





In logic and semantics, connotation is roughly synonymous with intension.[3] Connotation is often contrasted with denotation, which is more or less synonymous with extension. Alternatively, the connotation of the word may be thought of as the set of all its possible referents (as opposed to merely the actual ones). A word's denotation is the collection of things it refers to; its connotation is what it implies about the things it is used to refer to. The denotation of dog is (something like) four-legged canine carnivore. So saying, "You are a dog" would connote that you were ugly or aggressive rather than literally denoting you as a canine.[4]

Related terms[edit]


Semiotic closure, as defined by Terry Eagleton, concerns "a sealed world of ideological stability, which repels the disruptive, decentered forces of language in the name of an imaginary unity. Signs are ranked by a certain covert violence into rigidly hierarchical order. . . . The process of forging ‘representations’ always involves this arbitrary closing of the signifying chain, constricting the free play of the signifier to a spuriously determinate meaning which can then be received by the subject as natural and inevitable".[6]


Example seven .


Example one.


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Peter A. White. "Feelings and JEA Sequences". Psychological Metaphysics. p. 315. ISBN 1315473550.
  2. ^ "Connotation and Denotation" (PDF). California State University, Northridge. pp. 1–8.
  3. ^ Peter Baofu (2012). The Future of Post-Human Semantics: A Preface to a New Theory of Internality. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 1443838101.
  4. ^ BK Sahni (2017). BPY-002: Logic: Classical and Symbolic Logic.
  6. ^ Terry Eagleton (1991). Ideology: An Introduction. Verso. p. 197. ISBN 0-86091-538-7.