1 Meaning, signs and sign systems

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example. But the use of a red circle for mandatory and a red triangle for warning signs is entirely arbitrary. As for linguistic

signs, some, usually termed ‘onomatopoeic’, are iconic: they are the ones which either refer imitatively to sounds, like thwack,

splash, buzz, hum, click, fizzle, plop, whoosh, and so on, or which imitate the characteristic sounds of their referents, like

cuckoo, peewit or drum. However, the vast majority of linguistic signs are arbitrary, and give no hint in their form of the

nature of their referents, witness the oft-quoted example of the equivalents for dog in different languages: chien, Hund, perro,

cane, kalb, it, etc. It was Saussure who first drew attention to the fundamental importance for linguistic theory of the

arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. This arbitrariness is no accident: it is a prerequisite of the semiotic efficiency of the

medium. Only a tiny proportion of conceivable notions could be effectively portrayed in sound, so a limitation to iconic signs

would seriously constrain the expressive range of language. It is possible that the earliest words to develop in the history of

language were imitative; if so, then the break with iconicity, whenever it occurred, was a decisive step in the evolution of the

language faculty.

The property of arbitrariness is intimately linked with another important property of linguistic signs, namely, their

discreteness. This is a little more difficult to grasp. It means that two word forms are either identical (as far as the linguistic

system is concerned), or they represent two completely different words. Except in rare instances, we find no continuum of

form correlating with the continuum of meaning between any pair of words. A speaker, in forming an utterance, must choose

from a finite set of discrete and distinct possibilities. If someone observes an animal intermediate in appearance between a dog

and cat, he cannot describe it as a dag or a dat, in the hope that intermediate forms will convey intermediate meanings. Discrete

signs are to be contrasted with continuously varying signs. Consider, again, a map. When we draw a map, we do not have to

choose from a fixed and limited set of geometrical shapes to represent the shape of, say, an island. We can vary our

representations with infinite subtlety and in imperceptible stages, and the representation of an island intermediate in shape

between two others will be intermediate in form between their representations. The connection between arbitrariness and

discreteness is this: only signs that are to some degree iconic can vary continuously, and only discrete signs can be wholly

arbitrary.

2.2

Language and other channels of communication

Language is the prime vehicle for the conveyance of meaning; but it is not the only one, and it is illuminating to look at it in

the context of the full repertoire of signs used in human communication. Confining our attention to a typical everyday

manifestation of communicative activity—two or more people in face-to-face conversation—we may inquire into the range of

sign-types that will typically be found to be operative. It is useful to distinguish three types of signs: linguistic, paralinguistic

and non-linguistic.

The linguistic component of face-to-face communication can be further sub-divided into verbal and non-verbal subcomponents. The former is principally a matter of the words used and their grammatical arrangement; the latter involves

prosodic aspects of language, that is to say, intonation and stress. Our main concern in this chapter is of course with the verbal

sub-component.

Paralinguistic signs are those which either manifest themselves through the voice, and are therefore inseparable from

spoken language (voice colour, for instance), or which are interpreted primarily in conjunction with linguistic signs. (Some of

the latter can function independently of language, so the border-line between paralinguistic and non-linguistic signs is not a

rigid one.) Paralinguistic signs have one or both of two characteristic functions. First, there are those signs which impart an

overall emotive or attitudinal colouring to the linguistic message which they accompany: these are said to have the function of

‘modulation’. Here we may usefully distinguish between vocal and non-vocal signs. Among vocal modulatory signs are: the

quality of voice, or ‘timbre’—warm, cold, hoarse, breathy, or strangulated, for instance; the general tempo of speech—

perhaps slow and emphatic, or rapid and excited; the overall pitch (as distinct from particular tunes imposed on the general

level)—generally speaking, higher pitch indicates greater excitement or intensity of emotion. Non-vocal modulatory signs

include such matters as: posture—someone who leans towards his interlocutor when speaking conveys a different impression

from someone who leans backwards; facial expression—it makes a difference whether an utterance is executed with a smile

or a scowl; gestures—imagine You’ve found us! delivered first with the hands extended and second with the hands clasping

the head. The other main paralinguistic function is given the name ‘punctuation’, and it is the spoken analogue of punctuation

in a written text. Signs whose main function is punctuation will indicate the placement of emphasis, and will assist the hearer

to analyse the flow of speech into its proper constituents. This is accomplished partly by pausing, but also by head

movements, eye contact, eyebrow raising, manual gestures, and so on.

