particularly crucial word in the argument had a di

PA RT   T H R E E
. . . to  sense
94
(4) If two people can be said to agree on the meanings of all 
the words they use, must any remaining disagreements between 
them be regarded as disagreements about matters of fact?
Yes / No
(5) If we could not agree about the meanings of any of the words 
we use, could any disagreement about matters of fact even be
formulated, let alone resolved?
Yes / No
Feedback
(1) Probably, almost everyone has been in this situation. (2) again,
probably Yes (3) Yes (4) Yes (5) No
Comment In order to be able to talk meaningfully about anything, it is necessary to
agree on the meanings of the words involved. This is a truism. In everyday
life, people reach practical agreement on the meanings of almost all the
words they use, and e
ffective and successful communication takes place as a
result. If a person wants to hinder or obstruct communication, he can begin
to quibble over the meanings of everyday words. Although there may be
disagreement about the 
fine details of the meanings of words ‘around the
edges’, we 
find in the everyday use of language that all words are understood
by speakers as having an indispensable hard core of meaning.
Practice Given below are three conversations which get stuck. In each one, speaker B
seems to ignore some particular convention about the meaning of one of the
words involved, a convention universally accepted in everyday English. For
each conversation, write out a statement about the meaning of the word
concerned, a statement that speaker B seems not to accept.
(1) A:
‘I saw something strange in the garden this morning.’
B:
‘Oh! What was it?’
A:
‘An animal perched on top of the clothes pole.’
B:
‘How do you know it was an animal?’
A:
‘I saw it. It was a cat.’
B:
‘You might have seen a cat, but how can you be sure it was an
animal?’
A:
‘Well, of course it was an animal, if it was a cat.’
B:
‘I don’t see how that follows.’
..........................................................................................................................
(2) B:
‘My neighbour’s child is an adult.’
A:
‘You mean he was a child and is now grown up?’
B:
‘No. He is still a child, even though he’s an adult.’
A:
‘You mean that he’s a child who acts in a very grown up way?’
B:
‘No. He’s just an adult child, that’s all.’
..........................................................................................................................

U N I T   9
Sense properties and stereotypes
95
(3) B:
‘I 
finally killed Ben’s parrot.’
A:
‘So it’s dead, then?’
B:
‘No, I didn’t say that. Just that I killed it.’
A:
‘But if you killed it, it must be dead.’
B:
‘No. I was quite careful about it. I killed it very carefully so it’s not
dead.’
..........................................................................................................................
Feedback
(1) The meaning of cat includes that of animal. (2) The meaning of adult
excludes the meaning of child. (3) The meaning of kill is related to that of
dead in such a way that anything killed is necessarily dead.
Comment The kind of meaning we are talking about here is obviously the kind
associated with words and sentences by the language system, and not the
speaker meaning (see Unit 1) speci
fically associated with utterances made by
speakers on particular occasions. This kind of meaning we call sense.
Definition (partial: The SENSE of an expression is its indispensable hard core of meaning.
see also Unit 3)
Comment This de
finition deliberately excludes any influence of context or situation of
utterance on the senses of expressions. (Thus it is problematic to talk of the
senses of deictic words (Unit 7), but we will not go into that problem here.)
The sense of an expression can be thought of as the sum of its sense
properties and sense relations with other expressions. For the moment, we
will concentrate on three important sense properties of sentences, the
properties of being analytic, of being synthetic, and of being contradictory.
Definition An ANALYTIC sentence is one that is necessarily TRUE, as a result of the senses
of the words in it. An analytic sentence, therefore, re
flects a tacit (unspoken)
agreement by speakers of the language about the senses of the words in it.
A SYNTHETIC sentence is one which is NOT analytic, but may be either
true or false, depending on the way the world is.
Example Analytic: All elephants are animals
The truth of the sentence follows from the senses of elephant and animal.
Synthetic: John is from Ireland
There is nothing in the senses of John or Ireland or from which makes this
necessarily true or false.
Practice (1) Label the following sentences either T for true, F for false, or D for don’t
know, as appropriate.
(a)

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