Methodological Preliminaries

Ling324
Reading: Meaning and Grammar, pg. 1-52
 Compositionality: Fregean Program

• An infinite number of syntactically complex linguistic expressions in a

language can have linguistic meanings associated with them.

We have no trouble in understanding the meaning of sentences even if we

have never encountered them before.

(1) The yellow elephant ate my homework.

• The meaning of a complex linguistic expression is determined by the

meaning of its parts and the way those parts are combined.

We understand the meaning of a sentence because we know what the single

words in it mean and we have an algorithm of some kind for combining them.

With this algorithm, by combining individual word meanings, a phrase

meaning is produced, and by combining phrase meanings, the meaning of a
bigger phrase is produced, and so on, ultimately producing the sentence
meaning.

1
 Compositionality: Fregean Program (cont.)

• Interpretation is done on a syntactically analyzed linguistic object, not on a

string of words.

Semantics is fed directly by syntax and syntactic constituents (at some level)
are units for purposes of semantic composition.

(2) It is not the case that Bilbo found the ring or Frodo destroyed the ring.

• Association between a word and its meaning varies from language to

language. But the principles of semantic composition are universal.

2
Model-theoretic, Denotational, Truth-conditional Semantics
• Linguistic meaning is an association between a linguistic expression and an
object in the WORLD or a MODEL.
We will say that the object in the world/model with which a linguistic
expression is associated is its DENOTATION.
We can also say that a linguistic expression DENOTES an object in the
world/model.
• Different types of linguistic expressions denote different types of objects.
A proper noun like John?, A verb like run or hit?, A sentence like John runs?
• An important part of what is involved in knowing the meaning of a sentence is
to know what situation it describes. That is, given a situation, if you know the
meaning of a sentence, you know whether it describes the situation truthfully
or not.
In order to capture this semantic knowledge, the study of linguistic meaning
(semantics) must account for TRUTH CONDITIONS of sentences, the
conditions that must be met in order for the sentence to be true.
The truth conditions of sentences must be arrived at on the basis of the
denotations of their simpler parts: lexical items and phrases.

3
Model-theoretic, Denotational, Truth-conditional Semantics
(cont.)

• The questions we will mainly be concerned with in this class:

1. What type of objects in the model does a linguistic expression denote?

2. How are denotations of simple expressions put together?

3. How are denotations of complex expressions made from the denotations

of the simpler ones?

4. How can we define the truth conditions of a sentence on the basis of the
denotations of the linguistic expressions it is composed of?

5. Does our definition of truth conditions of a sentence make the right

predictions with respect to various inference relations?

6. What is the difference between semantic component of meaning and

pragmatic component of meaning?

4
 Lexical Semantics

• Lexical semantics is concerned with how a word comes to be associated with

its meaning.

How are verb meanings associated with thematic roles such as agent,
theme, cause, goal, source and so on?

How do languages lexicalize concepts such as motion, manner, and path?

How do languages differ in the inventory of color terms and kinship terms?

Do the ways in which we lexicalize different concepts reflect how we mentally

represent these concepts and how our cognition works in general?

Although these questions are very interesting in their own right, they will not
be our main concerns in this class.

5
 Catalog of Inference Types

• Entailment

• Implicature

• Presupposition

Other Semantic Relations and Properties

• Ambiguity

• Synonymy

• Contradiction

• Anomaly

• Appropriateness

6
 Entailment

• Statement A ENTAILS statement B =df

– whenever A is true, B is true;

– the information that B conveys is contained in the information that A

conveys;

– a situation describable by A must also be a situation describable by B;

– [A and not B] is contradictory (can’t be true in any situation).

7
 Entailment (cont.)

• Examples

(3) a. This is a yellow car.

b. This is yellow.
c. This is a car.
d. # This is a yellow car, and this is not yellow.

(4) a. Lee and Kim smoke.

b. Kim smokes.
c. # Lee and Kim smoke, and Kim does not smoke.

(5) a. Lee smokes and drinks.

b. Lee drinks.
c. # Lee smokes and drinks, and Lee does not drink.

