1. Introduction to Linguistics II Ling 2-121C, group b Lecture 7
Eleni Miltsakaki
AUTH
Spring 2006

2. Review: Word meaning
State the semantic properties that are common and different between the following groups of words
(a) bachelor, man, son, paperboy, pope, chief
(b) bull, rooster, drake, ram
(a) table, stone, pencil, cup, house, ship, car
(b) milk, alcohol, rice, soup, mud
(a) walk, run, skip, jump, hop, swim
(b) fly, skate, ski, ride, cycle, canoe, hang-glide

3. Review: Word meaning Explain why the following are retronyms:
Straight razor, one-speed bike, conventional warfare, acoustic guitar, bar soap
Classify the following antonyms as complementary, gradable or relational opposites
Good-bad, expensive-cheap, parent-offspring, beautiful-ugly, false-true, pass-fail, hot-cold, legal-illegal
Think of five or more heteronyms

4. Review: Phrasal meaning
What does the principle of compositionality state?

5. Review: Meaning of nouns
What is it important to identify the head of a phrase?
What do you know of the meaning derived from adjective-noun combinations?
What do you know about the meaning derived from noun-noun compounds?

6. Review: Sense and reference
What is sense and reference?
Do all nouns have both sense and reference? Give examples.

7. Review: Sense and reference
In a conversation about Britain in 1982 can the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Conservative Party have the same referent?
If we are talking about a situation in which John is standing in the corner, can John have the same referent as the person in the corner?

8. Review: Sense and reference
Do the following words refer to things in the world?
Almost, probable, and, if
When you look up the meaning of the word in a dictionary what do you find?
Its referent?
An expression of the same sense?
Sense is hard to define. It’s easier to talk about words that have the same sense in order to understand sense.

9. Video: What does ‘alike’ mean?

10. Verb meaning The verb determines the number of objects
It constrains the semantic properties of both the subject and the object(s)
Examples?

11. Thematic roles
Subjects and objects of verbs are semantically related to the verb.

12. Thematic roles The boy found a red brick Agent: the boy
Theme: a red brick
 Part of the meaning of find is that the subject is an agent and the object a theme.

13. Thematic roles John put the red brick on the wall. Agent: John
Theme: the red brick
Location: on the wall

14. Thematic roles Mary received a gift from John Source: John Goal: Mary
Theme: a gift

15. Thematic roles John cut his hair with a razor. Agent: John
Theme: his hair
Instrument: with a razor

16. Thematic roles
John admires Mary
Experiencer: John
Stimulus: Mary

17. Thematic roles in other languages
German does not allow location to be the subject of a clause.
This hotel forbids dogs
In diesem Hotel sind Hunde verbotem
(in this hotel are dogs forbidden)
Thematic roles are often referred to as ‘case’ of the noun
In Finnish, the morphological shape of the noun reflects its thematic role
Languages with a rich case system often put more constraints on the thematic role that’s permitted in subject position

18. The theta-criterion
The process of assigning thematic roles is called theta assignment.
E.g., The boy opened the door with the key
Theta assignment:
Agent=the subject
Theme=the direct object
Instrument=the prepositional phrase
Theta criterion: states that a particular thematic role may occur once in a sentence
*The boy opened the door with the key with a lock-pick

19.  The semantic relations between verbs and noun phrases are part of linguistic competence and account for much of meaning in language.

20. Sentential meaning
Like noun phrases sentences can have sense or intension
Sentences can also have reference or extension
Their extension is true if the sentence is true, false if the sentence is false

21. Sentence meaning Truth conditions
The sense of a declarative sentence makes it possible to know under what circumstances the sentence is true
These circumstances are the truth conditions of the sentence
The truth of falsehood of sentences is their reference/extension

22. Sentence meaning Truth conditions
Knowing the truth conditions is not the same as knowing the facts
The truth conditions let you examine the world and learn the facts
You may not know the truth of ‘The Mecklenburg Charter was signed in 1770’
But if you know its meaning you know how to discover its truth

23. Sentence meaning Truth conditions
E.g. Rufus believes that the Declaration of Independence was sign in 1976
An entire sentence maybe true even if one or more parts are false
The example is true if some individual named Rufus believe the statement

24. Paraphrase
Two sentences are paraphrases if they have the same truth conditions, i.e. whenever one is true, the other is true too
The horse threw the rider.
The rider was thrown by the horse.

25. Paraphrase Not all active-passive pairs are paraphrases
Every person in this room speaks two languages
Two languages are spoken by every person in this room
These two sentences do not have the same truth conditions

26. Entailment
Sometimes knowing the truth of a sentence entails or necessarily implies the truth of another sentence
Corday assasinated Marat
Marat is dead
Much of what we know about the world comes from knowing the entailments of true sentences

27. Contradiction Contradiction is negative entailment Scott is a baby
Scott is an adult

28. Events and states Some sentences describe events such as
John kissed Mary
John ate oysters
Other sentences describe states such as
John knows Mary
John likes oysters
These differences have syntactic consequences

29. Events and states Compare With Mary was kissed by John
John is kissing Mary
Kiss Mary!
John deliberately kissed Mary
With
? Mary is known by John
? John is knowing Mary
Know Mary!
John deliberately knows Mary

30. Pronouns and coreference
Show the close interaction of sentence structure and semantics
Reflexive pronouns pick an antecedent from the same S or phrase
Compare:
Jane bit herself
* Jane said that herself slept

31. Pronouns and coreference
Sentence structure plays a role in the interpretation of pronouns
Compare
John believes that he is a genius
He believes that John is a genius
It’s not about linear order
The fact that he is considered a genius bothers John

32. Anomaly Anomaly occurs in many ways
Contradictory semantic properties
Nonsense words
Violation of semantic rules…
The fact that we are able to understand anomalous sentences and identify them as such is evidence of our knowledge of the semantic system of a language

33. Anomaly
Sometimes breaking semantic rules is done intentionally to create special effects, as in poetry
…children building this rainman out of snow (e.e. cummings)
… a grief ago (Dylan Thomas)

34. Metaphor
A metaphor is an expression that ordinarily designates one concept, used for another
The fall of the empire
Walls have ears
Dr. Jekyll is a butcher
Time is money
To understand metaphors we need to understand both the literal meaning and facts about the world
Metaphor can have a strong cultural component
My car is a lemon

35. Idioms
The principle of compositionality is sometimes supeseded by expressions that seem decomposable
Idioms are similar in structure to ordinary phrases but have frozen meaning
Bite your tongue
Kick the bucket
Give a piece of your mind
Paraphrases often do not retain the idiomatic meaning but there are exceptions
The FBI kept tabs on radicals
Tabs were kept on radical by the FBI