3.

3 Paraphrase

3.3.1 Definition

3.3.1.1 PARAPHRASE is “ the relationship between a word and a combination of other words with the
same meaning. For Instance, many people would agree that loud means something like can be heard
from far away. Ultimately, the whole project of describing or explaining word-means depends on
paraphrase because we must use words – or other equivalent symbols – to explain other words”

3.3.1.2 When asked what a sentence means, people usually provide another sentence that has virtually
the same meaning, a paraphrase

3.3.1.3 A sentence which expresses the same proposition as another sentence is a paraphrase of that
sentence

3.3.1.4 Sentences are paraphrases if they have the same meaning (except possibly for minor differences
in emphases

Consider the two following sentences:

1 The girl kissed the boy.

2 The boy was kissed by the girl.

Although there may be a difference in the emphasis in these two sentences. In the second the emphasis
is on what happened to the boy, whereas in the first the emphasis is on what the girl did. The Meaning
relations between the verb kiss and the two noun phrases the girl and the boy are the same in both
cases, and on this basis the two sentences are paraphrases of each other.

3.3.2 Possible ways to paraphrase a sentence

There are a variety of ways that we could paraphrase a sentence

- Change individual words

+ using synonyms

Eg The older citizens were honored with a parade for those once in the military.

=> Senior citizens were honored with a march for veterans.

Eg: Hoang is slim

 Hoang is slender

 Hoang is skinny

+ using relational antonyms ( also called converses)

Eg I bought this camera from a friend of mine

 My friend sold this camera to me

- Change sentence structure

Eg: Steve hugged Jane

 Jane was hugged by Steve

Eg : We hard hardly begun our work when it rained

 Hardly had we begun our work when it rained.

Eg: Pat can run fast and Chris can run fast, too.

 Pat can run fast and Chris can, too.( Ellipsis)

Eg: Pat teaches Chris

=> Pat is Chris’s teacher (replacing verb by a noun corresponding)

- Change both individual words and sentence structure

Eg: the lady drinks pineapple juice

=> the liquid taste of ananas is drunk by the lass

To provide a paraphrase we use our knowledge of both the meanings of individual words and the
English grammar.

II. Entailment

3.4.1 Definition

• Entailment is a relationship that applies between two sentences, where the truth of one implies
the truth of the other because of the meanings of the words involved. Goddard

For example, John was killed entails John died. Obviously, John died could not be true any time
before it was true that John was killed

• An entailment is something that logically follows from what is asserted in the utterance

For instant: Shirley: “It’s so sad. George regrets getting Mary pregnant”

Jean: “But he didn’t get her pregnant. We know that now

In the above conversation, Jean’s utterance of ‘ he didn’t get her pregnant’ actually entails ‘ George
didn’t get Mary pregnant’ as a logical consequence. The entailment ( a necessary consequence of what
is said) is simply more powerful than the presupposition( an earlier assumption)

• Entailments are inferences that can be drawn solely from our knowledge about the semantic
relationships in a language. This knowledge allows to communicate much more than we actually
“say”

3.4.2 Characteristics

a) entailment applies cumulatively. Thus if X entails Y and Y entails Z, then X entails Z.

Eg: X, Some boys ran down the street entails Y, Some kids ran down the street.

Y, Some kids ran down the street entails Z, Some kids went down the street.

Therefore X, some boys ran down the street entails Z, Some kids went down the street.

b) Hyponymy involves entailment. To say This is a tulip entails This is a flower, and This is scarlet entails
This is red. The relation between tulip and flower and between scarlet and red brings out the
HIERARCHICAL CLASSIFICATION involved in hyponymy.

3) Type of Entailment

(i) One way entailment

The entailment of this first type come about because of hyponymic relations between words.

If Alfred saw a bear then he necessarily saw an animal, but if Afred saw an animal, he could have seen a
bear but not necessarily. It could be a big bad wolf, for example

Ex2: Max ate the pizza asymmetrically entails Max did something to the pizza.

Since the meaning do something to is found in eat, the sentence Max ate the pizza asymmetrically
entails Max did something to the pizza; but if Max did something to the pizza, he could have eaten it but
not necessarily, he could have baked it or bought it

(ii) Two ways entailment

The entailment between a pair of sentences are mutual since the truth of either sentence guarantees
the truth of the other.

Ex1: Paul borrowed a car from Sue symmetrically entails Sue lent a car to Paul.

Ex2: The police chased the burglar symmetrically entails the burglar was chased by the police.

It is interesting to notice that hyponymic relations between words result in a great number of one-way
entailments; paraphrases are two-way entailments; and relational pairs of antonyms such as sell-buy,
lend-borrow, own-belong to, etc do contribute to two-way entailments.