Semantics

Second Year
st
1 term
Special thanks to:
- Jenin Mahmoud Nasrat Murad
- Rahma Taha Mohamed Hamed
 Lecture 1
 Reference and denotation are a part of the meaning of words.
 Reference is a term used in semantics to refer to an entity (such as object,
state of affairs) in the external world to which a linguistic expression relates,
e.g. the referent of the word table is the object table.
Denotation is previously explained. Thus, denotation is equivalent to
reference.
Still, there is a very important term that is of sense.
 Sense: In semantics, this term is usually contrasted with reference, as part
of an explication of the motion of meaning. Reference, or Denotation is
seen as extra linguistic i.e. the entities or states of affairs in the external
world which a linguistic expression stands for.
 Sense refers to the system of linguistic relationships (sense relations) which
a lexical item contracts with other lexical items - the paradigmatic relations
of synonymy, antonym and the syntactic relationships of collocation.
 Lecture (2)
For a long time, semanticists have emphasized the fact that the noun
"meaning" and the verb "to mean" have many distinguishable meanings such as
intend, refer, understand.... etc.
The following sentences might help you in this respect.
1. What is the meaning of "semantics"? = What does the word "semantics"
mean?
2. I did not mean to hurt you. = I did not intend to hurt you.
3. He never says what he means. = He usually says one thing and means another.
4. She rarely means what she says. = She usually says one thing and means
another.
5. Life without faith has no meaning. = life without faith means nothing.
6. What do you mean by the word "concept"? = What do you intend to say by
the word concept?
7. He means well, but he is rather clumsy. = He intends well, but he is rather
clumsy.
8. Dark clouds means rain. = Dark clouds signal rain.
It was Jane I meant not Ann. = It was Jane to whom I referred and not Ann.
Explanation;
Here, sentences 3 and 4 are especially interesting. Each of them supposes
the possibility of saying one thing and meaning another. This is puzzling enough.
John-Lyons, a great professor of Linguistics, says that the notion of meaning
relevant to be rather different from, though, not completely unrelated to, the
notion of meaning relevant to the interpretation of sentence (3) would seem to be
rather different from, though, not completely unrelated to, the notion of meaning
relevant to the interpretation of (4).
From the above mentioned examples, we can say that the meanings "to
mean" and "meaning" represent a network of similarities and differences such that
it is impossible to say that any of these meanings is totally unrelated to the others.
The most important meanings of the verb "mean" and the noun "meaning" are
those mentioned in example (1) and example (9).
However, the fact remains that the meanings of words and sentences are
learned by the use to which language is put in communicative situations. i.e. These
meanings can only be verifiable in terms of what the speakers of the language
mean by their use of these words and sentences.
Worthy to be mentioned too, is that "meaning" is a word of the ordinary,
everyday vocabulary of English. It can be matched with words in other languages
such as "signification" in French and "bedeutung" in German, etc. But there is no
other language in which all the senses of the English verb "to mean" or the nouns
"meaning" are covered by a single word.
 Lecture (3)
The relationship between word meaning and sentence meaning is a central
issue in semantics.
Knowing a language, especially one's native language, involves knowing
thousands of words. We can call the mental store of these words a lexicon. This
lexicon is not static because we are continually learning and forgetting words.
However, it is clear that at any one time, we hold a large amount of semantic
knowledge in our memory.
Phrases and sentences also have meaning of course, but an important
difference between word meaning on the one hand, and phrase and sentence
meaning, on the other, concerns productivity.
Productivity means that it is always possible to create new words, but this
is an infrequent occurrence. On the other hand, speakers regularly create sentences
that they have never used or heard before. By using a small number of combinatory
rules, speakers use a finite set of words to create a very large, perhaps infinite
number of sentences.
So the meaning of sentences cannot be listed in a lexicon like the meanings
of words. They must be created by rules.
Semanticists often describe this by saying that sentence meaning is
compositional. This term means that the meaning of an expression is determined
by the meaning of its component parts and the way in which they are combined.
Word meaning is the main aim of lexical semantics. Lexical semantics is
concerned with:
a) Representing the meaning of each word in the language.
b) Showing how the meaning of words in a language are interrelated.
To take a very simple example, if someone says to you:
I saw my mother just now.
 You know, without further information, that the speaker saw a woman.
This knowledge follows from the relationship between the uttered word mother
and the related but unspoken word woman. Another approach is to claim that the
word mother contains a semantic element woman as part of its meaning.
