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Dictionary and encyclopaedia

المؤلف:  Nick Riemer

المصدر:  Introducing Semantics

الجزء والصفحة:  C3-P100

2026-04-28

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Dictionary and encyclopaedia

Since reference is an important part of the meaning of many words, many linguists have wanted to distinguish knowledge we have of a word’s meaning (sense) from knowledge we might have about its denotation – the set of things it refers to. Some sort of distinction like this seems to be required for a number of reasons. The most powerful is that it is firmly present in our pretheoretical intuitions. For example, all of us know many things about frogs, but something seems wrong about regarding all this information as part of the meaning of frog. Examples of information about frogs that it would seem absurd to claim as part of the meaning of frog include the facts that there is a famous fairy story in which a frog is an enchanted prince waiting to be released by the kiss of a princess, that frogs are often (and somewhat offensively) associated by English speakers with French people, or that the Australian water-holding frog burrows underground and surrounds itself in a transparent cocoon made of its own shed skin. There are many English speakers who do not know these things about frogs, but who can correctly refer to frogs. This contrasts with speakers of other languages, or with learners of English who have not yet learned the word frog, who may know these things about frogs, but do not yet know what the English word frog means. It would seem, then, that there is a firm line between knowledge of a word’s meaning and knowledge of factual information about the word’s denotation.