UNIT 1 ABOUT SEMANTICS

SEMANTICS is the study of MEANING in LANGUAGE

SPEAKER MEANING is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he uses a piece
of language.
SENTENCE MEANING (or WORD MEANING) is what a sentence (or word) means, i.e.
what it counts as the equivalent of in the language concerned.

1. Sentence meaning is easier because it’s very hard to understand what’s in the
speaker’s mind.
2. Use? => St M because it’s easier to understand than spk M
3. What to need use spk M?
 Relationship, culture, intelligence, humor,…

UNIT 2 SENTENCES, UTTERANCES, AND PROPOSITIONS

1/ 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 (time, place,
hearer), of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a single phrase, or even
a single word.
2/ 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.

 A SENTENCE is a grammatically complete string of words expressing a complete

thought.
*HOW TO RECOGNISE S AND U?
U: single quotation marks (dấu ngoặc)
S: italicized (in nghiêng)
In S, if you change words/order => different S (for our purposes)

3/ PROPOSITION (định đề/ nghĩa của một phát ngôn)

A PROPOSITION is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence
which describes some state of affairs.
In uttering a declarative sentence a speaker typically asserts (khẳng định) a proposition.
Identify the proposition
True: when correspond to fact (tương ứng thực tế)
False: when not correspond to fact
+ imperative sent: biết ngay là T or F
+ interrogative sent: khi nào the hearer answer the question mới biết định đề T or F

 The hearer asserts proposition:

Yes->T
No->>F
(định đề phụ thuộc vào thực tế xảy ra)

UNIT 3 REFERENCE AND SENSE

By means of reference (sự định danh), a speaker indicates which things in the world
(including persons) are being talked about.
REFERENCE is a relationship between a particular object in the world and an expression
used in an utterance to pick that object out.
A referent is an object or an entity in the real world or in the world of your imagination.
The reference of the world or a linguistic expression is the relationship between that word or
expression.
+) one expression -> only one referent (biểu vật) => CONSTANT REFERENCE (Định danh
bất biến)
Eg: China, The United State of America, The United Nations, FIFA,..
+) two expressions -> 1 referent => CO-REFERENCE (2 cụm có cùng 1 biểu vật)
Eg: The Evening Star, The Morning Star is 1 venus
HCM, Nguyen Ai Quoc, Nguyen Tat Thanh is one person
+) one E -> difference R -> VARIABLE REFERENCE (định danh đa dạng)
Eg: this classroom, my phone, Vo Nguyen Tu Duyen,…
The SENSE of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other
expressions in the language.
The sense of a word or a linguistic expression shows the internal relationship between that
word or expression and others in the vocabulary of a language.
*REFERENCE AND SENSE
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.
RULE: Every expression that has meaning has sense, but not every expression has
reference.
  All of words have sense. Some of them have reference.

UNIT 4 REFERRING EXPRESSIONS

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.

 The speaker has a particular referent in mind.

An OPAQUE CONTEXT (ngôn cảnh mập mờ) is a part of a sentence which could be made
into a complete sentence by the addition of a referring expression, but where the addition of
different referring expressions, even though they refer to the same thing or person, in a given
situation, will yield sentences with DIFFERENT meanings when uttered in a given situation.
An EQUATIVE SENTENCE is one which is used to assert the identity of the referents of two
referring expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions (can be replaced) have the
same referent. (RE1 is RE2)
UNIT 5 PREDICATES
The PREDICATOR (vị tố) 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. Intuitively
speaking, the predicator describes the state or process in which the referring expressions are
involved.
Eg: The White man (RE) loved the India maiden. (RE)

 Loved is predicator

Argument played by the RE (argument = RE)

Eg: Juan took Pobolo Rio.
Predicator: take
Argument: Juan, Pobolo, Rio

 Predicators in sentences can be: adj, verb, preps

 + and, but, or (conjunction), the, a (articles): not predicators.

2 roles:
+ predicators
+ RE -> arguments
Ex:
1/ HCM is patriotic.

 Patriotic is predicator and belongs to adj

2/ He yawns.

 Yawn is predicator and belongs to V

3/ Mai is in the room.

 In is predicator and belongs to preposition

4/ He is a Japanese.

 Japanese is predicator and belongs to noun

A PREDICATE (vị từ) is any word (or sequence of words) which (in a given single sense)
can function as the predicator of a sentence.
Predicator (in a sentence) # predicate (independent of sentence)
The DEGREE of a predicate is a number indicating the number of arguments it is normally
understood to have in simple sentences.
Most nouns are one-place predicates. But a few nouns could be said to be ‘inherently
relational’. These are nouns such as father, son, brother, mother, daughter, neighbour.
The number of the arguments is the number of degree of predicates.
Degree -> predicator -> predicate of degree.
UNIT 6 PREDICATES, REFERRING EXPRESSIONS, AND UNIVERSE OF
DISCOURSE
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.
UNIT 9 SENSE PROPERTIES AND STEREOTYPES
The SENSE of an expression is its indispensable hard core of meaning (excludes any
influence of context or situation of utterance on the senses of expressions. )
The sense of an expression can be thought of as the sum of its sense properties and sense
relations with other expressions.
UNIT 10 SENSE RELATIONS (1)
IDENTITY AND SIMILARITY OF SENSE
SYNONYMY (đồng nghĩa) is the relationship between two predicates that have the same
sense.

 Basic types of synonyms

- Absolute (true) synonyms

Identical in every part/ component of meaning..

Eg: also-too
 - Territorial synonyms

Refer to same thing but used in different countries/ regions.