In addition to linguistic and paralinguistic signs, there are various signs which are quite independent of the linguistic system,

and which can function perfectly well on their own. Some are vocal: an admonitory cough; sighs of boredom, exasperation or

relief; a gasp of astonishment; a deprecatory clicking of the tongue; a yelp of pain; a sceptical Hmmm. Others are non-vocal:

smiles, frowns, winks, obscene gestures, wrinkling the nose as a sign of disapproval, and many more.



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The linguistic component of communication, although it will be our main topic in this chapter, is thus only one of several.

In some respects it is the most important. But this must not be exaggerated: for some types of meaning, language (particularly

in its verbal aspect) is, if anything, the poor relation. Experiments have shown—and everyday experience confirms—that for

the expression of attitude or emotion, non-verbal means (i.e. prosodic, paralinguistic or non-linguistic) are the most effective.

If verbal and non-verbal expressions of feeling are in conflict, it is generally the non-verbal which will prevail. The language

of words is, of course, sovereign in its own domain: it is the only channel of everyday communication through which a

conceptual content of any complexity can be conveyed.

2.3

Semantics and pragmatics

Now that we have seen something of the position of language against the background of communication in general, we may

now begin to focus our attention on those aspects of linguistic meaning which are the principal concern of this chapter. This

would seem to be an appropriate place to introduce the distinction usually drawn nowadays, but whose exact placing is still a

matter of controversy, between semantic meaning and pragmatic meaning (on which, see Chapter 6, below). It seems

worthwhile to differentiate between meaning which an utterance possesses, as it were, inherently, by virtue of the words it

contains and their grammatical arrangement—meaning which the same utterance might be expected to exhibit in any other

context in which it might occur—and meaning which is either ‘picked up’ from the context (as, for instance, the identity of

‘I’, ‘him’ and ‘it’ in a normal occurrence of I saw him take it), or which arises as a result of interaction between inherent

meaning and context (as when I’ve cleared the table, in answer to Have you cleared the table and washed the dishes? carries

the implicature that the dishes remain unwashed). For present purposes, the inherent sort of meaning will be taken to be the

concern of semantics, and meaning in which context plays an essential role will be considered to fall into the province of

pragmatics. In this chapter we are concerned with semantic meaning.

3.

APPROACHES TO WORD MEANING

3.1

Word and sentence

Perhaps because of the familiarity of dictionaries, and perhaps, too, because of a naïve conception of the way language is

learnt, according to which we first learn single words, and only later learn how to string them together, we tend to think of

word meaning as basic and sentence meaning as secondary. Of course, the meaning of a sentence is in some sense or other

composite, and systematically related to the meanings of its constituent elements. But at the same time, sentence meanings are

much more directly experienced as linguistic objects than words are, and are more accessible to reliable intuitive judgements.

If we ask an ordinary educated speaker of English whether, say, violin and fiddle mean the same, he may well find it difficult

to answer; on the other hand, if we ask him or her whether Kyung Wa Chung is recording all the fiddle sonatas of Brahms or

Kyung Wa Chung is recording all the violin sonatas of Brahms is the more normal, he or she will not hesitate, and as we shall

see later, this fact can be taken as evidence that fiddle and violin are not, in fact, absolutely synonymous. Furthermore, it is

often extraordinarily difficult to say what words mean, even though actually using them appropriately in sentences presents no

problem. (The reader is invited to try to explain the difference in meaning between disease and illness, or between however

and nevertheless.) For reasons such as these, the study of a word’s meaning is best grounded in the use of the word in

sentences, and the meaning itself is best derived, directly or indirectly, from the meanings of sentences containing the word.

