语言学教案Chapter 5 Meaning(5)

Principle of COMPOSITIONALITY grammatical classification dictionary idiosyncratic information

Semantic theory semantic information

Dictionary: to provide the grammatical classification and semantic information of

words

Grammatical classification

Grammatical markers/syntactic markers

Systematic information

Systemic part — Semantic markers: (Male), (Female), (Human), (Animal) Idiosyncratic information — Distinguishers(辨义成分)

E.g. bachelor

a. [who has never married];

b. [young knights serving under the standard of another knight];

c. [who has the first or lowest academic degree];

d. [young fur seal when without a mate during the breeding time].

Projection rules: responsible for combining the meanings of words together

S

NP

Selection restrictions

Problems

1. The distinction between semantic marker and distinguisher is not very clear. E.g. (Young)

2. The collocation of words may not be accounted for by grammatical markers, semantic markers or selection restrictions.

E.g. a. He said hello to the nurse and she greeted back.

b. My cousin is a male nurse.

c. ? My cousin is a female nurse.

3. The use of semantic markers like (Human), (Male) and (Adult), is elements of an artificial meta-language.

5.5.2 Logical semantics

sentence meaning

PREPOSITIONAL LOGIC(命题逻辑)/ PROPOSITIONAL CALCULUS(命题演算)/ SENTENTIAL CALCULUS(句子演算):