(6) a. After Hans painted the walls, Pete installed the cabinets.
b. Hans painted the walls.
c. # After Hans painted the walls, Pete installed the cabinets, and
Hans did not paint the walls.

8
 Implicature
• An implicature is something that the utterer might reasonably mean or expect
to convey by making the utterance.

An implicature of an utterance arises because of a particular features of the

utterance context, and the expectations of language use that speakers have
of one another. In particular, speakers expect that they obey general
principles of conversation: e.g., speakers expect of one another that what is
said is ‘relevant’ and ‘informative’.
(7) I am thirsty.

• While implicatures are defeasible (cancellable), entailments are not.

(8) a. Mary used to swim a mile everyday.
b. Mary no longer swims a mile everyday.
c. Mary used to swim a mile everyday, and she still does.

(9) a. John has three cows.

b. John has exactly three cows and no more.
c. John has three cows. In fact, he has five.

9
 Implicature (cont.)

• While implicatures can be reinforced without any redundancy, it is strange if

an entailment is reinforced.

(10) a. Mary used to swim a mile every day, but she no longer does.
b. John has three cows, and no more.

(11) a. # This is a yellow car and it is yellow.

b. # Lee smokes and drinks, but/and she smokes.

• Entailment belongs to the domain of semantics, while implicature belongs to

the domain of pragmatics.

10
 Presupposition

• Many linguistic expressions trigger a certain PRESUPPOSITION which signals

that the speaker is taking something for granted.

If sentence A presupposes sentence B, A implies that the speaker takes the

truth of B for granted as background knowledge.

(12) a. The present king of France lives in Paris.

b. There is a unique present king of France.

(13) a. John regrets kicking his dog.

b. John kicked his dog.

(14) a. It was Mary who failed the exam.

b. Someone failed the exam.

11
 Presupposition (cont.)

• If A presupposes B, then expression of any attitude toward A in general

implies B.

That is, if A presupposes B, then to assert A in an affirmative declarative,

deny A in a negative declarative, question A in an interrogative, or suppose
A in an antecedent of a conditional is generally to imply B.

(15) a. The present king of France lives in Paris.

b. The present king of France does not live in Paris.
c. Does the present king of France live in Paris?
d. If the present king of France lives in Paris, he is probably living in
the palace.
e. Presupposition: There is a unique present king of France.

(16) John regrets kicking his dog.

(17) It was Mary who failed the exam.

12
 Presupposition (cont.)

• Entailment and presupposition are distinct.

A can entail B but not presuppose it.

(18) a. Mary failed the exam.

b. Mary did not fail the exam.
c. Did Mary fail the exam?
d. If Mary failed the exam, she should work harder.
e. Someone failed the exam.

A may presuppose B but not entail it.

(19) a. Speaker 1: I wonder whether it was Mary who failed the exam.
b. Speaker 2: It wasn’t Mary who failed the exam. In fact, I wonder if
anybody failed the exam because it was so easy.

13
 Presupposition (cont.)

• Presupposition accommodation

(20) A waiter is seating a customer in a restaurant

a. Customer: I don’t want to be near the smoking section because I
have just stopped smoking.
b. Waiter: All right, sir.

• Presupposition failure

(21) a. Speaker 1: Have you stopped beating your dog?

b. Speaker 2: I never beat my dog.

14
QUESTION: For each pair of sentences, say whether the b sentences are
entailment, presupposition, implicature, or none of the a sentences, and justify
your answers (Examples from Meaning and Grammar, pg. 24).

(22) a. Oscar and Jenny are middle-aged.

b. Oscar is middle-aged.

(23) a. Today is sunny.

b. Today is hot.

(24) a. Juan is aware that Mindy is pregnant.

b. Mindy is pregnant.

(25) a. Not everyone will get the correct answer.

b. Someone will get the correct answer.

(26) a. John believes that pigs have wings.

b. Pigs have wings.
15
 Ambiguity
• When a single word or string of words is associated with more than one
meaning, AMBIGUITY arises.
• Lexical ambiguity

(27) You should have seen the bull we got from the pope.
a. papal communication
b. male cow
c. nonsense
• Structural (syntactic) ambiguity

(28) Competent women and men hold all the good jobs in the firm.

