Welcome

SUMMARY

 

The REFERENCE is a relationship between certain uttered expressions and things in the world and The SENSE of an expression is its  relationship to semantically equivalent or semantically related expressions in the same language.

 

If you want to identify The REFERENT OF A REFERRING EXPRESSION  you should  seek in the context of the utterance some object to which the predicates in the referring expression apply.

 

The  EXTENSION of a one place predicate is the set of all individuals  to which that predicate can truthfully be applied. It is the set of things which can POTENTIALLY  be referred to by using an expression whose main element is that predicate

EX:

The Extension of Cat is the set of all the cats in the universe.

 

The extension is a set of physical objects, but the extension contrast with sense, since a sense is not a set of anything.

The extension contrast with referent too because a referent is normally an individual thing, not a set of things

 

Connects language to the world

 

Sense connects a linguistic unit  such a word or an expression to something linguistic

Extension connects a linguistic unit to something non- linguistic   (be it a set of physical objects or a set of abstract entities )

Reference Connects a linguistic unit,such as a word or expression,to something non-linguistic  be it an individual physical object, or an individual abstract object  a particular thing.

Summarizing the Relationship Between Sense,Extension, and Reference The notions of reference & extension are clearly related,  and are jointly opposed to the notion of sense

. A speaker’s knowledge of the sense of a predicate provides him with an idea of its extension.

Ex :   the ‘dictionary definition’ which the speaker accepts for cat  can be used to decide what is a cat,and what is not, thus defining implicitly the set of all cats.

 

Extension & Tense

Extensions are relative to all times,past, present, and future.  and Predicates are tenseless.

Ex : The extension of windows includes= all past windows + all present windows + all future windows

Predicates are almost always accompanied in sentences by  a marker of tense restrict the extensions of the predicates they modify

Ex The extension of the phrase is dead the set of all things which are dead at the time of utterance.

The extension of a predicate differs based on the time of the utterance in which it is used.

PART 2

The extension of a combination of several predicates  

Is the intersection of their respective extensions  i.e. the set of things common to all of the extensions of the individual predicates.

FUZZINESS

The undecidability of extensions is a basic flaw in the essential idea of extensions Even people who claim to know the meaning of chicken  cannot draw a clear line around the set of all chickens, past, present, and future, separating them from all the non-chickens.

This fuzziness is a problem which be sets almost all predicates, not only chicken and egg                                                                    EX : Man / human (in the case of Darwinists)

Applying Predicates in Everyday Situations

Certain kinds present more difficulties than others …. The world  obligingly sorts out natural kinds into relatively clear groups for us

Everyday language  does not put well-defined boundaries around the extensions of some predicates.

The Original Motivation for The Idea of Extension

is To explain the ability of speakers of a language  to group entities having similar characteristics into distinct mental categories & to refer to these objects in the world, using linguistic expressions containing predicates.To explain their ability as hearers  toidentify the referents of referringexpressions containing predicates & tomake and understand descriptivestatements using predicates.

The Original Motivation for The Idea of Extension (Reality)

The idea of extension is too ambitious,extending to all situations  because it is limited to normal situations only Speaker do not have a perfectly clear idea of what is a cat and what is not acat.  Between obvious cats and obvious non-cats there is a grey area

PROTOTYPE

A PROTOTYPE of a predicate  is an object which is held to be very TYPICAL of the kind of object which can be referred to by an expression containing the predicate  In other words, the prototype of a predicate can be thought of as  the most typical member of the extension of a predicate.

Semanticists are interested in the language of one individual the language of many speakers There are problems with this idea of prototype  due to cultural differences between various English speaking communities.

 

Prototype & Learning How to use Predicates /The Acquisition of Categories

The idea of a prototype  explains how people learn to use (some of) the predicates in their language correctly The prototypical members of the extension of  a predicate  are usually learned earlier than  non-prototypical members

The REFERENT of a referring expression is the thing picked out by the use of that expression on a particular occasion of utterance.

The EXTENSION of a predicate  is the complete set of all things which could potentially (i.e. in any possible utterance)be the referent of a referring expression whose head constituent is that predicate.

A PROTOTYPE of a predicate  is atypical member of its extension.