Unit Seven 7.2.

194

Sentential
semantics
Propositional content of the sentence:
1. Paraphrase
2. Ambiguity
3. Vagueness
4. Tautology
5. Presupposition
6. Entailment
7. Anomaly P: 198 ≠ P: 58
8. Contradiction
9. Analyticity
 Exceptions to compositionality
Metaphor - old is gold

Idioms – when pigs fly

!!!
Anomaly
When phrases are well-formed syntactically BUT
NOT SEMANTICALLY ‘ don’t make sense’
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
 1. Paraphrase

1. Lexical Paraphrase

(i) The chef hired a bachelor

(ii) The chef hired an unmarried man
 2. Structural Paraphrase

They bought a new apartment

It was a new apartment that they bought

What they bought was a new apartment
A new apartment was what they bought
 2. Ambiguity
1. Lexical ambiguity occurs when the presence of just a
specific word leads to multiple interpretations.
(i) The team has many goals
(ii) She prepared tables
2. Structural ambiguity is achieved by the organization of the
elements of the sentence. It is possible to interpret these
elements in different ways.
(i) They promoted all English teachers
(ii) Boiling water can be dangerous
The act of boiling Hot water
 3. Vagueness
A sentence is vague when it has no definite
meaning
Consider the following classical example taken
from Chomsky (1965).

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously together

(The stones consoled her ).

 4. Tautology
When we have unnecessary repetition of elements in
communication.
There is undue emphasis without necessarily making
meaning any clearer

(i) This bachelor has not been married

(ii) The congregation are members of a church

She sat alone by herself

 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 hearer.
John: Are you able to bring Harry along?
Peter: That will be splendid. On our way, we
shall pick up the drinks.
Drink
 6. Entailment
In entailment,
a pair of sentences
The truth of one derives from the truth of other.

The president was assassinated.

The president is dead.
 7. Anomaly
Anomaly results from the combination of two semantic features
that are not compatible in describing a phenomenon.
Words attract specific selectional restrictions Hair
Neck
For instance trees are vertical Tail
While rulers, ropes and snakes are horizontal. Film
Time
For vertical items, we describe them in terms of tall, Boy
While for the horizontal ones we talk of long. Building

a long man, a tall snake, etc,

Story
 8. Contradiction
Contradictory expressions present two opposing
proposition at the same time.
a person cannot be dead and alive at the same time.
another example :

(i) That circular house is rectangular

 9. Analyticity
You talk about analyticity when you have sentences:

in the grammatical forms and lexical meanings of their

proposition

(i) Churches are usually attended by Christians True

(ii) Unmarried ladies are spinsters True
 Exercise 1

What is the difference between

ambiguity and vagueness?.

Support your answers with some

examples.
 Exercise 2
What are the types of paraphrase?

That old man is rich

That old man is…. well-off

The boy brought an apple

It was an apple that the boy brought

What the boy brought was an apple
An apple was what the boy brought
An apple was brought by the boy
 Exercise 3

She drove to the bank. Is an example of …..?

A. Presupposition
B. Ambiguity
C. Vagueness
D. Tautology
Thank you