Information Science in Action: System Design pp 776-776 | Cite as
The Basic Notions of Semantics and the Possibility of Quantifying over Meanings
Abstract
- 1)
Meaning as the equivalent of cognitive or information meaning
- 2)
Meaning as the equivalent of connotative meaning, for instance, emmotive meaning, and, generally, verbal overtones of any kind
- 3)
Meaning and information content
- 4)
Reference or denotation, i.e., the entities and phenomena of our non-linguistic world; that world being what language is about or what languages in the wildest sense of the word are messages about. These entities and phenomena are what linguistic science refers to, or denotes.
- 5)
The relations holding between meaning and reference
- 6)
The possibility of quantifying over meaning with special reference to quantification in terms of the frequency of occurrence of the symbols (that is sounds, letters and so forth) that carry meanings or convey the information conveyed by the symbols
- 7)
A few tentative remarks about the following question: how do we help man solve problems and make decisions through the mediation of language?