In fact lexical relations are central to the way speakers and hearers construct
meaning. This is obvious from the following example where the (b) sentence
follows automatically from the (a) sentence, but the (c) sentence, while it might be
a reasonable inference in context, does not follow in this automatic way.
a. The head master has just been killed.
b. The head master is dead
c. The school will be getting a new head master.
We can say that if we believe the (a) sentence, we automatically believe the (b)
sentence. This relationship is called entailment because it reflects our lexical
knowledge: The entailment in these sentences can be seen to follow from the
semantic relations between number and dead.
Another example:
a) Jane has failed her translation exam.
b) Jane has not passed her translation exam.
c) Jane cannot bank on a glittering career as a translator.
There are different categories of words and they are given different semantic
descriptions for example:
o
Names  Amal, Ahmed
o
Common nouns  Cat, orange
o
Pronouns  He, she
o
Logical words (function  Not, and, or, all, and
words)
 Names are those types of words which are used to refer.
 Pronouns can be interpreted in particular contexts.
 Logical words are very consistent in meaning across a whole range of contexts.
Moreover, semantic relations tend to hold between members of the same group
rather than across groups. So semantic relations between common nouns like child,
baby, woman are clearer than between any noun and words like and, or, not and
vice versa.
 Syntagmatic relation: is the relationship between a word and other
accompanying words.
 Paradigmatic relationship / associative relationship: the relationship between
a word and the other words, which could be used instead of it.

- For example, the meaning of a phrase like "a red dress" is partly produced
by the syntagmatic combination of red and dress. Besides red is also in
paradigmatic relationship with words like blue, yellow, beautiful ... etc. and
dress is in a paradigmatic relationship with words like jacket, skirt, trousers
and so on.
 Lecture (4)
Word Meaning and Sentence Meaning
Previously, we said that words and sentences are the two units of language
that carry meaning. Content words (a word whose primary function is to describe
objects, ideas, qualities, and states of being in the world; nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs are content words) have meaning in that they refer to concrete objects
and abstract concepts. Besides, they also convey information about the feelings and
attitudes of language users.
Function words (a class of words such as prepositions and conjunctions
whose primary role is to mark grammatical relationships between content words
or other structures such as phrases and clauses) also carry meaning.
The study of word meaning, however, differs from the study of sentence
meaning because the units are different in kind.
In order for a sentence to have meaning, we must rely on the meaning of
individual words that make it up. So we can say that the meaning of a sentence
could simply be the sum of the meanings of its words. However, this is not simply
the case. Other considerations have the following sentences, on which the
individual words (and therefore their sum meanings) are the same
1) The hunter bit the lion.
2) The lion bit the hunter.
Clearly, the sentences refer to different events and hence have distinct referential
meanings. This is conveyed by the fact that the words of the sentences are ordered
differently. In English, the order in which words are arranged on a sentence can
be crucial to meaning. Thus, we cannot simply say that in order to retrieve the
meaning of a sentence, all we need to do is to add up the meanings of its
components. What we must take into consideration in addition to the meaning of
individual words is the semantic role assigned to each word. By semantic role we
mean such things as who did what to whom, with whom, or for whom. In other
words, the semantic role of a word is the role that its referent plays in the action
or state of being described by the sentence. Sentence semantics is concerned with
the relationship between words and their semantic roles.
While it is important to distinguish between word meaning and sentence
meaning, the two interact on many levels. A clear example of this mutual
interactions is illustrated by the following sentence.
o He may leave tomorrow if he finishes his exams.
In this sentence, the words "may, tomorrow, if" have meanings as individual
function words: may denotes permission or possibility; tomorrow indicates a future
time unit that begins the following midnight; and if indicates a condition. But the
impact of these words goes beyond the phrases in which they occur and affects the
meaning of the entire sentence.
If we replace "may" with "will", the sentence takes on a completely different
meaning. The sentence with "will" is simply the description of a future event. So
we can say that word meaning and sentence meaning are intimately related.
 Lecture (5)
In addition to words and sentences, there is a third unit which also carries
meaning, an utterance.
What is an utterance?
An utterance is an expression that is used to covey content i.e. information
produced in a particular context with a particular intention.
o I now pronounce you husband and wife.
This sentence may be uttered in two different sets of circumstances: (a) by
a pastor presiding at a ceremony to a young couple getting married in the presence
of their families, or (b) by an actor dressed as a pastor to two actors before a
congregation of Hollywood extras assembled in the same church by a director
giving instructions. In the first instance, I now pronounce you husband and wife
will effect a marriage between the couple, intending to get married. But that same
utterance will have no effect on the marital status of any party on the movie
location.
