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1.  Two Crucial Linguistic Functions:
◦ Conveying Cognitive Meaning or Information:
 Texas has executed more inmates than any other state.
◦ Conveying Emotive Meaning, or Feelings:
 The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman form of
punishment.

2.  Smuggling Value Claims into Emotive
Terminology:
◦ This is a claim that something is good, bad, right, wrong,
better, worse, more important, or less important than
some other thing.
 The death penalty is bad because innocent people have
been executed.

3.  Two Ways Cognitive Meaning Can Be Defective:
◦ Vagueness:
 Vague expressions often allow for a continuous range of
interpretations.
 “Love” is an example of such an expression.
◦ Ambiguity:
 Ambiguous expressions are those that can be interpreted as
having more than one clearly distinct meaning in a given
context.
 A “light” beer may be light in taste, color, or calories.

4.  The Concept of a Term: Any Word or
Arrangement of Words That May Serve as the
Subject of a Statement
◦ Examples are:
 Proper names such as Napoleon
 Common names, such as animal
 Descriptive phrases, such as “first president of the
United States”

5.  Intensional Meaning and Connotation:
◦ Consists of the qualities or attributes that the term
connotes.
 Extensional Meaning and Denotation:
◦ Consists of the members of the class that the term
denotes.

6.  Increasing and Decreasing Intension:
◦ Increasing intension is when each term in the series
(except the first) connotes more attributes than the one
preceding it.
◦ Each term in the series after the first is more specific
than the one preceding it.
◦ Decreasing intension is the reverse of this order.

7.  Increasing and Decreasing Extension:
◦ Increasing extension is when each term in a series
(except the first) denotes a class having more
members than the class of the term preceding it.
◦ In other words, the class size gets larger with each
successive term.
◦ Decreasing extension is the reverse of this order.

8.  A definition is a group of words that assigns a
meaning to some other word or group of
words.
◦ The definiendum is the word or group of words that is
supposed to be defined.
◦ The definiens is the word or group of words that does
the defining.

9.  Stipulative Definitions: Assigning a Meaning to a
Word for the First Time
◦ Stipulative definitions are often created in response to
some new phenomenon or development.
◦ Examples are “tigon” for the offspring of a male tiger and
a female lion, and “liger” for the offspring of a male lion
and a female tiger.

10.  Lexical Definitions: Reporting a Meaning That a
Word Already Has in a Language
◦ Dictionary definitions are all lexical definitions; they often
have multiple definitions.
◦ Lexical definitions help eliminate the ambiguity in words
that have multiple definitions, such as “light.”

11.  Precising Definitions: Reducing the Vaguenes
◦ Defining “poor” as “having an annual income of less than
$10,000 and a net worth of less than $20,000” is a
precising definition.

12.  Theoretical Definitions: Assigning Meaning Based
Upon a Scientific or Philosophical Theory
◦ “Heat” means the energy associated with the random
motion of the molecules of a substance.

13.  Persuasive Definitions: Engendering an Attitude
◦ This is done by assigning an emotional or value-laden
meaning to a word while making it appear that the word
really has (or ought to have) that meaning in the
language in which it is used.

14.  Extensional Definitions are chiefly used as
techniques for producing lexical and stipulative
definitions.
◦ Demonstrative definitions differ from the other kinds of
definitions in that the definiens is constituted at least in
part by a gesture—the gesture of pointing.

15. ◦ Enumerative definitions assign a meaning to a term by
naming the members of the class the term denotes.
“The Baltic states are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.”
◦ Definitions by subclass assign meaning to terms by
naming subclasses of the class denoted by the term.
“Tree” means an oak or, pine, elm or spruce, and so
on.

16.  Intensional (Connotative) Definitions assign a
meaning to a word by indicating the qualities or
attributes that the word connotes.
◦ Synonymous definitions are those in which the definiens is
a synonym of the word being defined. An example is “
‘Physician’ means ‘doctor’.”
◦ Etymological definitions assign meanings to words by
disclosing the word’s ancestry in both its own language and
other languages. An example is the English word “captain,”
which derives from the Latin noun caput, meaning head.

17. ◦ Operational definitions assign meanings to words by
specifying certain experimental procedures that
determine whether or not the word applies to a certain
thing.
◦ An example is that one stone is “harder than” another if and
only if it scratches the other when the two are rubbed
together.
◦ Definition by genus and difference assigns a meaning to
a term by identifying a genus term and one or more
difference words that, when combined, convey the
meaning of the term being defined.
◦ An example would be that “wife” means married woman.

18. Can Produce This Type of Definition
This
Technique
Stipulativ
e
Lexica
l
Precisin
g
Theoretica
l
Persuasiv
e
Demonstrative Yes Yes No (Unusual) (Unusual)
Enumerative Yes Yes No (Unusual) (Unusual)
Subclass Yes Yes No (Unusual) (Unusual)
Synonymous No Yes No No No
Etymological Yes Yes No No No
Operational (Limited) Yes Yes (Unusual) (Unusual)
Genus and
Difference
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

19. 1. Conform to proper grammatical standards
◦ Grammar is the bones of language, a structure that
greatly contributes to the whole.
1. Convey essential meaning
◦ If you define “human” as a featherless biped, then apes
and monkeys may also be defined as human.
3. Be neither too broad nor too narrow
◦ Your definition of “bird” should exclude bats, which are
mammals, and include ostriches, which cannot fly.

20. 4. Avoid circularity
◦ Makeup is a product used by people to make
themselves up.
5. Be affirmative (where possible)
◦ Normally you would say that “‘Concord’ means
harmony,” but you can use conventional usage for
such definitions: “ ‘Dark’ is the absence of light.”
6. Avoid figurative, obscure, vague or ambiguous
language
◦ Camels are a species of mammal, not “ships of the
desert.”

21. 7. Avoid affective terminology, such as sarcasm
and facetiousness
◦ “Theism” means belief in that great Santa Claus in the
sky.
8. Indicate proper context
◦ “Strike” means different things in the contexts of
baseball, bowling, fishing, and war.