Module: Semantics and Pragmatics

Professor: Abdennour Kharraki

Academic year: 2020/2021

SENTENCE MEANING

1. Introduction
Sentence meaning or sentence semantics becomes a central level of analysis in modern
semantics when word meaning revealed major shortcomings. The sentence is therefore
the unit of meaning. But how can we define this meaning? How can we account for the
various relationships held between sentences or propositions?

2. Defects of Word Meaning

Word meaning faces a set of problems as has been extensively expounded in the previous
lecture. First, it failed to handle function words such as IN, THROUGH, IF, OFF. Second,
it found it difficult to get the meaning of a sentence or a phrase on the basis of its linguistic
constituents such as the metaphorical use: “America is a melting pot” or the idiomatic
expression “he faces the music”. The words involved in the construction of such sentences
do not, in the least, yield the overall meaning. Given such inconveniences, interest of
semanticists in meaning goes beyond independent words; it now focuses on sentence
meaning which assigns truth values1 to sentences, an approach dubbed Propositional Logic
which will be expounded in due course.

3. Propositions
3.1 Distinguishing Between Propositions and Sentences
For logicians and modern semanticists, the basic unit of meaning is the sentence which
is different from proposition. While a sentence refers to well-arranged grammatical units
with a complete thought, a proposition is ‘the unit of meaning that identifies the subject
matter of a statement’ (Crystal, 1993:107). It is not concerned with the way given
information is issued as must be the case with a sentence. A proposition refers to a more
abstract meaning extracted from a sentence which is subject to truth-false condition.

1
Truth here is ascribed to Aristotle formulations: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is
false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.” Well known words of Aristotle’s
Metaphysics (Alfred Tarski, 2001: 70 )
Clarifying further such a comparison, Odell (2006: 8) held that ‘we can examine a
sentence to determine whether its syntax is one we recognize as well-formed’; he further
emphasized that “sentences are not true or false. Neither are their meanings”. Rather, its
meaning is a matter of convention. A proposition represents the core meaning of a
sentence regardless of the language being used; it can be expressed by different
sentences2. The fact or proposition of book reading could be expressed by the following
two sentences:

(1) Mohammed read a book.

(2) A book was read by Mohammed.

Such sentences could be formalized logically in terms of proposition as is

demonstrated below.

3.2 Propositional Logic

Propositional Logic analyses sentences in terms of propositions (i.e., philosophically, what
a sentence says about the world). Usually, we use small letters p, q, r, etc. to identify
propositions as is shown in the following example:

(3) It is snowing, the sky is gray and it is freezing.

p q r

Propositions are dependent on truth-values as has already been mentioned which

depend, in their turn, on our knowledge of the world; a true proposition, therefore, can
formally be represented by the capital letter (T) when satisfying the conditions of truth,
whereas the false proposition is represented by the capital letter (F) when satisfying the
conditions of falsity. For example, the sentence All Animals have four noses is false (T) as it
holds a false proposition which does not have actual existence in the real world.
Contrastively, the sentence dogs have four legs is true (T) as its basic semantic content is in
sync with reality.

It is worth-mentioning that simple propositions could form complex propositions by

dint of such propositional connectives or logical constants as “and”, “or”, “if – then”, etc.
as presented in some detail in the following table:

2
It is assumed, however, that the distinction between a sentence and a proposition is not straightforward. Tarski
(2001: 70) maintained that although: “By “sentence” we understand here what is usually meant in grammar by
“declarative sentence”; as regards the term “proposition”, its meaning is notoriously a subject of lengthy
disputations by various philosophers and logicians, and it seems never to have been made quite clear and
unambiguous.”
 Names Symbols Natural Language Equivalent Examples

Logical Conjunction & , ∧ .. and .. p&q, p&q

Logical (inclusive) Disjunction ∨ , ⓥ .. or .. p∨q , pⓥq

Implication → , ⊃ .. if .. then .. p→q , p⊃q

Negation ¬ , ∼ .. not .. ¬p , ∼p

Equivalence ≡ , ↔ .. iff .. (if and only if) p≡q , p↔q

Each one of these logical connectives above serves to draw relevant inferences about
the truth values of the individual proposition. We use examples for illustration starting with
logical conjunctions.

