Topic 5 Semantics

8/3/2019 Topic 5 Semantics

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Semantics

Topic 5


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Topics in Semantics

utterance & sentence

sense & reference

sense relations

synonomy/antonymy/hyponymy/homonymy

paraphrase/contradictory/entailment


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Conversational Implicature- Grice's 4 maxims

Speech Acts

- Performatives

- direct vs. indirect speech acts

Locution/Illocution/Perlocution

Presupposition

Deixis


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Part 1. Semantics

Semantics: the study of the linguistic meaning

(of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences)

in language


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an introductory passage"...that shows that there are three hundred and sixty four days when you

might get un-birthday present.

"Certainly," said Alice.

"And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!"

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory.'" Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't - till I tell you.I meant 'there's a nice knockdown argument for you.'"

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knockdown argument," Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "itmeans just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so manydifferent things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."


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* speaker meaning vs.

sentence meaning

speaker meaning: what a speaker means (i.e.

intends to convey) when he uses a piece of

language

sentence meaning (or word meaning):

what a sentence or word means.


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comparing two conversational

exchanges (I and II) Conversation I

A: "Nice day."B: "Yes, a bit warmer than yesterday, isn't it?"

...B: "Have you been away on holiday?"A: "Yes, we went to Spain."B: "Did you? We're going to France next month."

A: "Oh. Are you?That'll be nice for the family. Dothey speak French?"B: Sheila is quite good at it, and we're hoping Martin

will improve."A: "I expect he will. I do hope you have a good time."

...


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Conversation IIHusband: "When I go away next week,

I'm taking the car."Wife: "Oh. Are you? I need the car here to

take the kids to school."Husband: "I'm sorry, but I must have it.

You'll have to send them on the bus."Wife: "That'll be nice for the family.

Up at the crack of dawn, and not hometill mid-evening! Sometimes you are veryinconsiderate."

Husband: "Nice day."


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The same sentences are used by different speakerson different occasions to mean (speaker meaning)different things. -- the importance of speaker

meaning. The speaker meaning sometimes can completely

override the sentence meaning.

e.g. The prime minister of the country is made ofiron.

This suitcase is killing me.

Still people cannot have an ordinary conversationwithout knowing the meanings of the words theyare using.


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Therefore, both sentence meaning and speaker

meaning have to be taken seriously in order to

set up a proper and complete theory ofmeaning.


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utterances () and

sentences ()

Read the following aloud.

Honesty pays

Read it again.

Then youve made two distinct utterances usingone and the same sentence.


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An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person,

before and after which there is silence on the part of

that person In other words, utterances are physical objects or

events that will go away once they are made. Andutterances are affected by the speaker, place, and timefactors.

On the other hand, a sentence is an abstract entity, thatis neither a physical event nor a physical object. It is astring of words put together by the grammatical rules oflanguage and the result of abstract thinking

e.g. All the plays titled Macbeth start with the samesentence, but with different utterance, every time.


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reference and sense In everyday conversation, the words meaning, means, mean,

meantetc. are sometimes used to indicate reference andsometimes to indicate sense

reference: the thing(s) in the world that are picked out bythe linguistic expression

e.g. John is in the beech tree.identifies identifies

a person a thing

sense: not the concrete things in the world but the abstractentity/meaning represented by the linguistic expression

e.g. John vs. the man sitting next to Mary

- these two expressions can have the same reference, butnot the same sense


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Depending on whether a given expression

always refers to the same thing or not, it is said

to have either constant or variable reference. constant reference:

John, The People's Republic of China, the 5th

President of the Republic of Korea, Oct 12,2000, Halley's Comet

variable reference:

my friend, your left ear, this page, the presentpresident of the Republic of Korea, yesterday


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Referential theory of meaning

The meaning of a linguistic expression is its

reference

The Rule of Identity

The expressions with the same meaning can beexchanged without causing any meaning change.

Frege's notion of meaning

There are two levels of meaning- sense and reference


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Opaque context

the same expression yields different meanings

when uttered in some specific contexts

e.g. Dennis thinks that ....

