1. Discovery Seminar UE141 PP– Spring Solving Crimes using Referent Tracking Introduction to ‘meaning’ January 29, 2009
Werner CEUSTERS
Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences
Ontology Research Group
University at Buffalo, NY, USA

2. Homework of last week What would it mean to say:
‘X kills Y’
‘X killed Y’
‘X killed Y at time t1’
‘Y was killed’
‘Y was killed by X’
‘Y was killed by X at time t1’
‘Y was killed by X at time t2’
Explain first what you understand by ‘meaning’. Then use this to explain what ‘killing’ means to you. Then use that meaning of ‘killing’ to explain the meaning of each of the sentences above using only ONE scenario, perhaps by stating that under your definition of ‘killing’ some sentences are non-sensical.
Send me your answer
in PowerPoint by
not later than January 27, 10 PM,
Answers should include reference to or citations from any source or document that you used to formulate an answer

3. Hints given Word Sentence Definition Meaning Semantic triangle
Denotation
Reference
Reality
Belief
Representation

4. Students’ meanings for ‘meaning’ (1)
S3: - to be the cause that creates effects
S13: - the implied importance and significance of an action or expression
(the nonlinguistic cultural correlate, reference, or denotation of a linguistic form)
S2: - what something stands for or actually is
S6: - the definition of something and how one chooses to interpret it.
- how someone chooses to express something
S5: - the literal understanding of a word; how someone interprets a word and therefore how they use it.
S14: - something that is conveyed or implied

5. Students’ meanings for ‘meaning’ (2)
These three understood the hint ‘semantic triangle’
S1: - meaning do not lie in words; they lie in people. A word means whatever you intended for it to mean
S7: - that which adequately describes, represents, or explains the essential nature or intrinsic value of some thought or concept developed by humankind which ultimately refers to an action or object currently in existence or theorized to exist somewhere in the universe at any given time
S9: - the interpretation of a word or object that is understood by an individual, not necessarily the dictionary definition of a word.

6. Standard Semiotic/Semantic Triangle

7. Standard Semiotic/Semantic Triangle
Useful,
but nevertheless wrong !

8. Useful to build multi-lingual dictionaries
Concept ‘cat’
cat
chat
kat
Katze …

9. Problem: several interpretations of the Semiotic/Semantic triangle
Reference:
Concept / Sense / Model / View / Partition
Sign:
Language/
Term/
Symbol
Referent:
Reality/
Object

10. Aristotle’s triadic meaning model
Words spoken are signs or symbols (symbola) of affections or impressions (pathemata) of the soul (psyche); written words (graphomena) are the signs of words spoken (phoné). As writing (grammatta), so also is speech not the same for all races of men. But the mental affections themselves, of which these words are primarily signs (semeia), are the same for the whole of mankind, as are also the objects (pragmata) of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies (homoiomata).
Aristotle, 'On Interpretation', 1.16.a.4-9, Translated by Cooke & Tredennick,
Loeb Classical Library,
William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
pathema
semeia 
gramma/ phoné
pragma

11. Richards’ semantic triangle
understanding
my your understanding
reference
Reference (“concept”): “indicates the realm of memory where recollections of past experiences and contexts occur”.
Hence: as with Aristotle, the reference is “mind-related”: thought.
But: not “the same for all”, rather individual mind-related
symbol
referent

12. Don’t confuse with homonymy !
mole (skin lesion) R3
mole (unit) R2
mole (animal) R1
“mole”

13. Different thoughts Homonymy
symbol
referent
understanding
One concept
of x understanding of y R1 R2 R3
mole
“skin lesion”
mole
“unit”
“mole”
mole
“animal”

14. And by the way, synonymy... the Aristotelian view Richards’ view
“sweat”
“sweat”
“perspiration”
“perspiration”

15. Frege’s view sense name reference
“sense” is an objective feature of how words are used and not a thought or concept in somebody’s head
2 names with the same reference can have different senses
2 names with the same sense have the same reference (synonyms)
a name with a sense does not need to have a reference (“Beethoven’s 10th symphony”)
name
reference
(=referent)

16. The alternative: the semantic triangle revisited
Representation and Reference
First Order Reality
concepts
about
terms
concepts
objects
terms

17. Terminology Realist Ontology
Representation and Reference
concepts
terms
representational units
universals
particulars
about
objects
First Order Reality

18. Terminology Realist Ontology
Representation and Reference
concepts
terms
representational units
about
objects
universals
particulars
First Order Reality

19. Terminology Realist Ontology
Representation and Reference
representational units
concepts
terms
cognitive
units
communicative
units
about
objects
universals
particulars
First Order Reality

20. Three levels of reality in Realist Ontology
Terminology Realist Ontology
Representation and Reference
Representational units in various
forms about (1), (2) or (3)
representational units
cognitive
units
communicative
units
(2) Cognitive entities which are our
beliefs about (1)
(1) Entities with objective existence
which are not about anything
universals
particulars
First Order Reality