Meaning and Language

Part 1

Plan• We will talk about two different types of meaning,

corresponding to two different types of objects:– Lexical Semantics: Roughly, the meaning of individual words– Compositional Semantics: How larger objects (clauses,

sentences) come to mean what they do. Relatedly, how formal logic can be used as a tool to study language

• However: These two fit together, as discussed in the reading (Partee)

• That is, aspects of what we want to say about what words mean will interact with what we say about larger structures

• Today:– Some distinctions– Basic sets and truth conditions– Working towards logic for language

Some Initial Points• Remember that for (content) words like cat, tree, horse, etc.

there is an arbitrary connection between sound form and meaning:

Sound and Meaning• This pairing of sound and meaning is one

component of language – “arbitrary” component: stressed by de Saussure– “predictable” component: logic, etc.

• Rock bottom: basic connections in small units (morphemes,words) between sound and meaning

• The full range of things that we associate with human language is found only when such connections are part of a generative system for creating larger units from smaller ones, i.e. the syntax (remember last week)

Outline

• Basics of word meaning: traditional distinctions for sound/meaning connections (homophony, polysemy)

• Words and sets (as in set theory)• Basic cases (nouns and adjectives)• Wednesday: Using formal logic to

model meaning relations in language

Some Distinctions

• First: cases in which the “one to one” mapping between sound forms and meanings is not so direct.– Homophony: A cases in which two words

have the same sound form, but distinct and unrelated meanings

• Bank-1 ‘side of a river’• Bank-2 ‘financial institution’

Representation• In any case, with homophony we are dealing

with distinct words; that is:– Bank-1 is to Bank-2 as cat is to dog or bank-1is to

cat• This is equivalent to saying that in such

cases, the identity in sound form is an accident

• In other cases of the same sound form but differing meaning, this is not the case

Polysemy• We speak of polysemy ‘many meanings’ in

cases in which we have the same word but with distinct yet related senses; one case:– Pool: water on the ground– Pool: swimming pool

• In this case, there is no need to say that there are different words; perhaps really different senses of the same word

Polysemy, cont.• Sometimes with polysemy the intuition is that the word is basically

‘vague’, and that its fuller meanings are supplied by context• Something similar is found with verbs, where the context comes

from the syntactic structure:– The whistle sirened lunch time.– The police car sirened the speeder to a stop.

• Cases like this indicate that the basic meaning of words can be augmented with information from the syntactic structure – John shinned the ball.– Mary shinned the ball to John.– Etc.

• The “core”meaning of the word shin or siren exists, but is augmented by what happens in the syntactic structure

Words and Sets

• Let’s take an example of how we can represent meanings…

• More interesting: how meanings of combinations of words are derived

• We can think of the meaning of some words as relating to a system of categories, some more general, some more specific

• This lends itself to representation in terms of sets• A set is, for our purposes, an abstract collection

Examples

• Consider the relationship between dog and mammal:– All dogs are mammals. (true)

dogs

mammals

Examples, cont.

• The set relationship is one of inclusion; the set denoted by dog is a subset of the set denoted by mammal

• Other relationships are possible as well, both in terms of ‘some’ and ‘no’

• We will formalize an extension to this in the next lecture

‘Some’ and overlapping• It is not true that all snakes are poisonous:

– All snakes are poisonous. (false)• But some are:

– Some snakes are poisonous. (true)• In cases like this, the set denoted by snake and the

set denoted by poisonous overlap:

snakesPoisonousthings

Non-overlapping: ‘No’

• It can also be the case that sets do not overlap, in addition to overlapping in very small ways

• Consider the following:– No mammals are poisonous.

• Ok, we want to know what no means, but is this a good example (is it true)?

Sets

• So we need another example of sets that don’t overlap– No dogs are reptiles. (true)

dogs reptiles

Truth Conditions• One way of approaching meanings is to look

at the truth conditions of sentences• The truth conditions specify in precise terms

the circumstances that obtain in order for a sentence to be true (or false)

• Specifying the truth conditions is a necessary component of the study of meaning; if we can show that two sentences are true under different conditions, then we would like to say that they have different meanings

Some examples• Sometimes it seems like the specification of

truth conditions is trivial:– The cat is on the mat.– The dog is on the mat.– Different truth conditions

• But what about more complex cases? Consider:– The glass is half full.– The glass is half empty.

