Week 12 Module 4 Lesson 4.

3 Semantics

In semantics, the focus of study is on meaning: the meaning of individual words as well as meanings of phrases and sentences. Semantics endeavors to answer such questions as:

What are the components of word meaning? How do word meanings related to one another? How do the meanings of discrete words combine to create more comple meaning in phrases and sentences? Why does one string of words mean one thing while a similar strong of words may mean something very different? How can a single string of words mean more than one thing? When can two distinct sentences mean the same thing? What are the rules of conversation?

!oreover, semantics as"s, #What is meaning, anyway?#

What is semantics? Semantics is the subfield of linguistics that studies meaning in language. Semantics deals with the meanings of words as well as the meanings of phrases and sentences. !eaning is a multifaceted phenomenon.

First, language communicates information about the orld around us: we can refer to people, places, concrete ob$ects, and abstract ideas %e.g., &ueen 'li(abeth, )las"a, bicycles, and love*. Second, we can also assert that these things have certain properties or stand in certain relationships to one another %such as the properties +is purple+ and +is singing+ or the relations +is a brother of,+ +is located at,+ and +strongly disli"es+*. ,y using sentences of a common language, one person can e pand another person+s "nowledge of the world -- from simple facts, li"e who is sitting in the ne t chair, to comple facts about astrophysics. ) language is thus a system of symbols that are used to represent ob$ects and states of affairs in the world. .ne aspect of linguistic meaning, then, is them information content of language: what language tells us about the real world. In other words, one aspect of meaning is the relationship between the symbols that we use to refer to things and the actual things or states of affairs that we use these symbols to describe. .f course, language can also be used to tal" about imaginary situations and things, li"e unicorns and Santa /laus, as well as actual ones. Second, meanings are things that are gras!ed and !roduced on the mind of the s!eakers and hearers as they use language. 0herefore, meaning is also a cognitive and psychological phenomenon. When we as" whether the meaning of a noun li"e bird is more li"e a dictionary definition, a mental representation, or the concept of the typical bid, we are as"ing about the aspect of meaning, not its reference %the reference of bird is an actual physical bird, not something in the mind.* "hird, language meaning is a social !henomenon in that relationships between spea"er and hearer come into play in all sort of ways in determining what our utterances mean. 1anguage meaning is tied to conte#t. 2or e ample, the statement #I now pronounce you husband and wife# will only wor" if I have the social and legal authority to ma"e the action happen. 0he appropriateness of meaning in a situation is the field of !ragmatics, which can+t be completely separated from semantics. Fourth, meanings of ords and sentences ha$e a $ariet% of im!ortant relationshi!s among themsel$es. 0his area classifies words as synonyms, antonyms, and hyponyms, as well as other relationships of this "ind. A major division in semantics is between lexical semantics, the meanings of words, and

compositional semantics, the way in which word meanings and syntactic structure combine to determine the meanings of phrase and sentences. We'll loo at these important divisions next.

Week 12 Module 4 Lesson 4.3.1 Theories of Meaning

How do we decide what a word or sentence means?

There are several answers to this question: mental image, reference, and truth conditions and value. Let's begin with the most obvious one: taking a word's meaning to be its dictionary definition.

Dictionar Definitions
Before we can talk about word meanings as dictionary definitions, a clarification about the use of dictionaries is necessary. No matter the academic credentials or dedication of research of dictionary writers, remember one thing:there is sim!l no higher authorit than the communit of nati"e s!eakers of the language . word's meaning is determined by the !eo!le who use the word, not by a dictionary. "or this reason, the best dictionaries are constantly changing to reflect the language as it is used by its s!eakers. New words are added as they become a !art of the s!eakers' le#icon. $ven the venerable %#ford $nglish &ictionary adds news words each year. dictionary is a useful resource, as you recall from lesson '.(.(. But a dictionary entry doesn't really e#!lain the meaning of a word or !hrase in terms of something more basic. )t *ust !ara!hrases, giving one set of words for another. "or e#am!le, the +ebster dictionary meaning for the word bird is the following:

Main #ntry: (bird ,ronunciation: -berd"unction: noun .sage: often attributive $tymology: /iddle $nglish brid, bird, from %ld $nglish bridd &ate: before (0th century ( archaic: the young of a feathered vertebrate 0: any of a class 1aves2 of warm3blooded vertebrates distinguished by having the body more or less com!letely covered with feathers and the forelimbs modified as wings 4: a game bird ': clay !igeon 5: a. fellow. b: a !eculiar !erson, chiefly British: girl 6: shuttlecock 7: chiefly British a: a hissing or *eering sound e#!ressive of disa!!roval b: dismissal from em!loyment 8: a thin !iece of meat rolled u! with stuffing and cooked 9: a man3made ob*ect 1as an aircraft, rocket, or satellite2 that resembles a bird es!ecially by flying or being aloft (:: an obscene gesture of contem!t made by !ointing the middle finger u!ward while kee!ing the other fingers down 3 usually used with the 3 called also finger lthough thorough, this definition 3 as are all dictionary definitions 3 isn't the best or ultimate definition of bird. +e need more to truly define the word.

