What makes a sentence meaningful?

[Django XIII]

Repellant

Django XIII

Repellant

Django XIII

Repellant

"A block of ice" is terminology for coolness.

So are you saying that terms are meaningful in virtue of what they refer to? If so, how do you explain the meaning of terms that refer to non-existent things?

They are only as meaningful as people make them out to be.

So if the meaning of an utterance is dependent on whether or not people take it to be meaningful, then are you saying that a completely well-formed grammatical sentence of a language would be technically meaningless just because some people don't take it to be meaningful? Say I were talking to someone about, i dunno, the completeness theorem for natural deduction, and they had no idea what I was saying. Does that make my utterances meaningless to some degree?

It makes sense if someone, anyone else catches the gist of it. If you are babbling to deaf ears, it has no value, other than comedic.

Keep in mind that the purpose of language is communication.

Say every single human being was somehow killed except for two people. One person spoke english and the other spoke some language entirely different from english. Say they got together and tried talking to each other. Would all grammatical utterances made by either one of them be entirely meaningless? razz

[Repellant]

Django XIII

Repellant

Django XIII

Repellant

Django XIII

Repellant

"A block of ice" is terminology for coolness.

So are you saying that terms are meaningful in virtue of what they refer to? If so, how do you explain the meaning of terms that refer to non-existent things?

They are only as meaningful as people make them out to be.

So if the meaning of an utterance is dependent on whether or not people take it to be meaningful, then are you saying that a completely well-formed grammatical sentence of a language would be technically meaningless just because some people don't take it to be meaningful? Say I were talking to someone about, i dunno, the completeness theorem for natural deduction, and they had no idea what I was saying. Does that make my utterances meaningless to some degree?

It makes sense if someone, anyone else catches the gist of it. If you are babbling to deaf ears, it has no value, other than comedic.

Keep in mind that the purpose of language is communication.

Say every single human being was somehow killed except for two people. One person spoke english and the other spoke some language entirely different from english. Say they got together and tried talking to each other. Would all grammatical utterances made by either one of them be entirely meaningless? razz

While language and grammar makes such exchange of information easier, they are by no means the deciding factors when two humans are forced to communicate. Try it once.

[Django XIII]

Repellant

Django XIII

Repellant

Django XIII

Repellant

They are only as meaningful as people make them out to be.

So if the meaning of an utterance is dependent on whether or not people take it to be meaningful, then are you saying that a completely well-formed grammatical sentence of a language would be technically meaningless just because some people don't take it to be meaningful? Say I were talking to someone about, i dunno, the completeness theorem for natural deduction, and they had no idea what I was saying. Does that make my utterances meaningless to some degree?

It makes sense if someone, anyone else catches the gist of it. If you are babbling to deaf ears, it has no value, other than comedic.

Keep in mind that the purpose of language is communication.

Say every single human being was somehow killed except for two people. One person spoke english and the other spoke some language entirely different from english. Say they got together and tried talking to each other. Would all grammatical utterances made by either one of them be entirely meaningless? razz

While language and grammar makes such exchange of information easier, they are by no means the deciding factors when two humans are forced to communicate. Try it once.

Yes, obviously things like body language could help the two people manage. That isn't the point. You argued that a spoken sentence is meaningful if another person gets the "gist" of it. My point was to show that this doesn't seem all that intuitive. I think that even in such a situation like the one I described, I wouldn't want to say that what they were saying to each other (apart from body language and any other non-verbal forms of communication) was just flat out meaningless.

[Django XIII]

Oh and by the way, I did try it. The emoticon was a way of using non-verbal communication to lighten the tone of what I was saying and to insinuate that what I was saying was all in good fun.

razz

[Bakuram]

Django XIII

When we communicate with each other, what is it that makes our utterances meaningful?

the period concluding said utterance..

[Ythan II]

Django XIII

Ythan II

Meaning can only derive from consciousness.

Say a computer says a proper english sentence (ex. with microsoft sam or something). It isn't conscious but I could understand it.

Your consciousness gives it meaning.

[mrs_chester_bennington]

Well intonation, different tones and volumes and things have instinctive meanings. Just like in nature, animals know that big and red = danger. We just naturally know that a loud, strained voice = anger. So people who don't speak the same language could still verbally communicate to a certain degree, at least to express their feelings.

Unless you're talking bout meanings of actual words... People have already explained that pretty well.

[Yoshpet]

Ythan II

Django XIII

Ythan II

Meaning can only derive from consciousness.

Say a computer says a proper english sentence (ex. with microsoft sam or something). It isn't conscious but I could understand it.

Your consciousness gives it meaning.

As well as the consciousness that programmed a non-thinking machine to recite the sentence.

[Yoshpet]

mrs_chester_bennington

Well intonation, different tones and volumes and things have instinctive meanings. Just like in nature, animals know that big and red = danger. We just naturally know that a loud, strained voice = anger. So people who don't speak the same language could still verbally communicate to a certain degree, at least to express their feelings.

Unless you're talking bout meanings of actual words... People have already explained that pretty well.

Intonation of the voice can only emphasize the meaning of words, but they remain vague by themselves. They add meaning, but they do not embody it.

[Batman doesnt cry]

Django XIII

When we communicate with each other, what is it that makes our utterances meaningful?

I believe it depends on the type of a sentence, and the context of it.

For example, in poetry and in love letters the beauty of it is what matters the most.


In prose, your ability to get your thoughts across clearly matters the most.

There are so many different contexts of sentences there is not one most important thing for all, the category is, thankfully very broad.