UTTERANCE, SENTENCE,
PROPOSITION
How to identify it…
REVIEW
State true or false!
1. Semantics is a part of
Linguistics
2. All meaning is conceptually
acceptable for all people
3. Meaning can be interpreted
from the word, phrases, and / or
signs.
SIGNIFIER AND SIGNIFIED (SAUSSURE’S
CONCEPT)
Signifier
are the words, phrases, signs
and symbols which need to be interpreted
to grab the signified concept.
A context is determining the signified
concept.
Look at these examples:
1. A thief comes to the cashier and says
“open it! ”
2. A husband gives something to his
wife and says “open it”
Questions :
1. What is the signifier from the example
above?
2. What are the signified concept from
the examples above?
3. What element that determine the
signified concept ?
UTTERANCE…
An utterance is the use of any piece of language
by a particular speaker on a particular situation.
It can be in the form of a sequence of sentences, a
single clause, a single phrase, or just a single
word.
Examples:
Tina visits her niece and meets a new friend
Tina :”Hi”
Toni was sweeping the floor when a hot frying
pan was fallen
Toni: “Ouch”
SENTENCE
A sentence is a grammatically complete string of
words expressing a (partial) complete thought.
A sentence can include words grouped
meaningfully to express a statement, question,
exclamation, request or command.
Example :
After cooking, mother speaks to father
softly
Mother : “I am tired”
WHAT ABOUT PROPOSITION ?
It is an active declarative sentence
either it s true or false.
e.g.
The
sun rises everyday.
William Shakespeare died in 1945.
HOW TO IDENTIFY …
Look
at the characteristics of the signifier.
Identify the type of the signifier
Identify the signified concept based on the
context
LETS PRACTICE…
Open
page 25 and do the
exercises no 2, 3 and 4.
No. 2
Is semantics concerned only with complete
sentences? Explain.
No. 3
Indicate the conventions used in the text to
distinguish a sentence from an utterance.
Give an illustration of each.
No.4
Indicate whether each of the following
sentence pairs expresses the same or
different propositions.
a. Mary read the book / The book was read by Mary
d. The chef cooked the meal / The chef had the meal
cooked
e. Hondas are easy to fix / It’s easy to fix Hondas
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