3.2

Lexical and grammatical meaning

The inherent meaning of a sentence may be carried by lexical elements proper, or it may be carried by elements or patterns of

arrangement that are normally considered to be part of the grammatical system of a language. The basic grammatical buildingblocks of language, the MORPHEMES, fall into two classes, namely, CLOSED-SET ELEMENTS and OPEN-SET

ELEMENTS. More extensive discussion of these will be found in Chapter 3, but briefly, closed-set elements belong to

grammatical classes which have few members and whose membership changes so slowly that for most purposes it can be

regarded as fixed; open-set elements belong to classes with typically large numbers of members, and a relatively large turnover (both gain and loss) in membership. In the following sentence the closed-set elements are italicised:

The boy-s were play-ing nois-i-ly in the garden



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There is semantic significance in the distinction between closed-set and open-set elements. Most of what would normally be

considered to be the meaning of a sentence is carried by its open-set elements. Indeed, this is their principal function, and they

are commonly referred to as LEXICAL or CONTENT elements. The principal function of closed-set elements (also known as

GRAMMATICAL ELEMENTS or STRUCTURE SIGNALS) is to articulate the grammatical structure of the sentence and

thus to indicate how the meanings of the open-set items are to be combined. This is not to say that closed-set items never

carry meaning; on the contrary, they often do. Consider, for example, the plural -s, the past tense -ed, the comparative -er and

prepositions like in, on and at. Nor is it the case that grammatical elements carry a particular type of meaning, different from

that carried by lexical elements. It is true, however, that meanings carried by grammatical elements tend to be of a very

general, attenuated sort (this is because they need to be compatible with a wide range of lexical elements), whereas lexical

meaning is typically richer and more complex.

The semantics of closed-set items is usually reckoned to be the business of the grammarian, and will therefore not be further

pursued here. For the rest of this chapter, it will be the meanings of open-set items, or what comes to almost the same thing,

the meanings of words, which will occupy our attention.

3.3

Word-meaning and reference

Since we use language to talk about things in the world around us, there is obviously a connection of some sort between

words and expressions and the things they can be used to refer to. Equally obvious is the fact that we have some kind of

mental conceptions of the things in our world and that these are linked both to the words in our language and to the things

themselves. (Saying these matters are ‘obvious’ is not to minimise their philosophical complexity.) These relationships are

represented in the famous ‘triangle of reference’ of Ogden and Richards (1923:II). Various versions of this can be found—the

one illustrated here is adapted from that of Ogden and Richards:

Notice that according to this view of signification, the relation between word and thing is indirect, being mediated by the

concept. We commonly speak of words referring to things, but in this version of reference it is concepts which refer.

There is a question, here, of what we are to identify as the meaning of a word. According to Ullmann (1957:72), what lies

in the world outside of language is no concern of semantics. For him, the meaning of a word is the concept or image

associated with it. His theory of meaning is thus one of those known as ‘ideational’. A theory of meaning aims to account for

all aspects of semantic functioning. Hence, ideational theories of meaning imply, first, that every meaningful expression has

an image or concept associated with it, and second, that this image or concept is ‘called forth’ every time the expression is

meaningfully employed (it is not enough for some words to evoke images some of the time). Sober reflection suggests that

neither of these implications is true; there are grounds, therefore, for doubting whether any such account of meaning can be fully

adequate.

Many scholars view any theory of meaning couched in mentalistic terms with deep scepticism. One way of getting rid of

concepts is to picture the meaning of a word as being either constituted by, or at least directly related to, what the word refers

to. To do this is to adopt a ‘referential’ theory of meaning. The simplest type of referential theory merely identifies the

meaning of a word with its referents; a more sophisticated version identifies meaning with the relationship between word and

referent. However, all versions take it for granted that all words refer to something. But there are considerable difficulties with

this notion, too. We may accept, for instance, that the expression Margaret Thatcher refers to the person holding the office of

British Prime Minister in 1987. But what does, say, however refer to, or concerning? It is not even clear what a concrete noun

like table refers to. It obviously does not refer to some particular table. Nor does it refer to the class of tables: if we want to

say something about the class of tables—for instance, that it has a lot of members—we cannot say *Table has a lot of

members. One way round this problem is to say that the meaning of table is not what it refers to, but what it denotes and/or

what it connotes (this last to be understood in the logician’s sense). The denotation of a word is the class of things to which it

can be correctly applied; so the denotation of table is the class of things of which one can correctly say ‘This is a table’. The

connotation of a word is the property or set of properties the possession of which is a necessary and sufficient condition for

the word to be correctly applied. So table connotes the set of properties which qualifies something to belong to the class of



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tables, and happy connotes the property which someone must possess for happy to furnish a correct description. This way of

looking at meaning has a certain plausibility for certain types of word, but again we run into the problem of generality: it does

not seem to be the case that all words have a denotation and/or a connotation. Here, too, the examples of however and

concerning may be cited.

