Sentence, Utterance and proposition

1. Department of English Language and Literature
Major: English Language and Literature
Semantics Session 3 Sentence, Utterance and proposition
Dr. Badriya Al Mamari
Academic year 2021/2022

2. Unit 1 Study Guide and Exercises
• Discussion

3. •Sentence, Utterance and proposition”

4. A sentence
Definition:
• Sentence is a Set of words combined together by the grammatical rules
of a language that expresses a complete thought, question, exclamation,
request, command or suggestion. A complete sentence has at least a
subject and a main verb.

5. There are a number of categories in sentences
such as:
• 1.simple sentences,
• 2. compound sentences,
• 3.complex sentences,
• 4.compound-complex sentences. Here are some examples that will
highlight the nature of different types of sentences.

6. Examples:
• • A cat drinks milk. (Simple sentence)
• • I was late already, but I decided to wait a bit longer for my friends.
(Compound sentence)
• • I had to work on Saturday last week because there was a lot of
work. (Complex sentence)
• • Although she asked me to come, I just could not go because Jim was
sick and I was expecting a visitor. (compound-complex sentence)

7. Sentence meaning??
• is referred to as the meaning that can be predicted from the semantic
relationship between the words that the sentence contains. In other words,
the meaning of the sentence is bound up with the meaning of each lexical
item it comprises. This means that the sentence meaning is mainly related to
lexical words, and the grammatical features with which they are associated.
So, each sentence will have a meaning, or two meanings in the case of
ambiguous sentences like:
I went to the bank (the financial institution),
I went to the bank (the edge of the river)

8. • An example: to clarify a sentence meaning, which is identified by means
or from its lexical and grammatical features, is the following:
“It is very hot today”.
Words of this sentence that have a certain grammatical function including:
a pronoun, a verb, an adverb, and an adjective, denote a certain meaning
that of: “the heat of the weather” .
So, “It”, “is”, “very”, “hot” and “today” are words grouped to signal what
is the weather like in the present day.
According to Hurford et. Al (2007) “A sentence is a grammatically
complete string of words expressing a complete thought. Any set of words
without a verb is neglected from being a fully formed sentence”.

9. Examples:
• I would like a cup of coffee (sentence)
• Coffee, please (not sentence)
• In the kitchen (not sentence)
• Please put it in the kitchen (sentence)
• A sentence always consists of the same words, and in the same order. If there is any
change in the words, or in their order, a different sentence comes into existence.
• Laras rolled up the carpet
• Helen rolled the carpet up (Different sentences)

10. There Five Types of Sentence Meaning:
1.Proposition meaning
2.Connotative meaning
3.Cultural meaning
4.Structural meaning
5.Pragmatic meaning

11. 1.Proposition meaning
Proposition meaning is a statement or assertion that expresses a judgment
or opinion.
Example:
Zac stays up late.
Does Zac stay up late?
Zac does not stay up late.
All have the same proposition:
• Zac stays up late.

12. 2.Connotative meaning
Connotative meaning is Meaning of the sentence differs depending on the
speakers use of it.
Example:
• That girl is like a cat, she would scratch your face in the first chance.
The speaker mentions the quarrelsome nature of the girl.

13. 3.Cultural meaning
Cultural meaning is Includes a specific meaning associated to a certain culture that it
comes from
Examples:
• “jal moke get sum nida”
This sentence is from the Korean language. They use this sentence before they start to
eat something every times, only them who understand about that word and that’s mean
we are thankful for the food or meal that we already to eat, but in America or England
that act never we find cause just Korean people who do that.
Example:
“Al hamduli llah alathi atamana wa saqana wajalana muslimeen”

14. 4.Structural meaning
Structural meaning is the relationship between the meanings of terms within a sentence, and how
meaning can be composed from smaller elements
Examples:
• A)Simple Sentence:
(she eats a chocolate)
• B)Compound sentence:
(I was late already but I decided to wait a bit longer for my friends).
• C)Complex sentence:
(I had to work on Saturday last week because there was a lot of work).
• D)Compound complex sentence:
(Although she asked me to come, I just could not go because Jim was sick and I was expecting a
visitor)

15. 5.Pragmatic meaning
Pragmatic meaning is bound to the context between the speaker and
listener alone
Examples:
• He hasn’t taken a shower.
• He was so hungry he could eat the whole table.

16. Utterance
Definition:
Generally can be defined as a part of speech between pauses and silence.
Utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after there is silence on the part
of that person. It refers to a particular use of a linguistic unit; associated with parole
(speech).
Utterance meaning is not directly related to the grammatical and lexical structure. Instead, it
includes all the various types of meanings. That is, utterance meaning is associated with
meanings, ideas, and thoughts that are to be communicated with non-verbal language and
some phonetic features of a given system (language).
The utterance meaning is to be obtained from the linguistic or non-linguistic context in
which it occurs.
The prosodic and paralinguistic features that have a meaning are represented by intonation
stress, rhythm loudness...and facial expressions as well as gestures.

