(Definitions and Discourse)

Semantics is the study of meaning in Language, and the aim of the serious semanticists is to explain and clarify the nature of meaning. The word `mean' can be applied in roughly the sense of `intend', and it can be applied to words and sentences in a different sense, roughly expressed as `to be equivalent to'. It must be kept in mind whether we are talking about what speakers mean or what words (or sentences) mean. Thus: Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (intends to convey) when he uses a piece of language. Sentence meaning (word meaning) is what a sentence or word means i.e. what it counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned.

Theory of Semantics: A theory is a precisely specified, coherent, and economical framework of interdependent statements and definitions, constructed so that as large a number as possible of particular basic facts can either be seen to follow from it or be describable in terms of it.

No theory is perfect or complete. Doing semantics is largely a matter of conceptual analysis, exploring the nature of meaning in a carefully and thoughtful way, using a wide range of examples drawn from our knowledge. Ideas offered have to be met with critical attitude.

Proposition, Sentence, Utterance, Token, Predicator, Argument:
A Proposition: is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs. The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to be expressions in the sentence. In uttering a declarative sentence a speaker typically asserts a proposition.

The notion of truth can be used to decide whether two sentences express different propositions. In circumstances, conceivable, where one sentence is true and the other is false they express different propositions. Propos correspond to facts. False prop do not. Believing, thinking is propo in the mind. Only true propo can be known.

propos are involved in the meaning of other types of sentences (non-declarative). In interrogatives, imperatives, a speaker can mention a particular prop without asserting its truth. Corresponding declarative and interrogatives and imperatives have the same prepositional content.A prop is an abstraction that can be grasped by the mind of an individual person, i.e. an object of thought although both are not equitable. A thought is a process; a prop is not.

Roughly, a proposition corresponds to a complete independent thought.
The relationship between mental processes (thoughts), abstract semantic entities (prop) linguistic entities (sentences) and actions (utterances) is problematic and complicated.

A SENTENCE is neither a physical event nor physical object. It is a conceived abstraction (conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rule of a language. A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances and inscriptions. Also Accent and voice quality belong strictly to the utterance, not to the sentence uttered.

Traditionally: "A sentence is grammatically complete string of words expressing complete thought."
(Problem): spoken that means books have sentences while speakers have utterances. Anything written between double quotation marks represents and utterance).
Note: Any change in the words, or in their order, makes a different sentence: Helen rolled up the carpet; Helen rolled the carpet up.

An UTTERANCE is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that person. (Meaning is not involved) and an UTTERANCE is the USE by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a singly word. An utterance is a physical event.
Token: Not all utterances are tokens of sentences, but sometimes of parts of sentences e.g. phrases or even single words. People do not converse wholly in (tokens of) well-formed sentences, but the abstract idea of a sentence is the basis for understanding even those expressions. Proposition = sentence = utterance.

Summing up: An utterance is tied to a particular time and place. A sentence is not. A prop can be said to be in any particular language. An utterance and a sentence can be true or false.

Sense and Reference: There are two distinct ways of talking about the meaning of words and other expressions. In talking of SENSE we deal with relationships inside the language. In talking of REFERENCE we deal with the relationships between language and the world. By reference a speaker indicates which things (and persons) in the world are being talked about: My son (refers to a person) is in the house (identifies thing). This page (this language, page, etc).
Constant reference: the moon, Angola. Two different expressions can have the same referent. The Morning Star, the Evening Star (Planet Venus). Sense: The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language. The first is sameness of meaning, an intuitive concept (almost, nearly, likely, probable, vertical, upright). Sense also applies to expressions (phrases and sentences: took etc off and took off etc.) Word here is word form. Anything spelled with the same sequence of letters and pronounced with the same sequence of phonemes in a standard dialect as being the same word: bank.

The referent of an expression is often a thing or a person in the world whereas 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). You can't say what it is but you can say whether or not two expressions have the same sense. Words that do not refer to anything almost, probable, yes, no, and, if. In dictionaries you find expressions with the same sense. The "sense" of the following expression is a propo: This is the house that Jack built.