Mental $mages
)f a word's dictionary meaning is not all there is to meaning, what else is there; %ne !ossibility is that a word's meaning is a mental image. <eadings the words Mona Lisa, for e#am!le, may well cause an image of Leonardo da =inci's !ainting to a!!ear in your mind. >owever, a mental image can't be all there is to a word's meaning, any more than a dictionary definition can be. %ne reason is that different !eo!le's mental images may be very different from each other.

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"or e#am!le, the word lecture con*ures different mental images de!ending your !ers!ective.

"or a student, lecture may be associated with one !erson standing in front of a class and talking...

... or from the !ers!ective of looking over other students' heads.

But in the mind of the lecturer, the word lecturemay con*ure an image of fresh3 faced students eager to take on the world...

... and not so eager students 1*ust kidding 3 okay, )'m not.2

But the word lecture may also another mental image, as a child being lectured by !arents or others in authority.

ll of these are correct mental images for lecture. But you can see how the same word can mean different things to different !eo!le. nother !roblem with relying on mental images to define the meanings of words is that some words don't really have mental images connected to them. +hat is the mental image associated in your mind of, for e#am!le, with the wordforget; %r the word the; %r the word aspect; %nly certain words seem to have definite images, but no one would want to say that only these words have meanings.

Meaning and %eference

+hat else might be involved in a word's meaning, besides a dictionary definition and a mental image; Language is used to talk about things in the outside world, and many words seem to stand for, or refer to, actual ob*ects or relations in the word. )t seems reasonable, then, to consider the actual thing a word refers to 33 that is, its referent 33 as one as!ect of the word's meaning. But once again, it would be a mistake to think of reference as all there is to meaning. To do so would tie meaning too tightly to the real world. )f meaning were defined as the actual thing an e#!ression refers to, what would we do about words for tings that don't e#ist; There is sim!ly no actual things that the words Santa Claus refer to, yet obviously these words are not meaningless. 1Note that this would not cause a !roblem for a theory of mental images, since most everyone has a clear mental image of Santa Claus.2 further !roblem for the theory of reference is that !re!ositions 1such as to, on, about, etc.2 abstract nouns 1such as theory, government, idea2, and words such as forget and the still have no clear meaning 3 what real3world entities could these words !ossibly refer to; Thus, language can be used to talk about fiction, fantasy or s!eculation in addition to the real world, and any com!lete e#!lanation of meaning must take account of this fact.

Meaning& Truth 'onditions& and Truth (alue

)t is clear that the meaning of an e#!ression is not *ust its real3world referent. ?till, it is !robably not necessary to give u! the key insight it !rovides: that meaning involves a relation between language and the world. To see how the !roblems associated with this characteri@ation can be avoided, consider for a moment how a sentence related to the world, rather than *ust how individual words related to the word. ?entence meaning, even more than word meaning, may seem like a difficult conce!t to define. But !erha!s it can be understood more clearly if instead of asking, A+hat is sentence meaning; A, we take an indirect a!!roach and ask A+hat do you know when you know what a sentence means;A ?to! and think about this for a moment, using a !articular e#am!le, for instance:

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George Bush is asleep. +e don't actually know he's aslee!. To know what a sentence means isn't the same as knowing if the statement is true. nyone who knows a sentence's meaning knows the conditions under which it would be truth 3 its truth conditions. Bou know, for e#am!le, that for the sentence George Bush is asleep to be true, the individual !erson designated by the words George Bush must be in the condition designed by the words is aslee!. )f, in addition to the truth conditions, you in fact know whether or not the sentence really is true, then you also know another facet of the sentence's meaning, its truth "alue. This is always either true or false. Truth conditions and truth value of a sentence relate it to the world but in a somewhat different way than orderly reference related !articular words to the world. ?entences about Santa Claus, for instance, do have truth conditions, even through the words Santa Claus have no real3world referent. $veryone knows what ?anta Claus would have to be like if he were real, so it is not hard to describe the conditions under which a sentence containing these words would be true. )nterestingly, it is less clear that sentences about ?anta Claus have truth value: is the sentence ?anta Claus is aslee! right now true or false; /any !eo!le have the intuition that asking such as questions is ina!!ro!riate. The sentence is neither true nor false since we know that ?anta Claus doesn't e#ist, and giving either answer world seem to im!ly that he does e#ist. By the way, an entire subfield of semantic, the study of !resu!!osition, is develo!ed to researching !henomena such as this.

