if I said John knows about possible trace
Possible snakes in the trail it's one thing, but if I say sure knows about possible snakes in the trail?
John knows about possible snakes in the trail
Information I'm transmitting these variations in my voice tone
transmit different types of information, we'll see
Why this has to do with
the next
group of concepts of just utterances the difference between utterances sentences and
and
Propositions, we'll see that in a minute
now
we're starting to try to understand what utterances, sentences and propositions do have in common and
what is
What differentiates these three concepts and why they are important?
Let me start
with
My last statement. Why are they important? Why this differentiation is important
it is important because it has to do with the different levels of abstractions at which we codify things in language
utterances
are, as I have written there, real piece of a speech that can be produced and heard
Let me go back to the previous example, Jim knows about
Possible snakes in the trail
But
If I say John knows about possible snakes in the trail. I'm doing something with my the tone of my voice
So intonation and loudness are important aspects in the configuration of utterances and
Utterances may not be grammatical for example if I say
John knows
about
Snakes in the trail or John knows about snakes in the trail?
This is a question and it's not a proper English grammar
question sentence it's not that but it's still perfectly clear with my voice tone that
Making a question even it is not a grammatical question
and then
Utterances are very real and concrete physical objects
For example this talk that I'm giving now
it's been taped and it's been recorded and
and it's made up of
Voice waves of this physical support that makes sounds
Become
Pieces of information that can be transmitted, so they are very
real and very concrete physical objects
because of that they can be recorded and they can be represented in many ways and because of this because of the physical background of
Utterances the utterances that make my talk today
You can hear that out of there wherever you were you?
might be in America or
in the faculty next door
well
Let's move down to or move up to sentences, sentences are not physical objects
that's the main thing a sentence is an abstraction and
It can only be understood if you understand it as an abstraction
It can be defined as string of words that are put together by the grammatical rules of a language
so
if I made a question out of an affirmative
Sentence
in my previous example
It was not a question. It was not an interrogative sentence
So it was not grammatical, but it was still
a
Question that could be understand such
Sentences then can be idealized and thus represented in the
Normal pattern of an affirmative sentence in English is S, V, IO, DO that is
Subject verb indirect object and direct object so in that example. I bought him this shoes
This is a grammatical sentence
But the next one I bought the shoes him is not a grammatical sentence
And it's not because I've changed the word order the canonical word order in English is S, V, IO, DO
Which the one with a little
Star on it asterisk on it is not a grammatical
English
Sentence and because of that. This is not a sentence and this is the
main basic characteristic of sentences there are
Languages were word orders not important
Because the marking of the different roles that words
Play are marked differently for example German
And
With which are heavy
morphologically marked or even Spanish
where
The endings show
many things about the verbs just for example who say what but is the subject marking of the subject in Spanish?
is
Morphologically marked so then word order is not that important in Spanish, but in English were
morphology is
less
Complex let me put it this way word order is absolutely essential
Then we are moving into the concept of propositions a
Proposition is a tricky
Concept and it also has to do with the idea of predication
First of all the most important or the first most basic thing is that the proposition can be
described as
That part of the meaning of an utterance of a declarative sentence
Which describes and state of thirst, what does this mean?
Well this means that
The skeleton of a sentence is a proposition
But what skeleton?
