FIRST PROOF Article Number: LALI: 01404

Article Number: LALI: 01404 Denotation vs Connotation 1 a0005 Denotation vs Connotation E Rigotti and A Rocci, University of Lugano, Lugano, which has wider currency in contemporary philo- Switzerland sophical and linguistic semantics, while the corre- ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. sponding use of ‘‘connotation’’ is nowadays rarer. The precise meaning of all the above terms is highly theory-dependent and varies in subtle but decisive s0005 Introduction ways also within the same broad tradition of logico- p0005 The terminological pair of antonyms ‘‘denotation’’ philosophical semantics. ‘‘Reference’’ and ‘‘denota- and ‘‘connotation’’ has been variously used in philos- tion’’ both concern the relation between linguistic ophy, linguistics, semiotics and stylistics to indicate a expressions and things in the world and are often number of diverse distinctions in the realm of mean- used interchangeably. Some authors (cf. Lyons, 1995 ing, in particular dichotomic distinctions between and Allan, 2001), however, draw a distinction be- what different students have seen as fundamentally tween the two along the following lines: ‘‘denotation’’ different kinds (or aspects) of meaning. Before corresponds to the virtual relationship between a lin- embarking on a review of the diverse technical uses guistic expression and a thing or set of things in the of ‘‘denotation’’ and ‘‘connotation,’’ it is perhaps use- world (e.g. dog denotes the set of entities in the world ful to examine the semantic values suggested by their which are correctly called dog), while ‘‘reference’’ etymology and word formation. The deverbal noun indicates the relationship between an expression and denotatio attested in postclassical Latin, is derived what the speaker is talking about by using this ex- from the compound verb de-noto, ‘to mark out, pression in a given utterance (e.g., the reference of point out, specify, indicate,’ literally indicating the dog in a particular utterance of the sentence the dog physical action of ‘setting a mark (nota) on some- barks). Referring is sometimes seen as a sort of speech thing’. The noun nota (‘mark, sign, note’) derives act and contrasted with the act of predication (sin- in turn from the verb nosco (‘to come to know,’ ‘to gling out a certain dog vs predicating the property become acquainted with’ and also ‘to recognize’). of barking of this same dog). This opposition Thus the etymology of denotation generally suggests can be interpreted in terms of discourse semantics the idea of singling out an object by way of distinctive as the contrast between introducing new referents in signs, or recognizing it because of its distinctive fea- the discourse representation or retrieving them on tures. Connotatio and connoto, which are coined the one hand, and updating the conditions on these on the mold of denotatio and denoto, using the referents on the other. In classic formal semantics, comitative prefix con- (the value conveyed is that of such a distinction is not taken into account: simply a secondary, accompanying or implied feature) are the denotations of phrases (the dog) and sentences (the attested in Medieval Latin first in the theological dog barks) are functions of the denotations of the literature, and then, in the 14th century, as technical component expressions (such as dog, the, bark, etc.). terms in logic and grammar (Rosier, 1992). Similarly, on the side of ‘‘sense,’’ ‘‘intension’’ and p0020 p0010 It is customary to distinguish two broad uses of ‘‘connotation’’ we find significantly different concep- ‘‘denotation’’ and ‘‘connotation’’ as technical terms tions. In the philosophical tradition the ‘‘sense’’ or in semantics: a philosophical use and a semiotic- ‘‘intension’’ of a linguistic expression is often seen as stylistic use. the set of all properties, conceived as real world modes of being, that their denotatum must have, while in a large part of the linguistic semantic tradition, for s0010 Denotation, Connotation, Reference, both structuralist (cf. Hjelmslev and Jakobson) and AU:1 and Sense generativist (from Katz to Jackendoff), the linguistic FIRSTmeaning PROOF or sense of an expression is seen as meta- p0015 In the philosophical tradition, the pair denotation vs linguistic paraphrase, usually cast in a (semi-) forma- connotation is used to refer to a dichotomy analogous lized language of semantic features. Finally, in the to those indicated by ‘‘reference’’ (or ‘‘denotation’’) formal semantic tradition of Montague, the inten- vs ‘‘sense’’ (or ‘‘meaning’’), or by ‘‘intension’’ (or to sion of an expression is reduced to a function from use a more traditional philosophical term ‘‘compre- possible words to extensions in a particular world. hension’’) vs ‘‘extension.’’ Notably, we find this use in John Stuart Mill’s A system of logic (1895): ‘‘The Denotation vs Connotation: The s0015 word ‘white’ denotes all white things, as snow, paper, Semiotic-Stylistic Distinction the foam of the sea, and so forth, and, implies, or as it was termed by the schoolmen, connotes, the attribute The so-called semiotic-stylistic use is more difficult to p0025 whiteness.’’ Of the two terms, ‘‘denotation’’ is the one tackle. More precisely, one should speak of a family Article Number: LALI: 01404 2 Denotation vs Connotation of loosely related uses the pair denotation vs conno- sense or intension mentioned above. Ockham’s no- tation has acquired, a number of vaguely related uses tion of connotation emerges in the context of a long in linguistic semantics, stylistics and semiotics. The and very sophisticated debate on the semantics of the two terms have often been called forth to set apart adjectives ad of the so-called denominative names what are seen as objective, descriptive meaning of a (lat. nomina denominativa). Aristotle (Categories, linguistic sign from the subjective emotive meanings n.1) calls denominatives (gr. paronyma) those beings (sometimes seen as including ethic and aesthetic value whose name is derived from the name of something judgments), or from the stylistic and poetic values else, by way of a simple difference in morphological associated with it. suffix: such as grammarian from grammar and strong p0030 In a different perspective, the opposition is seen as from strength. While ancient grammarians consid- between the stable, codified meanings of a linguistic ered denominatives as a morphological category, in sign and the variable, unstable, weakly suggested the philosophical tradition of the Medieval commen- values or even idiosyncratic associations it evokes in tators of Aristotle, the abstract name was always the mind of the language users. These associations ontologically earlier irrespective of morphological may consist, in turn, of emotions evoked by the considerations: for instance, when a man is called sign, socially shared beliefs about either the referent strong he takes his name from the quality that char- of the sign or about the use of the sign or the people acterizes him, that is from strength. In his treatise who use it, or, again, poetic, or, more generally, aes- De grammatico St. Anselm of Canterbury (12th cen- thetic values associated with the sign. In this perspec- tury) proposed to analyze denominative terms such tive, the range of connotative association is seen as as ‘‘grammarian’’ as signifying directly the property including the fact that some words or grammatical (the grammar) and indirectly the substance (the man). structures can function as sociolinguistic indicators Thus, in the meaning of a denominative such as or markers, pointing to a particular sociolect or to a ‘‘grammarian’’ one has to distinguish between their particular register. significatio (roughly ‘meaning’, the concept of gram- p0035 In some of its formulation in semiotics and mar) from their appellatio (roughly ‘reference’, the European structural linguistics, in particular in those man to whom the name refers) (see Figure 1). derived from the influential account of this distinc- This theory of denominatives was developed by p0050 tion offered by Louis Hjelmslev (1961) in his Prole- later authors, which, like St. Anselm considered the gomena to a theory of language, the opposition conceptual meaning as being prior with respect to between ‘‘denotation’’ and ‘‘connotation’’ is not con- reference, which is signified indirectly and in a implic- nected specifically with emotion, value judgments it way (innuendo). and style. Rather it is construed more broadly as In the 14th century, this analysis was reversed by p0055 a fundamental distinction between different ways Ockham’s theory of connotation (cf. Pinborg, 1984 of making meaning rather than between types of and Rosier, 1992 for a discussion of the reasons of concrete contents (e.g., objective vs subjective). this change of perspective). Ockham introduces a p0040 In some of these broad interpretations, the opposi- distinction between absolute and connotative terms: tion denotation vs connotation tends to overlap with absolute terms correspond either to the names of a series of distinctions that have occupied the center substances (e.g., homo ‘man’) or to the names of qua- stage in the recent debates on the relationship be- lities (e.g., albedo ‘whiteness’) and denote either an tween semantics and pragmatics in the linguistic and object or a class of objects. A connotative term, on philosophical literature: distinctions such as propo- sitional (or truth-conditional) meaning vs nonpro- positional (non-truth-conditional) meaning, literal vs nonliteral meaning, codedFIRST

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