NP NP

AdjP NP
NP Conj NP
Adj
NP Conj NP Adjp NP and N
competent
N and N Adj N men

women men competent women

16
 Ambiguity (cont.)
• Scope ambiguity
(29) Some boy is dating every girl.
a. There is a boy who all the girls are dating.
(some > every)
b. For each girl, there is a boy that is dating her.
(every > some)
• Ambiguity is distinguished from VAGUENESS.
VAGUENESS has to do with looseness or imprecision of interpretation.

(30) a. Many students were late.

b. Mary kissed John.
• Ambiguity is distinguished from INDEXICALITY or DEIXIS.
The meaning of an indexical or deictic expression systematically depends on
the context in which the expression is used.
pronouns: e.g., I, you, we, he, she, it, they
demonstratives: e.g., this, that

17
 Synonymy: Semantic Equivalence

• A is SYNONYMOUS with B =df

– A entails B and B entails A;

– A and B share all their entailments; i.e., if A entails C, then B entails C,

and vice versa.

(31) a. Those women at the corner table look ready to order.

b. Those ladies at the corner table look ready to order.
c. Those dames at the corner table look ready to order.

(32) a. The police searched Sarah.

b. Sarah was searched by the police.

18
 Synonymy: Semantic Equivalence (cont.)

• But complete synonymy is difficult to come by. In general, even if two

linguistic expressions seem to have the same content, they express different
attitudes of the speaker, different tone, different presupposition, and they are
appropriate in different contexts.

(33) a. MARY baked the cake.

b. Mary baked the CAKE.

(34) a. It was Mary who baked the cake.

b. It was a cake that Mary baked.

(35) a. Who baked the cake?

b. What did Mary bake?

(36) a. Every student in this class speaks two languages.

b. Two languages are spoken by every student in this class.

19
 Contradiction
• A is CONTRADICTORY =df
– A can never be true;
– there is no possible situation describable by A.

(37) # Lee punched Kim with his fist, but his fist did not touch her.
• A and B are CONTRADICTORY =df
– A and B cannot both be true;
– a situation describable by A cannot also be a situation describable by B.

(38) a. Lee is dead.

b. Lee is not dead.
• Sometimes, contradictory sentences can be used for certain discourse
effects.

(39) a. Is Mary smart?

b. She is [smart], and she isn’t [smart].
c. She is smart in some respects but not in other respects.

20
 Anomaly

• Sentences result in ANOMALY when they are built from parts that are
incompatible with each other semantically.

(40) a. # Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

b. # The square root of Milly’s desk drinks humanity.
c. # Being a theorem frightens consternation.
d. # The rock thinks it’s too good to hold the door open.

• Anomaly is distinguished from contradiction.

In contradictory sentences, each constituent clause is semantically

unproblematic, and we can determine whether it is true or not. It’s just that
putting the clauses together in a single sentence results in a contradiction.

But in anomalous sentences, it is impossible to determine whether it is true

or not, because it is impossible to imagine a situation that would make it true
or not.

21
 Appropriateness

• A PPROPRIATENESS of particular linguistic expressions depends on the

discourse contexts in which they are uttered.

A particular linguistic expression may be perfectly interpretable, but its use

may be inappropriate.

• Speech acts like making an assertion, issuing a command, or asking a

question are subject to certain appropriateness conditions.

It is inappropriate for me to assert something that I myself do not believe or

that I do not want you to believe.

It is inappropriate for me to tell you to do something when we all know that

you cannot carry out the command.

It is inappropriate for me to ask you a question the answer to which I already

know.

22
 Appropriateness (cont.)

• Particular stylistic registers are appropriate in particular contexts.

• Inappropriate expressions may result in incoherent discourse.

(41) a. Who baked a cake?

b. # It was a cake that Mary baked.
c. It was Mary who baked a cake.
d. Mary baked a cake.

• The study of appropriateness of linguistic expressions belongs to the domain

of pragmatics.

23