SPEECH ACT THEORY
Modern speech theories were developed by J.L. Austin. Also by J. Searle "What Is a Speech act?"
The distinction between act and speech is a misleading oversimplification. Speech is action, and language actually can be used to do things. When a speaker makes an utterance containing a referring expression he carries out an act of referring.
Act of asserting or stating: This is an act carried out when a speaker utters a declarative sentence (which can be either true or false), and undertakes a certain responsibility, or commitment, to the hearer, that a particular state of affairs, or situation, exists in the world. Simon is in the kitchen. In real world both Simon and kitchen exist.
There prevailed once among semanticists the assumption that the purpose of making assertions is to describe some state of affairs. This is the Descriptive Fallacy, which is the view that the sole purpose of making assertions is to describe some state of affairs.

This is not a wholly wrong view for description is involved in much utterance, but description is not indulged in only for its own sake, as there is a more basic purpose behind it. Example: There is a wasp over your head. Take action. This also mentions, or implies actions, warning, shocking, complaining, apologizing, insulting etc. A large number of acts cab be performed either by means of an utterance or by some other means. So an assertive utterance does not merely describe some state of affairs but also carry out acts.

Other acts are:

• a) Performative utterance is one that actually describes the act that it performs, i.e. it performs some act simultaneously describes that act. I promise to repay you tomorrow. Contrast "He promised to repay the money" here there is description of a promise but not act.
• b) Verb, performative: a performative verb is one which, when used in a simple positive present tense sentence, with a 1st person singular subject, can make the utterance of that sentence performative. (I warn you not to kiss my wife.)
• c) Constative an utterance is one, which makes an assertion (i.e. it is often the utterance of a declarative sentence) but is not performative: I am trying to repay the money. In: I believe in love (constative), I admit my guilt (performative - act of admitting). Also I congratulate, I sentence you, I authorise.

FELICITY CONDITIONS
Utterances can be seen as significant acts on a social level involving accusations, confessions, denials, greetings etc. The question is what sort of system do speakers employ as to know when such social moves are appropriate. I.e. in what circumstances are elocutions used. The technical notion of felicity condition needs to be introduced to give a plausible answer to this question. Felicity conditions: the felicity conditions of an elocutionary act are conditions that must be fulfilled in the situation in which the act is carried out if the act is to be said to be carried out properly, or felicitously.
On of the conditions for the elocutionary act of ordering is that the speaker must be superior to, or in authority over, the hearer. Open the door. If the servant would say there would be infelicity in the act.
For accusing, the felicity condition is that the property attributed to the accused is wrong in some way:

Promising: 1) S must intend to carry out the promised thing. 2) The promised thing must be something the hearer wants to happen. Apologizing: S must be responsible for the thing apologized for, the thing apologized for must be (have been) unavoidable.

The notion of truth: Truth conditions are those that must be satisfied by the world if an utterance (declarative sentence) is true. In There is a cat on the table, this is true if in the world at the time of the utterance thee actually is a table with a cat on it. Felicity conditions are those that must be satisfied by the world if an elocutionary act is felicitous or appropriate.

PERLOCUTIONS AND ELOCUTION
Perlocutionary Act: (PERLOCUTION) carried out by a speaker making an utterance is the act of causing a certain effect on the hearer and others. There is a wasp over your head. Panic etc is the perlocution of my utterance, or the perlocutionary act I perform by making that utterance- i.e. causing a change to be brought about.

The elocutionary act carried out by a speaker making an utterance is the act viewed in terms of the utterance's significance within a conventional system of social inter-action. Elocutions are acts defined by social conventions, acts such as accosting, accusing, admitting, apologizing, challenging, complaining, condoling, congratulating, declining, deploring, giving permission, giving way, greeting, leave taking, mocking, naming, offering, praising, promising, proposing marriage, protesting, recommending, surrendering, thanking, toasting. "I'm grateful to you for this service" is performing the elocutionary act of thanking.

Generally, the elocutionary act inherent in an utterance is intended by the speaker is under his full control, but not perlocutionary act. Addressing someone is elocutionary because it is something the speaker can decide for himself to do. The hearer cannot decide whether to be addressed or not.