Clinton had an affair with Lewinsky.

The man next to Dennis had an affair with Lewinsky.

Dennis believes that Clinton had an affair with Lewinsky.

Dennis believes that the man next to him had an affair withLewinsky.

Opaque contexts show us that there is more to meaningthan just reference and we need sense in addition toreference if we want to have a more pertinent view of

meaning.


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Every expression that has meaning has sense,

but not every expression has reference

(e.g. almost, nearly, and, but, very)

A referring expression is any expression used in

an utterance to refer to something or someone

(or a clearly delimited collection of things or

people), i.e. used with a particular referent in

mind.


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analytic vs. synthetic sentence

An analytic sentence is one that is necessarily true, as

a result of the words in it (tautologies).A synthetic sentence is one which is not analytic, but

can be sometimes true, sometimes false, dependingon the circumstances.

Cats are animals.Bachelors are unmarried.

The boy is his own father's son.

Bachelors cannot form lasting relationships.

No cat likes to bathe.

John is nine years old.


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contradiction: a sentence that is necessarily

false, as a result of the senses of the words in it

This animal is a vegetable.

This girl is her own mother's mother.

John killed Bill, who remained alive for many

years after.

[disregarding the figurative use]

e.g. That man is not a human being.


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Sense relations

Why sense relations?

Sense is an abstract concept and hence it is not easy todefine exactly what sense is.

e.g. What is the sense of the word 'cat'?

1) all the cats that can be referred to by this word?

2) the sum total of the various properties about cats?

has four legs & two ears, makes a 'meow' sound,of some size & weight (but how big?)

3) ...


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Why sense relations? (2)

Hence, instead of defining sense directly,

researchers tried to find the sense of some

expressions through the sense relations, which

concern the relative positioning of the

expressions in regard to other expressions.

This might be a more effective way of

illuminating the meaning of sense.


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Synonymy: the relationship between two predicatesthat have the same sense (with strict definition, it ishard to find real synonyms)

The thief tried to conceal/hide the evidence.

I'm going to purchase/buy a new coat.

John's father is very stubborn/obstinate.

You have my profound/deep sympathy.It's a very wide/broad street.

How many kids/children have you got?

He comes to see us every fall/autumn.

(abstracting away from any stylistic, social ordialectal associations)

and freedom-liberty, boot/trunk


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Paraphrase: a sentence which expresses the sameproposition as another sentence is a paraphrase ofthat sentence

(paraphrase is to sentences as synonymy is topredicates)

Bachelors prefer red-haired girls.

Unmarried men prefer girls with red hairGirls with red hair are preferred by

unmarried men

John sold the book to Mary's sister.

Mary's sister bought the book from John.


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What is important is whether the sentences in

concern can have different truth conditions. If

not, they are paraphrases of each other.

word:synonym = sentence:paraphrase


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Hyponymy:a sense relation between predicates (or sometimeslonger phrases) such that the meaning of one

predicate (or phrase) is included in the meaning ofthe other.

e.g.

honesty is the hyponym of virtue.fear-emotion/cow-animal/

- synonymy is a special case of hyponymy in thesense that two synonyms are hyponyms of eachother.

E il


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EntailmentA proposition X entails a proposition Y if the truth of Yfollows necessarily from the truth of X. (A sentenceexpressing proposition X entails a sentence expressing

proposition Y if the truth of Y follows necessarily from thetruth of X)

John killed Bill entailsBill died.

John ate all the apples. entails Someone ate all the apples.

- Does [John cooked an egg] entail [John boiled an egg] orthe other way around?

John boiled an egg - John cooked an eggI saw a boy - I saw a human being

John stole a car - John took a car

I ran to the house - I went to the house


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transitivity of entailment

If A entails B and B entails C, then A entails C

John likes all the animals.

John likes all the cats.

John likes all small cats.

- Paraphrase may be a special case of entailment in the

sense that paraphrase is symmetric entailment.