The ‘Glass’ Example• On the face of it, ‘half full’ and ‘half empty’ seem

to have the same truth conditions.• But: Consider the following examples:

– The glass is almost half full. (e.g. 48%)– The glass is almost half empty. (e.g. 53%)

• These have different truth conditions– Assuming that ‘almost’ is the same in the two

sentences, it must be the case that ‘half full’ and ‘half empty’ actually have different meanings

– If these two phrases were not different in meaning, where else could the difference come from??

Other fractions• As a further point, consider what happens

when we replace ‘half’ by other fractions:– The glass is three eighths full.– The glass is three eighths empty.

• These do not mean the same thing• It looks as if ‘half full’ and ‘half empty’ mean

different things, but sometimes can be true under the same circumstances

More on Adjectives

• Some further cases from the study of adjectives illustrate– The relevance of our use of sets above– The interaction of lexical meaning with

compositional meaning• Let’s take another simple example:

– poisonous snake

Interpreting poisonous snake• One way of thinking of the adjective meaning

with respect to the noun follows on what we were doing above

• What we would like are some general rules that tell us how to interpret certain syntactic objects in terms of the semantics we are using

• Rule (informal): When an adjective A modifies a noun N ([A N]), the interpretation of this object is the set defined by the intersection of A’s meaning with N’s meaning

Why a general rule?• Remember last week; we have grammars that generate

combinations of Adjectives and Nouns:– Small book– Orange boy– Purring burrito– Stubborn cat

• We’re not memorizing the meaning of these; there has to be some general principle determining the interpretation

• The working hypothesis that we have with the rule on the last slide is that we use intersection

On the interpretation, cont.

• This is just like the rule we saw above:

snakes Poisonousthings

•With poisonous snake, we are indicating a member of the overlap between two sets

•This can be indicated in a logical notation as well

Some notation• We need a notation for sets and their

interaction– || X || = the set of things denoted by property X

• Example: || red || = the set of red things• This can also be written as {x| x is red}, read as ‘the set

of all things x such that x is red’– What about how adjectives and nouns combine by

the reasoning above?• We need notation for ‘and’; why? Because the things that

are poisonous snakes are the set of things that are (1) poisonous AND (2) snakes

Putting the pieces together• So, for poisonous snake:

– || poisonous || = {x|x is poisonous}– || snake || = {x|x is a snake}– || poisonous snake || = {x| x is poisonous AND x is

a snake}• We can also use set notation for this, e.g.:

– || poisonous || || snake ||• I.e., this indicates that we interpret the

modification of nouns by adjectives with intersection (“And”)

So…• Is it always so simple? Consider:

– Reasoning 1:• Larry is a poisonous snake• Larry is a chess player.• Therefore: Larry is a poisonous chess player (valid…but

this is more complicated than it looks. Think about the meanings…)

– Reasoning 2:• Larry is a skillful artist.• Larry is a chess player• Therefore: Larry is a skillful chess player. (invalid!!)

Or

• Some other examples:– Former bounty-hunter– Alleged thief– Beautiful dancer

• Do these work in terms of intersection? Are former bounty-hunters bounty-hunters at all?

Consider…

• One of the examples:• Larry is a poisonous snake• Larry is a chess player.• Therefore: Larry is a poisonous chess player

• The phrase poisonous chess player is ambiguous…it can also mean that he’s not poisonous per se, but as a chess player, he is.

For example…• So, with poisonous chess player, it seems

that some adjectives can be interpreted in either fashion. Here it’s more transparent:– Larry is a beautiful dancer.

• Meaning1: He dances beautifully• Meaning2: He is beautiful, and he is a dancer (he might dance

poorly)

• Question: Do these differences involve different structures, or just a lexically ambiguous set of adjectives??

Further considerations• Could we have contexts like the following?

– A: There are lots of beautiful dancers here.– B: Yes, but Mary is the only beautiful beautiful dancer.

• If so, which adjective is the one with the ‘dances beautifully’ interpretation, and which carries the ‘is a beautiful person’ meaning?

• Consider further:– John is the only ugly beautiful dancer.– John is the only beautiful ugly dancer.

• Question (for thought): Does this mean that the difference is reducible to structure?