1. Introduction to Linguistics II Ling 2-121C, group b Lecture 8
Eleni Miltsakaki
AUTH
Spring 2006

2. Review: Verb meaning
How do verb constrain the semantic properties of the subject and the object(s)? Give examples.
What are thematic roles?
What is the theta criterion?
Discuss thematic roles crosslinguistically.

3. Identify the thematic role of each NP in the following sentences:
The boy took the books from the cupboard with a handcart
Mary found a ball in the house
The children ran from the playground to the wading pool
One of the men unlocked all the doors with a paper clip
John melted the ice with a blowtorch
Thematic roles: agent, theme, location, instrument, source, goal, experiencer, causative

4. Review: Sentential meaning
What is the ‘sense’ and ‘extension’ of sentential meaning?
What does it mean to know the truth conditions of a sentence?
Is it possible for a sentence to be true when parts of it are false?
How can we tell if two sentences are paraphrases? Give examples.
Are active-passive pairs paraphrases?

5. Review: Sentential meaning
What is entailment?
What is contradiction?
Why is the distinction between events and states useful in linguistic description?

6. Which of the following sentences are contradictory? Why?
My aunt is a man
Witches are wicked
My brother is an only child
Babies are adults
Babies can lift a ton
Puppies are human
My bachelor friends are all married
My bachelor friends are all lonely

7. Review: Coreference
Sentence structure affects the interpretation of pronouns and reflexives. Elaborate with examples.

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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

11. Idioms
The principle of compositionality is sometimes superseded by expressions that seem decomposable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

12. Theories of meaning Denotational theory of meaning
The meaning of each expression is the (actual) object it denotes
Mentalist theories of meaning
The meaning of each expression is an idea (or ideas) associated with that expression in the mind of the speakers
The use theory of meaning
The meaning of an expression is determined by its use in the language community

13. Pragmatics
Pragmatics is concerned with the interpretation of linguistic meaning in context.
Linguistic context: prior discourse
Situational context: Knowledge of the world
Amazingly, he already loves her
John met Mary yesterday.
Amazingly, he already loves her.

14. What is discourse?
Knowing a language permits combining sentences to express complex thoughts and ideas
There larger linguistic units are called discourse
The study of discourse is concerned with how speakers combine sentences into bigger speech units

15. Discourse The study of discourse involves questions of Style
Appropriateness
Cohesiveness
Rhetorical force
Topic structure
Genre differences

16. Pronouns
Pronouns may be used in place of noun phrases or to entity known to the discourse participants
John invited Mary to join us for lunch so she’s coming.
(Looking at a guy passing by). He’s Mary’s husband
Pronominalization occurs both in sentences and across the sentences of the discourse.
John met Mary. He liked her.

17. Pronouns
Prior linguistic context plays a primary role in the interpretation of pronouns.
It seems that the man loves the woman.
Many people think he loves her.

18. Pronouns
Syntactically, pronouns occur in the same positions where nouns occur
Semantically, coreference is constrained by a complex system of semantic rules
At minimum, corefering expression must agree in number and gender

19. Pronouns
When semantic rules and contextual interpretation determine that a pronoun is coreferential with a noun phrase, the pronoun is bound.
When a pronoun refers to an object not explicitly mentioned in the discourse, it is free or unbound
The reference of a free pronoun must be determined by the situational context

20. Other pro-forms
Emily hugged Cassidy and Zachary did too (pro-verb phrase)
I am sick, which depresses me. (pro-sentence)

21. Gapping and sluicing Gapping Sluicing (omitted material after a wh-)
Jil washed the grapes and Bill the cherries
Sluicing (omitted material after a wh-)
Your ex-husband is dancing with someone, but I don’t know who.
My cat ate something, and I wish I knew what.
She said she was coming over, bust she didn’t say when

22. The articles
Discourse rules determine the use of the articles the and a.
The article the is used to indicate that the referent of a noun phrase is known to the speaker and the listener
I saw the boy
This constraint does not hold for the case of the indefinite article
I saw a boy

23. Discourse “rules” -- I saw a boy and a girl holding hands and kissing.
-- Oh, it sounds lovely.
-- Yes, the boy was quite tall and handsome, and he seemed to like the girl a lot.
Often discourses begin with indefinite articles and then when the referents are established the definite articles may be used
It would be weird to have the following as the last sentence of this discourse
Yes, a boy was quite tall and handsome and he seemed to like a girl a lot.
Speakers make acceptability/felicity judgments for discourse, often denoted by # in sentences. (Compare with grammaticality judgments)