English 311: Semantics

Course Instructor: Tania Rahman (TRn)

SENTENCE RELATIONS,
TRUTH & LOGIC

1
 Overview
 Recap
 Truth
Logic and Truth
Entailment
Presupposition
 TAM:Tense, Aspect and Modality
 Mood and Evidentiality

2
Meanings can be related
A and B are synonymous (B is the paraphrase
of A): A means the same as B
My brother is a bachelor
My brother has never married.
A entails B: if we know A then we know B
The child killed the cat.
The cat is dead.
A contradicts B: A is inconsistent with B
Fred has long hair.
Fred is bald.

3
A presupposes B: B is part of the assumed background of A
The King of Pop is dead.
There was a King of Pop
I regret eating your lunch.
I ate your lunch.
A is necessarily true — tautology: A is true but not
informative

Smart people are smart.

A is necessarily false — contradiction: A is inconsistent
with itself
?It is entirely made of copper and it is not made of metal.
A is not A.

4
 Logic
 Classical logic is an attempt to find valid principles
of argument and inference.
a If something is human then it is mortal premise
b Socrates is human premise
c Socrates is mortal conclusion
 Can we go from a and b to c? Yes
 Truth is empirical: The premises need to

correspond with the facts of the world

 Sentences have truth values (true, false or

unknown)
 The state of the world that makes a sentence true

or false are its truth conditions

5
 Logical Connectives
Þ and (p ∧ q)
Þ or (p ∨ q: disjunction, inclusive or)
Þ xor (p ⊕ q: exclusive or, either or)
Þ if (p → q: if then, material implication)
Þ iff (p ≡ q: if and only if) ((p → q) ∧ (q → p))
Þ not (¬p: contradiction)
An argument is a connected series of
statements attempting to establish a
proposition.

6
 Methods of Argument
 Modus Ponens
a If something is human then it is mortal
b Socrates is human
c Socrates is mortal
p → q, p ⊢ q
 Modus tollens

a If something is human then it is mortal

b Zeus is not mortal
c Zeus is not human
p → q, ¬q ⊢¬p
7
 Modus
ponens

a. All humans are mortal p → q if someone is human then they are

b. Socrates is human p
mortal
c. Therefore, Socrates is mortal q

p q p→ q
T T T
T F F
F T T

F F
T
Þ The way that affirms by affirming (Latin)
Þ p → q, p ⊢ q

Þ material implication (Not quite the same as

English if )
 Modus tollens

a If something is human then it is mortal p→

q bZeus is not mortal ¬
c Zeus is not human q
¬
p
p q p→ q
T T T
T F F
T T
F
F F T
Þ The way that negates by negating (Latin)

Þ p → q, ¬q ⊢ ¬p

Yes it
is
Methods of Argument
 Hypothetical syllogism
a If something is human then it is mortal
b If something is mortal then it dies
c If something is human then it dies
p → q, q → r ⊢ p → r
 Disjunctive syllogism

(modus tollendo ponens: affirm by denying)

p Either a human is mortal or a human is immortal
q A human is not immortal
r A human is mortal
p⊕q,¬p ⊢ q

10
 Empirical truths and
connectives

➣ Words themselves often carry more implications

I did A and B often implies I did A first

➣ There are many ways of saying the operations

11
 Bad Arguments
Þ Formal
Affirming the consequent: p → q, q ⊢ p
professors talk too much, you talk too much ⊢ you are a
professor
Þ Informal
Equivocation: The sign said ”fine for parking here”, and since
it was fine, I parked there.
No True Scotsman: X doesn’t do Y; a is an X and does Y; a is
not a true X
Slippery Slope: We mustn’t allow text abbreviations or
students will not be able to write normal text.
False Dilemma: You are with us or against us
Guilt by Association: Hitler was a vegetarian ⊢ vegetarianism
is bad

12
Necessary Truth, A Priori Truth
and Analyticity
 ➣ Arguments from the speaker’s knowledge
➢ A priori truth is truth that is known without experience.
➢ A posteri truth is truth known from empirical testing.

 ➣ Arguments from the facts of the world

➢ Necessary truth is truth that cannot be denied without forcing a
contradiction.
➢ Contingent truth can be contradicted depending on the facts.

 ➣ Arguments from our model of the world

➢ Analytic truth Truth follows from meaning relations within the
sentence.
 can include word meaning
➢ Synthetic truth Agrees with facts of the world.

13
Þ Arguments from our model of the world
Analytic truth Truth follows from meaning relations within the
sentence.
need to know word meaning
Synthetic truth Agrees with facts of the world.
Þ Normally these give the same results, but not always. Why?

If we include our model of word meaning in our reasoning,

then an apple is a fruit is analytic. So it is important to have
an explicit model: these models are typically called
ontologies.

Þ What about the apple of my eye?

Building an inference engine is actually very, very hard, …

But very useful for question answering

14
 Entailment
➣ Entailment
a. The evil overlord assassinated the man in the red shirt.
b. The man in the red shirt died.
A sentence p entails a sentence q when the truth of the first
(p) guarantees the truth of the second (q), and the falsity of the second
(q) guarantees the falsity of the first (p).

➣ Sources of Entailment
➢ Hyponyms
(7) I rescued a dog today. vs I rescued an animal today.
➢ Paraphrases

(8) My mom baked a cake.vs A cake was baked by my mom.

15
Paraphrases:Mutual entailment
Þ My mom baked a cake.
(11) A cake was baked by my
(12) mom.
p q
T → T
F → F
←
F ← F
T T

Þ This is synonymy

Þ What about contradiction?

16
 Presuppositions
➣ Many statements assume the truth of something
else
(9) a. Kim’s spouse bakes the
best pies.
b. Kim has a spouse.
➣ Negating the presupposing sentence a doesn’t affect the
presupposition
b whereas negating an entailing sentence destroys the entailment.

➣ Sources of Presuppositions
➢Names presuppose that their referents exist
➢Clefts (it was X that Y ); Time adverbials; Comparatives
➢Factive verbs: realize; some judgement verbs: blame; …

➣ Presupposition is one aspect of a speaker’s strategy of

organizing in- formation for maximum clarity for the listener.
17
 The Argument Clinic
Þ A sketch from episode 29 of Monty Python’s
Flying Circus

Þ An argument is a connected series of

statements intended to establish a
proposition

18