3.2.1 Logical Conjunction

The conjunction “and”, has symbol ∧ or & as figured out above to construct compound
propositions p∧q (e.g., p: Coronavirus disease is deadly and q: Morocco is an attractive
country) which are true if all simple propositions are true. If any simple or individual
proposition (i.e., p or q) is false, the whole proposition is false. Further, if both propositions
or conjuncts are false, the whole compound propositions are false as is demonstrated in the
following Truth Table:
p q p∧q
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F F

3.2.2 Logical (inclusive) Disjunction

The propositional connective or the inclusive “or”, has symbol ∨ or ⓥ, and is used to
construct compound propositions p ∨ q (e.g., p: Coronavirus disease is deadly or q: Morocco
is an attractive country). The disjunction p ∨ q of p and q is the proposition that is true when
either p is true, q is true, or both are true, and is false otherwise as is demonstrated in the
following Truth Table:
 p q p∨q
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F F

Truth tables can apply to all logical connectives, enabling us to define sentence
meaning in the light of truth values of its propositions. Thus from the propositions which
are true, we can draw inferences which are referred to as entailment.

3.2.3 Propositional Relationship

Propositions are related to each other in many ways, namely through entailment,
contradiction, paraphrasing, contradiction and what have you.

3.2.3.1 Entailment ⊨
Entailment refers to a logical relationship between propositions, where the truth of one p
implies or entails the other q owing to the meanings of the constitutive words involved.
In other words, a proposition p entails another proposition q if whenever the first sentence
is true the other sentence is also true. For example, p entails q in each of the following
pairs of constructions:

p: Ahmed regrets immigrating to Spain.

q. Ahmed is an immigrant in Spain.
p: Racists killed Malcom X.
q. Malcom X is dead.

Since if p is true, so is p. Formally, we can say that p ⊨ q, iff p= T & q= T

Sometimes, the relation between propositions is symmetric or reversible. That is,

p entails q and q entails p. This is referred to by semanticists as logical equivalence,
which is close to broad synonymy between propositions, which means that their truth
value is similar as in the following examples:

p: Qatar managed to develop its system of education.

q. Qatar developed its system of education.

p: Fatima owns this big house.

q. This big house belongs to Fatima.

But, entailment cannot be always reversible, such as in the following examples:

 p: Ahmed ate fruits.
q: Ahmed ate an apple.

The fact that Ahmed ate fruits entails that Ahmed ate an apple. But, the latter
proposition does not entail that Ahmed necessarily ate an apple. He might eat oranges or
bananas, instead. There is, in fact, a semantic relation of hyponymy in natural language
held between the two propositions, since apple is a hyponym of fruits.

3.2.3.2 Paraphrase

Paraphrase refers to propositions which mutually entail each other; that is, if p entails q,
then q also p. Such a relationship can formally be presented as follows: p ⊨ q & q ⊨ p.
We consider the following natural language examples for illustration:

p: The virus damaged the computer.

q: The computer was damaged by the virus.

p: pious Muslim gave money to the beggar.

q: A pious Muslim gave the beggar money

p: He is able to sort out the problem.

q: He has the ability to sort out the problem.

p: He is permitted to attend the ceremony.

q: He has permission.

3.2.3.3 Contradiction

Contradiction is also the semantic relation that can be defined in terms of entailment
since it is referred to as a negative entailment. That is the truth of one sentence implies
the falseness of another sentence. For example,

p: No one managed to read Chomsky’s books.

q: Someone managed to read Chomsky’s books.

From the examples above, whenever p is true, q must be false, and whenever q is
true, p must be false. We have here some sort of antonymy in terms of natural language.
Formally, we represent contradiction as follows: p⊨¬p.

3.2.3.4 Presupposition

Presupposition is another truth relation. If someone tells you your wife has just arrived,,
there is an obvious presupposition that you have a wife and that you are no longer a
bachelor. If you are asked when will you stop smoking cigarettes?, there is a
presupposition that you are still smoking cigarettes. Many semanticists consider
presupposition as part of entailment. That is a given proposition p presupposes a
proposition q if whenever p is either true or false, proposition q is true. Let us consider
the following examples:

p: Aisha cooked very delicious vegetable soup.

q: Aisha cooked vegetable soup.

p presupposes q: whether Aisha cooked delicious food or not, there is a constant

presupposition that Aisha cooked vegetable anyway. The constancy under negation test
for presupposition is usually used to check for the presuppositions underlying
propositions; that is, a presupposition of a proposition will remain constant even when
that proposition is negated. When we say Aisha cooked very vegetable soup and Aisha
did not cook very delicious vegetable soup entail the fact that Aisha really cooked
vegetable soup. Other examples of presupposition could be:

p: Ahmed speaks Arabic fluently.

q: Ahmed speaks Arabic.

p: Fatima is a better linguist than Adam.

q: Adam is a linguist.