Thus, it a!!ears that the best method by which to define words involves many things 33 dictionary meanings, images we have of the word in our minds, equivalents of the word to real3world ob*ects, and underlying truth conditions. That we are able to kee! the definitions of thousands of words in our heads is certainly an ama@ing feat indeed. "or the worksheet for /od ' ctivity 9 Le#ical ?emantics, go ne#t to Lesson '.4.0.

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Week 12 Module 4 Lesson 4.3.2 Le)ical *emantics

What is le)ical semantics?

Le)ical semantics deals with a language's le)icon, or the collection of words in a language. )t is concerned with individual words 1unlike com!ositional semantics, which is concerned with meanings of sentences.2 %f the many ways that le#ical semantics can be studied, we'll look in general terms at the meaning relationshi!s that word meanings have with one another and the semantic features that hel! to differentiate similar words. Le#ical semantics focuses on meanings in isolation, that is, without attention to their contribution to reference or truth conditions.

Meaning %elationshi!s
There are many ways for two words to be related. +e've already seen a number of ways: mor!hologically related: liftDlifted which both share the same stem syntactically related 3 writeD!aint both verbs !honologically related 3 nightDknight, which share the same !ronunciation.

nother way two words can be related is semantically. "or instance, the word pot is intuitively more closely related semantically to the word pan than it is so the word floor. The reason, clearly, is that both pot and pan have meanings that involved the act of cooking, while floor does not in any obvious way.

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What kinds of semantic relationshi!s are there?

+. H,M,-.M* >omonyms, also called homo!hones 1meaning Asame soundA2 are !airs of words that have different meanings with identical sounds. "or e#am!le: fairDfare !airD!are boarDbore ca!itolDca!ital toDtooDtwo

>omonyms are words that have different histories, called a word's et molog , and !robably had different !ronunciations back in history. "or e#am!le, the words fair and fare are !ronounced identically today but have com!letely different origins: gloss: visually beautiful, become clear and sunny, other meanings fair from: /$ fair, fager from %$ faeger AclearA gloss: Aa trans!ortation charge, food and drink, others fare from: /$ faren Ato travel, goA from %$ faran

1/$ E /iddle $nglish, a !eriod from about (:66 to the ('::s2 1%$ E %ld $nglish, from & ':: to (:662 >ere's another e#am!le: gloss: two corres!onding things designed for use together !air !are from: /$ paire from %" from Latin paria Aequal thingsA gloss: to trim off an outside, e#cess, or irregular !art of from: /$ from /" parer Ato !re!are or trimA from Latin parare Ato

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!re!areA 1/" E /iddle "rench, from a!!ro#. (':: 3 (6((2 1%" E %ld "rench, from a!!ro#. & 8'0 3 ('::2 By the way, the etymologies of words also hel! to e#!lain s!elling. "or e#am!le, the silent letters k and e in the wordknife were !ronounced at one !oint in history but were lost over time. +e'll look at historical linguistics in an u!coming module. /. H.0,-.M* +e can say that word F is a hy!onym of word B if in all !ossible scenarios, F's set is always contained in 1is always a sub*ect of2 B's set. Koa, oak, and cedar as well as wood are hy!onyms of tree. Consider the words poodle and dog. ?u!!ose that the current set of !oodles includes ,rincess. The current set of dogs will then include at least this dog and !ossible others as well 1such as Buttercu! the <ottweiler and Giller the Chihuahua.2 Dog is a hy!onym of ani alH poodle is a hy!onym of dog. animal dog !oodle 0rincess

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'. *.-,-.M* Two words are synonymous is they have similar meaning and are often used interchangeably. But look a little closer at common synonyms, and you'll reali@e that the two words aren't always (::I the same and interchangeable. (::I same regional formality emotionD!olitical legal quickDra!id, sickDill, couchDsofa ta!DfaucetDs!igot, skilletD!an, hot cakesD!ancakes, sodaD!o! !ass awayDdieD!o! off freedom fighterDguerrillaDterrorist killDmanslaughterDmurder

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D. +-T,-.M* Two words are antonymous if their meaning is o!!osite. There are several ways a !air of words can be o!!osites. Contradictory !airs are words that are nearly com!lete o!!osites 33 everything is one or the other: marriedDunmarried visibleDinvisible aliveDdead overDunder ?calar antonyms or gradable !airs are words that are not com!letely !olar o!!osites because each word has no end!oint and can very from one !erson to another 1so, for e#am!le, hot can mean one thing to one

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!erson and something else to another !erson2: hotDcold #. +M/$12,2* +ords that have double meanings are ambiguous. /any words have more than one meaning such as bank 1of a river, a financial institution2 and glasses 1eyeglasses, sunglasses, drinking glasses.2 Notice the many meanings of the wordtrunk in this cartoon goodDbad strongDweak ha!!yDsad shortDtall

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3. +-,M+L,2*

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nomalies are nonsensical words and !hrases: !is cheeseburger has bad intensions and My printer doesn"t like

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+cti"it

Mod 4 +cti"it 4 Le)ical *emantics

Try your hand at meaning relationshi!s. "ollow these directions to com!lete this activity successfully. (. <eview the meaning relationshi!s above. 0. &ownload and com!lete Mod 4 +cti"it 4 1.doc2.

