Can you clear my misconceptions regarding the following situations?

Question

1) Suppose there is a man named Tom and also a rhino named Tom. Now suppose the rhino named Tom dies, but the man named Tom does not. Now if the sentence, "Tom, the rhino is dead" is said in front of a person who does not know the meaning of the word 'rhino', will it still be logically possible to imply a meaning to that person that the person named Tom is dead.

2) Suppose a man named John commits a murder. Now suppose the sentence, "John has committed a murder." is said in front of a person who does not know English, but still knows the man named John. In this case, will it be logically possible to be a full guarantee to imply a meaning to that person that something is being said about John and logically impossible to imply a meaning to that person that the speaker has uttered the name of John just because he or she likes John very much.

Answer 1

I love logic puzzles, and these are kind of like logic puzzles, in a way.

1) Well, it could certainly be possible if the hearer has no knowledge of what the word "rhino" means. In fact, it's possible that they think the word "rhino" means "person" and thereby infer that the person Tom is dead. However, if the person simply does not know what "rhino" means, but does know that it does not mean "person," they could infer that the non-person Tom is dead. A third situation would be that the hearer does not know what "rhino" or "person" mean, so there's a chance that they could think that it's either the rhino or the person who died. I think the answer to this question is contingent on what the hearer knows, not necessarily what the words mean. What the hearer knows about the difference between the words "rhino" and "person" determine who they will infer has died. Does that help?

2) This question is a little trickier. Again, it depends. Surely the hearer will know that the speaker is talking about John, but they will not understand the rest of the sentence. It's certainly possible to communicate, maybe through hand motions or gestures, that John committed a murder. However, it won't be likely that the hearer will understand from words alone.

I think there's another interesting note to make here: when you say "logically possible," do you mean "likely" or "logically possible" in the strict sense? Technically, almost anything is logically possible if it is non-contradictory. For example, "there exists a square circle" is logically impossible, but "The hearer, who speaks no English, understands that John committed a murder" is not a contradiction, so it's technically possible, just unlikely. Does this help? Neither the Tom case nor the John case has a contradiction, so all outcomes are technically logically possible, although unlikely.

Hope this helps!