Semantics I acknowledgements
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| 4. 7 Definiteness. When we use the definite article the, we presume that both the speaker and the hearer know what is being talked about. According to SEMANTICS Page leech this is dealing with the pragmatic use rather than in purely semantics terms. To interpret the, we have to relate it to a particular speech situation and to assumptions made about the speaker about the hearer. If for example a speaker says a phrase the X means that there is some X that can be identified uniquely in the contextual knowledge shared by speaker and hearer. Shared knowledge means that if I say Where is the cat, it is true that the person I am addressing is aware of which cat I am referring to. Uniquely means that the addresses must be able to select the one cat in question from all other referent of the word cat. And contextual knowledge means that selection is determined by what background information is relevant to particular situation. For example that we are talking about our sole feline pet. Leech continued that the condition of uniqueness does not seem to apply to plural phrases such as the children, the flowers, the novels, but it does apply in the sense that such phrases pick out a unique set of referents thus the children on a particular occasion will refer to John, Chloe, and Lionel, rather than Chloe, Margareth, and Bill. Further, it id not applied to phrases like the sun, the stars. It is because of the fact that there is only one sun in our universe. But we can still draw a context (of conversation about the universe) Which sun do you mean? The writer gets confused of this, for what Leech meant here (the conversation about the universe. Can we say or answer the question above by ; I mean the sun that never rises, or The yesterday’s sun which shone brightly? Despite we can draw a proposition, that is, the presupposition of Which sun do you mean?, it is true that the presupposition (the answer) is SEMANTICS Page impossible to be accepted. Therefore, the problem of uniqueness in plural is not agreement to noun of general truth like ; the sun, stars, etc. But the uniqueness is applied to the words whose definitions include a feature of definiteness Personal pronouns he/him/his/, she/her, it, they, I, you, etc. Reflexive pronouns himself, herself, themselves, myself, yourself, etc. Deitic words :this/that, these/those, here/there, now/then, etc. We can see it ; He works everyday i, the uniqueness (that it includes the definite feature of the. He can be drawn as : the third person singular, +male. Also, in ; This ha is blue. The uniqueness of this is the near. Whereas That hat is blue, that contains : the, -near. The uniqueness of now in Now we are secure is at this time where here we have to draw this time as the + near time. And then in : They went on their journey, contains ; at that time : the near time. Download 332.89 Kb. Share with your friends:
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