University:
Boston University
Course:
CAS LX 250 | Introduction to Linguistics
Academic year:

2023
Views:

86

Pages:

6
Author:

SpaceCadet101

Semantics Adverbs ! How might we describe the meaning of an adverb? Say, loudly. ! Events and modification ! The hooligan shouted loudly. Well, it seems a bit like this: There was a shouting event. The hooligan was the Agent of that event. ! It was a loud event. ! Adverbs seem to modify events ! ! Manner, location, and temporal adverb(ial)s Adverb(-like thing)s as event modifiers ! ! The hooligan shouted loudly on Saturday atop the bench by the tree in the rain. This asserts the existence of an event that: ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Is a shouting Has the hooligan as Agent Is loud Is on Saturday Is atop the bench Is by the tree Is in the rain ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Zinédine intentionally hit Marco. Marco was intentionally hit by Zinédine. ! It’s not the whole event that is intentional, it is somehow related to one of the participants. The subject? Well, yes. The Agent? Maybe. ! That second one seems a bit ambiguous Lynn won the lottery yesterday Tracy paid the damage deposit in August Speaker-oriented adverbs ! ! ! Pat drove home in the rain Chris slipped on Comm Ave Temporal ! Subject-oriented adverbs Pat ate the sandwich quickly Chris answered the question brilliantly Lynn entered the intersection cautiously Location ! Great for manner and temporal adverbs. ! Manner Annoyingly, Pat was late. Predictably, Pat (stupidly) answered the questions (brilliantly) Modification ! ! ! ! ! ! Pat awoke Pat awoke suddenly Pat awoke suddenly this morning Modification ! Adjectives modify nouns by adding additional conditions. Yellow is an intersective adjective. This is a yellow pencil This is yellow This is a pencil “Vague” adjectives ! ! ! Sam is a tall cockroach. Hydrogen is a big atom. Menkaure’s is a small Pyramid. Stampy is a tall elephant ! ! ! Stampy is a tall elephant. ! It seems that all Stampy is a tall elephant can mean is “Stampy is tall for an elephant.” This is different from yellow. To get the meaning of tall right seems to require taking into account the meaning of the noun… Stampy is a tall elephant ! To describe the meaning of yellow, we might simply say something like: ! ! !x[x is yellow] But tall seems to be of a “higher order” (more complex type) ! !P!x[x is tall compared to members of {y:P(y)}] Modification ! Given that you can use yellow pencil wherever you use pencil, we can suppose that the syntax of adjectives would be something like this. ! ! ! N " Adj N Adj " yellow N " pencil ! What does this predict already? (Given a more elaborate lexicon, at least…) N Adj N yellow pencil Modification ! And the semantics would be as you’d expect: ! ! [yellow]M = !x[x is yellow in M] [pencil]M = !x[x is a pencil in M] ! Both type ! Modification ! N Adj N yellow pencil ! ! Note: I’m taking the same shortcut (or, “being equally sloppy”) here as in the F2 definitions, skipping the “F(yellow)” step. Trying to find the semantic value of the whole thing leads to a problem, of a sort— We need a new way to combine things: Thus: the whole thing winds up with a semantic value of: ! !z[[yellow]M(z) % [pencil]M(z)] !z[[!x[x is yellow in M]](z) % [[!x[x is a pencil in M]](z)] !z[z is yellow in M % z is a pencil in M] ! ! ! ! N ! ! Adj N yellow pencil ! pencil ! ! ! Functional application: [& # $ ]M = [$]M ( [#]M ) or [#]M ( [$]M ) whichever is defined Pass-Up: [$ #]M = [#]M Predicate modification: [# $]M = !z[#(z) % $(z)] “Alphabetic variants”: !z[P(z)]= !x[P(x)] For tall, as we already saw, this N won’t work because tall is a bit more complex. Adj N What we need is not to intersect the two, but rather to tall elephant have tall take elephant as an argument. Assume: ! yellow So, it turns out we need a third rule of interpretation (for where functional application cannot apply): Stampy is a tall elephant ! N Predicate Modification Predicate modification [# $]M = !z[#(z) % $(z)] ! Adj Predicate modification [# $]M = !x[#(x) % $(x)] Modification ! N [elephant]M = !x[x is an elephant in M] Type Stampy is a tall elephant ! ! The idea: tall takes elephant (call it “P”) and gives back the Adj () property: ! ! ! [tall]M = !P[!x[x is tall compared to members of {y:P(y)}] !x[x is tall compared to members of tall {y:[elephant]M(y)}] !x[x is tall compared to the set of elephants in M] What type is tall then? ! Takes , returns . N N elephant Different mechanisms? ! ! Revisiting yellow—does the better theory have two different ways of combining adjectives and nouns? Could we not treat yellow the same way as we treat tall? ! ! [yellow]M = !P[!x[x is yellow % P(x)]] Even harder cases ! N ! Adj N tall elephant We could. It works just as well. However, we will need PM elsewhere too: ! ! ! ! ! So far we’ve really only dealt with tall elephant, but what about the context of a full sentence like Stampy is a tall elephant? We seem to get the right meaning if we simply ignore is and a. ! ! ! ! Then it comes out just like Stampy swims. We could get away with that because is actually doesn’t contribute anything. We might say it is there simply because the syntax of English (not the semantics) requires it. ! Cf. the ! The article the, on the other hand, does seem to have a contribution to the meaning. ! ! ! ! How might we describe the semantics of fake? Is it intersective? Can we model it the same way we modeled tall? What kind of thing is a(n)? This might make a little bit more sense out of the way we treated is boring. ! Fake gun Stampy is an elephant (that) Bart won. The effect of is a ! Consider an adjective like fake: The tall elephant is hungry. Bond is hungry. We’d worked out tall elephant to be a property. But The tall elephant seems to refer to an individual. The seems to “convert” a property into an individual. How? A noun phrase (a noun with extra stuff—like an article or an adjective; something that can be the subject of a sentence) with a(n) is called indefinite. Intuitively, we might class a(n) together with the or every (articles, or determiners)—but their effect on the meaning seems to be different. Specifically, it doesn’t seem like a(n) adds anything either (like is didn’t). The, definite article ! ! ! ! What the seems to do is pick some individual that has the property. Which one? Well, if you use the, you seem to assume that there is some salient individual with the property that you can pick. Specifically, the presupposes that there is a unique and salient individual. The elephant ! The elephant So, how could we model the? ! ! First, we need to get it to be generated by the syntax. Considerations: ! ! ! ! The (tall) (yellow) elephant *The an elephant *Tall the elephant ! DP Det N the elephant ! ! And to resolve this with the rest of the grammar ! DP " N DP " Bond, Loren, … ! S " DP VP ! Adjectives can be iterated, but articles/determiners cannot. ! Thus: ! Det " the, a(n) ! DP " Det N ! Combining a N and Adj produces another N (with which an Adj can be combined) Combining a Det and a N produces something different. ! ! ! ! Now, (yellow) elephant was a property, , true/false of individuals. And the (yellow) elephant is an individual (some salient, unique individual with the property (yellow) elephant). So, the takes a property () and returns an individual (). ! ! ! ! Adj N yellow elephant (replacing S " N VP) (replacing S " N VP) The elephant ! DP Det So, the: ! N Adj the N ! yellow [the]M = !P[x such that P(x)] ! elephant Presupposes there is a unique x to choose, that is familiar. There are additional complexities, but this will do for the moment. DP Det the N Adj N yellow elephant <,e> Actually, a(n) can serve this function as well: ! the N VP " Vt DP Revisiting indefinites ! Det (replacing N " Bond, Loren, …) The elephant ! DP Three kinds of indefinites ! A tall elephant is hungry. Here too, we seem to be talking about an individual. In this case, there need not be a unique and salient one—what it seems to assert is that among the individuals with the property tall elephant, one can be found that (also) has the property is hungry. In fact, there seem to be at least three kinds of indefinite noun phrase. ! An elephant is hungry ! ! ! ! And maybe a fourth, though this might be also simply a version of the first one. ! ! …I can tell from the noise. (nonspecific) …Guess which one (specific) …and lives in hot climates (generic/kind) Stampy is an elephant We’ll get into this further at the same time as we talk about Every elephant. Modification by relative clauses ! ! ! The elephant that I saw [that I saw] acts here like an adjective. It’s true of things that I saw, and combines intersectively with elephant. ! ! ! ! The form of a relative clause is: ! Where S is “missing” something. ! ! Restrictive relative The elephant, who is boring, is hungry. Not quite the same thing as The boring elephant is hungry. It’s essentially expressing a second proposition: The elephant is boring. ! Relative clauses Non-restrictive relative ! ! {that/which/who/Ø} S The dog (who/that) I saw _ The dog which/that _ bit me The interpretation is basically: The property of being able to be filled in the blank truthfully ! ! !x[x such that x bit me] !x[x such that I saw x] ! More on how we can arrive at this compositionally later 6