Thus, the circumstances of utterance create different meanings, although
we could not say that the referential meaning of the sentence changes. It is
therefore necessary to know the circumstances of utterance in order to appreciate
and understand the effect or force of the utterance. We say that the sentence
uttered in the wedding context and the sentence uttered in the film context have
the same referential meaning but are different utterances, each with its own
utterance meaning.
The difference between sentence meaning and utterance meaning can also
be illustrated by the question can you shut the window? The addressee might react
differently to this question. One possible response would be to say yes = yes I am
capable (physically capable) of shutting the window. This is called the smart-aleck
interpretation. It is of course not the way such question is meant in most cases.
The addressee's reaction might also be different to get up and shut the window.
These interpretations of the same question are different: The smart-aleck
interpretation treats the question as a request for information. The second
interpretation treats it is a request for action to describe the difference between
these interpretations, we can say that they are distinct utterances.
Sentence semantics is not concerned with utterance meaning. One of the basic
premises of sentence semantics is that sentences must be divorced from the context
in which they are uttered. This does not mean that context is unimportant, but the
fact is that sentence meaning depends on the circumstances of the utterance.
 Unit 1

 Semantics is a branch of linguistics, concerned with the study of meaning.

 Semantics is the study of meaning communicated through language.
 Meaning is what languages expresses about our world or any other possible
world e.g. imagery world (fantasy, magic world as Harry Potter).
 Meaning includes the relations between utterances, parts of utterances
(words) and the world outside.
 Words mean what they mean independently from the will of their users; all
the words do have a meaning in the language apart from the intentions of
the speaker. [Justify] Because once the speaker intervenes, the original
meaning of the word changes. For example, the word "beautiful:"
- We can say that a girl is very beautiful, and she is indeed beautiful. (We
praise her)
- We can say that a girl is beautiful, but we mean the opposite. (We make
fun of her)
 Speaker meaning is what a speaker means (i.e. intends to convey) when he
uses a piece of language.
 Sentence or Word meaning is what a sentence or a word means.
 Many sentences are used not to add information but to keep the
conversation going on. For example, two friends meet in the morning:
Friend A: Good morning
Friend B: Good morning
Friend A: Today is very hot, isn’t it?
Friend B, for, sure feels that today is hot, and Friend A knows that. Friend
A says, “Today is very hot, isn’t it?” in order to keep the conversation going
on.
  Some sentence can be used to convey different meanings.
 The same sentence can be used by different speakers on different occasions
to convey different meanings.
For example, the sentence “It will be nice to the family.” can convey two
meanings:
- If you tell your friend that you are going to spend a vacation in Spain, he
will say it happily."
- If a husband tells his wife that he will go to a vacation with his friends,
and he will take the car, she will say it angrily.
 There is a gap between sentence meaning (literal meaning) and speaker
meaning (speaker intention), and we use this gap to convey contradictory
meanings. For instance, “This headache is killing me.”
The headache cannot kill anybody, but we say this expression as some sort
of exaggeration to express that we have a very bad headache.
[That's what we call in literature hyperbole (exaggeration).]
Several Types of Meaning:
1) Propositional meaning: is the basic meaning which sentences express.
Propositions consist of (a) something which is talked about called an
argument or entity and, and (b) an assertion or predication made about that
argument.
Ex: Jenin’s cat, Kitty, which color is grey, likes Tuna.
This sentence includes four propositions which are:
 Jenin has a cat.
 The cat’s name is Kitty.
 The cat’s color is grey.
 The cat likes Tuna.
2) Conceptual meaning/denotative meaning/cognitive meaning/referential
meaning: is that part of meaning of a word or phrase that relates it to a
phenomenon in the real world or any other possible world. e.g. “table” is a
piece of furniture that consists of a flat top supported by legs.
- Denotative meaning may be regarded as the “Central meaning" or the
"core meaning” of a lexical item.
- It can only be found in a dictionary.
3) Connotative meaning: is the additional meaning that a word or phrase has
beyond its central meaning (i.e. denotation). This meaning shows people’s
emotions and attitudes to what a word or a phrase refers to. For example,
the word "child" could be defined as a young human being but there are
many other characteristics, which different people associate with the word
child, such as amusing, affectionate, noisy, sweet, lovable and irritating.
Connotative meaning can also be called "affective meaning", or "emotive
meaning".
4) Collocative meaning: is the meaning which is the result of using certain
words together regularly in a language. For example, the verb "perform" is
used with "operation", but not with discussion. The noun "meeting" is used
with "hold" not with "perform" and so on....