Phonic act involved in an utterance is the physical act of making certain vocal sounds.

Prepositional: act involved in an utterance consists in the mental acts of referring (to certain objects or people in the world) and of predicating, (i.e. coupling predicates to referring expressions).

Act: Commissive: a commissive act is any elocutionary act, which essentially involves the speaker committing himself to behave in some required way.

Act: directive: a directive act is an elocutionary act, which essentially involves the speaker trying to get the hearer to behave in some required way.

Agent: the agent of a sentence is the person deliberately carrying out the action described. E.g. John opened the door.

Affected participant: the affected participant is the thing (not usually a person, although it may be) upon which the action is carried out, in many cases the thing changed by the action in the most obvious way, the door in our example.

Beneficiary: the beneficiary is the person for whose benefit or to whose detriment the action described by a sentence is carried out. It is usually assumed the beneficiary, if mentioned, is distinct from both the agent and the affected.
Ambiguity, lexical: any ambiguity resulting from the ambiguity of a word is a lexical ambiguity.

Ambiguous: a word or a sentence is ambiguous when it has more than one sense. A sentence is ambiguous if it has two (or more) paraphrases, which are not themselves, paraphrases of each other.

Ambiguous, structurally (or grammatically): a sentence which is ambiguous because its words relate to each other in different ways, even though none of the individual words are ambiguous, is structurally (or grammatically) ambiguous.
Anomaly: anomaly is semantic oddness (as opposed to grammatical oddness) that can be traced to the meanings of the predicates in the sentence concerned. Thus Christopher is killing phonemes is anomalous because the meanings of the predicates kill and phoneme cannot be combined in this way. Anomaly involves the violation of a selectional restriction.
Antonyms, binary: binary antonyms are predicates that come in pairs and between them exhaust all the relevant possibilities. If one predicate inapplicable, then the other cannot, and vice versa.

Antonyms, gradable: two predicates are gradable antonyms if they are at opposite ends of a continuous scale of values (scale which typically varies according to the context of use).

Causative: a causative form denotes an action that causes something to happen.

Compositionality: the thesis of compositionality of is that the meaning of an expression is a function of the meanings of the parts of which it is composed.

Condition, Necessary: a necessary condition on the sense of a predicate is a condition (or criterion) which a thing must meet in order to qualify as being correctly described by the predicate.

Conditions, sufficient set of: a sufficient set of conditions on the sense of a predicate is a set of conditions (or criteria) which, if they are met by a thing, are enough in themselves to guarantee that the predicate correctly describes that thing.
Content, propositional: the prepositional content of a directive elocution can be expressed by a declarative sentence describing the action that the speaker requires of the hearer.

Content, prepositional (commissive elocution): the prepositional content of a commissive elocution can be expressed by a declarative sentence describing the action that the speaker undertakes to perform.
Context: the context of an utterance is a small subpart of the universe of discourse shared by the speaker and hearer, and includes facts about the topic of the conversation in which the utterance occurs, and also facts about the situation in which the conversation itself takes place.

Context, opaque: opaque context is a part of a sentence which could be made into a complete sentence by the addition of a referring expressions, even though they refer to the same thing or person, in a given situation, will yield sentence with different meanings when uttered in a given situation.

Contradiction: a contradiction is a sentence that is necessarily false, as a result of the senses of the worlds in it. Thus a contradiction is in a way the opposite of an analytic sentence.

Contradiction: contradiction is most centrally a logical term. The basic form of a logical contradiction is P & ~P. Anything that is clearly an instance of this basic logical contradiction e.g.John is here and John is not here, can be called a contradiction.

Contradictory: a proposition is a contradictory of another proposition if it is impossible for them both to be true at the same time and the same circumstances. The definition can usually be extended to sentences thus: a sentence expressing another proposition if it is impossible for both propositions to be true at the same time and of the same circumstances. Alternatively (or equivalently) a sentence contradicts another sentence if it entails the negation of the other sentence.
Converses: if a predicate describes a relationship between two things (or people) and some other predicate describes the same relationship when the two things (or people) are mentioned in the opposite order, then the two predicates are converses of each other.