It is important to note that presuppositions – in addition to negation (‘not p’) –

should survive in the following contexts:

1. Question (‘p?’)
2. Conditionals (‘if p, then …’)

We consider the following examples for illustration.

p: Fatima is a better linguist than Adam.

q: Adam is a linguist.

1. Fatima is not a better linguist than Adam.

2. Is Fatima a better linguist than Adam?
3. If Fatima is a better linguist than Adam, then she deserves to professor of linguistics.

1, 2, and 3 are true, which means that p presupposes q.

 “However, these tables are to be regarded then merely as
a formal instrument for checking the provability of
certain sentences.” Tarsky, 2001 (1944): 90

- the necessarily sentential connectives, i.e., expressions

like “if…, then,” “or,” etc.

1. The following;;;;holds
2. For brevity we shall replace the sentence just stated by the letter “s”.
 Entailments identification are subject to an entailment test which works on four
single steps. To illustrate, we consider the following example:

p: Racists killed Malcom X.

• Step 1: assuming any proposition q which is entailed by p like:
q. Malcom X died. (This is the inference or the entailment )

• Step 2: make q negative.

¬q= Malcom X did not die.

• Step 3: conjoin p and not q using and or but.

p &¬q= Racists killed Malcom X and Malcom X did not die.

• Step 4: Ensuring that the two propositions are nonsense.

If p &¬q do not make any sense, The logic behind introducing such s

This leads us to debate another source for entailment which is syntactic, in which
sentences can be in active or passive versions of the same proposition. Below are
examples depicting such a syntactic source for the entailment :

a. The virus damaged the computer.

b. The computer was damaged by the virus.

c. A pious Muslim gave money to the beggar.

d. A pious Muslim gave the beggar money

e. He is able to sort out the problem.

f. He has the ability to sort out the problem.

g. He is permitted to attend the ceremony.

h. He has permission.

Contradiction is also the semantic relation that can be defined in terms of

entailment. It is a negative entailment. That is the truth of one sentence implies the
falseness of another sentence. For example,

a. No one managed to read Chomsky’s books.

b. Someone managed to read Chomsky’s books.

From the examples above, whenever (a) is true, (b) must be false, and whenever (b)
is true, (a) must be false.

It is generally agreed, however, that they include (1) such

propositional connectives as “not,” “and,” “or,” and “if–then” and
(2) the so-called quantifiers “(∃x)” (which may be read: “For at
least one individual, call it x, it is true that”) and “(∀x)” (“For
each individual, call it x, it is true that”).

Logic is usually thought to concern itself only with features that sentences and
arguments possess in virtue of their logical structures or forms.

Logic may thus be characterized as the study of truths based

completely on the meanings of the terms they contain.

While it is generally agreed that signs for negation, conjunction, disjunction,

conditionality, and the first-order quantifiers should count as logical constants, and that
words like “red”, “boy”, “taller”, and “Clinton” should not, there is a vast disputed
middle ground.

1.9. Terminology. For the compound statement p → q

• p is called the premise, hypothesis, or the antecedent.

• q is called the conclusion or consequent.

• q→pistheconverseofp→q.

entailment A logical relation between propositions. A proposition P entails a proposition Q,

if and only if the truth of Q follows inescapably from the truth of P. For

A GLOSSARY OF SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS 55

instance, if P is ‘Pete killed the wasp’ and Q is ‘The wasp died’, then if P is true, Q must also be
true, and if Q is false, P must also be false. Notice, however, that strictly speaking there is no
logical relation between the sentences Pete killed the wasp and The wasp died, although one
often encounters statements to that effect. The logical relationship holds between the
propositions expressed by these sentences only if they are about the same wasp on the same
occasion. For a proposition P to entail a proposition Q it is not enough for the truth of Q to be
merely an expected consequence. For instance, ‘X is a bird’ does not entail ‘X can fly’, even
though most birds can fly.

§§§§§§§

predicate calculus (predicate logic) This is one of the two main traditional systems of
logic used in formal seman- tics (the other being the propositional calculus). In this
system, propositions are analysed in terms of arguments and predicates. The simplest
form of logical expression is a ‘logical function’ consisting of a ‘constant’, which functions as
predicate, and one or more ‘variables’, which represent possible arguments. The following is
a simple function:

dog (x)

Here, ‘x’ is a variable, because it can take different ‘values’, which correspond to different
entities in the world. Assigning a value to the variable in this ex- pression yields a
proposition, for example dog (Fido), which translates into ordinary language as Fido is a dog.
The element dog is a constant corresponding to the meaning of the word dog. Predicate logic
also uses a number of operators, which designate logical operations and relations and allow
more complex expressions to be built out of simple ones. The most important operators are
the existential operator ‘∃’ (‘for some ...’) and the universal operator ‘∀’ (‘for every ...’),
together with ‘&’ (‘and’), ‘⇒’ (‘if ... then’) and ‘~’ (‘not’). The use of these is illustrated in the
following:

(∀x)(dog x)⇒(animal x)

This can be read as ‘For all x, if x is a dog, then x is an animal’ or, in more straightforward
language, ‘All dogs are animals’. In this formula, ‘x’ is a variable which takes as its value some
entity; dog and animal are constants representing the meanings of the words dog and animal

138 A GLOSSARY OF SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS

respectively. The following exemplifies the use of the negative operator:

(∀x)(dog x)⇒ ~(flower x)

This translates as ‘For all x, if x is a dog, then x is not a flower’ or ‘No dogs are flowers’. The
use of the exist- ential operator is illustrated in the following:

(∃x) (man x) & (∃y) (dog y) & (see x,y)

A strict translation of this (ignoring tense) runs as follows: ‘There exists at least one x such
that x is a man, and there exists at least one y such that y is a dog and x saw y’. Or, in ordinary
language, ‘A man saw a dog’.

§§§§

presupposition A presupposition is a proposition whose truth is taken for granted by the

producer of an utterance and which must be known and taken account of for the utterance to
make sense to an interpreter. Take the case of Pete has stopped smoking. Someone using this
sentence to make a bona fide literal statement takes it for granted that Pete was previously a
smoker, although this is not explicitly stated. And the presumption that Pete had been a
smoker is necessary for the sentence to make sense to a hearer, even if that fact was not
previously known. Presupposition is not the same as entailment. Take a genuine case of
entailment such as that between ‘Pete killed the beetle’ and ‘The beetle died’. First, if we
negate the entailing sentence, the entailment fails: ‘Pete did not kill the beetle’ entails neither
‘The beetle died’ nor ‘The beetle did not die’. However, ‘Pete has not

A GLOSSARY OF SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS 139

stopped smoking’ carries the same presumption as the affirmative version, as does ‘Has Pete
stopped smoking?’. Second, an entailment cannot be denied without contradiction: ‘Pete
killed the beetle, but it did not die’ is a contradiction. A presupposition, on the other hand, can
be denied (although it needs a special intonation): ‘Pete HASN’T stopped smoking because he
never DID smoke’. Presuppositions are ubiquitous. The following are some examples:

Utterance: Presupposition:

Utterance:

Presupposition: Utterance:

Presupposition:

The flying saucer landed right here. A flying saucer landed. Flying saucers exist.
Liz regrets / does not regret selling the house.

Liz sold the house.

Liz plays / does not play the bassoon brilliantly.
Liz plays the bassoon.

There has been some dispute as to whether presupposi- tions are a semantic or a pragmatic
phenomenon. If they are inherent properties of certain linguistic expressions then they are
semantic in nature; if, on the other hand, they are a property of utterance(s)-in-context then
they are pragmatic. Currently, the weight of scholarly opinion is in favour of a pragmatic
analysis.

3. Presupposition
Presupposition is another truth relation. If someone tells you your wife has just arrived,,
there is an obvious presupposition that you have a wife and that you are no longer a
bachelor. If you are asked when will you stop smoking cigarettes?, there is a
presupposition that you are still smoking cigarettes. Many semanticists consider
presupposition as part of entailment. That is a given sentence (a) presupposes a sentence
(b) if whenever (a) is either true or false, sentence (b) is true. Let us consider the following
sentences for illustration.

a. Aicha cooked very delicious vegetable soup.

b. Aicha cooked vegetable soup.

Sentence (a) presupposes sentence (b). Whether Aicha cooked delicious food or
not, there is a constant presupposition that Aicha cooked potatoes anyway. The constancy
under negation test for presupposition is usually used to check for the presuppositions
underlying sentences. When we say Aicha cooked very vegetable soup and Aicha did not
cook very delicious vegetable soup entail the fact that Aicha really cooked vegetable soup.

4. Conclusion
We examined the scope of semantics and reviewed two important approaches to
semantics, namely referential approach and representational approach. We then discussed
sense relations and truth conditions. However, we do not assume to have covered all the
key concepts of semantics. But, we hope in a future edition to extend this chapter so that
it investigates more semantic issues.

References
Tarski, Alfred (2001; 1944). “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of
Semantics”, In A. P. Martinich, The Philosophy of Language. Oxford University
Press: Oxford.
Tarski, Alfred (1944). “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of
Semantics”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 4, pp. 341-375.