4. ?ave as yourlastname_mod4activity9. Be sure to save as +ord .doc or ,.doc# or rich te#t .rtf.
&o not save as .w!s, w!d, or .html. '. ?ubmit this activity as an attachment in the assignment dro! bo# by the calendar deadline.

*emantic 3eatures
nother way of analy@ing le#ical meaning is to decom!ose word meanings into more basic !arts. This !rocess is calledle)ical decom!osition. The idea is that most words have meanings that are Abuilt u!A from sim!ler meanings. "or e#am!le, the words are, stallion, hen, and rooster all have the common meaning of N)/ L in them. +e could say that these four words share the common semantic feature N)/ L. )n addition, are and hen share the common feature "$/ L$ while stallion and rooster share / L$. nother illustration of le#ical decom!osition comes from causatives. Consider these !airs of sentences, which use

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theintransitive verbs boil, open, bake, and turn and their transitive counter!arts: The The The The water boiled. door o!ened. cake baked. car turned. <obin boiled the water. The wind o!ened the door. <obin baked the cake. <obin turned the car.

+e can analy@e the meaning of the verbs in terms of causes. )n <obin boiled the water, the transitive verb boil can be analy@ed as F C .?$? B to B%)L. The late ?tan ?tarosta at .> /anoa introduced his brand of semantic features as a series of !lus or minus characteristics to com!are words. %nce we graduate students learned about semantic features, we began to see them in nearly every word we ever heard or read. "or e#am!le, consider the difference in meaning between cement and concrete. lthough many of use them interchangeably, they actually mean different things. &r. ?tarosta might have e#!lained the differences as: cement concrete J wet 1or 3 dry2 3 wet 1or J dry2

The difference between ce ent and concrete is that ce ent is a wet while concrete is dry. There are other ways to describe the two words 1ce ent is a mi# combined with water while concrete is the hardened after3!roduct2, but you can see how narrowing words down to their basic differences o!ens u! a new way in which to view words. hide conceal murder 3 bad intentions J bad intentions 1you don't want the !erson to find what you've hidden2 3 !rominence

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assassinate

J !rominence 1you can't AassassinateA a *anitor2

+cti"it

Mod 4 +cti"it 15 *emantic 3eatures

?emantic features hel! us to define words that have similar characteristics. "ollow these directions to com!lete this activity successfully. (. <eview the info on semantic features above. 0. &ownload and com!lete Mod 4 +cti"it 15 1.doc2.

4. ?ave as yourlastname_mod4activity10. Be sure to save as +ord .doc or rich te#t .rtf. &o not
save as .w!s, w!d, .doc#, or .html. '. ?ubmit this activity in the assignment dro! bo# by the calendar deadline.

Week 12 Module 4 Lesson 4.3.3 +nthro!ological *emantics

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s you know, the meaning of a word is what its native s!eakers say it is, not what a dictionary or scholarly source might content. Let's look at how our culture influences what words mean. To make the connection between how language reflects culture, we turn now to a fascinating subfield of semantics which has its roots in anthro!ology, focusing on name studies, color terms, and kinshi! terms.

-ame studies 6,nomastics7

3$%*T -+M#* ?urnames 1last names2 are the most im!ortant way of identifying !eo!le who are related. inherited and, while it may be changed, some form of it is usually retained. surname is usually

Kiven names 1first names2 are more im!ortant in a way because they re!resent a voluntary choice by the !arents or, sometimes, by an individual. name is usually not given lightly. )t re!resents thought and feelings and can be significant to the researcher. To! 15 -ames for 2558 6source9 *ocial *ecurit +dministration7 %ank ( 0 4 ' 5 6 7 8 9 (: Male name Lacob /ichael Loshua $than /atthew &aniel Christo!her ndrew nthony +illiam 3emale name $mily $mma /adison )sabella va bigail %livia >annah ?o!hia ?amantha

Note: <ank ( is the most !o!ular, rank 0 is the ne#t most !o!ular, and so

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Week 12 Module 4 Lesson 4.3.4 'om!ositional *emantics

.nlike le#ical semantics, which focuses on the meanings of individual words, the field of com!ositional semanticslooks at the meanings of sentences and longer utterances. /uch of the focus of traditional semantics has been on vocabulary, but contem!orary semantics is increasingly concerned with the analysis of sentence meaning, or al least of those as!ects of sentenced meaning that cannot be !redicted from the sum of the individual le#emes. The ma*or areas of com!ositional semantics are anomalies, idioms, ambiguities, and !resu!!ositions.

