Semantics: Sentence Meaning and Utterance Meaning - Essay Example

Semantics: An Examination of Sentence Meaning and Utterance Meaning Semantics is an attempt to discern the ways in which meaning is constructed in human language. Semantics is the study of meaning, and it shouldn’t be confused with the actual creation of meaning. Meaning does not exist in phonology, morphology, and even though syntax analyzes sentence structure, it doesn’t create meaning either. As Noam Chomsky once noted: “colorless green ideas sleep furiously”(15). Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this discipline to deal with is ambiguity in language; ambiguity refers to the same phrase having multiple possible meanings. For instance, the sentence Annie looked at people wearing glasses can mean that Annie was looking at people who were wearing glasses themselves, or it can mean that Annie was wearing glasses while looking at people. These two different meanings have a very large impact on the effectiveness of the sentence. Related to ambiguity is the relationship between sentence meaning and utterance meaning. Put simply, sentence meaning is independent of context, and utterance meaning is dependent upon context (Lyons 38). However, the relationship between the two is hardly simple, and many cases of ambiguity are a result of the differences between the two: “Perceived discrepancies between sentence meaning and utterance meaning give rise to the frequently asked question What did s/he mean when s/he said that? (Allan 43). It would not be appropriate to attempt to determine whether one was more important than the other because they are used for two different situations. One might as well ask whether having a context or not having a context was more important to the study of semantics. As stated, sentence meaning is independent of context, though there is more to the definition that needs to be considered. For instance, the sequence of words obviously has to be possible in a given language, and it has to be complete in a given sense. There would be no point in attempting to examine the meaning of a sentence such as Chomsky’s example. The meaning of the sentence England is an island is easy to discern. England, as a country, is a familiar entity, and the concept of an island being a land-mass completely surrounded by water is also well-known. Looking at any map, the fact that England is a land-mass that is completely surrounded by water is not a difficult thought to grasp. Utterance meaning is used by a speaking on a particular occasion and is dependent upon the context of the situation. John Lyons once stated that “utterances are unique physical events” (28). Take into consideration the sentence John is hungry. Perhaps John’s mother is making this statement to his father while everyone is in the car driving to visit relatives. This is an example of a “unique physical event.” There are very specific circumstances that are taking place as this utterance is made. This utterance wouldn’t make any sense while John’s family were at their relatives’ house sitting down during the middle of dinner. However, if John’s mother had stated England is an island while in the car and at the relatives’ house, the sentence would have the same meaning. As we can see, the meaning of this sentence is independent on the context in which it is stated, while the utterance John is hungry is dependent upon the situation in which it is made. In considering these two examples, we can see that “sentence-meaning is an abstract entity, a property of language itself” (Allan 44). The way that meaning is constructed in the phrase England is an island can be found completely within the language itself. Conventions of language have determined that any land-mass that has all of its sides surrounded by water is to be called an island. It is not as though there are any properties to islands that necessitate that they have a separate name than land masses not completely surrounded by water. In a sense, we can think of all land-masses as being surrounded by water, and as such everything is an island. Because of conventions of language, though, England is considered to be an island, and North and South America are considered to be continents, even though they too together are surrounded by water on all sides. A single phrase can be examined for both sentence-meaning and utterance-meaning. As mentioned earlier, it is the discrepancies between the two that cause confusion in language. Take for instance the sentence She supported him. It can mean a female provided emotional assistance to a male or a female used physical mean to prevent a male from falling down, such as holding a ladder still. Both of these sentences have the meaning of a female being in a supportive role of a male, and that is the sentence-meaning, but they have different utterance-meanings that are dependent upon the situation: “Sentence-meaning, then, is related to utterance-meaning by virtue of the notion of characteristic use” (Lyons 39). What should also be taken into consideration is how the speaker of the phrase chooses to give meaning. There are many possible ways in which this sentence could be used, but there are also many different possible outcomes to the use of this sentence: “It is the Speaker’s use of sentence meaning within a particular utterance that gives rise to utterance meaning” (Allan 44). Considering all of these different possible outcomes, it seems that ambiguity is simply just another basic property of language itself like sentence-meaning. Ambiguity due to discrepancies between sentence-meaning and utterance-meaning doesn’t obviously make communication impossible, though it does make semantics a more particularly difficult field of analysis. The prevalence of ambiguity leads to interesting questions. If there is so much ambiguity in language, then how can we make any statement with total certainty? It seems, though, that most philosophers have written the idea of total certainty and absolute truth off as anachronistic. Ambiguity forces us to consider the nature of language and the role it plays in our lives. The role it takes in forming meaning requires that we deal with it in our everyday language and in our academic analyses of the meanings of sentences and utterances. Works Cited Allan, Keith, Natural Language Semantics, Blackwell Publishing, 2001. Chomsky, Noam, Syntactic Structures. Hague/ Paris: Mouton, 1957. Kempson, Ruth M. Semantic Theory. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977. Lyons, John, Semantics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977. Lyons, John, Semantics: An Introduction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995. Ogden, C.K., Richards, I.A., The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language Upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism. Orlando, FL, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989. Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction By John Lyons Published by Cambridge University Press, 1995 Natural Language Semantics By Keith Allan Published by Blackwell Publishing, 2001 Semantic Theory By Ruth M. Kempson Published by Cambridge University Press, 1977 Chomsky, Noam (1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. pp. 15. Read More