Semantics

Key Notions

The starting point of this entry is the notion of meaning. Meanings can be understood as the information that speakers know when they can successfully use words in communication. Since speakers of a language can share similar intuitions about meanings, it is possible to explicitly record these meanings in dictionaries, along with the pronunciation, syntactic category, central uses of a word, and so on. Dictionaries define the meanings of words, aiming to paraphrase what meaning a word conveys. For instance, the Oxford Dictionary of English defines the central meaning of the common noun cat as describing a small, domestic, carnivorous mammal with a soft fur, which can also have a short snout and usually retractile claws. This definition rests on the definitions of other words, such as animal and carnivorous, and how these words combine together to capture the meaning of the word cat. The parts of meaning making up a definition are known as semantic features, necessary and sufficient conditions under which the meaning of word can individuate entities in the world. If carnivorous, mammal,and the other words constituting the definition of the word cat each capture a feature making up its meaning, then by knowing the meaning of cat one can assess whether a given pet, for example, named Pinky, is a cat or not.

Definitions list the features that constitute meanings. When the features from a list are combined into a compound individuation principle, they form the sense or intention of a word. Thus, [Page 1686]the features in the cat definition can be jointly used as conditions that individuate a small, domesticated, carnivorous animal: a cat. Any entity that a sense can individuate is defined as a referent; the act, as an act of reference. Acts of reference are best illustrated by discussing definite noun phrases (e.g., the cat) and proper names (e.g., the pet named Pinky). These expressions usually find referents in an extralinguistic or external context, the conversational situation in which speakers can share information. However, reference acts are only successful when participants in a conversation agree upon the referents of referring expressions. One example can involve a context in which two cats, called Pinky and Blinky, are sitting on the sofa. A speaker may use any or all of the three below sentences to describe this scenario:

• 1.
  Pinky is on the sofa.
• 2.
  The cats are on the sofa.
• 3.
  The cat on the sofa.

Hence, (1) can successfully describe this scenario since Pinky refers to one of the two cats. The plural definite noun phrase in (2) can also be used to successfully refer to Pinky and Blinky, taken as a pair of cats. The cat, however, in (3) can be used to refer to either Pinky or Blinky. This third use may create a form of misunderstanding between the speaker and the receiver of the sentence because the act of reference fails, as the participants in the conversation fail to agree on referent of this definite noun phrase.

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