+nomalies
The semantic !ro!erties of words determine what other words they can be combined with. by linguistics illustrates this fact: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously# The sentence obeys all the syntactic rules of $nglish. The sub*ect is colorless green ideas and the !redicate is sleep furiously. )t has the same syntactic structure as the sentence Dark green leaves rustle furiously# But there is obviously something semantically wrong with the sentence. The meaning of colorless includes the semantic feature Awithout color,A but it is combined with the ad*ective green, which has the semantic feature Agreen in color.A >ow can something be both Awithout colorA and Agreen in colorA; This sentence violates what we know about semantic features and is, therefore, semantically anomalous. sentence widely used

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?emantic violations in !oetry may form strange but interesting aesthetic images , as in &ylan Thomas's !hrase a grief ago. $go is originally used with words s!ecified by some tem!oral semantic features: a week ago an hour ago a month ago a century ago Ma table ago M a dream ago M a mother ago Ma !a!er ago

but not

+hen Thomas used the word grief with ago, he was adding a durable feature to grief for !oetic effect, so while the noun !hrase is anomalous, it evokes certain feelings. 1Bou can read the com!lete &ylan Thomas !oem here.2

+elsh ,oet &ylan Thomas 1(9(' 3 (9542

?o although !hrases like Thomas's a grief ago violate some semantic rules, we can understand them. Breaking the rules creates the imagery desired. The fact that we are able to understand, or at least inter!ret, anomalous e#!ressions, and at the same time recogni@e their anomalous nature, demonstrates our knowledge of the semantic system and semantics !ro!erties of the language.

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$dioms
)diomatic e#!ressions are !hrases that have fi#ed meanings that are literal. "i#ed meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the individual words. "or e#am!le, A!ull my legA means to kid or *oke and has nothing to do with !ulling legs. )t is an e#!ression whose origins are often lost to history. >ere are some common $nglish idioms: !ull my leg cook your goose eat my hat let their hair down !ut his foot in his mouth throw her weight around cut it out bite your tongue give a !iece of your mind

)dioms are similar in structure to ordinary !hrases e#ce!t that they tend to be fro@en in form and do not readily enter into other combinations or allow the word order to change. Thus, 1(2 She put her foot in her has the same structure as but The drawer in which she !ut her bracelet was hers. outh

102 She put her bracelet in her drawer

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>er bracelet was !ut in her drawer.

are sentences related to sentence 102. The mouth in which she out her foot was hers. >er foot was !ut into her mouth.

do not have the same idiomatic sense of sentence 1(2, e#ce!t humorously 1a long list of $nglish idioms is at $nglish "orums2 ll languages contain many such e#!ressions, called idiomatic e#!ressions, as in these ?!anish and "rench e#am!les: %o e to es el pelo. &on't take my hair 1like $nglish ?to! !ulling my leg 3 sto! kidding me2 &ste arro' ya se cocio. That rice has been cooked 1like $nglish That shi! has sailed, meaning it's too late to change things2 &l ero, ero patatero. The real, real !otato seller 1like $nglish the real /cCoy, meaning it's the real thing2 (ui, )uant les poulets auront des dents. Bes, when chickens have teeth 1like $nglish +hen !igs fly, meaning it'll never ha!!en2

+m:iguit
mbiguity, as you have learned, is when words have more than one meaning. "or e#am!le, glasses can mean eye glass, sunglasses, and drinking glasses. mbiguity at the sentence level means a !hrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure, such as these !hrases

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Tibetan history teacher 1the history teacher from Tibet 33 and 33 the teacher of Tibetan history2 short men and women 1woman and men who are short 33 and 33 men and women who are short2 The girl hit the boy with a book 1the boy !ossessed a book 33 and 33 the girl used a book to hit the boy2 =isiting relatives can be boring 1visiting is boring 33 and 33 relatives who are visiting are boring.2 ?herlock saw the man with the binoculars 1?herlock used binoculars to see the man; %r did ?herlock see a man who was wearing binoculars;2

?entence level ambiguity, although sometimes humorous, can lead to confusion. To be clear, the s!eaker needs to re!hrase the sentences.