Another strategy for eliminating mental entities (one favoured by Bloomfield—see 1935:23–33) is to attempt to account for

meaning in behaviourist terms. Unfortunately, this approach fares no better than the referential or ideational approaches. It is

very difficult—many would say impossible—to identify constant behavioural correlates of words. Even in the simplest cases

this is so. Suppose A says to B ‘Shut the door’. B might well feign deafness, or say ‘Shut it yourself, or put his tongue out.

(He might even shut the door!) To circumvent this rather obvious, but none the less telling objection, some adherents (for

instance Morris 1946) have resorted to ‘dispositions to act’ to replace overt behaviour, in the hope that more constants will be

found. However, not only is it doubtful whether this ploy does in fact achieve any more constancy, but dispositions suffer the

additional drawback, in common mental entities, of being unobservable. (For more detailed discussion of theories of

meaning, see Alston 1964:10–30.)

Behind the ideational, referential and behaviourist theories of meaning lie some important truths—that language and

thought are intimately connected; that language is used to say things about the world; and that language is an aspect of

behaviour. But they all fail as general theories of linguistic meaning not only for the reasons outlined in this section, but also

because none of them, on present evidence at any rate, has seemed to carry the seeds of fruitful research. Most progress seems

to have been made by linguists who conceive the proper object of semantic study to be the sense of words, and to this notion

we now turn.

3.4

Sense

The sense of a word reveals itself through the relations of meaning which the word contracts with other words in the language.

Some of these semantic relations are well-defined and systematic—synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy (e.g. dog:animal),

incompatibility (e.g. dog:cat), for instance. (Relations of this type are discussed in later sections of this chapter.) The sense of

dog is thus (partly) revealed through (some would say ‘constituted by’) its semantic relations with such words as animal, spaniel,

bitch, puppy, and so on. But the sense of a word cannot be treated purely in terms of systematic sense relations of this kind: a

word has semantic relations, direct or indirect, with every other word in the language. A word may display semantic affinity or

disaffinity with another word in one of two ways. The first is by normality or abnormality of co-occurrence in some

grammatical construction. To take a very simple example, the patterns of normality and oddness in the following sentences

show that duck and quack, and sparrow and chirrup have a greater affinity than duck and chirrup, or sparrow and quack:

The duck quacked, (normal)

The sparrow chirruped, (normal)

The duck chirruped, (odd)

The sparrow quacked, (odd)

The second indication of semantic affinity between two words is the degree to which they occur normally in the same

contexts. For instance, dog and cat share a greater range of normal contexts than do dog and whale, and therefore have a

greater semantic affinity. Using these notions, we may say that the sense of a word manifests itself through its contextual

relations, that is to say, its total pattern of affinities and disaffinities with other words in the language (including indirect

relations, which have not been illustrated). This is one form of ‘contextual’ theory of meaning, and is based on the ideas of

Haas (for a more detailed exposition see Cruse 1986:1–22). It should be noted that many linguists—see, for instance, Lyons

(1977:202)—conceive of sense purely in terms of descriptive meaning (this notion is explained in the following section): the

definition presented here includes all kinds of meaning.

The notion of sense is thus a purely intra-linguistic one, and does not require us to take account either of things in the extralinguistic world or of things in the mind. The restricted nature of sense has made it attractive to many linguistics who are

daunted by the seemingly unmanageable chaos and complexity of extra-linguistic reality, and/or the inaccessibility to direct

observation of mental entities. Some, however, (see, for instance, Palmer 1976: 33) find a restriction of semantics to sense

unacceptable, on the grounds that this ignores the principal function of language, which is to communicate about things and

events in the world around us. Be that as it may, most advances in understanding in linguistic semantics have been founded on

the notion of sense, which must therefore be accorded a prominent place in the present chapter.



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3.5

Kinds of meaning

There have been many attempts to sort meaning into different types, but, although it is undoubtedly a worthwhile enterprise,

it has proved difficult to devise a proper classification with an exhaustive set of non-overlapping categories. For present

purposes, a relatively simple three-way division into descriptive, expressive and evocative meaning will be adopted.

