Recently, there have been a lot of whatsapp stories going around with some sort of riddle. I'll give two examples I came across.
1. Can you tell me, what comes once in a year, twice in a week and never in a day? I lost to (some random person).
2. Someone's mom has four sons, North, East, and West. What is the name of the fourth son. Can you guess the name of the fourth son? I lost to (some random name).
There were a lot of these stories around. If you give the answer and it turns out wrong, you are supposed to put up the story saying who you lost to, and you get the answer.
Initially I found these stories extremely annoying. But then I found them fascinating. How is it that so many people who are more or less fluent with English, could get these simple answers wrong? Or if they are riddles to do with logic, certainly people can figure it out? The explanation for the phenomenon though is extremely fascinating. It is due to the difference between the semantic meaning of a sentence and its pragmatic meaning.
Semantic meaning refers to the technical grammatical meaning. More specifically speaking, lexical semantics has everything to do with sign systems and how meaning is conveyed. For instance, lexical semantics is interested in the relationship between letters in the alphabet, words and phrases, and sentences. And if you delve deeper into the subject, you will study the relation between sounds and meaning.
Pragmatic meaning on the other hand, refers to meaning in a more practical sense. Or in other words, meaning that is usually intended for practical purposes. This is opposed to the rather theoretical interest of semantics.
In some cases, semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. For instance, if I ask the question, "what is your name?" the semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. They both are requesting for your name. On the other hand, if I instead ask "may I know your name?" the semantic meaning is whether or not the person would be okay with me knowing their name. But the pragmatic meaning, as most people would agree, is that I am asking the person's name.
In our day to day usage of language, we often ignore semantics for pragmatics. This is where the old banter about the words 'can' and 'may' come in. I ask my friend, "Can I borrow a pencil?" And he replies, "I don't know. Can you?" Pragmatically speaking, I wouldn't ask if I couldn't. And yet, semantically my question begs the reply given by my friend.
The whatsapp stories I started this post off with earlier are playing on this disparity between semantic and pragmatic meanings. For instance, the answer to the first question given by me was "the letter 'e'". And yet I was wrong according to the person who posted the story. The intended correct answer was "I can" or "I can't." The question was asking whether I could, not the answer to the riddle itself. Similarly, the answer to the second question is 'what'. The reasoning is that there is no question mark, and hence it is not a question in the first place. It is merely a statement, "what is the name of the fourth son."
I find human language extremely fascinating. My friends know that I love puns and word play. I guess this is another play on language, and to be honest I am enjoying it. I just don't like putting up whatsapp stories of this nature, and saying I lost to people. I guess that's just my pride though. But let's end this blog post with a joke I found on the internet not too long ago. I don't remember where I saw it, and hence this is my paraphrased version of it.
Interviewer: "What would you describe as your biggest skill?"
Candidate: "Noticing the semantic details, and failing to see the pragmatics."
Interviewer: "Can you give an example?"
Candidate: "Yes, I can."
1. Can you tell me, what comes once in a year, twice in a week and never in a day? I lost to (some random person).
2. Someone's mom has four sons, North, East, and West. What is the name of the fourth son. Can you guess the name of the fourth son? I lost to (some random name).
There were a lot of these stories around. If you give the answer and it turns out wrong, you are supposed to put up the story saying who you lost to, and you get the answer.
Initially I found these stories extremely annoying. But then I found them fascinating. How is it that so many people who are more or less fluent with English, could get these simple answers wrong? Or if they are riddles to do with logic, certainly people can figure it out? The explanation for the phenomenon though is extremely fascinating. It is due to the difference between the semantic meaning of a sentence and its pragmatic meaning.
Semantic meaning refers to the technical grammatical meaning. More specifically speaking, lexical semantics has everything to do with sign systems and how meaning is conveyed. For instance, lexical semantics is interested in the relationship between letters in the alphabet, words and phrases, and sentences. And if you delve deeper into the subject, you will study the relation between sounds and meaning.
Pragmatic meaning on the other hand, refers to meaning in a more practical sense. Or in other words, meaning that is usually intended for practical purposes. This is opposed to the rather theoretical interest of semantics.
In some cases, semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. For instance, if I ask the question, "what is your name?" the semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. They both are requesting for your name. On the other hand, if I instead ask "may I know your name?" the semantic meaning is whether or not the person would be okay with me knowing their name. But the pragmatic meaning, as most people would agree, is that I am asking the person's name.
In our day to day usage of language, we often ignore semantics for pragmatics. This is where the old banter about the words 'can' and 'may' come in. I ask my friend, "Can I borrow a pencil?" And he replies, "I don't know. Can you?" Pragmatically speaking, I wouldn't ask if I couldn't. And yet, semantically my question begs the reply given by my friend.
The whatsapp stories I started this post off with earlier are playing on this disparity between semantic and pragmatic meanings. For instance, the answer to the first question given by me was "the letter 'e'". And yet I was wrong according to the person who posted the story. The intended correct answer was "I can" or "I can't." The question was asking whether I could, not the answer to the riddle itself. Similarly, the answer to the second question is 'what'. The reasoning is that there is no question mark, and hence it is not a question in the first place. It is merely a statement, "what is the name of the fourth son."
I find human language extremely fascinating. My friends know that I love puns and word play. I guess this is another play on language, and to be honest I am enjoying it. I just don't like putting up whatsapp stories of this nature, and saying I lost to people. I guess that's just my pride though. But let's end this blog post with a joke I found on the internet not too long ago. I don't remember where I saw it, and hence this is my paraphrased version of it.
Interviewer: "What would you describe as your biggest skill?"
Candidate: "Noticing the semantic details, and failing to see the pragmatics."
Interviewer: "Can you give an example?"
Candidate: "Yes, I can."
I love this post! :)
ReplyDeleteI am so excited that Nandini Varma liked what I wrote! 😁😁😁
DeleteI really love the scope of linguistics, so this article in particular interested me immensely especially since you've used it for something so everyday, but something that we don't think about in terms of linguistics! Fascinating read. :)
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