Collocation refers to the restrictions on how words can be used together,
for example which prepositions are used with particular verbs, or which
verbs and nouns are used together.
5) Associative meaning: is the total meaning of all the meanings a person
thinks of when he hears a word. For instance, when you hear the word
"Accident," you think of a "Car," "causalities," "injured," etc. Another
example, when you hear "wedding", you think of "marriage," "Cake," etc.
6) Thematic meaning: is the meaning which refers to the first major
constituent of a sentence. For example, "The man is coming," the major
constituent of a sentence is "The man," and the rheme is "is coming."
 - We say rheme because some linguistic schools divide the sentence into
theme and rheme instead of subject and predicate.
Notes:
1- Thematic and propositional meanings can only be applied to sentences,
unlike other types of meaning which can be applied to phrases and words.
2- To define meaning, you have to start the definition by the word "meaning."
Easy, isn't!
 Unit 2: Utterances, sentences, and propositions:
 Utterance: is any stretch of talk “piece of language”, by one person, before
and after which there is silence on the part of that person.
 An utterance is the use of a piece of language by a particular speaker, on a
particular occasion, such as a sequence of sentences, a single phrase, or even
a single word.
- Single phrase: "Not at all," "Never mind," "Well done," "Good
morning," "Thank you," "As you like," "Keep up," etc.
- A sequence of sentences: Mona is a very good friend. She is very kind.
She always likes to help people. All people love Mona.
Sequence of sentences: A group of sentences talk about a certain person
or topic, which on our example is Mona.
Single word: "Hello," "Hi," "Bye," "Ok," "Amazing," etc.
 Utterances are physical events [justify] because they are said in a particular
occasion.
 They are also ephemeral; [justify] they end when one finishes what he wants
to say, i.e. they do not last for a long time.
 Sentence: is neither a physical event [justify] “because it is not yet uttered”
nor a physical object. It is, conceived abstractly, a string of words put
together according to the grammatical rules in a language. It is an IDEAL
string of words behind various realization in utterances and inscriptions.
 Any change of the words or their order in a sentence makes a different
sentence “meaning”.
For example: The hunter hit the lion.
The lion hit the hunter.
 A sentence cannot be in a particular accent [justify] because it is only
associated with phonetic characteristics such as accent and voice through a
speaker’s act of uttering it. Accent and voice qualities belong strictly to the
utterance, not to the sentence uttered.
 Not all utterances are signs of full sentences but sometimes only part of
sentences as words or phrases. For instance, "hi," "hello," "anytime," etc.
 A sentence is a grammatically complete string of words expressing a
complete thought.
 The same sentence when mentioned in two different events represents two
different utterances because [justify] two unique physical events took place.
 Utterance is the sentence that is mentioned or said. [Clarify] Because it
leaves the stage of being a written sentence and moves to the stage of being
an utterance.
 Utterances are said in a certain context; they have certain time, said in a
certain place, on a certain occasion, by a certain person to convey a certain
message
 Utterances of non-sentence (phrases and words) are used by people in
everyday life to communicate all time. In most cases, the meaning of non-
sentences can be analyzed by considering them to be abbreviations, or
incomplete versions of whole sentence.
For instance, “Tea, please.” instead of “I want a cup of tea, please.”
Another example, “In 1997” instead of “I was born in 1997”
 Propositions are ideas in our mind.
 Propositions are involved in the meaning of whole sentence.
 One Sentence can express more than one proposition.
 A proposition: is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative
sentence which describes some state of affairs.
 Propositions can be false or true. For example, He is a good boy.
 Propositions do not belong to any particular language [justify] because they
are just ideas in our mind, they are not yet uttered.
 Anyone is free either to think of or to believe in true or false propositions,
but only the true ones are known to everybody [justify] because true
 propositions correspond to the facts of the world we live in, but false ones
do not.
Examples of true propositions:
o Taha Hussein is a great author.
o The Earth revolves around the Sun.
Examples of False propositions:
o Developing countries are rich.
o Bears live in Africa.
 Proposition included in declarative sentences are asserted, but those
included in the meaning of interrogative and imperative are not [justify]
because the speaker is merely questioning their truth.
For example, “My fiancé is going to visit me today.” It is a declarative
sentence, so the speaker is sure, while “Will my fiancé going to visit me
today?” and “Come, and visit me today” the speaker is not sure of.
 Sentences belong to a particular language [justify] because they are a group
of words put together according to the grammatical rules of a language.
