Grice in meaningNN and Donellan in definite description

Indah Lestari
Fakultas Ilmu Linguistik, Universitas Hassanuddin
Indahlestari004@gmail.com
Grice on Meaning
Grices notion about meaning is more focused on contextual meaning or in pragmatics
rather than semantics. In his short but crucial and important article Meaning, Grice explained
about two kinds of senses of the phrase to mean. The phrase can be taken into two different
ways which Grice calls as natural meaning and non-natural meaning. Natural meaning is
also he called as indicator meaning; and the non-natural meaning is also he called as
communicative meaning.
Natural meaning is the kind of meaning that something has when it is a natural and
reliable sign or symptom of or evidence for something. It is all about natural relation between the
sign, or symptom, or evidence, and something it indicates. One of the Grice examples can
illustrate,

Those spots mean measles

For the term mean to be properly used in the sentence above, it has to be the case that a

person could not have those particular spots on the skin without having measles. So, the spots
must meet the characteristics to be acknowledged as measles. We rely on the natural relations
between the spots and measles when we are saying the sentence. It does not rely on any
convention or any intention of the speaker.
Non-natural meaning, or also mentioned as meaningNN, is the kind of meaning
distinctive of linguistic expressions and communication. Grice distinguishes two kinds of nonnatural meaning, namely (1) Conventional Meaning, which is how a term is standardly, literally,
or conventionally used; and (2) Speaker-Meaning, which is related to what the speaker wants to
convey by the expression in a given context. To illustrate the conventional meaning is, take a
look on the examples proposed by Grice below,

Those three rings on the bell (of the bus) mean that the bus is full.

The sentence shows the conventional meaning of the three rings on the bell which is bus
is full. We can instead say four, or five, or ten of the rings on the ball to mean the bus is full as
long as it is the result of convention, that everybody agrees with that. The same case can be
shown in another Grices example,

The light atop a taxi being on means that it is available.

While, for illustrating the speaker meaning, Grice also provides some examples as below,

Tom meant that the stranger should get off of his foot
What Tom did is probably shoving off the stranger of his foot, or by saying please, get

off of my foot. Either by shoving off or by telling the stranger is the Toms intention to have the
stranger get off of his foot. The same case can be shown in another Grices example,

Alvin meant that Jones is academically weak when he wrote Jones has beautiful
handwriting.
In this case, the saying Jones has beautiful handwriting has no natural relation with the

fact that Jones is academically weak; it is Alvins intention to convey in a polite way that Jones is
not very good academically.
In meaningNN by Grice, there are two notions of reference, namely speaker reference,
and semantic reference. Kripke (1977, p. 264) defines the Grices reference as
If speaker has a designator in his idiolect, certain conventions of his idiolect
(given various facts about the world) determine the referent in the idiolect: That I
call the semantic referent of the designator The speakers referent of a
designator is that object which the speaker wishes to talk about, on a given
occasion, and believes fulfills the conditions for being the semantic referent of the
designator The speakers referent is the thing the speaker referred to by the
designator, though it may not be the referent of the designator, in his idiolect.
In other words, speaker reference is what the speakers words meant, while semantic
reference is what s/he meant when s/he was saying these words in some situation.
Donellans distinction between reference and definite descriptions
Definite description is an expression used to describe or denotes an entity which can be a
noun or a noun phrase. Donellans article entitled Reference and Definite Description is

motivated by the argument of Strawsons and Russells accounts of definite descriptions. I will
give an illustration
There were two women, the first womans name is Liza. She has white
skin and blond straight hair. The second womans name is Jill. She has dark skin
and curly black hair. They were bestfriends and liked to walk in the park every
afternoon. Liza had a little baby and brought him along to the park. The baby
knew Jill very well and liked her very much. When they were walking, they saw a
bench in the park and then decided to sit for a while. They then had a chat. While
they were having a chat, the baby were playing around. The baby went back and
forth bringing some stuff he found on the ground. Sometimes, he brought a stone
or a flower, then gave them to Jill while smiling. A pair of old ladies saw the baby
and one of them gave a comment aww...the baby is so cute. Look, he brings his
mommy a gift
Based on my (poor) short story above, despite the old ladies belief, Jill is not the babys
mother. It is just the baby likes Jill very much. According to Russells theory of definite
descriptions, the statement made by the old ladies is false. While according to Strawsons theory
of definite descriptions, the statement has no truth value. However, the old ladies statement
refers to someone, to the babys mother, although it seems that the speakers are not referring to
Liza, as the real mother of the baby, when they say his mommy. In other words, the speakers
expect that there is a mother and in fact, the mother exist.
Donnellan proposes his distinction between attributive and referential use of definite
description which he defines in the following way,
A speaker who uses a definite description attributively in an assertion
states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so. A speaker who uses
a definite description referentially in an assertion, on the other hand, uses the
description to enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about
and states something about that person or thing. (1976, p. 102)
In attributive use, the old lady has in mind the mother they are speaking about. The
attribute of being so-and-so is thus important, because the speaker wishes to assert something
about whatever or whoever fits that description, while in the case of referential use it is not
important, because the definite description is merely one tool for calling attention to a person

or thing. We are using it to help the audience to pick out a person or a thing that we are speaking
about.
The statement ...He brings his mommy a gift can be used in referential way if there is
further conversation between the old ladies, for example, He brings a gift to who?, which can
be answered by the one with curly black hair, or Jill (if both ladies have known the name of
the woman). The speaker aims the audience to pick out the right person she refers to. While, in
attributive use, the phrase his mommy is not referred to any specific person. To the question
He brings a gift to who? can be answered by (someone who is) his mother.
What I can conclude from the two theories above is, in the case based on my short story
above, the referent of his mommy was Jill by speakers reference while it was Liza by
semantic reference. On the other hand, Donellan does not differentiate such a reference. He is too
focus on the speaker reference, that there is the babys mother, regardless whether she is Jill or
Liza.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donnellan, K. 1976. Reference and Definite Descriptions, in: Semantics: Cambridge
University Press
Grice, H. P. 1976. Meaning, in Semantics: Cambridge University Press
Kripke, S. 1977. Speakers Reference and Semantic Reference. Pdf Document