Definiteness: definiteness is a feature of a noun phrase selected by a speaker to convey his assumption that the hearer will be able to identify the referent of the noun phrase, usually because it is the only thing of its kind in the contest of the utterance, or because its unique in the universe of discourse.

Deictic: a deictic word is one which takes some element of it's meaning from the situation (i.e. the speaker, the addressee, the time and the place) of the utterance in which it's used.

Derivation: derivation is the process of forming new words according to a "fairly" regular pattern on the basis of pre-existing words.

Derivational process, productive: a derivational process is completely productive if it can be used to produce an existing derived word from every appropriate source word.

Dictionary: a dictionary describes the senses of predicates.

Encyclopaedia: an encyclopaedia contains factual information of a variety of types, but generally no information specifically on the meanings of words.

Entail: a proposition X entails a proposition y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from the truth of X. We extend this basic definition in terms of propositions to cover sentences in the following way. A sentence expressing proposition X entails a sentence expressing proposition Y entails a sentence expressing proposition Y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from the truth of X.

Extension: the extension of a one-place predicate is the set of all individuals to which that predicate can truthfully be applied. It is the set of things that can be potentially be referred to by using an expression whose main element is that predicate.

Extension: the extension of a predicate is the complete set of all things which could potentially (i.e. in any possible utterance) be the referent of a referring expression whose head constituent is that predicate.
Homonymy: a case of homonymy is one of ambiguous words, whose different senses are far apart from each other and not obviously related to each other in any way. Cases of homonymy seen very definitely to be matters of mere accident or coincidence.

Hyponymy: we define hyponymy in such a way that synonymy counts as a special case of hyponymy. Thus synonymy can be seen as a special case of hyponymy i.e.symmetrical hyponymy.

Hyponymy: hyponymy is a sense relation between predicates (or sometimes longer phrases) such that the meaning of one predicate (or phrase) is included in the meaning of the other.
Elocution: elocutionary act.

Elocution, direct: the direct elocution of an utterance is the elocution most directly indicated by a literal reading of the grammatical form and vocabulary of the sentence uttered.

Elocution, indirect: the indirect elocution of an utterance is any further elocution the utterance may have.

Implicature, canceled: an implicature of one part of an utterance is said to be cancelled when another part of the utterance or a following utterance explicitly cancelled by the assertion in the second half of the utterance.

Inchoative: an inchoative form denotes the beginning, or coming into existence, of some state.

Inference: an inference is any conclusion that one is reasonably entitled to draw from a sentence or utterance.
Instrument: the instrument is the thing (hardly ever a person) by means of which the action is carried out; the key in the sentence John opened the door.

Location: the role of location is played by any expression referring to the place where the action described by a sentence takes place.
Logic: logic deals with meanings in a language system, not with actual behaviour of any sort. Logic deals most centrally with propositions. The terms 'logic' and ' logical' do not apply directly to utterances (which are instances of behaviour).
Meaning, sentence: sentence meaning is what a sentence means, regardless of the context and situation in which it may be used.

Meaning, utterance: utterance meaning is what a speaker means when he makes an utterance in a particular situation.
Postulate, meaning: a meaning postulates is a formula expressing some aspect of the sense of a predicate. It can be read as a proposition necessarily true by virtue of the meaning of the particular predicates involved.
Proposition, simple: every simple proposition is representable by a single Predicator, drawn from the predicates in the language, and a number of arguments, drawn from the names in the language. This implies, among other things, that no formula for a simple proposition can have two (or more) predicators, and it cannot have anything that is neither a predicate nor a name.

Paraphrase: Sentences that express the proposition as another sentence is a paraphrase of that sentence (assuming the same referent for any referring expressions involved). Paraphrase to sentence (on individual interpretation) as synonymy is to predicates.

Paraphrases: two sentences may be said to be paraphrases of each other if and only if they have exactly the same set of entailments, or which comes to the same thing, if and only if they mutually entail each other so that whenever one is true the other must also be true.Polysemy: A case of polysemy is one where a word has several very closely related senses.