17. Utterance meaning
It includes all the various types of meaning obtained either from prosodic
and paralinguistic features. That is, utterance meaning is associated with
meanings, ideas, and thoughts that are to be communicated with non-
verbal language and some phonetic features of a given system (language).
• An Utterance is any sound of talk, that a human produces.

18. An utterance could be related to pre-supposition.
For example, a question like:
“Have you travelled to Spain”?
It is a question that could be answered by “yes” or “no” without
admitting that the speaker has travelled to Spain. But, this question
implies or pre-supposes that “the speaker has travelled to Spain in
the past”. That is, the main focus is in the act of travelling.

19. An utterance can be unacceptable for some socio-cultural reasons.
• For example, there might be a taboo, in a certain English-speaking society, to use “to
die” rather than “pass away” in respect of members of the speaker ’s or the hearer
immediate family.
• In some cultures, it might be unacceptable for a social inferior to address a social
superior with a second person pronoun (meaning “you”).
• These are things which the translator should be aware of. Hence, he is supposed to
know and understand if the pronoun “you”, in the English text, means ‫أنتم‬or ‫…أنت‬.
because in English the pronoun “you” indicates the plural, singular and feminine and
masculine too which is not the case in Arabic that comprises different pronouns ‫أنتن‬
‫أنت‬
،
‫أنت‬
،
‫أنتم‬ .
• Knowledge of these linguistic facts would support the translator to perform an adequate
translation of words or texts as a whole.

20. The characteristics of utterance
• It is spoken or written
• It is a physical event
• It may be grammatical or not
• Meaningful or meaningless
• By specific person
• By specific time or on particular occasion
• A piece of language

21. The difference between
Sentence and Utterance
Sentence Utterance
Both a sentence and utterance convey a meaning to the
reader or listener.
A sentence is a group of
words that convey a meaning.
An utterance is a part of
speech in between pauses.
A sentence conveys a
complete meaning through a
combination of clauses
An utterance conveys a
meaning through a few words
that may not even compile a
clause.
A sentence is in both written
and spoken language,
An utterance is in spoken
language only.

22. Proposition
• Definition: A proposition is part of the meaning of the utterance of a
declarative sentence which describes some state of affairs.
• The state of affairs typically involves persons or things referred to by
expressions in the sentence and the situation or action they are involved in.
• In uttering a declarative sentence, a speaker typically asserts a
proposition. It contains predicate(Aspect of entity, quality, state, activity,
relation with other entity/ things)+ Argument (entity, some sort of thing).

23. • True propositions correspond to facts, in the ordinary sense of the word fact. False
propositions do not correspond to facts.
The notion of truth can be used to decide whether two sentences express different
propositions. Thus if there is any conceivable set of circumstances in which one sentence
is true, while the other is false, we can be sure that they express different propositions.

24. Example:
In the present-day world,
1.Is it a fact that there are lions in Africa? Yes / No
2.Is the proposition that there are lions in Africa a true proposition? Yes / No
3.Is it a fact that the state of Arkansas is uninhabited by human beings? Yes /
No
4.Is the proposition that the state of Arkansas is uninhabited by human beings
true? Yes / No
5.If John wonders, whether Alice is deceiving him, would it seem reasonable
to say that he has the proposition that Alice is deceiving him in his mind, and is
not sure whether it is a true or a false proposition? Yes / No

25. • A single proposition could be expressed by using several different
sentences.
• E.g “ Prince William will inherit the throne”
• “The throne will be inherited by Prince William”
Each of these sentences could be uttered an infinite number of times.

26. Summary:
A proposition is an object of thought. Do not equate propositions with
thoughts, because thoughts are usually held to be private, personal,
mental processes, whereas propositions are public in the sense that the
same proposition is accessible to different persons: different individuals
can grasp the same proposition.
Furthermore, a proposition is not a process, whereas a thought can be
seen as a process going on in an individual’s mind.
The relationship between mental processes (e.g. thoughts), abstract
semantic entities (e.g. propositions), linguistic entities (e.g. sentences), and
actions (e.g. utterances) is problematic and complicated.

27. The relationship between “utterance, sentence and proposition can be
illustrated as:
utterance > sentence > proposition

29. Reference:
• Hurford, J., Heasley, B. & Smith, M. B. (2007) Semantics a Coursebook,
(2nd) edition). Cambridge University Press.