JOSE E. ROJAS C.

1. INDEXICALITY
An indexical is, roughly speaking, a linguistic expression whose reference can shift
from context to context. For example, the indexical ‘you’ may refer to one person in
one context and to another person in another context. Other paradigmatic
examples of indexically are ‘I’, ‘here’, ‘today’, ‘yesterday’, ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘that’. Two
speakers who utter a single sentence that contains an indexical may say different
things. For instance, when both John and Mary utter ‘I am hungry’, Mary says that
she is hungry, whereas John says that he is hungry. Many philosophers hold that
indexicals have two sorts of meaning. The first sort of meaning is often called
‘linguistic meaning’ or ‘character’ (the latter term is due to David Kaplan, 1989a).
The second sort of meaning is often called ‘content’. Using this terminology, we can
say that every indexical has a single unvarying character, but may vary in content
from context to context.

Philosophers have several reasons for being interested in indexically. First, some
wish to describe their meanings and fit them into a general semantic theory.
Second, some wish to understand the logic of arguments containing indexically,
such as Descartes’s Cogito argument. Third, some think that reflection on
indexically may give them some insight into the nature of belief, self-knowledge,
first-person perspective, consciousness, and other important philosophical matters.

1.1. What is an example of indexicality in language?

paradigmatic examples of indexically are expressions 'I', 'you', 'here', 'now',
'today', 'tomorrow'. For example, the sentence 'I will call you tomorrow' does
not seem to express anything on its own. It only expresses a specific
content when it is used by a speaker addressing a hearer on a particular
day.

1.2. how is it related indexicality to semantics?

In semiotics, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy of language,
indexicality is the phenomenon of a sign pointing to (or indexing) some
element in the context in which it occurs. A sign that signifies indexically is
called an index or, in philosophy, an indexical.

The modern concept originates in the semiotic theory of Charles Sanders

Peirce, in which indexicality is one of the three fundamental sign modalities
by which a sign relates to its referent (the others being iconicity and
symbolism). Peirce's concept has been adopted and extended by several
twentieth-century academic traditions, including those of linguistic
pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and Anglo-American philosophy of
language.

Words and expressions in language often derive some part of their

referential meaning from indexicality. For example, I indexically refers to the
entity that is speaking; now indexically refers to a time frame including the
moment at which the word is spoken; and here indexically refers to a
locational frame including the place where the word is spoken. Linguistic
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expressions that refer indexically are known as deictics, which thus form a
particular subclass of indexical signs, though there is some terminological
variation among scholarly traditions.

2. REFERENTIALITY
Referentiality designates the condition, quality or state of being referential in the
sense of indicating an object by means of a sign.
1) In the philosophy of language, linguistics, semiotics, and literary criticism, the
term ‘referentiality’ is used to delimit the phenomenon of meaning and to explain
the relation between language and an extralinguistic object or state of affairs. It
is applied to conceptualize various forms of how words and texts generate meaning
by referring to ‘the world’, to concepts, and to other texts.
2) The compound term ‘self-referential’ is applied when a statement, text, or
artwork refers to itself.

2.1. EXAMPLES
 Many hip-hop songs are referential, using samples of other songs,
mentioning them, or quoting them. Your experimental poetry is referential, if
it points directly or more subtly to sources and influences like Shakespeare
and Britney Spears and Dr. Seuss.
 yet another way to use self-reference to prove the existence of Santa is via
the self-referential sentence S“: “If Santa Claus doesn't exist, then this
sentence is not true.” I'll leave it to you to check the details. These last two
sentences, S' and S“, are what logicians call contrapositives of one another.

2.2. how is it related referentiality to semantics?

Semantic referentiality, pertaining to the semantics of expressions of certain
grammatical categories, is defined in terms of pointing to some existent entity in a
model of discourse, whereas pragmatic referentiality pertains to language use, and
is defined crucially in terms of context-dependency and speaker's intention and
cognitive status over and above semantics. A discourse thematic referential
expression is regarded to be one high in thematic importance, which pertains to the
purpose of performance of the referring function in discourse.