 Propositions do not belong to a particular language [justify] because they
are ideas in our minds.
 Brief comparison between utterances, propositions, and sentences:
Utterances Sentences Propositions
Can be loud or quiet + - -
Can be grammatical or not + + -
Can be true or false + + +
In a particular regional accent + - -
In a particular language + + -
 Propositions are an abstraction that can be grasped (understood) by the
mind of an individual person. It is an object of thought [type of thinking].
 Thoughts are private but propositions are public [justify] because different
people can have the same proposition at the same time. Examples:
o In Ramadan, all the people are hungry. It is a proposition because it
is public.
o All people feel cold in winter. [proposition]
o In the lecture you might be hungry but your college not. It is a
thought because it is private.
 Unit 3: Reference and sense
 In talking of sense, we deal with relationships inside the language. (Intra
linguistic relationship)
 In talking of reference, we deal with relationships between the language and
the world. (Extra linguistic relationship)
 By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world
(including persons) are being talked about.
Ex: I (certain subject) met (certain action) my friend (certain object)
today (certain time).
 Reference is a relationship between parts of a language “words, phrases,
sentences, etc.” and parts outside the language, such as “objects, things,
persons, state of affairs, qualities, etc."
 Reference is an extra linguistic relationship.
 The reference of an expression varies according to two factors: [Clarify –
To answer this question, you have to give an example of someone have two
different positions.]
1- The different circumstances (context), such as “time, place, and
participants.”
2- Topic of the conversation.
Let's examine this example:
- The Prime Minister of England
1. A certain person, in a certain place.
2. Circumstances ( the PM pf England today is different from the PM five years
ago)
3. The topic of conversation (speaking about different topics according to his
two positions). He is a prime minister. He is also the leader of conservative
party in England.
 Some words have consonant reference, [justify] as they do not change by
 circumstance. For instance, all the names of the continents, countries, cities,
planets, monuments, rivers, oceans, mountains, organizations, etc. Some
examples are:
o Pyramids.
o The Nile River.
o Sun and Moon.
 Two different expressions can have the same sense [Justify] because they
have the same reference. For example, the prime minister is the leader of
conservative party. Another example, Shakespeare is England's national
poet. [To answer this question think of someone has two positions]
 The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships
with other expressions in the language. [i.e. To identify the sense of an
expression, you to have to apply the five semantic relations on it till you get
the sense of this expression]
Ex: The sense of the word “boy” is found in a system of semantic
relationships (synonymy, antonym, homonymy, polysemy, hyponymy)
with other words inside the language.
 Sometimes one word can have more than one sense.
Sense relationships:
1- Synonymy: sameness of meaning.
2- Antonymy: Opposite
3- Homonymy: Two words that written alike and sound alike but have
completely different meaning.
For example, the word bank can mean the bank of a river or a financial
institution.
Partial Homonymy: Sound alike but not written alike or written alike but
not sound alike.
4- Polysemy: One word that has two closely related meaning. [Parts of the
body]
 Ex: The word "Foot" can mean a "part of our body" or the "lowest point of
something."
Ex: the word "eye" can mean a "part of our body" or a "spy."
Ex: the word "Mouth" can mean a "part of our body" or a "speaker"
5- Hyponymy: The meaning of a word is included in the meaning of another
word.
 The only difference between polysemy and homonymy is that with
polysemy the word has two meanings very related to each other unlike
homonymy where the two words have completely different meaning
 One sentence can have more than one meaning. [Clarify – to answer give
an example of ambiguous sentences] [Disambiguate the following
sentences:]
Ex: The doctor examined the patient had a headache.
Answer: The doctor, who examined the patient, had a headache.
Answer: The doctor examined the patient who had a headache.
Ex: The chicken is ready to eat.
Answer: The chicken is ready to be eaten.
Answer: The chicken is ready to be fed.
Ex: The man encouraged the girl with a smile.
Answer: He encouraged the girl who is smiling.
Answer: He encouraged the girl by smiling to her.
Ex: I met a man with a coat.
Answer: I was wearing a coat when I met a man
Answer: I met a man who is wearing a coat.
Ex. My sister is watching TV while reading.
Answer: My sister is watching TV while she is reading.
Answer: My sister is watching TV while I am reading.
 The referent of an expression is often a thing or person in the world, while
 the sense of an expression is not a thing at all.
 It is difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an expression is [justify]
because it is much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the
same sense rather than searching from the scratch find out the sense of a
word.
 Sense is a very complicated relationship.
