Naming – Concept – Sense – Reference

In semantics, there are two major ways to find out the meaning of a word which then becomes the two major branches in linguistic semantics, they are reference (referential semantics) and sense (lexical semantics).

The meaning of words can be created by its relationship to the objects (outside the language). For this conception, a word can be considered as the label which names the object. The meaning of words can be also created by the concepts in the language users’ minds.

Concepts are created by human’s knowledge, experiences and perceptions toward a phenomenon, an object or an event. The Meaning of a word can be also created by the relationship among stimulus, a word and responds found in the cases of utterance. In semantics, there are two major ways to find out the meaning of a word which then becomes the two major branches in linguistic semantics, they are reference (referential semantics) and sense (lexical semantics).

NameObject Concept

Problems in references 1.Abstract things 2.Extinct things 3.Etc… Concept as a mediator

Lexime and object Natural theory There is direct relationship between lexime and object  onomatopoeia, iconicity Onomatopoeia  sounds of the object correspond to the name/ word. e.g. cow, cock, whisper, meong, embek, etc. Iconicity  the physical form of language corresponds to the characteristics of the objects

Reference: the relationship between a word or expression and the things in the world represented by those words or expressions. A referent is the specific thing that the word or expression refers to.

Sense: the place of an expression in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language. The sense of an expression is its indispensable core of meaning.

On the relationship between sense and reference: the referent of an expression is often a thing or person in the world; whereas the sense of an expression is not a thing at all. In fact, it is difficult to say what sort of entity the sense of an expression is. It is much easier to say whether or not two expressions have the same sense. (Like being able to say that two people are in the same place without being able to say where they are.) The sense of an expression is an abstraction, but it is helpful to note that it is an abstraction that can be entertained in the mind of a language user. When a person understands fully what is said to him, it is reasonable to say that he grasps the sense of the expression he hears.

Signified/ signifie Signifier/ signifiant Object Lexime Name Sense Referent

Theories in the relationship between object and its lexime Natural theory Conventional theory

Semantic triangle by Ogden and Ricard Referential relationship Reference/ thought Symbol Referent

Saursure sense Name thing

The relationship between a word and its meaning is arbitrary and conventional for certain group.

Semantics and Names Naming of data entities (data elements, value domains, attributes, etc.) in a rational and organized way is an integral part of the metadata management of an organization. Artificial intelligence researchers try to develop languages that have restricted vocabularies, rules and constraints so that their meanings may be easily interpreted by both machine and human intelligence. These are called controlled languages. Naming conventions are sets of such rules applied to names. Unlike natural language names, which have evolved from many influences so that any particular name may or may not describe the thing named, the goal for metadata naming is to have maximum clarity and transparency of meaning, combined with concision, with minimal effort of interpretation by the end user.