External Context: Sense and Reference

Reference is what ____ do,

sense is what ____ do.

(put the answer between commas, like this: ____, ____)

Answer explanation

Frege states that sense determines reference. In a specific context, all the participants in a conversation attribute the same sense to the same reference in order to understand it.

What are the three aspects of a word's total semantic effect that Frege distinguishes?

• Force

• Colouring

• Sense

• Reference

• Intentionality

Answer explanation

When describing meaning, Frege distinguishes three aspects: force (is it a statement or a question?), tone or colouring (what are the differences between register and connotation?), and sense (in which way do we grasp or understand a reference?)

____ is the property that thoughts and meaning have by which they can refer to something other than themselves or the real world, a real object...

Answer explanation

Brentano explained that the relation between the external and internal context lies within the speaker's psyche.

Sense is the ____ __ ____ of its referent.

Answer explanation

Fregean theory defines the mode of presentation as the way in which the referent is presented in our understanding.

The status of a sentence as true or false is decided by the sense - True or False?

• TRUE

• FALSE

Answer explanation

False - The truth-value of a sentence is determined by the reference, since the external context is the evidence of the speaker's intention.

What would be a truth condition about the statement: "Your mother left food in the fridge"?

• That your mother and you have given the same sense to the same reference

• Seeing the food in the fridge

• Understanding the context in which the statement is said

• Knowing that your mom is a good cook

Answer explanation

According Frege, one of the determining factors to know whether the statement is true or false is by finding if your mom left food in the fridge or not.

Do all critics agree on Frege's vision of the truth as the central notion in semantic analysis?

• YES

• NO

Answer explanation

No. One of these critics is Lyons who says that a person may be ironically employing a description he knows to be false, or diplomatically accepting as correct a false description.

What are the two necessary conditions to accomplish an act of reference according to Searle?

• There must exist only one object to which the speaker´s utterance of the expression applies

• There must exist several objects to which the speaker´s utterance of the expression applies

• The hearer must be given sufficient means to identify the object from the speaker´s utterance of the expression

• The hearer must not be given sufficient means to identify the objects from the speaker´s utterance of the expression

My friend refers to her notebook as an "agenda", which is the semantic phenomenon given?

• Code

• Sense

• Truth-value

• Intentionality

Answer explanation

A code is a speech-style in which the speaker (my friend) and the hearer (me) have agreed on the reassignment of a conventional referent (notebook) and sense (agenda).

My friend refers to her notebook as an "agenda". The fact that my friend and I understand notebook as an "agenda" is a ______ act of reference

Answer explanation

Calling a notebook as an agenda is not the standard way of identifying the referent, but it is successful since my friend and I undertand it.