Eg: autumn – fall

- Semantic synonyms

Pair of words differing in shades of meanings expressed

Eg: look-glance-glare
Fast-quick-rapid
Start-commence-rapid

- Stylistic (Social/ Affective/ Connotative) synonyms

Referring to the same thing but belonging to different levels or different styles of
language or different connotative meaning.
Eg: mother – mummy ; valley – dale (poetic)
Country-fatherland-motherland; notorious-famous
PARAPHRASE of that sentence is A sentence which expresses the same proposition
as another sentence.
PARAPHRASE is to SENTENCES
SYNONYMY is to PREDICATES
HYPONYMY (hạ danh) 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.

UNIT 11 SENSE RELATIONS (2)

OPPOSITENESS AND DISSIMILARITY OF SENSE AND AMBIGUITY
ANTONYM: 4 loại
BINARY are predicates which come in pairs and between them exhaust all the relevant
possibilities.
EG: alive-dead
a predicate is a binary antonym of another predicate if it entails the negative of the other
predicate.
Eg: same-different, married-unmarried
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.
  If X is…..of Y, Y is……of X

Eg: own-belong to
Below-above
MULTIPLE INCOMPATIBLES (phần lớn rơi vào N)
What these systems have in common is that:
a/ all the terms in a given system are mutually incompatible
b/ the members of a system cover all the relevant area
eg: spring, summer, autumn, winter: system of season
GRADABLE antonyms if they are at opposite ends of a continuous scale of values (a scale
which typically varies according to the context of use). (ko phải cái này chưa chắc đã là cái
kia)
Eg: cold-hot
Bad-good
A word or 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.

POLYSEMY is one where a word has several very closely related senses. In other words, a
native speaker of the language has clear intuitions that the different senses are related to each
other in some way.
UNIT 18 PROPERTIES OF PREDICATES
Given a two-place predicate P, if, for any pair of referring expressions X and Y, the sentence
XPY ENTAILS the sentence YPX, then P is SYMMETRIC.

Given a two-place predicate P, if the sentence XPY is a CONTRADICTORY of YPX, then P

is an ASYMMETRIC predicate.

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any single referring expression X (or for any pair of
referring expressions 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.

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any single referring expression X (or for any pair of
referring expressions X and Y which have the same referent
e.g. John and himself) the sentence XPX (or the sentence XPY) is a
CONTRADICTION, then P is an IRREFLEXIVE predicate.

Given a two-place predicate P, if for any trio of referring expressions X, Y, and Z the
compound sentence XPY and YPZ ENTAILS the sentence XPZ, then P is TRANSITIVE.

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.

Any relation expressed by a predicate that is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive is called an
EQUIVALENCE RELATION. (quan hệ tương đương)
UNIT 20 PARTICIPANT ROLES (7 tham thể)

1. The AGENT of a sentence is the person deliberately carrying out the action
described.
2. 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.
3. The INSTRUMENT is the thing (hardly ever a person) by means of which the action
is carried out
4. The role of LOCATION is played by any expression referring to the place where the
action described by a sentence takes place.
5. The BENEFICIARY is the person for whose benefit or to whose detriment the action
described by the sentence is carried out.
the Beneficiary of an action might not always be positively affected by that action, but
could be negatively affected, depending on the action in question
6. The EXPERIENCER is typically a person who is mentally aware of, perceives, or
experiences the action or state described by the sentence, but who is not in control of
the situation.
7. The THEME participant is a thing or person whose location is described, or a thing
or person that is perceived by an Experiencer.
UNIT 21 SPEECH ACTS

A PERFORMATIVE utterance is one that actually describes the act that it performs, i.e. it
PERFORMS some act and SIMULTANEOUSLY DESCRIBES that act (vừa nói vừa làm)
A CONSTATIVE utterance is one which makes an ASSERTION (i.e. it is often the
utterance of a declarative sentence) but is NOT performative (chỉ nói chứ không làm đồng
thời)
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.
UNIT 22 PERLOCUTIONS AND ILLOCUTIONS
The PERLOCUTIONARY ACT (or just simply the PERLOCUTION) carried out by a
speaker making an utterance is the act of causing a certain effect on the hearer and others.
(hành vi sau lời, hành động sau lời nói)

The ILLOCUTIONARY ACT (or simply the ILLOCUTION) 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 interaction (hành vi tại lời)
Illocutions are acts defined by social conventions, acts such as accosting, accusing,
admitting, apologizing, challenging, complaining, condoling, congratulating, declining,
deploring, giving permission, giving way, greeting, leavetaking, mocking, naming, offering,
praising, promising, proposing marriage, protesting, recommending, surrendering,
thanking, toasting. (tố cáo, thừa nhận, xin lỗi, thách thức, phàn nàn, chia buồn, chúc mừng,
từ chối, làm mất lòng, cho phép, nhường đường, chào hỏi, chia tay, chế giễu, đặt tên, đề nghị,
khen ngợi, hứa hẹn, cầu hôn, phản đối, giới thiệu, đầu hàng, cảm ơn , chúc mừng.)
UNIT 23 FELICITY CONDITIONS
The FELICITY CONDITIONS (điều kiện hữu hiệu) of an illocutionary act are conditions
that must be fulfilled (hoàn thiện) in the situation in which the act is carried out if the act is to
be said to be carried out properly, or felicitously (phù hợp, đúng đắn, hợp lệ)
A SINCERITY CONDITION (điều kiện chân thành) on an illocutionary act is a condition
that must be fulfilled if the act is said to be carried out SINCERELY, but failure to meet such
a condition does not prevent the carrying out of the act altogether. (cho dù hành vi không chân
thành thì việc đó vẫn xảy ra)