Predicate, generic: a generic sentence is a sentence in which some statement is made about a whole unrestricted class of individuals, as opposed to any particular individual.

Predicator: the predicator of a simple declarative sentence is the word (sometimes a group of words) which does not belong to any of the referring expressions and which, of the remainder, makes the most specific contribution to the meaning of the sentence.

Predicate, symmetric: given a two-place predicate P, if, for any pair of referring expressions X and Y, the sentence entails the sentence YXP, then P is symmetric.

Predicate, asymmetric: given a two-place predicate P, if the sentence XPY is a contradictory of YPX, then P is an asymmetric predicate.

Predicate, reflexive: given a two-place predicate P, if any single referring expression X (or for any pair of referring expression X and Y, which have the same referent e.g. John and himself), the sentence XPX (or the sentence XPY) is analytic, then P is a reflexive predicate.

Predicate, irreflexive: given a two-place predicate P, if for any expression X (or for any pair of referring expressions X and Y which have the same referent, e.g. John and himself) the sentence XPY (or the sentence XPY) is a contradiction, then P is an irreflexive predicate.

Predicate, transitive: given a two-place predicate P, for any trio of referring expressions X, Y, and Z, the compound sentence XPY and YPZ entails the sentence XPZ, then P is transitive.

Predicate, intransitive: given a two-place predicate P, if for any trio of referring expressions X, Y and Z, the compound sentence XPY and YPZ is a contradictory of XPZ, then P is intransitive.

Proposition: a proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs.

Prototype: a prototype of a predicate is an object that is held to be very typical of the kind of object that can be referred to by an expression containing the predicate.

Prototype: a prototype of a predicate is a typical member of its extension.

Reference: by means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about.

Referent: the referent of a referring expression is the thing picked out by the use of that expression on a particular occasion of utterance.

Referentially versatile: a phrase is referentially versatile if it can be used to refer to a wide range of different things or persons.

Referring expression: a referring expression is any expression used in an utterance to refer to something or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or people), i.e. used with a particular referent in mind.

Relation, equivalence: any relation expressed by a predicate that is reflexive, symmetric and transitive is called an equivalence relation.

Resultative: a resultative form denotes a state resulting from some action.

Sense: the sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expression in the language.
Sense: the sense of an expression is its indispensable hard core of meaning.

Sentence, equative: an equative sentence is one that is used to assert the identity of the referents of two referring expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have the same referent.

Sentence, synthetic: a synthetic sentence is one that is not analytic, but may be either true or false, depending on the way the world is.

Sentence meaning (or word meaning): sentence meaning (or word meaning) is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e. what it counts as the equivalent in the language concerned.

Sentence: a sentence is neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in utterances and inscriptions.
Sentence: a sentence is a grammatically complete string of words expressing a complete thought.

Sentence, analytic: an analytic sentence is one that necessarily true, as a result of the senses of the words in it. An analytic sentence, therefore, reflects a tacit agreement by the speakers of the language about the senses of the words in it.Sincerity condition: a sincerity condition on an elocutionary is a condition that must be fulfilled if the act to be carried out sincerely, but failure to meet such a condition does not prevent the carrying out of the act altogether.Speaker meaning: speaker meaning is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he uses a piece of language.
Stereotype: the stereotype of a predicate is a list of the typical characteristics of things to which the predicate may be applied.

Suppletion: suppletion is a process whereby, in irregular and idiosyncratic cases, substitution of a morphologically unrelated form is associated with the specific semantic and/or syntactic processes normally accompanying a morphological process.

Synonymy: a synonymy is the relationship between two predicates that have the same sense.

Theory: a theory is a precisely specified, coherent, and economical framework of interdependent statements and definitions, constructed so that as large a number as possible of particular basic facts can either be seen to follow from it or to be describable in terms of it.

True: if when a proposition A is true, a proposition B must therefore be true, then proposition A entails proposition B.
Universe of Discourse: the universe of discourse for any utterance is the particular world, real or imaginary, (or part real, part imaginary) that the speaker assumes he is talking about at the time.

Utterance: an utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is silence on the part of that person. An utterance is the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even a single word.