LANGUAGE: MEANING AND DEFINITION

1. LANGUAGE: MEANING AND DEFINITION Logic and Critical Thinking

2. The functions of language in our day-to-day lives (Ludwig Wittgenstein) • Ask questions tell jokes • Tell stories flirt with someone • Tell lies give directions • Guess at answers sing songs • Form hypotheses issue commands • Launch verbal assaults greet someone

3. Two functions of Language in Logic • To convey information (cognitive meaning) • To express or evoke feelings (emotive meaning) • EXAMPLES • The Russian revolution, which occurred in March 1917, was caused in part by the defeat of the Russian army at the hands of the Germans and by the subsequent collapse of the Russian economy. • The Russians, a nation of savage, paranoid barbarians, pursue their insane dream of world-wide dominion without the slightest regard for even the most basic of hum

4. Cognitive and Emotive Meaning • Cognitive Meaning = conveys information • Emotive Meaning = expresses or evokes feelings • Example: • “house”, “tree”, “bird”, “book” • “liar”, “fool”, “”charlatan”, “holocaust”

5. Emotive Meaning • Gives language vitality and eloquence • Without it, poetry and speeches are bland. • From the standpoint of argument evaluation, it involves certain elements of danger. • Reason: Evidence, pure and simple, is conveyed through words that have a cognitive meaning. • The emotive component tends to convey the illusion that evidence is being presented when in fact it is not and the illusion that evidence, when it is presented, is stronger (or weaker) than it actually is. • For these reasons the occurrence of emotive terminology can fool us into thinking that a passage contain an argument when in fact it does not or that an argument is strong when in fact it is weak.

6. Manipulation of emotively laden terminology • Who usually use them to perfection? • Military Spokesmen, Political Officials, Advertisers, corporate officials, and certain religious leaders • Military Spokesmen: • Pre-emptive strike a sneak attack • Enhanced radiation device to pacify neutron bomb • A police action a war • Surgical strike precision bombing • Advertiser: • Minolta Cameras: “Programmed to make creative decisions” • BMW cars: “have sensual lines, sculptured chrome, and the omnipresent scent of leather” • Emperador Brandy: “kaagapay sa tagumpay”

7. What is a TERM • TERM: any word or arrangement of words that may serve as the subject of a statement. • Consists of proper names, common names, and descriptive phrases. • NON-TERMS: verbs, non-substantive adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and all non-syntactic arrangements.

8. Examples of TERMS

9. Examples of Non-terms • Dictatorial • Runs quickly • Above and beyond • Moreover • Craves • Cabbages into again the forest

10. PROPERTIES OF A TERM: Comprehension (Intension) and Extension • Words are usually considered to be symbols, and the entities they symbolize are usually called meanings. • Terms, being made up of words, are also symbols, but the meaning they symbolize are of two kinds: • Intensional meaning (intension or connotation): consists of the qualities or attributes that the term “connotes” • Extensional meaning (extension or denotation): consists of the members of the class that the term “denotes”.

11. Example Class members (extension) Attributes (intension) Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel F. B. Morse, Wright Brothers “Inventor” Clever, Intuitive, Creative, Imaginative

12. Increasing and Decreasing: Intension vis-à-vis Extension • Principle: “inversely proportional” • “As the intension increases, the extension decreases or vice-versa.” • Increasing intension: • Animal, mammal, feline, lion • Increasing extension: • Lion, feline, mammal, animal • Decreasing intension: • Lion, feline, mammal, animal • Decreasing extension: • Animal, mammal, feline, lion

13. EXAMPLE

14. Exercises: • I. Determine which of the following words or group of words are terms and which are non-terms: • Extortion, laborious, cunningly, practitioner, seriousness, forever, whoever studies, interestingly impassive, scarlet, reinvestment, therefore, Ruby Suazo, Robert Hoppener Building, annoy, render satisfactory, graceful dancer, mountaintop • II. Name some of the attributes connoted by the following terms. Express your answer with adjectives or adjectival phrases. Example: The term “elephant” connotes the attributes of being large, having tusks, having a trunk. • Drum, politician, devil, Mona Lisa, St. Arnold and St. Joseph’s Church, carrot

15. Exercises: • III. Name five items denoted by the terms below: • Newspaper scientist river • Tallest mountain on earth • Prime number less than 10 • Representatives from Cebu Province • Language of Philippines • Southeast Asian Countries • IV. Put the following sequences of terms in the order of increasing intension: • Animal, substance, organism, thing, man • Italian sports car, car, vehicle, Ferrari, sports car • Parallelogram, polygon, square, rectangle, quadrilateral • Doctor of Medicine, person, brain surgeon, professional person, surgeon