CAT 2017 Slot 2 — VARC Question 27
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s position.
A fundamental property of language is that it is slippery and messy and more liquid than solid, a gelatinous mass that changes shape of fit. As Wittgenstein would remind us, “usage has no sharp boundary”.
Oftentimes, the only way to determine the meaning of a word is to examine how it is used. This insight is often described as the “meaning is use” doctrine. There are differences between the “meaning is use” doctrine and a dictionary-first theory of meaning. “The dictionary’s careful fixing of words to definitions, like butterflies pinned under glass, can suggest that this is how language works. The definitions can seem to ensure and fix the meaning of words, just as the gold standard can back a country’s currency”. What Wittgenstein found in the circulation of ordinary language, however, was a free-floating currency of meaning. The value of each word arises out of the exchange. The lexicographer abstracts a meaning from that exchange, which is then set within the conventions of the dictionary definition.
Answer & solution
Correct answer: Meaning is dynamic; definitions are static. The ‘meaning in use’ theory helps us understand that definitions of words are culled from their meaning in exchange and use and not vice versa.
- A
Dictionary definitions are like ‘gold standards’-artificial, theoretical and dogmatic. Actual meaning of words is their free-exchange value.
- B
Language is already slippery; given this, accounting for ‘meaning is use’ will only exasperate the problem. That is why lexicographers ’fix’ meaning.
Meaning is dynamic; definitions are static. The ‘meaning in use’ theory helps us understand that definitions of words are culled from their meaning in exchange and use and not vice versa.
- D
The meaning of words in dictionaries is clear, fixed and less dangerous and ambiguous than the meaning that arises when words are exchanged between people.
Easy
A para-summary question. Extract the central contrast and choose the option that states it without reversing the author's preference. The paragraph contrasts two views of meaning: the "meaning is use" doctrine (meaning is fluid, arising from how words are exchanged) versus the dictionary-first view (meaning fixed in definitions). The author's point: definitions are abstracted from usage, not the source of meaning — so meaning flows from use to the dictionary, not the reverse.
Option 1 — Overstates / adds. The paragraph never claims the "actual" meaning is decided by free-exchange alone with no role for definitions. It explains the relationship between the two, rather than dismissing dictionaries outright. Eliminate.
Option 2 — Reverses the author's stance. It treats "meaning is use" as worsening the problem and presents fixing meaning as the remedy. The author actually favours the fluid "meaning is use" view. Eliminate.
Option 3 — Correct. "Meaning is dynamic; definitions are static" captures the contrast, and it states the direction precisely: definitions are culled from meaning in use, not vice versa. This is exactly the lexicographer-abstracts-from-exchange point. Retain.
Option 4 — Reverses the preference. It praises dictionary meaning as "clear, fixed and less dangerous," favouring the fixed view. The author leans the other way — toward the fluid, use-based account. Eliminate.
The best summary is option 3: meaning is dynamic and definitions are static; the "meaning in use" theory shows that definitions are derived from usage, not the other way round.
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