Ohne Titel

Language and Thought

The relationship between lexicalized concepts and general thinking an reasoning

Reference

Representational apporaches to meaning

How language hooks onto the material world. A moment-by-moment relationship between the speaker and objects from reality

Referents and extensions

Referring and non referring expressions

Constant and variable reference

Referring

Non-referring

Have a referent in the material world

Do not have a referent in the material world, but still carry meaning

Most nouns are potentailly refering expressions, since they most of the times identify entities

Expressions like: so, very, maybe, not, all

Generic interpretations of reference

Constant reference

Variable reference

That of linguistic expressions that will always have the same referent in the world.

That of linguistic expressions which referent depends on the context

e.g. Paris, The Pacific Ocean.

e.g. You, me, I

Referents

Extrensions

The specific objects in the world that speakers describe by means of language

The set of possible referents that a given linguistic expression might have

Denotation

Different from

The stable relationship between a linguistc expression and the world

Referential approaches to meaning

Putting words into relationship with the actual word is meaning

How human beings use language and meaning to talk about the world depends on their mental models of it

Mental representations

Words can denote because they are associated with mental entities (sense) in the language user's mind

Theories on what those mental entities are

Images

Concepts

This theory states that the relationship between the mental representations and the actual objects is one of resemblance

Abstract elements that contain the non-visual features of things

They are relational and might be acquired through ostensive definition

Necessary and sufficient conditions

Frames or ICMs

Prototypes (Rosch)

Main theories about the nature of concepts

Concepts are taken as bits of knowledge containing both

the"necessary" conditions (conditions that the object must have to correspond to the concept)

"sufficient" conditions (set of characteristics that would be enough to constitute the concept)

Views concepts as structured, so there are categories for which there are more typical and less typical members

e.g. For the category funiture, chair is a more typical element than lamp.

These teories state that speakers have "folk theories" about reality, based on their experience and culture

Concepts are therefore created by putting together both dictionary-type definitions and encyclopaedia-type entries (coming from the ICMs)