0resu!!osition
!resu!!osition is background belief relating to an utterance that must be mutually known or assumed by the s!eaker and hearer for the utterance to be considered a!!ro!riate in conte#t generally will remain a necessary assum!tion whether the utterance is !laced in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and can generally be associated with a s!ecific le#ical item or grammatical feature 1!resu!!osition trigger2 in the utterance.

"or e#am!le, the utterance *ohn regrets that he stopped doing linguistics before he left the university has the following !resu!!ositions: There is someone uniquely identifiable to s!eaker and addressee as *ohn#

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Lohn sto!!ed doing linguistics before he left the university. Lohn was doing linguistics before he left the university. Lohn left the university. Lohn had been at the university.

The utterance +"ll have so e ore coffee

!resu!!oses that you have already had some. "or your information, two terms related to !resu!!osition that we don't cover in this class are im!licature andentailment 1which describes the relationshi! between two statements where the truth of one suggests the truth of the other, but 33 distinguishing im!licature from entailment 33 does not require it.

Week 12 Module 4 Lesson 4.3.; 0ragmatics and *!eech +cts

s we have seen, semantics studies the meanings of words and sentences. 0ragmatics studies how !eo!le com!rehend and !roduce a s!eech act in social situations, usually in conversation. %ur interest is in the effect that the conte#t of an utterance, generally observed !rinci!les of communicating, and the goals of the s!eaker have on the s!eaker's choice of e#!ression and the hearer's inter!retation of an utterance.

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*!eech +cts
Lust as !eo!le can !erform !hysical acts, such as hitting a baseball, they can also !erform mental acts, such as imagining hitting a baseball. ,eo!le can also !erform another kind of act sim!ly by using language. These are calleds!eech acts. +e use language to do an e#traordinary wide range of activities. +e use it to convey information, request information, give orders, make requests, make threats, give warnings, make bets, give advice, etc, as the following sentences suggest: (. Lohn Lones has five dollars. 0. +ho ate my sou!; 4. ?hut u!. '. ,lease scratch my back. 5. &o that again, and )'ll kick your ass. 6. There is a mouse in the back seat of your car. 7. "ive bucks says the .> +arriors will beat Boise ?tate this year. 8. Bou ought to go to class at least once a week. There can be little doubt that our ability to do things with language 3 to !erform s!eech acts 3 that makes language useful to us. )n fact, with language, we can do things that otherwise would be im!ossible. Consider 1'2 a request for a hearer to scratch the s!eaker's back. )f we did not have language, how would this request be made; >ow would the hearer know that the s!eaker means scratch and not rub; >ow would the hearer know that this action was a request and not an order;

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The most common s!eech acts: *!eech +ct assertion question request order !romise threat 0erformati"e (er:s s!ecial kind of s!eech act, known as a !erformative s!eech act, shows that we consider As!eech actionA *ust as legitimate as any other !hysical action. This is made clear by the last number of verbs that !erform !urely linguistic action. Com!are these sentences 192 3 1(62 with 1(2 3 182 above: 9. ) assert that Lohn Lones has five dollars. (:. ) ask who ate my sou!. ((. ) order you to shut u!. (0. ) request that you scratch my back. (4. ) threaten you that if you do that again, and )'ll kick your ass. ('. ) warn you that there is a mouse in the back seat of your car. (5. ) bet you five bucks says the .> +arriors will beat Boise ?tate this year. (6. ) advise you to go to class at least once a week. s these sentences illustrate, the s!eech acts !erformed by sentences 1(2 3 182 can also be !erformed by actually stating the act 1such as + assert and + re)uest.2 The usual name for these verbs is !erformative verbs, which can be 3unction conveys information elicits information 1more or less !olitely2 elicits action or information demands action commits the s!eaker to an action commits the s!eaker to an action that the hearer does not want

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defined as verbs that can be used to !erform the acts they name. )n 1((2, for e#am!le, we have an order, with the !erformative verb order, followed by the s!ecific command shut up. These are direct s!eech acts because the !erformative verb names the s!eech act.