The drawing of a skeleton
Halloween drawing no no the logical skeleton of a sentence and
how the
skeleton of a sentence is constructed
It's made up of
two other things
entities and the relations that
Link them. Let me say a few things about entities and relations
We human beings or even apparently
zoologists and
anthropologists in the same way that they say that animals can also communicate and they can also
conceptualize
Share with us this capacity to identify entities and identify
The way they are related for example I can identify
This keyboard in front of me or this screen in front of me
or
This mouse here. They are very clear
easily identifiable
Physical objects
But can I can also identify something less concrete as an entity such as for example
hate
or fear
if I say
That a child is being
Threatened by say a dog I can feel
His fear in this situation he's afraid of the barking dog
barking dog or
A snake or something and I can see in the child's face fear, so fear is
also an entity is an state of mind is a
state of
So-called animical state or a psychological situation, but fear could be defined as an entity
Understanding
understanding could be could be a
noun an ing noun and is the process of grasping something and
I can't say that the word understanding
represents an entity a very abstract entity
So from the ontological point of view all that there is in the world
around us or
Connected to us could be first of all identify as an entity or as a relation in logical terms
In logical terms
We call predicates
Those relations among entities
And we call
Arguments the entities that they take part in that relation. Let me give you a few examples
If I say one of the previous examples about John and the snake
Elaborating on that one John saw snake
Then we have two entities John and the snake and John and the snake
Are related why the predicate the
or relation that links them
Which is three John saw the snake or John killed the snake or John was afraid of a snake
so
John and the snake are clearly identifiable entities and whatever happens between
John and the snake is a relation this relation can also be
called or defining logical terms as a predicate and
John and the snake can also be
described as the arguments of the
predicate
and then
We have
Another important thing to say about predicates an argument
Which is that
a proposition has to do with the concept of predicates structure the predicate structure is just a predicate
that links or
relates in two entities or two arguments
And it also has to do with the idea of valance
I'll move back to the concept of valance. Let me go down to how
can a
predicate be represented in mathematical terms a predicate of X and then X Y is just a
mathematical relation with the function X
Relates two entities X and Y so in our previous example
Being afraid off
Could be the function that relates John
That could be X and relates X that could be a snake
so
Let me tell you that this also has to do with the idea of valance
linguists
took from
mathematicians and most of all from physicians
From the physicians of the atom the idea of valance, you probably remember from the years when you study
basic
Natural Sciences
physics if you want a little bit further into those studies
but
an atom is made up of
Electrons and protons and that electrons are the little round
balls that make up the nucleus of the atom
Whereas the electrons spin around
the core or the nucleus of the
atom
And for example apparently the atom of oxygen has two electrons and two protons
The thing is that there cannot be more protons
Sorry more electrons than there are protons that must be the same number of protons in all atoms
Than electrons so and that's the valance of the atom so
Oxygen has valance two because apparently it has two protons and two electrons
I'm not a physician
So if I made a mistake you will forgive me and those of you who know probably much more physics and probably much more chemistry than me
Will understand that I might have made a mistake
But the thing is that the concept of valance was
Adopted in linguistics and most of all in the area of logic when we can say that for example
the
Verb take
Has valance two someone takes something and
Someone and something are
The two elements or the two entities
or the two arguments but
Are linked or are related in the predicate
take
So take has valence - so that's the bottom line that
the idea of valence was applied it was taken into the field of
Linguistics and logical linguistics and that
Every verb has a certain valence, which is the number of
arguments that a predicate a certain predicate can take
And this as you probably
Learn later in your syntax course has also to do with the idea of transitivity
the number of arguments that the predicate can take
Has to do with whether a verb is or is not a transitive verb, but that's another story
So to sum up
We can study these three concepts at different levels of
abstractions if we want to analyze certain basic concepts in linguistics and in semantics which are
the differences between the units of analysis that are
Utterances, sentences and propositions if we go from the bottom on we jump up to more abstract
Ideas we start with utterances, utterances as we've said before are very concrete
physical
Objects and because of that they can be taped they can be recorded and it can be transmitted
and the other hand sentences are
fairly abstract
are
linked to the language in which they are expressed and
The main or most important feature is that they
Follow the grammar rules of the language in which they are
Expressed and then we climb up
to the most abstract
Level we get to propositions and
propositions as I've just explained are made up of
predicates and arguments
But that's very very abstract
That's the logical skeleton of sentences
But if we go from top from the top to the bottom. We can see that the skeleton of
sentences are
propositions
but the skeleton of utterances are
sentences on the most basic thing and the most complex thing are
utterances
Right let's move on to three more
Difficult concepts in semantics the concepts of denotation, sense and reference
I'll be dealing with denotation first
As it's in bold and green in and this slide
Then we'll move into sense and then we'll end up with the idea of reference
denotation is
Important because it has to do with
The classes of entities that we can identify
For example
if I am saying that this room has
a lot of furniture and a lot of
Electronic equipment for example I have in front of me
one two three four five screens
and
one two three four five screens and
a keyboard probably another keyboard over there a few more machines that I don't know what they are used for and
shelf and
more triky and
indistinguishable for me equipment there, and I can say this is furniture
Do we agree that screens and lamps and keyboards are furniture?