The descriptive meaning of a sentence (other names for essentially the same thing are: propositional meaning, ideational

meaning, cognitive meaning, denotative meaning) is that part of its meaning which, if it has the force of a statement,

determines whether it will be true or false in a particular situation; it also governs the logical relations between sentences. It is

by virtue of their descriptive meaning that It’s a dog entails It’s an animal, for instance. The relevance of descriptive meaning

is not restricted to statements: it is also important for questions and commands. It is by virtue of descriptive meaning that

Half-past ten constitutes an answer to What time is it?, while Two spoonfuls of treacle does not, and that, if the time is

actually 11.30, the answer is false. In the case of a command, descriptive meaning indicates the sorts of actions that will count

as compliance with it. For many linguists, descriptive meaning is the only sort that matters. Since it is what governs truth and

falsehood, it is obvious enough why those who wish to deal with meaning within the framework of logic have tended to

concentrate on it to the exclusion of other types of meaning.

Expressive meaning is concerned with feelings and attitudes which are expressed rather than described. To understand this

distinction think of the difference between Ouch!, which expresses pain, and I felt a sudden sharp pain, which describes it.

Someone who produced the second utterance could, in theory, be accused of telling a lie; but not so the producer of the first

example, since no statement would have been made. It is expressive meaning which differentiates the meaning of Cedric has

gone and eaten all the damn caviar from that of Cedric has eaten all the caviar, and She has spent the whole day weeping

from She has spent the whole day blubbering. Notice that the two sentences in each pair have the same truth conditions, so

they are identical in respect of descriptive meaning. The meaning which differentiates John is here from Is John here? (this

difference is often described as one of ‘prepositional attitude’) is also expressive in nature. An important feature of expressive

meaning is that it is valid only for the time and place of utterance; in this, it resembles the meaning carried by a gasp of

surprise, or a dog’s bark (descriptive meaning suffers no such restrictions). Expressive meaning commonly occurs blended

together with descriptive meaning within the sense of a single word: the meaning of the verb blubber, for instance, can be

roughly analysed as ‘weep’ (descriptive) +‘scorn’ (expressive). Some words, however, (many expletives, for example) are

wholly expressive in nature.

Many words have the power to evoke images and feelings in a hearer beyond what is directly sanctioned by their

descriptive and/or expressive meaning. This evocative power is often deliberately made use of in, for instance, literature,

advertising and propaganda. The associations aroused by a word may be highly personal, or they may be shared to a greater

or lesser extent by other language users; but to be considered part of the evocative meaning of a word they need to be shared

to a significant degree. Two types of lexical evocation can be distinguished. The first type are really properties of the referents

of words and only secondarily properties of the words themselves. For instance, the phrase angry bull may well provoke an

actual tingle of fear, even when encountered in the safety of a suburban living-room. Presumably the origins of a reaction like

that would lie in real-life experiences with bulls. (Notice that we could not say that angry bull denoted fear, nor that it

expressed it.) Other evocations are definitely linked to particular words rather than their referents. This would be the case

with, for instance, Ah yes, John— re your request for additional funding, said by a father whose son has asked for more pocket

money. In their natural habitat—perhaps some Civil Service department—such words would be relatively neutral; transposed

to the domestic scene, however, they carry with them a penumbra of associations.

4.

LEXICAL ITEMS

4.1

Syntagmatic aspects: how to divide a sentence into lexical units

The basic working unit of lexical semantics is the LEXICAL ITEM. This has a form and a meaning. We shall discuss the

question of how many meanings a form has in the next section. Here we consider how to delimit the forms of lexical items.

Generally speaking, lexical items are simply words, but there are interesting exceptions. Normally the meaning of a

grammatically complex expression is built up, in conformity with the principle of compositionality, by combining the

meaning of its parts. However, there are some complex expressions which do not behave in this way. Compare the sentences

John pulled Bill’s arm and John pulled Bill’s leg (about his hair-style). The first of these is straightforwardly compositional:

pull means much the same as it does in John pulled the rope; -ed signals the past tense; -’s is an indicator of possession; arm

denotes one of the upper appendages. All these meanings are combined—in a way dictated by the syntax—to form the global



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meaning of the sentence. The second sentence, however, is different. John, to be sure, has the same semantic significance as

in the previous example (and Bill, too). So does the past tense affix. But what about pull? Obviously it does not mean the

same as it does in pull the rope. Does it, in fact, have any individual meaning? Once this question is posed, the answer is plain

