Semantics.doc

Semantics: Sentence Meaning (2)The power of a sentence is immense. It is not only because of its literal meaning, but because of its relations which can bring us many factors of thinking, inferring and deducing. Thus, the study of sentence relations is worth conducting. To begin with, lets look at the following groups of sentences, and then, try to clarify their features from the perspectives of similarity and difference.Group 1: (1) Marys alumna, Tom, who is a teacher, has many books. Mary has a alumna. The alumnas name is Alice. Tom is a teacher. Tom has many books. (2) The ants in the kitchen ate the sweet jelly that was on the table. The ants were in the kitchen. The ants ate the jelly. The jelly was on the table. The jelly was sweet. ( propostion)Group 2:(1) a. The anarchist assassinated the king.b. The king died.(2) a. Jack bought a dog yesterday.b. Jack bought an animal yesterday.(3) a. The workers built the house.b. The house was built by workers.( entailment)Group 3:(1) a. What about inviting Simon tonight?b. What a good idea; then he can give Monica a lift.Speaker A knows Simon and Monica.Speaker B Knows Simon and Monica.Simon has a vehicle.Monica has no vehicle at that moment.They are frieds.They will have a party.(2) a. I dont regret leaving Guilin.b. I left Gulin.(3) Alice, it is raining now.Its raining indeed.Alice should take umbrella with her.Alice must stay here for a while.The wheather forecast has a accurate prediction (presuppstition) Lets now try to find out the similarities and differences between the examples in the groups above through contrastive analysis.1. Proposition According to the examples mentioned above, we can see that a sentence can be understood from different perspectives, literally and separately. Thats to say, a main sentence can involve many sub-sentences. However, all the sub-sentences have the same known argument or entity. In Example 1, Tom can be regarded as “argument” In Example 2, “ants” and “jelly” stand for “argument” or “entity”.Then, what features does a proposition have? (1) Sentence has the function of underlying proposition;(2) The sentences have the same argument or entity;(3) There is always a relationship between argument and predication;(4) Proposition doesnt influence by context. ( the process of explanation of sentence meaning)Ayer (1964), in Language, Thruth and Logic, argued that propositions have the features as:(1) they are either true or false;(2) they may be known, believed or doubted;(3) they may be asserted, denied or queried;(4) they are held constant under translation from one language to another. Ayers formulation of the proposition embodies three components: absolutely true, true or false, absolutely false. In other words, proposition can present, on the one hand, the sentence meaning, and on the other hand, involve the cognitive knowledge which can be asserted within a certain context. According to Ayer, sentences sometimes are equal to propositions. Sentences are purports which can be conveyed by virtue of their appearance, or face-value. From it, we can guess that perhaps Ayer uses “deep- value”for the term “propositions” John Lyons have a word “bearers” for the definition of proposition, that is, the bearers of a determinate and unchanging truth-value. They must be distinguished from sentences. Because some sentences can be used to say what is true on one occasion, and on another to say what is false. John Lyons set an example: Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815. From the aspect of history, its true. ( John Lyons regarded it as “world- knowledge”)From a certain context, it perhaps is false ( If “Napoleon” happenns to be the name of a dog.)It can clearly be seen that since John Lyons has the term “world knowledge”, he may have another term. However, we could not find any.( Later, Saeed proposed a term “mutual knowledge”). ( sentence is one thing, and proposition is another thing?)John Lyons stated that he met difficulty to explain the relationship between sentences and propositions, thus he adopted two terms for explaining proposition: performative use and indirect use. Questions: What is your opinion of the relationship between sentence and proposition?2. Entailment( Read the material, and ask some questions)From the examples presented above, we can know that there are six kinds of entailment(1) truth-based definition of entailment (causality)(2) truth relations of entailment (logical deducing)(3) regular source for entailment ( hyponymy)(4) paraphrased entailment ( the theme of speech)(5) synonymous entailment ( synonymous phenomenon)(6) contradictional entailment Features: (1) It has the relation of cause and effect (2) It take the whole sentence as argument, not a word. ( the relation between sentence and sentence, not a part)(3). The meaning of sentence is not always equal to the meaning of entailment. p q_T TF T or F ( the anarchist did not assassinate the king, he die)F FT or F T ( The king died, but it was not because of the assasination.) According to John Lyons, entailment can be defined as a relation between propositions, or, between statements, because an entailment can present two kinds of truth: Analytic truth and Logical truth, from the aspects of two worlds: objective world and inner world. Analytic truth? ( truth from literally analyzing) Logical truth? (truth from logically deducing) Is there a borderline for entailment? In my opinion, the meaning of the entailment is restricted in the scope of sentence meaning, it doesnt overlap other meaning. Question: Similarity or difference between “proposition” and “entailment”. 3. Presupposition( Read the material) Two main points:1) Two approaches to presupposition: semantic approach and pragmatic approach. Semantic approach - analytic truth - objective world Pragmatic approach - logical truth - inner worldPresupposition, as entailment, also run into a problem of true or false. Lets look at 4.67: p q _ T T F T (Johns brother did not go to Nigeria.) T or F T ( Johns brother went to or did not go to Nigeria.)2) Presupposition failure and presupposition triggers Presupposition failure involves in the problem of truth-value, that is the so called truth value gap.( see 4.76) p q _ T T F T T or F T ? F ( There is . ) Presupposition trigger - factive verb ( see 4.79, 4.80, 4.81), the verb “disgusted” can be considered as “trigger. So trigger here means “action” which can influence other thing.Another presupposition can be found in Example (3) “Alice, it is raining.” From it, we can see that “context” or “ tone of speech” also can be regarded as presupposition trigger.Now, lets have a summary of what have been discussed above.1) Relation between sentence and proposition, entailment and presupposition.2) Relation between analytic truth and logical truth.(semantic approach and pragmatic approach)3) Relation between face value and truth valueIn my opinion, as for the criteria of proposition, entailment and presupposition, there are six Points can be assumed as follows:1) grammaticality2) possibility3) aaceptability4) sociality5) valuableness4. Truth value and truth condition When dealing with the word “truth”, it is necessary to mention the word “logic”, because for a long time, a number of scholars always relate these two terms together. As for semantics, there is a term called “logic-based semantics”. The study og logic, of course, comes down to us from the Classical Greek world, such as Aristotle. Logic, at its beginning, means to search for principles of valid argument and inference. A well-known example is Aristotles modus tollens (三段论), a type of argument in three steps: M - P S - M _ S - P 真理是不怕批评的； 马克思主义是真理； - 马克思主义是不怕批评的。a. If Arnd is not in the bar, then he is in the lounge.b. Arnd is not in the bar.c. Arnd is in the lounge.Here, a and b are premises, and c is conclusion. If a and b are true, c is of course true. This example reveal a relation of statement and fact. For example: His father is l