 The idea of reference is easy to understand while the idea of sense is elusive.
It is like electricity, we all how to use it in various ways without knowing
what exactly it is. [Clarify – to answer this question in the exam, state
everything you know about sense and reference.]
 Every expression that has meaning has sense, but does not necessarily have
reference.
- EX: ‘’Almost’’ has sense but has no reference.
- Ex: ‘’And‘’ has sense but has no reference.
 A Proposition should correspond to a complete independent thought [not
fragment].
 An act of referring is the picking out of a particular referent by a speaker
during a particular utterance.
 Unit 4: Referring expressions:
 Some expressions (words) can only be used as referring expressions, some
never can, and some can be used to refer or not depending on the kind of
sentence they occur in. For example, the "pyramids" will always be a
referring expression.
We are in a lecture, and someone asks "Is Hoda here?" We replies "There
is no Hoda here." For him, Hoda is a referring expression, but for us it is
not because we don’t know her.
 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 same expression can be a referring or a non-referring expression
depending on the context. This is true of indefinite noun phrases.
Ex: A man came and asked about you yesterday.
Someone came and asked about my brother, but he wasn’t there. The next
day I told him that there was someone who came and asked about him
yesterday. "A man" is an indefinite expression but for me, it represents a
referring expression in my mind because when I say it, I mean a specific
man.
Ex: Your son looks like a little man.
"A man" here is not a referring expression because I don’t mean a specific
man in my mind when I say it.
Ex: I went to a library yesterday. [Referring expression]
Ex: I need to go to a library. [Non-referring expression]
 The definite noun phrases (proper names, personal pronouns, and longer
descriptive expressions) are most frequently used as referring expressions.
Proper nouns can be used as referring expressions only in case that all the
participants in a conversation know that person.
 Example of Proper names: Ahmed is my best friend.
Example of Personal pronouns: Talking about my friend’s father "He is a
good person; he always helps the poor."
Example of Longer descriptive expressions: The student who made this
research won the first prize.
Ex: The man whom I met was homeless.
 Utterances which differ only in that they use different expressions referring
to the same thing (or person) will have the same meaning. For instance, the
princess of Wales and queen of hearts, both refers to Princess Diana.
There is a class of exceptions to this generalization, which involves opaque
contexts.
 Opaque context: is a part of sentence which could be made into a complete
sentence by the addition of a referring expression, but where the addition
of different referring expression, 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.
For example, in a lecture if we were talking about the princess of Wales and
someone attended the lecture after we said that the princess of Wales and
the queen of hearts are the same person, the two expressions would give
him a completely different meaning.
 Therefore, opaque context occurs only when somebody does not know that
these two phrases or expressions refer to the same person or thing.
 Opaque context involves a certain type of verbs, such as want, think,
believe, and wonder about.
 Equative sentence: is a sentence used to assert the identity of the referents
of two referent expressions, i.e. to assert that two referring expressions have
the same referent.
 In many equative sentences the order of the two referring expressions can
 be reversed without loss of acceptability. For example, "London is the
capital city of England" equals "The capital city of England is London."
Another example, Paris, London and New York are respectively "city of
love," "city of fog" and "city of dreams."
Ex: The president of Egypt is the supreme leader of the armed forces.
 In equative sentence the reversal test is not a perfect diagnostic for it. [You
are free to disagree, as it is the authors' point of view] For example, "What
I want is a piece of cake" I entered a wedding and instead of all the food in
front of me, I chose only to take a piece of cake "a particular piece".
"A piece of cake is what I want" when I wake up and start to study, I want
to drink coffee and to take a piece of cake "any cake there is no particular
one, I just want something sweet"
- They do not represent an equative sentence because "what I want is a
piece of cake" is referring expression while "A piece of cake is what I
want" is non-referring expression.
"This is the boy who won the price" this copes with the rules of standard
British English.
"The boy who won the prize is this" this doesn’t cope with the rules of
standard British English.
 Unit 5: Predicates
 A predicate is all that part of a sentence which is not the subject. [So, to
identify the predicate, just exclude the subject.]
- Ex: The cat drinks the milk.
- Ex: The dog bit the boy.
- Ex: I am travelling to London tomorrow.
 A predicate gives information about the subject.
 All common sentence types are divided into subject and a predicate.
 "Verb to be" can never be alone the predicate of any sentence, [Justify] as
it must be followed by a noun, a pronoun, or an adjective.
- Example of noun: He is an engineer.
- Example of an adjective: She is beautiful.