—it does not, neither does leg, nor even -’s. Only a rather peculiar unit consisting of these three elements together, pull—’s

leg, can be said to carry a recognisable meaning. This unit cannot be broken down semantically any further: it is an

elementary lexical unit which means something like ‘tease’. Expressions of this sort, which are syntactically complex, but

semantically simple, are called ‘idioms’. Other examples are: to paint the town red, to be up the creek, to get cold feet, to cook

someone’s goose. Certain consequences follow naturally from the fact that the apparent constituents of idioms do not have

independent meanings. For instance, since the leg in to pull someone’s leg is not a ‘normal’ leg, it cannot be qualified as

right, or left, or wooden or injured; nor can it be topicalised (i.e. made into the topic of the sentence) or even pluralised. Thus

none of the following sentences has an idiomatic interpretation:

John pulled Bill’s left leg.

It was Bill’s leg that John pulled (not his arm).

As for Bill’s leg, John pulled it.

John pulled Bill’s legs.

Somewhat like idioms, but significantly different none the less, are ‘frozen metaphors’. These are relatively fixed expressions

(although usually not so rigidly as idioms) whose non-literal meanings can still be seen to be related to their literal meanings.

Consider She painted a glowing picture of her life in Wolverhampton. Presumably the person in question did not actually put

brush to canvas, but merely described her life in favourable terms. But the connection is obvious, unlike that between the

literal and non-literal meanings of We painted the town red. Compare also He has one foot in the grave, which in one of its

meanings is a frozen metaphor, and He got cold feet, which has an idiomatic interpretation. Frozen metaphors often translate

fairly intelligibly into another language; literal translations of idioms hardly ever make any sense. An idiom is a single lexical

item, at least from the semantic point of view. Frozen metaphors are less clear. They have a certain unity and integrity; on the

other hand, their global meanings are related at least to some extent to the meanings of their parts. Which of these

considerations is seen as the most significant will obviously vary with circumstances.

4.2

Lexical forms with more than one meaning

Many lexical forms clearly have more than one meaning: boot (‘luggage space of car’, ‘item of footwear’); rake (‘garden

implement’, ‘dissolute fellow’); tip (‘place for disposal of household refuse’, ‘piece of useful information or advice’, ‘pointed

end of object’). Other lexical forms can be found, however, which although they can be used to refer to different types of

thing, would not normally be felt to have multiple meanings. Take, for example, book (think of a paperback novel, a

dictionary, a textbook); horse (a mare, a stallion, a foal, a race-horse, a cart-horse); or red (scarlet, crimson, maroon). We

shall say that lexical forms like boot, rake, and tip are ambiguous, whereas book, horse and red are not ambiguous (at least

with respect to the interpretations mentioned) but general or non-specific. An important difference between an ambiguous

lexical form and non-ambiguous one is that in using the former a speaker will usually (unless he is indulging in deliberate

word-play) have one specific interpretation in mind, and the hearer will normally be expected to identify which it is. In

ordinary conversation this usually presents no problems because of the abundance of contextual clues: I’lljust nip along to the

bank to cash a cheque, John can’t row for toffee—we kept bumping into the bank. But if the hearer cannot identify the

appropriate sense of an ambiguous item he cannot be said to have fully understood the utterance in which it appears (this

could be the case with, for instance, We finally reached the bank). In the case of a word which is non-specific with regard to a

particular distinction of meaning, neither the speaker’s intentions nor the hearer’s understanding is required to be more

specific. If someone says I understand my brother’s new car is red, he or she may not even know what shade of red it is.

Generally speaking, at least for the quite unrelated choices of meaning illustrated so far, there is no inclusive meaning

attributable to an ambiguous form of which the separate interpretations are more specific manifestations. There is no meaning

of rake, for instance, which covers both its possible interpretations in the way that fruit subsumes apple and banana. A general

word, however, has only the inclusive meaning, although particular contexts may narrow this down. In Our teacher is

expecting a baby, for instance, although the word teacher applies indifferently to men and women, the teacher referred to is

obviously a woman.

There are various ways of testing a word to see whether it is ambiguous or not. A full discussion of ambiguity tests is not

possible here (for more detail see Cruse 1986:54–66), but it is perhaps worth looking briefly at one example —the so-called

‘identity test’. The way this works can be illustrated using the following two sentences: