9/8/2021 Sentential Semantics

Some Sense Properties of Sentences

Analytic: An analytic sentence is one which is necessarily true, because of the senses of the words in it.
Therefore, an analytic sentence can be judged true without recourse to real world knowledge separate from
the sense of the words contained in it.

EXAMPLES: Elephants are animals   Cats are not fish.    My brother is male.

Contradictory: A contradictory sentence (or a contradiction) is a sentence which is necessarily false,

because of the senses of the words in the sentence.

EXAMPLES: Elephants are not animals.  Cats are fish.     A man is a butterfly.

Synthetic: A synthetic sentence is one which is not analytic or contradictory, but which may be true or false
depending on the way the world is.

EXAMPLES: My oldest cousin is female.   My brother is tall.     Some cats eat wool.

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Data Analysis 1: Identify each of the following sentences as analytic, synthetic or contradictory. For some
you will have to imagine relevant situations.

1. That girl is her own mother's mother.

2. That boy is his own father's son.
3. Alice is Ken's sister.
4. Some typewriters are dusty.
5. If it breaks, it breaks.
6. John killed Bill, who remained alive for many years after.

From Semantics: A Coursebook, Hurford & Heasley

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One way we talk about the meaning of synthetic sentences is by evaluating the conditions under which they
would be true or false--we call these truth conditions. Two or more synthetic sentences would be
synonymous if they were true under all the same conditions and false under all the same conditions. In other
words, if all possible universes they shared the same truth conditions. So, for example, it is not possible to
have a world in which Mary arrested Bill, but Bill was not arrested by Mary and vice versa, in which Mary
did not arrest Bill, but Bill was arrested by Mary. These sentences are synonymous.

Some sentences, however, don't have truth conditions; that is, they cannot be judged either true or false.
Sometimes this is just because the sentences is anomalous. Consider the sentence The present king of France
is bald. If this sentence were true, then the negative of it, The present king of France is not bald would have
to be false. If it were false, then the negative of it would have to be true. However, there is no present king of
France to have hair or to lack it. So the sentences The present king of France is bald and The present king of
France is not bald are equally true or false -- or to put it another way, unevaluatable for truth, not false, but
anomalous.

Other Sense Properties: Presuppostion and Assertion

Presuppositions: the propositions or beliefs assumed by an utterance.

Those people stopped smoking presupposes that (1) the designated people exist; (2) that the activity called
smoking exists; (3) that that activity is known to the hearers; and (4) that the designated people habitually
smoked in the past.

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Assertions: the propositions or beliefs which are conveyed, but not assumed, by an utterance.

The utterance above assertions that the designated people ended the habitual activity (smoking).

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Data Analysis 2: Consider the following sentences: What do they presuppose and what do they assert?

1. Surprisingly enough, Marvin turned out to be nice guy.

2. Everybody believes that the world is round.
3. Everybody knows that the world is round.
4. After the children finished eating his dinner, they went up to bed.
5. I like to sing.

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Data Analysis 3: Notice that the anomalous sentence discussed above (The present king of France is bald) is
anomalous because it presupposes something (the existence of a present king of France) which is not true. If
the presupposition fails, the assertion cannot be evaluated for truth. Some sentences don't have truth values
because they don't make assertions; they do something else. They perform some kind of act. Consider the
following sentences, and decide whether they can be evaluated as true or false in any universe of discourse:

1. Do your homework!
2. If you don't do your homework, you will not do well in this class.
3. I warn you to do your homework.
4. I warned you to do your homework.
5. Will you do your homework?

While some of the sentence above don't have truth conditions, they do have conditions under which they are
appropriate--that is, necessary conditions for them to work. Consider the sentences which you determined
could not be evaluated as true or false. What were they intending to do? Under what conditions could they
work?
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Semantic/Thematic Roles

Semantic/Thematic Roles: "the term...used to describe the part played by a particular entity in an event."
(O'Grady, Dobrovolsky, & Aronoff: 226)

Some thematic roles (O,D,&A: 227):

Agent: the entity who deliberately performs an action  Harriet broke the window with a baseball
bat.
Theme: the entity undergoing a change of state or transfer  Harriet broke the window with a
baseball bat.
Source: the starting point for a transfer  Harriet took the baseball bat from the closet.
Goal: the end point for a transfer  Harriet put the baseball bat in the closet.
Experiencer: the entity perceiving something  Harriet heard a noise.
Location: the place at which an entity or action is located. Harriet worked in her office.
Stimulus: the entity perceived Harriet heard a noise.
Instrument: the entity used to carry out an action  Harriet broke the window with a baseball
bat.
Some other proposed thematic roles (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook/box-
thematic.html) include

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Cause/Actor: the entitiy that brings about some event or state The wind broke the window.
Measure: the extension on some dimension (size, time, price) Harriet worked in her office for
five hours.

These aren't all the available semantic roles, but they do cover a wide range of possible semantic forms.
Consider I saw a gopher and I watched a gopher. What is the difference?
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Data Analysis 4: Identify the thematic roles of each of the underlined noun phrases in the sentences below.

1. Mary took the new book from the discouraged salesman.

2. The discouraged salesman gave Mary the new book.
3. The discouraged salesman gave the new book to Mary.
4. Did you see that man kick the dog?
5. I left the last assignment at home.
6. Oliver doesn't work with his hands.
7. Marvin brought a bunch of refugees from Guatemala to northern Iowa.

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