- Example of a pronoun: I am he. (I am the one who did)
 Predicates are divided into one place predicate, two place predicate, and
three place predicates.
 We can identify them according to the number of nouns in the sentences:
- One place predicate [One Subject and no objects]: ‫فعل الزم‬
o The man died.
o He won.
o They failed.
o She is beautiful.
They are all a complete sentence; they don’t need an object to be complete.
And the sentence contains only one noun.
- Two place predicates: [One subject and one objects] ‫متعد ملفعول واحد‬
o They met him yesterday.
o He finished his homework.
o She made a cake.
The sentences are completed with only one object. And the
sentence contains two nouns.
 - Three place predicates: [One Subject and Two Predicates] ‫متعد ملفعولني‬
o They gave her a watch.
o I made them a cake.
o He gave her a new dress.
The sentences are completed with two objects, and they contain
three nouns.
 A predicator is a "verb" or a "verb phrase" in the predicate.
 A predicate is more general than predicator [justify] because the predicator
is included in the predicate.
Ex: She visited her grandparents today.
The predicator is only "visited."
The predicate is "visited her grandparents today."
Ex: I am here.
The predicate is "am here."
The predicator is only "am."
 Predicates can belong to different parts of speech.
Ex: He fall asleep. [Adverb predicate]
Ex: He ran quickly. [Adverb predicate]
Ex: Their eagerness was put asleep. [Adverb predicate]
Ex: He is asleep. [Adjective predicate]
Ex: The room is very dusty. [Adjective predicate]
Ex: She is beautiful. [Adjective predicate]
Ex: The room is clean. [Adjective predicate]
Ex: The man met the boy. [Noun predicate]
Ex: The book is over there. [Preposition predicate]
Ex: The man is about to die. [Preposition predicate]
 Predicate nominative: is a noun or a pronoun that comes after a linking
 verb and has the same meaning or value of the subject of a sentence.
 Linking verb is the verb that connects the subject to the predicate.
 A linking verb links the subject to an adjective, noun or prepositional
phrase.
 Verb to be, to feel, to look, to sound, and to smell in all their forms are
linking verbs.
Ex: Lora is a teacher.
- "Lora" is a subject, "is" is a linking verb, and "a teacher" is a predicate
nominative.
Ex: The book is a best seller.
"The book" is the subject, "is" is the linking verb, and "a best seller" is the
predicate nominative.
Ex: The house feels like a home.
"The house" is the subject, "feels like" is the linking verb, and "a home" is
the predicate nominative.
 Unit 6: predicates, referring expressions, and universe of discourse:
 Some expressions are always almost used as referring expressions no matter
what sentences they occur in. In any context of situation these expressions
will be used as referring expression.
Ex: Cairo is the most beautiful city.
Ex: Cairo is very crowded city.
Cairo is a referring expression in both sentences.
 Proper name can never be used as predicates [justify] because they can only
be used as part of predicates. For example, Mohamed met Mona.
Mona, a proper noun, is used as part of the predicate "met Mona" not as
the predicate.
 Indefinite noun phrases can be used as a referring or predicating expression.
 [The question for this part in the exam will be either "Use these words s
referring, non-referring, and predicating expression" or "identify the type
of the expression"]
 Use “a man” as a referring, non-referring, and predicating expression:
- Mohamed met a man. Referring expression because there is a certain
person in my mind.
- Mohamed is a man. Predicating expression because it adds to us
information about Mohamed.
- Your son looks like a little man. Non-referring expression because there
is no certain man in my mind.
 Predicates do not refer, but they are used to identify the referent of a
referring expression.
Ex: Ali is a man. The phrase “is a man” is the predicate, and
“Ali” is a referring expression, so the predicate identifies the
expression “Ali.”
 Not all sentences belong to the very common sentence type, i.e. containing
 a subject which is a referring expression and a predicate.
 Generic sentence type is a sentence in which some statement is made about
a whole unrestricted class of individuals, as opposed to any individuals. For
instance, the whale is a mammal.
 Look at the difference:
a) The dog is a mammal. “Generic sentence”
b) The dog over there is my aunt’s. “Common sentence”
The example (b) is a common sentence type because I am talking about a
specific dog not a category, and it is easily divided into a subject and a
predicate.
c) Women prefer gentlemen. “Generic sentence”
d) Dogs are sincere friends. "Generic sentence"
e) Books are useful. "Generic sentence"
f) I read a book. "common sentence"
 Universe of discourse: The universe of discourse of any utterance is the
particular world, real or imaginary (or part real and part imaginary), that
the speaker assumes he is talking about at time.
