UTTERANCE, SENTENCE,
PROPOSITION
How to identify it…
REVIEW
State true or false!
1. Semantics is a part of
Linguistics
2. All meaning is conceptually
acceptable for all people
3. Meaning can be interpreted
from the word, phrases, and / or
signs.
SIGNIFIER AND SIGNIFIED (SAUSSURE’S
CONCEPT)
 Signifier
are the words, phrases, signs
and symbols which need to be interpreted
to grab the signified concept.
 A context is determining the signified
concept.
 Look at these examples:
 1. A thief comes to the cashier and says
“open it! ”
 2. A husband gives something to his
wife and says “open it”
Questions :
1. What is the signifier from the example
above?
2. What are the signified concept from
the examples above?
3. What element that determine the
signified concept ?
UTTERANCE…
An utterance is the use of any piece of language
by a particular speaker on a particular situation.
 It can be in the form of a sequence of sentences, a
single clause, a single phrase, or just a single
word.
 Examples:
 Tina visits her niece and meets a new friend



Tina :”Hi”
Toni was sweeping the floor when a hot frying
pan was fallen

Toni: “Ouch”
SENTENCE
A sentence is a grammatically complete string of
words expressing a (partial) complete thought.
 A sentence can include words grouped
meaningfully to express a statement, question,
exclamation, request or command.
 Example :

After cooking, mother speaks to father
softly
 Mother : “I am tired”
WHAT ABOUT PROPOSITION ?
It is an active declarative sentence
either it s true or false.
e.g.
 The
sun rises everyday.
 William Shakespeare died in 1945.
HOW TO IDENTIFY …
 Look
at the characteristics of the signifier.
 Identify the type of the signifier
 Identify the signified concept based on the
context
LETS PRACTICE…
 Open
page 25 and do the
exercises no 2, 3 and 4.
No. 2
Is semantics concerned only with complete
sentences? Explain.
No. 3
Indicate the conventions used in the text to
distinguish a sentence from an utterance.
Give an illustration of each.

No.4
 Indicate whether each of the following
sentence pairs expresses the same or
different propositions.
a. Mary read the book / The book was read by Mary
d. The chef cooked the meal / The chef had the meal
cooked
e. Hondas are easy to fix / It’s easy to fix Hondas