But what about other items that we have here in this room? there's a table
There's a stool. I'm sitting on there's a chair. There's another chair. There's a desk in front of me and all these things
are a class of
entities
that I used to
Move around and to place a human body or to relate with a human body
Me as a person
I'm using two of those pieces of furniture a table and stool and sitting on there are two more chairs
and
There's a desk in front of me
A couple of more stools there. These are furniture
Animals we can name
endless
animals like cats, dogs, tigers, snakes
Amoebas you name them, but the thing is that the word snake
Denotes an
abstraction
Which is the denotation of the word animal then the would hate
Money cats dogs. Etc is the so-called denotation and this denotation is
What
Allows us to
communicate
For example going back to the previous example
about John and the snake
If I say John is aware of snakes in the trail
then
The listener and me as a speaker we both share
the denotation of snake
and because of this
me and
The person listening to me
Can be relaxed about the potential dangers that John may risk if he goes alone on the trail and
He comes up with a huge Cobra our future boa constrictor
so
denotation has to do again with
classes of entities, but denotation is
abstracted
and
This is why denotation is related to the idea of abstraction on it is related to the idea of cognition
Because we use the words of a language to speak in general terms about
these entities such as snakes or cars and
because
Words denote we understand someone saying she hates car or dogs are not allowed in this restaurant or I love skiing
and
This is because we are using
this denotation capacity of words to mean something abstract or very general that we all share I
mean
We all share in this particular language in this case English but
Spanish words can also denote obviously denotation is
an interlinguistic capacity and
The important thing is that because of this capacity of words to denote
We can acquire and we can organize
knowledge, and this is what children are doing when they learn to speak and
Imagine that if you have ever
experienced
8 months baby that is trying to organize the world and
It's probably
Addressing with the same string of sounds his car toy
or the doggy
because both things can move
Later on that baby will learn that there are that movement on their own and the things that can need to be pushed
If you want to move it like the car toy
But somehow his world is organized around
moving things or things either move by themselves or can be moved
so
Children organized the world, thanks to this denoting capacity of the human mind
Then the next concept that has proved difficult
In several semantics courses that I've been teaching on all these years is the concept of sense
Here
There's there's a little bit of discrepancy among linguists
but in this semantics course restricted to Lyons and restricted to
Said
on both Lyons and Said agree
That sense has to do with the organization of the words in language
And it has to do with the semantic links between words in a language in this case English
so
a word does not mean the same in a certain company of other words and
This is because there are different
senses that a word may have and we'll go back to this when we study the
Different semantic relations that we can find in language such as [not understandable] polysemy
Etc
and this is why we talk about sense relations in semantics because
senses are important and
They have to do with a linguistic context in which they appear the company of the words they
they go with it etc
and finally the idea of reference is also important
Reference can be defined as the person the state of affairs or the object
concrete or abstract that expression points to the
Identification is the key issue of the concept of reference we use reference to
Identify to single out if we compare these two examples
if I'm referring to someone playing this idiot or
Lucie's boyfriend
If me and my friend are talking about John then John
Could be related to this idiot or to Lucie's boyfriend
It's very clear that
neither
The person I'm talking to or myself
like John very much
so but
John can be addressed either as the idiot, or as Lucie's boyfriend
but if we understand each other
We know that we are referring to
John in both cases either when we are calling him this idiot or when we are saying that he was Lucie's boyfriend
Another very classical example is the president of a country
the president of Spain
head of the government in Britain or whatever that depends very much on
The year we were talking about it because a head of Spanish government is not the same now that it was ten years ago
Neither it is in in any democratic country well
heads of the government changes every four or five years so
President of the USA in
2013
and the head of the US Army the
Both referring to the same person to Mr.
Obama, but they have a total different sense in the second case if we
Listen to
news or to ten o'clock news
and we hear about the head of the US Army has declared or has ordered the troops
Back to
to Afghanistan
Then it has a different sense because Mr. Obama is acting as the head of the US Army
Whereas if we only say the President of USA in
In 2015 we immediately know that we are talking about Mr. Obama
The example that
Is part of an exercise in lesson two is
The last one I put in there, He was run over by a bus in Donnybrook
Edward opened a cupboard, the cupboard and a pair of shoes fell out in the first case
a bus
Is a non referential
Sentence because it could have been any bus
But in the case of the second example Edward opened the cupboard and a pair of shoes fell out
the
Indeterminate article is not
a mark for
a non reference identification
Because the important thing is that the cupboard is making the following a pair of shoes
determine or
With a very clear reference is a pair of shoes what felt out and not a piece of clothing or a hat
So a pair of shoes in this last case is
referential whereas a bus is
Non referential it's not explained in the book, but it's very clear. If you think a little bit about it
And that's all for today, thank you very much being there