3elicit 'onditions
?entences can go wrong in a number of ways: words might be mis!ronounced 1for e#am!le, we might say ANo bout adout itA instead of ANo doubt about itA2, or we might make an irregular verb regular even though we don't normally do so 1for e#am!le, we might say Ahe swimmedA instead of Ahe swam.A2 ?!eech acts can go wrong, too, by being situationally ina!!ro!riate. ?u!!ose that two !eo!le in a bar who have had too much to drink decide to get married and go u! to the bartender and ask him to marry them. ?u!!ose that the bartender used to be a court clerk and remembered e#actly what must be said and done to marry !eo!le. ?u!!ose, finally, that they go through the whole ceremony in front of witnesses, and that the bartender concluded by saying, + hereby pronounce you husband and wife. ?aving this, in this conte#t, would not effect a marrying of these two !eo!le, and not necessarily because they are drunk or they are in a bar, but sim!ly because the bartender doesn't have the official social and legal status required to marry !eo!le. The marriage !ronouncement is, therefore, situationally ina!!ro!riate, and we say in such cases that the s!eech act in question is infelicitous 3 has gone awry. ssociated with each s!eech act, then, is a set of felicit conditions that must be satisfied if that s!eech act is to be correctly 1including honestly2 !erformed. Consider this statement: +f you don"t eat all your spinach, you can"t watch any ,-# +hat felicity conditions have to e#ist for this sentence to be a threat; (. The s!eaker is willing and able to carry out the threat. 0. The hearer believes that the s!eaker has the ability to carry out the threat. 4. The hearer does not want the threat to be carried out.

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?o if the s!eaker was a mother and the hearer her child, then the felicity conditions e#ist for the utterance to be a threat. But what if the s!eaker was a roommate; ?he no longer has the ability to carry out the threat and the hearer likely doesn't believe she can carry it out. The felicity conditions no longer e#ist 3 thus, no threat. Consider this sentence: +" leaving#

+hat felicity conditions have to e#ist for this sentence to be a threat; (. The s!eaker is willing and able to carry out the action . 0. The hearer believes that the s!eaker has the ability to carry out the action . 4. The hearer does not want the action to be carried out. )f all of these conditions are met, the utterance is a threat. But what felicity conditions have to e#ist for this sentence to be a !romise; (. The s!eaker is willing and able to carry out the action. 0. The hearer believes that the s!eaker has the ability to carry out the action. 4. The hearer &%$? want the action to be carried out. The main difference between a threat and a !romise, then, is that the hearer doesn't want the action to be carried out 1threat2 or that sheDhe does 1!romise.2 Take a look at this cartoon. Notice how similar a !romise is to a reminder and a threat to a warning.

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)n both instances, the hearer welcomes the information. The main difference between a reminder and a warning is whether the hearer recogni@es the action as a !romise or as a threat.

$ndirect s!eech acts

.nderstanding the motives behind utterances is often crucial to successful communication. But the relationshi! between the surface form of an utterance 33 the actual words s!oken 33 and it underlying !ur!ose 33 the s!eaker's intentions 33 isn't always straightforward. Consider: Can you pass the salt. This is an interrogative and so e#!resses a question. .sually the s!eaker's goal in asking a questing is to get an answer. But Can you pass the salt. has a different !ur!ose: it's a request, where the s!eaker's goal is for the header to !ass the salt. This is an indirect s!eech act, which is an utterance in which one s!eech act is !erformed indirectly by !erforming another. <equesting the hearer to !ass the salt is !erformed indirectly by !erforming another communication act 3 asking about the hearer's ability to !ass the salt. There are several ways to determine if an utterance is an indirect s!eech act. "irst check to see whether there is a

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!erformative verb in the sentence, since only direct s!eech acts are accom!lished using !erformative verbs, never indirect s!eech acts. )f there is no !erformative verb in the sentence, check to see whether any felicity conditions are violated. )f there are violations of the literal but not the intended meaning, then the sentence must be indirect. "inally, we can imagine a conte#t in which the utterance is used and consider the way !eo!le normally res!ond to it. &ifferent s!eech acts arouse different res!onses. Listeners res!ond to an assertion by a signal or acknowledgement, such as a nod or a verbal res!onse such as (h, + see. ,eo!le res!ond to a question by a confirmation or denial, or by giving the information being solicited. ,eo!le res!ond to a request or command by either carrying out the action accordingly or refusing with some e#!lanation. )f the res!onse to an utterance is different than its literal meaning would be, then it is used to !erform an indirect s!eech act. "or e#am!le, the literal inter!retation of Can you pass the salt. is a question. But com!are it with something like Can you lift /00 pounds. Bou can res!ond to this question by sim!ly saying 1es, + can or %o, + can"t. But it isn't a!!ro!riate, felicitous, or !olite to res!ond to Can you pass the salt.this way. This shows that Can you lift /00 pounds. is a direct s!eech act of questioning while Can you pass the salt. is an indirect s!eech act of requesting.

Because !ragmatics is interested in language used in s!ecific conte#ts, it follows that we should take a look at another communicative situation 33 the conversation. +e'll learn about conversation rules ne#t.

