Scribd
Upload
763 views5 pages

6 - Sentential Semantics

The document discusses various types of sentential semantics including paraphrase, ambiguity, vagueness, tautology, presupposition, entailment, anomaly, contradiction, and analyticity. Paraphrase involves restating a sentence's meaning using different words. Ambiguity occurs when a sentence has more than one possible interpretation. Vagueness means a sentence lacks a definite meaning. Tautology is unnecessary repetition. Presupposition assumes shared background knowledge. Entailment means the truth of one sentence derives from another. Anomaly combines incompatible features. Contradiction presents opposing propositions. Analyticity makes sentences necessarily true based on their structure and words.

Uploaded by

hajira.sair
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
763 views5 pages

6 - Sentential Semantics

The document discusses various types of sentential semantics including paraphrase, ambiguity, vagueness, tautology, presupposition, entailment, anomaly, contradiction, and analyticity. Paraphrase involves restating a sentence's meaning using different words. Ambiguity occurs when a sentence has more than one possible interpretation. Vagueness means a sentence lacks a definite meaning. Tautology is unnecessary repetition. Presupposition assumes shared background knowledge. Entailment means the truth of one sentence derives from another. Anomaly combines incompatible features. Contradiction presents opposing propositions. Analyticity makes sentences necessarily true based on their structure and words.

Uploaded by

hajira.sair
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

SENTENTIAL SEMANTICS

A sentence is a grammatical unit, that is, it is a string of words of a particular type,


whose well formedness conditions are specified in the grammar of the language.
Thus, the following are the sentences of English:

The cat sat on the mat.


Raja put his hat on the table.
A sentence possesses meaning exclusively by virtue of the word it contains, and
their grammatical arrangement. We may assume that the grammar of a language is
associated with principles of composition, that is, rules which tell us how to put
together the meanings of the constituents of construction to get the global meaning
of the construction. Although a sentence, outside of particular uses, does not have a
truth value, it does have truth conditions, that is, conditions which must hold for
the sentence to be used to make a true statement. Those aspects of the meaning of a
sentence is being used to make, in a particular situation, is true of false, are
collectively known as the propositional content of the sentence.

1- Paraphrase
Paraphrase is to the sentence what synonymy is to words. This means that the
paraphrase explains a situation in which two or more sentences have one meaning.
Indeed, a sentence can have many paraphrases. There are two types of paraphrases:
lexical and structural paraphrases. In lexical paraphrases, we have two or more
sentences giving the same interpretation as a result of the replacement of one word
or phrase by another. The following are examples:
(i) The chef hired a bachelor
(ii) The chef hired an unmarried man
In the two sentences above, the change in their structure is as a result of the
substitution of a bachelor for an unmarried man. Both a bachelor and unmarried
man are phrases. Consider further the following sentences:
(iii) The man was agitated
(iv) The man was anxious
We have achieved the paraphrase by the substitution of the word agitated for
another, anxious. Structural paraphrase is achieved when we alter the
arrangements of the sentences through transformations. The following are
examples:
(i) They bought a new apartment (Basic –subject + Verb+ object)
(ii) It was a new apartment that they bought (Cleft)
(iii) What they bought was a new apartment (Pseudo cleft)
(iv) A new apartment was what they bought (topicalised)

2- Ambiguity
When an expression can be given more than one interpretation ambiguity arises.
Therefore, why polysemy relates to words; ambiguity is concerned with sentences.
We have two types of ambiguity – lexical and structural.
Lexical ambiguity occurs when the presence of just a specific word leads to
multiple interpretations.

Consider the following examples:


(i) The team has many goals
(ii) She prepared tables
It should be noted that goals and tables can be interpreted in different ways based
on the contexts.

Structural ambiguity is achieved by the organisation of the elements of the


sentence. It is possible to interpret these elements in different ways. Consider these
examples:

(i) They promoted all English teachers


(ii) boiling water can be dangerous
The ambiguity in the second sentence drives from the possibility of reading the
sentence as:

(a) Water that is boiling (i.e. hot) can be dangerous


(b) The act of boiling water can be dangerous

The first interpretation makes boiling water as the subject noun phrase whereas in
the second
interpretations, boiling water is the complement.

3- Vagueness
A sentence is vague when it has no definite meaning. This lack of meaning may
derive from the incompatibility of the semantic properties of some of the words.
Sometimes, a vague expression may be grammatically well formed, yet its
meaning may be farfetched. Consider the following classical example taken from
Chomsky (1965).
(i) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously together

It should be noted that many of what we describe as literary language would have
been vague except that we understand the background as literary. Consider further
the following example:
(ii) The stones consoled her
This expression is clearly a personification since stones which are inanimate have
been endued with the characteristics of consoling.

4- Tautology
A situation of tautology arises when we have unnecessary repetition of elements in
communication. There is undue emphasis without necessarily making meaning any
clearer. Tautology is closely associated with redundancy which is the introduction
of linguistic units which do not affect the status or meaning of the larger
construction. The following are examples of tautology.

(i) This bachelor has not been married


(ii) The congregation are members of a church

Other instances of tautology are: Circumnavigate around; Unlawful theft; Can be


able.
5- Presupposition
In presupposition, there is usually a piece of information which the speaker
assumes the hearer already knows. This assumption is based on some shared
background knowledge between the speaker and the hearers. An outsider in the
circle of communication may be at a loss. Let us illustrate this situation with the
following sentences.

(i) John: Are you able to bring Harry along?


(ii) Peter: That will be splendid. On our way, we shall pick up the drinks.
The presupposition in this conversation is that both John and Peter know who
Harry is. They both have an idea of the drinks, and the source from where to bring
them.
6- Entailment
In entailment, there is usually a pair of sentences and the truth of one derives from
the truth of other.
Consider the following sentences:
(i) Tracy is a spinster
(ii) Tracy is a female
Sentence (i) derives from the meaning of sentence (ii). This means that if sentence
(i) entails sentence (ii) then, sentence (ii) is necessarily the implication of sentence
(i).

7- Anomaly
Anomaly results from the combination of two semantic features that are not
compatible in describing a phenomenon. Words attract specific selectional
restrictions. For instance, trees are vertical while rulers, ropes and snakes are
horizontal. For vertical items, we describe them in terms of tall, while for the
horizontal ones we talk of long. Thus, we can have tall trees, tall buildings tall
people, but long ropes, long snakes, long rulers etc. It will, therefore, be anomalous
to have the following: a long man, a tall snake, etc,

8- Contradiction
Contradictory expressions present two opposing proposition at the same time.
Thus, a person cannot be dead and alive at the same time. Other examples of
anomaly are:
(i) That circular house is rectangular
(ii) The drains are flooded because there are no rains

9- Analyticity
We talk about analyticity when we have sentences in the grammatical forms and
lexical meanings of their proposition which make them necessarily true. Consider
the following examples:
(i) Churches are usually attended by Christians
(ii) Unmarried ladies are spinsters

You might also like