It is hard to lasso elephants. -

Elephants are hard to lasso.


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the relationship between hyponymy and entailment

A Btulip flower

sheep animal

steal take-------hyponymy--------->

A B

Henry was chewing a tulip Henry was chewing a flowerDenis got savaged by a sheep Denis got savaged by an animal

David stole a pound of beef David took a pound of beef.

--------entailment--------->


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the Basic Rule of Sense Inclusion

Given two sentences A and B, identical in everyway except that A contains a word X where B

contains a different word Y, and X a hyponym

of Y, then sentence A entails sentence B.


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systematic exceptions

1) not

A Henry was not chewing a tulip

B Henry was not chewing a flower

Denis didn't get savaged by a sheepDenis didn't get savaged by an animal

David didn't steal a pound of beef

David didn't take a pound of beef.A


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2) all

A Henry was chewing all my tulips

B Henry was chewing all my flowers

A All Denis's sheep have foot-rot

B All Denis's animals have foot-rot

A Mary colored all the square shapes purple

B Mary colored all the rectangular shapes

purple.A


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3) gradable adjectives

A John saw a big mouseB John saw a big animal

A tall pygmy came in

A tall person came in.We went in a small bus.

We went into a small vehicle.

That was an expensive sandwich.That was an expensive meal

-------no entailment----------


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Oppositeness of meaning

(antonymy)

There is no simple meaning of antonymy as words

may be opposite in meaning in different ways,

and some words have no real opposites

between predicates: binary antonyms/

converses/gradable antonyms/

multiple incompatibility

between sentences: contradictory


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1. binary antonyms (compelmantarity); predicates which come in pairs and between them

exhaust all the relevant possibilities; they are

characterized by the fact they divide a conceptual domaininto two mutually exclusive compartments, so that whatdoes not fall into one of the compartments mustnecessarily fall into the other"

e.g. true-false, male-female, dead-alive,

married-unmarried

but not the following hot-cold, love-hate, thick-thin, buy-sell


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2. converses: (=relational opposites)

If a predicate describes a relationship between two things(or people) and some other predicate describes the

relationship obtained when the two things (or people) arementioned in the opposite order, then the two predicatesare converses of each other.

e.g. parent and child are converses , because if X is theparent of Y, then Y is the child of X

(below-above, grandparent-grandchild, own-belong to,greater than-less than)

converses applying to examples containing

three objectsbuy-sell, borrow-lend, give-take,

e.g. if X borrows something from Y, then Y lendssomething to X


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3. multiple incompatibility

There are more than two members in a

semantic system that are mutuallyincompatible

spring-summer-winter-fall

Sunday-Mon.-Tues-Wed-Thurs-Fri-Sat.

names of plants

names of metals

4 d bl


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4. gradable antonyms:

two predicates are gradable antonyms if they areat opposite ends of a continuous scale of values (a

scale which typically varies according to thecontext of use)

hotand coldare gradable antonyms since there aremany intermediate levels such as warm, lukewarm,cool, tepid...

also hot-coldare relative to the context ('hot' in

weather may be 'cold' in cooking)

e.g. tall-short, long-short, clever-stupid, love-hate


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A good test for gradability is whether theadjective can be modified by very, very much,how, how much.

e.g. How tall is he? He is very tall.

*How dead is he? *He is very dead.

Also the predicate on the positive side orupper scale is used in the unmarked question.

:How expensive is the car?How tall is he? How

far is it from here? How high is it?


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Contradictory

A proposition is a contradictory of another

proposition if it is impossible for them both to betrue at the same time and of the samecircumstances.

e.g. This beetle is alive vs. This beetle is dead.Mary is Ann's parent. vs.Mary is Ann's child.

John loves California vs.John hates California.

but,John owns three male cats. vs.John owns threefemale cats.

