Semantics: a coursebook, second edition
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(4) Given a speaker of Zonglish named Johan Brzown, and given that no other individual is named Johan Brzown, could he inform someone that he wanted a cup of tea by uttering ‘Johan Brzown want a cup of tea’? Yes / No (5) Ignoring the problem that tense is a deictic category, could Johan Brzown inform anyone of any fact about himself if his hearer does not happen to know his name? Yes / No (6) Assuming that Johan Brzown carries a clearly visible badge announcing his name to all his hearers, how could he make it clear to his hearer that he wants a cup of tea at the time of utterance, not earlier, and not later? .......................................................................................................................... (7) If Johan Brzown wants a cup of tea at 5.30 pm on November 9th 2006, could he inform his hearer of this by uttering, ‘Johan Brzown want a cup of tea at 5.30 pm on November 9th 2006’? Yes / No Feedback (1) No (2) No, see answers to next questions for reasons. (3) No, if ‘the speaker’ were to be conventionally understood as referring to the utterer of the utterance in which it occurred, it would in e ffect be a deictic expression, and therefore outlawed in Zonglish. (4) Using the proper name Johan Brzown would get over the problem of referring to the speaker. Every speaker of Zonglish would have to use his own name instead of the personal pronoun I. But since tense is a deictic category, Johan Brzown still has the problem of informing his hearer that he wants the cup of tea at the time of utterance, not in the past, and not in the future. (5) No (6) By using some non-deictic description of the actual time of the utterance, like, for example, at 5.30 pm on November 9th 2006 (7) Yes, with this utterance, Johan Brzown would be able to get his message across. U N I T 7 Deixis and definiteness 71 Comment The point about an example like this is to show that there are good reasons for all languages to have deictic terms. A language without such terms could not serve the communicative needs of its users anything like as well as a real human language. (Of course, all real human languages do have deictic terms.) Deictic expressions bring home very clearly that when we consider individual sentences from the point of view of their truth, we cannot in many cases consider them purely abstractly, i.e. simply as strings of words made available by the language system. The truth of a sentence containing a deictic expression can only be considered in relation to some hypothetical situation of utterance. Practice (1) Can you tell by itself whether the sentence You are standing on my toe is true or false? Yes / No (2) What would you need to know in order to be able to tell whether the sentence just mentioned is true or false? .......................................................................................................................... (3) Can one tell whether the sentence There are lions in Africa, not considered in relation to any particular time, is true or false? Yes / No Feedback (1) No (2) You would need to know who said it to whom and whether the hearer was in fact standing on the speaker’s toe at the time of utterance. (3) No Comment The relationship of the truth of sentences to hypothetical times and situations of utterance is brought out most vividly by deictic terms. The is traditionally called the de finite article, and a the indefinite article. But what exactly is de finiteness? An answer can be given in terms of several notions already discussed, in particular the notion of referring expression, identifying the referent of a referring expression, and universe of discourse. A new notion is also needed, that of context. Definition The CONTEXT of an utterance is a small subpart of the universe of discourse shared by speaker and hearer, and includes facts about the topic of the conversation in which the utterance occurs, and also facts about the situation in which the conversation itself takes place. Example If I meet a stranger on a bus and we begin to talk about the weather (and not about anything else), then facts about the weather (e.g. that it is raining, that it is warmer than yesterday, etc.), facts about the bus (e.g. that it is crowded), and also obvious facts about the two speakers (e.g. their sex) are part of the context of utterances in this conversation. Facts not associated with the topic of the conversation or the situation on the bus (e.g. that England won the World Cup in 1966, or that kangaroos live in Australia) are not part of the context of this conversation, even though they may happen to be known to both speakers. |