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/uch discourse is telegra!hic. ,eo!le don't always talk in com!lete sentences, the wrong words are used, and ungrammatical constructions abound. Bet !eo!le still understand one another, and !art of the reason is that rules of grammar and rules of discourse combine with conte)tual knowledge to fill in what's missing and make the discourse cohere. /uch of the conte#tual knowledge is knowledge of who is s!eaking, who is listening, what ob*ects are being discussed, and general facts about the world we live in 3 what is called situational conte)t. %ften what we say is not literarily when we mean. +hen we ask A>ow are you;A, we are not necessarily asking for a list of ailments. )nstead, we are saying hello. )f ) say, ABou're standing on my foot,A ) am not making conversation. ) am asking you to get off of my foot. +e say Ait's cold in hereA to convey Ashut the windowA or Alet's leaveA or a do@en other things that de!end on real3world situation at the time of s!eaking. The use of language is governed by social rules. ?ome rules are designed to !rotect !eo!le's feelings by showing res!ect 1such as rules governing whether or not you can use a first name in addressing someone or must use a title and last name.2 <ather more im!ortant are rules designed to !rotect the integrity of our communication. )t is reasonably clear that if !eo!le were to decide to tell lies in some random way, so that listeners would have no way of determining when s!eakers were lying or when they were telling the truth, language would cease to be of any value to us. +e have settled on a set of conventions governing language use that !reserves its integrity by requiring us among other things, to be honest in its use, to have evidence for what we say, and to make what we say relevant to the s!eech content. +hat is interesting about these conventions is that they were never officially !ro!osed and voted on by anybody but instead have emerged naturally. nd we learn them in much the same way we learn most social rules 3 by trial and error.

Ma)ims of 'on"ersation
,hiloso!her >. ,aul Krice !ro!osed a well3known set of !rinci!les for engaging in coo!erati"e discourse: M+<$M ,3 =2+L$T. (. &o not say what you believe to be false. 0. &o not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

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The first /a#im of Nuality is self3evident. +ithout regular com!liance with this ma#im, language would be useless to us. The second is more interesting, for it is only when we believe we have adequate evidence for some claim that we can have much confidence that we are observing the first /a#im of Nuality. Nevertheless, !eo!le differ strikingly in what they think is good evidence for their views, es!ecially in the areas of religion and !olitics 1which is why these to!ics are so often off3limits as to!ics of conversation.2 Because we normally assume that s!eakers are obeying the coo!erative !rinci!le, we sometimes draw inferences from what !eo!le say that are based on this assum!tion. Consider the following conversation: ?andy: Tom: +e need someone to make some sort of fruit salad for the !icnic. ) can make my family's favorite fruit salad.

?andy would likely draw the inference that Tom has actually made this fruit salad before, for the best evidence that Tom can make this salad is the fact that he has indeed made it. >owever, this is not a valid inference. That is, it is not entailed by Tom's statementH it is only im!licated. Tom could legitimately say this was based on the fact that he had watched it being made many times and thought he knew all that was needed to be known to make it. ,eo!le sometimes say the word can in a sentence like this is weak 1because they think it means merely Ais !ossibleA2 and would therefore say that ?andy's drawing this inference is wrongheaded. >owever, this literalist view is out of touch with how we use the language. ?u!!ose Tom were to make the salad and it were to come out very badly. ?omething like the following conversation might take !lace: ?andy: Tom: ) though you said you could make this saladO +ell, ) thought ) could.

s ?andy's challenge illustrates, we take claims involving the word can quite seriously because we assume that s!eakers using it are obeying the second /a#im of Nuality. M+<$M ,3 %#L#(+-'# (. Be relevant. This ma#im is sometimes called the su!erma#im because it is central to the orderliness of conversation. )t limits random to!ic shifts and is very im!ortant to understanding how we draw con"ersational inferences. Consider the

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following conversation: ?andy: Tom: )s Kail dating anyone these days; +ell, she goes to /aui every weekend.

)n this case, ?andy will likely draw the inference that Kail is dating someone because she will assume that what Tom as said is relevant to what she has said. )n fact, if Tom knew that Kail goes to /aui every weekend because she has a *ob there, what he said would have been very misleading. M+<$M ,3 =2+-T$T. (. /ake your contribution as informative as is required. 0. &o not make your contribution more informative than is required. These !rinci!les are reasonably self3e#!lanatory. The first says to give the information the listener needs to understand our message. The second says not to say more than you need to, which might result in irrelevant or unnecessarily long or confusing sentences. M+<$M ,3 M+--#% (. 0. void obscurity of e#!ression. void ambiguity.

4. Be brief. '. Be orderly. s you can infer from this list, the first encourages us to avoid use of *argon 1terms restricted !rimarily to s!eciali@ed areas of knowledge2 or other terms our listeners cannot be e#!ected to know. The second ma#im requires us to avoid saying things that have two or more meanings unless our listeners can be e#!ected to know which meaning is intended. The third ma#im tells us not to e#!ound at length on a to!ic when a few words will do. The fourth encourages us not to be random and chaotic.

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