Some people love California vs. Some people hateCalifornia


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Ambiguity A word or sentence is ambiguous when it has more than

one sense.- A sentence is ambiguous if it has two (or more)

paraphrases which are not themselves paraphrases ofeach other.

e.g. We saw her duck

i) We saw the duckbelonging to her.

ii)We saw her lower her head. (i and ii are notparaphrases)The chicken is ready to eat(ambiguous)

Visiting relatives can be boring


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A word or phrase is ambiguous if it has two (ormore) synonyms that are not themselvessynonyms of each other

trunk - I) elephants proboscis

ii) chest

(i/ii are not synonyms of each other, therefore,trunk is ambiguous)

there are two classes of ambiguous words(homonymy and polysemy)


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A. homonymy

Homonyms are different words that are pronounced the same,but may or may not be spelled the same.

The different senses of the word are far apart from eachother and not obviously related to each other in any way(accidentally converge on the same form/pronunciation)

e.g. tale-tail

to-too-two

bear-bear-bare (V-N-A)

mug ( drinking vessel vs. gullible person)

bark (of a dog vs. of a tree)steer (to guide vs. young bull)

pole (stick vs. Norht pole)


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B.polysemy

when a word has several very closely related

sensese.g. mouth (of a river vs. of an animal)

ceiling (top inner surface vs. upper limit)

earth (our planet/soil)

tail (of a coat vs. of an animal)

bear (tolerate vs. carry)


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cf. homograph: different words spelledidentically and possibly pronounced the same

(in which case, they become homonyms)e.g.

bear (V vs. N) homographs and homonyms

pen (for writing vs. cage) homographs andhomonyms

but,

lead (verb vs. noun) homographs, but nothomonyms

tail vs. tale not homographs, but homonyms


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heteronyms: homographs that are pronounceddifferently (like lead)

bow, wind, lead, dove (N. vs. V-past)

Homonym homograph heteronym

Pronounced

identically

yes maybe no

Spelled

identically

maybe yes yes

li ti b t bi d d


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generalization about ambiguous words andsentences

Not all sentences which contain ambiguous words are

ambiguous. Also there are sentences which areambiguous even though they dont contain anyambiguous words.

e.g. kind (generous vs. class/sort)A kind young man helped me to cross the road.

A pike is a kind of fish.

John went to the bank (to deposit the money).

The captain corrected the list.


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lexical ambiguity vs. structural ambiguity

lexical ambiguity : an ambiguity resulting from

the ambiguity of a wordstructural ambiguity : an ambiguity resulting

from different relationship among the words


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Principle of compositionality

Principle of compositionality

The meaning of an expression is composed of

the meanings of its parts and how they are

combined structurally.

In other words, the meaning of a linguistic

expression is built both on the words it

contains and its syntactic structure.

l f


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Semantic Rules for meaningcomputation (P. 179)

What is the meaning of the sentenceJack swims?

The meaning of a sentence is its truth value and if we

know the meaning of a sentence, we know when it is true

or false.

Semantic Rule I

If the meaning of NP (an individual) is a member of themeaning of VP (a set of individuals), then S is TRUE;

otherwise it is FALSE.

i l f i


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Semantic rules for meaningcomputation (2)

What is the meaning ofJack kissed Laura?

Semantic Rule II.

The meaning of [ V NP] is the set of individuals

such that X is the first member of any pair in themeaning of V whose second member is the

meaning of NP.


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When compositionality go awry(P181)

1. Anomaly (meaningless words, or wrong combination)

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

a table ago; Twas brillig, and the slity toves

2. Metaphor (requires a lot of creativity and imagination)

Our doubts are traitors; Walls have ears

Time is money;

3. Idioms (fixed meanings, no compositionality)


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Evidence for semantic features

Semantic properties are not directly observable butthey can be inferred from linguistic evidence.

1)From speech errors, or slips of the tongue

bridge of the nose -> bridge of the neckhe came too late -> he came too early

Mary was young -> Mary was early

The incorrectly substituted words are not randomsubstitutions but share some semantic feature

with the intended words


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Evidence for semantic features (2)

2) We can group the words on the basis of

semantic properties (See p.194)

doctor dean professor teenager

bachelor parent baby child

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Topic 5 Semantics