- Any Utterance has a universe of discourse. :)
 Real universe of discourse:
- The Earth revolves around the Sun.
- All humans need Oxygen to live.
- Pyramids are in Egypt.
- Water boils at 100o.
- The sun is a star.
 Imaginary world:
- Harry potter is very handsome.
- Snow white is cute.
 Mixture between imaginary and real:
- All kids love Santa Clause. [Controversial because Santa may be
real.]
 - All teenagers love Harry potter.
- Snow White is a beloved character
 The same universe of discourse is essential to achieve a successful
communication, and the different universes of discourse cause a breakdown
of communication.
 Successful communication usually occurs between people of the same
language.
 Sameness of universe of discourse concerning a certain context of situation.
 Two people assume that two entities exist in the world but refer to them by
different words, this happens between two participants speaking different
languages.
You can find this situation in touristic places, international and
multinational companies, airports, Al-Alsun College, UN conferences,
internet, etc.
 Same universe of discourse:
- We are talking about two married friends and we all are expecting
they will have a child soon.
 Different universe of discourse:
- While we are talking about two friends someone stops us and asks
how they are going to have a child? Are they married? This is a
breakdown of conversation.
- Breaking down of conversation also happens when two participants
are referring to the same thing but in two different languages. Two
people in a supermarket they both order the same type of cheese but
one is French and the other is Egyptian so they will not know that
they order the same thing.
 Questions
 Complete the missing parts to form what is required between brackets:
1- ethics [collocative meaning]:
2- voting [associative meaning]:
3- sew [conceptual meaning]:
4- tranquility [antonymy]:
5- craw [polysemy]:
6- pair [homonymy/polysemy]:
7- pack [homonymy]
8- Tie [polysemy]:
9- Dress [Homonymy]:
10- Woman [connotative meaning]:
11- Sky [Homonymy]
12- Fraud [Synonymy]
13- Moon [Homonymy]
14- Mind [polysemy]
15- Market [polysemy]
16- Door [Polysemy]
17- alien [collocation]
18- Team [Homonymy]
19- Witch [Collocation]
20- Ornament [Polysemy]
21- Tap [homonymy]
22- Plot [homonymy]
23- awful [synonymy]
24- atmosphere [polysemy]
25- yummy [antonymy]
26- meal (n) [polysemy]
27- day (n) [polysemy]
28- dash (v) [homonymy/polysemy]
 29- deal [homonymy]
30- Agent (n) [polysemy]
31- tree (n) [polysemy]
32- Money (n) [Polysemy]
33- Or [Homonymy]
34- tail [Homonymy]
35- Mug [Homonymy]
36- Wall [Polysemy]
37- adaptation [polysemy]
38- immunity [associative meaning]
39- Grass [polysemy]
 Imagine a situation and clarify its context [time, place, action, and kind of
relationship]:
 Disambiguate the following sentence:
1- The prime number few
 The prime ministers are few. ]‫[رئيس الوزراء‬
 The prime numbers are few. [‫]ا ألعداد ا ألوليّة‬
2- She has no children, and so she is going to seek.
 Seek can mean try to have a baby.
 Seek can mean try to adopt a baby.
3- She spread the bread with stocks:
 She spread the dough wearing socks.
 She spread the bread with a sauce called "socks."
4- Avoid unnecessary apologies:
- You have apologized so much, so avoid unnecessary apologies.
- You have not done a fatal mistake, so avoid unnecessary
apologies.
 Give reason for the following:
1- Smart Aleck interpretation.
 2- Function words are important.
3- "Verb to be" can never be a predicate of a sentence.
4- Predicates do not refer.
5- Proper nouns can be the predicate.
6- Reversal test is not always possible.
7- Sense is an intra linguistic relationship.
 Mention the different types of sentences, along with examples each:
1- Declarative sentence. Ex: I will go to the college tomorrow.
2- Imperative sentence. Ex: Go to the college tomorrow!
3- Interrogative sentence. Ex: Will you go to the college tomorrow?
4- Very common sentence type.
5- Generic Sentence type.
6- Entailment sentence.
 Use the following words as referring, non-referring and predicating
expression.
School (indefinite noun phrase):
1. He went to a school in his hometown. (Referring)
2. I need a school to join. (Non-referring)
3. It is an old school. (Predicating)
A man:
1. I met a man. (referring)
2. Your son looks like a little man (non-referring)
3. He is a man. (predicating)
A library
1. I went to a library (referring)
2. I need a library (non-referring)
3. It is a nice library. (predicating)