3. NON-REFERENTIALITY
Non-referring concepts are mental representations of nonexistent things like
dragons and time machines. Non-referring words are the words that express those
concepts. In reference-based approaches to formal semantics, there is a well-
known puzzle about how non-referring words and concepts get their meanings. The
default solution is that they are special cases, with a different semantic structure
from their referring counterparts. Despite over a century of debate in formal
semantics, the issue of non-reference has, until now, been ignored in the
psychological literature on concepts. But it is not obvious in advance what the
psychological structure and processing of nonreferring concepts will be like.
Furthermore, experimental evidence about non-referring concepts can help resolve
issues fundamental to both semantics and psychology, such as the nature of
meaning, the nature of concepts, and the debate over representational externalism.
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3.1. Why Are Non-Referring Concepts Interesting?

This dissertation examines the psychological structure and processing of
naturally occurring non-referring concepts. By “naturally occurring”, I mean
those concepts that are formed over a long period of time, usually starting
in childhood, through natural interactions with the physical and social
environment. Naturally occurring concepts, like FURNITURE, MONSTER,
TREE, DRAGON, and so on, are already integrated into the conceptual
repertoire that adult experimental participants bring with them to the artificial
environment of the lab. They have not been created for experimental
purposes, and in that sense they are naturally occurring. To date, no
experimental work has been done regarding these natural non-referring
concepts, and thus the questions addressed in this dissertation should be of
considerable interest to linguists, philosophers, and psychologists alike.

4. AMBIGUITY
Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not
explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of
ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose
intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved, according to a rule or process
with a finite number of steps. (The ambi- part of the term reflects an idea of "two,"
as in "two meanings.")

The concept of ambiguity is generally contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity,

specific and distinct interpretations are permitted (although some may not be
immediately obvious), whereas with information that is vague, it is difficult to form
any interpretation at the desired level of specificity.

4.1. Semantic ambiguity

In linguistics, an expression is semantically ambiguous when it can have
multiple meanings. The higher the number of synonyms a word has, the
higher the degree of ambiguity. Like other kinds of ambiguity, semantic
ambiguities are often clarified by context or by prosody. One's
comprehension of a sentence in which a semantically ambiguous word is
used is strongly influenced by the general structure of the sentence. The
language itself is sometimes a contributing factor in the overall effect of
semantic ambiguity, in the sense that the level of ambiguity in the context
can change depending on whether or not a language boundary is crossed.

4.2. EXAMPLES
a) Language ambiguity can be a fun or serious case in affecting the
audience's understanding. So, let’s look at the two examples below:

[ Sam went for a walk with her friend in the red shirt]
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[ The result of the research ensures that young women and men are
healthy]

These two sentences could cause an interesting or a serious confusion as

they lead us to two different meanings:

Example (1):

(Sam) is wearing the red shirt

(Sam’s friend) is wearing the red shirt

Example (2):

Both the (women) and (men) are young

Just the(women) are young.

b) Lexical Ambiguity: (within a word)

This form of ambiguity is also called homonymy or semantic ambiguity. It

occurs in the sentence because of the poor vocabulary usage that leads to
two or more possible meanings.

Example (1):

My sister saw bat.

This example has four different meanings:

My sister saw a bat (saw the past tense of see) (bat the bird)

My sister saw a bat (saw the past tense of see) (bat the wooden baseball
bat)

My sister saw a bat (saw as cutting) (bat the bird)

My sister saw a bat (saw as cutting) (bat the wooden baseball bat)

Example (2):

The boy carries the light box.

This example has three different meanings:

(light) not a heavy box

(light) a box that has an electric lamp

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(light) a shiny box

c) Syntactic Ambiguity: (within a sentence or sequence of words)

This form of ambiguity is also called structural or grammatical
ambiguity. It occurs in the sentence because the sentence structure
leads to two or more possible meanings.

Example (1): 

I invited the person with the microphone. 

This example has two different meanings:

 I spoke (using the microphone) to invite the person 

 I invited the person who (has the microphone).

  

Example (2): The turkey is ready to eat.    

This example has two different meanings:

 I cooked the turkey, and it is ready to be eaten 

 The turkey bird itself is ready to eat some food.