[SESSION 4]

Unit 3:
Sentence meaning: sentence
relations and truth.

Semántica Inglesa.
Grado de Estudios Ingleses. Tercer curso.

Manuel Casas Guijarro. 2019/2020. UNED. Centro Asociado de Sevilla.

0. Where are we?
Semantics, John I. Saeed. Chapter 4.
Sections and units Book chapters
SECTION I: Introducing semantics. Basic notions
1. Semantics in linguistics. Meaning, concepts and reality. 1, 2
SECTION II: Semantic description
2. Word meaning. 3
3. Sentence meaning: sentence relations and truth. 4
4. Sentence semantics 1: situation types. 5
5. Sentence semantics 2: participants. 6
6. Context and inference: deixis, context, information structure. 7
7. Functions of language: speech acts. 8
SECTION III: Theoretical approaches to semantic analysis
8. Meaning components and lexical relations 9
9. Formal semantics 10
Manuel Casas Guijarro. Curso 2019/2020. UNED Sevilla.
10 Cognitive semantics 11 2
0. Where are we?
Semantics, John I. Saeed. Chapter 4.

Last sessions we saw:

Chapter 1: Semantics in Linguistics.

Chapter 2: Meaning, thought and reality.
Chapter 3: Word meaning.

This session:
Chapter 4: Sentence meaning. Sentence relations and truth.

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0. Where are we?
So, in this session we will:

✓ 1. Summarise chapter 4 (Sentence relations --- Truth).

✓ 2. Check the “important items“ from chapter 4.

Next session we will:

✓ Doubts from exercises in chapter 4.
✓ Summarise chapter 5 (situation types).

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Helpful video lectures on Truth values.
- Truth values
https://study.com/academy/lesson/propositions-truth-values-and-truth-tables.html
- Entailment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLt5NMZYRzM

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4.1 Introduction.
In this chapter we move on to semantic relations between sentences of a language.
Sometimes these relations are the result of words in the sentences but in some other
are the result of syntactic structure.

In this sense, we are talking again about ‘What is meaning?’ and we will approach to
meaning through the notion of truth, based in logic.
A semantic theory should reflect a speaker knowledge that:

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4.2 Logic and truth.
4.2.1 Early logic steps
✓ It is claimed that the tools of logic can be used to represent semantic
meaning.
✓ Concept of “Empirical (or contingent) truth”: in order to know if a
sentence is true or not, we need access to the facts in the world.

✓ The study of logic comes from the Greek, most famously from Aristotle
who came up with a logical argument in three steps called modus
ponens. This argument is as follows:

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4.2 Logic and truth.
✓ 4.2.1 Early logic steps
1 If John is not in the bar, then he is at home
2 John is not in the bar
3 John is at home

If sentence (1) and sentence (2) are true, then sentence (3) is guaranteed to
be true.
✓ Other logical arguments are:
- Modus tollens
- Hypothetical syllogism
- Disjunctive syllogism
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4.2 Logic and truth.
4.2.2 Truth value and truth conditions of a sentence
So, Semanticists determine:
- “truth value”: if a sentence is true or false
- “truth conditions”: the facts that we need in the real world to make a
sentence true or false

Example:
a. Your car has been stolen
b. Your car has not been stolen
IF a is true, b is false
IF a is false, b is true
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4.2 Logic and truth.
4.2.3 Basic logic schema: logical form
To show the previous relationship, logicians use a schema called logical form.
- p, q, r…: statements
- ¬: symbol for negation (logical operator)

--Examples of linguistic effect on truth value:

Negation Conjunction
Disjunction (inclusive OR) Exclusive OR
Material implication Bi-conditionals

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 4.2 Logic and truth.
1. Negation [NOT]

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 4.2 Logic and truth.
2. Conjunction [AND]

The study of the truth effects of connectives like ¬ and ˄ is called propositional logic.

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 4.2 Logic and truth.
3. Disjunction (inclusive OR)

The compound is true if one (or both) of the constituent sentences is true

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 4.2 Logic and truth.
4. Exclusive OR

The compound is true if one (and only one) of the constituent sentences is true.

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 4.2 Logic and truth.
5. Material implication [IF … THEN]

The compound is only false when p (the antecedent) is true and q (the consequent) is false.

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 4.2 Logic and truth.
6. Bi-conditionals [IF AND ONLY IF]

The conditional is true if the antecent and consequent are identical (T T / F F)

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4.2 Logic and truth.
Summary:
- Statements have a truth-value
- This truth-value depends upon a correspondence to facts
- Different ways of connecting statements have different effects on the
truth-value of the compounds

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4.3 Necessary truth, A priori truth, and Analyticity.
In the previous section, we saw that an “Empirical truth” depends on the
facts in reality. It can be known without experience (a priori) or known on
the basis of empirical testing (a posteriori).

However, philosophers have discovered another type of truth, truths that

only need language, and do not need the real world, to prove they are true.
Exs.:
- My father is my father.
- Either he is still alive of he’s dead.
These are said to be “necessary truths”, they cannot be denied without a
contradiction.
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4.3 Necessary truth, A priori truth, and Analyticity.

Another distinction can be done between:

- analytic statements: where truth follows from the meaning relations
within the sentence regardless of any relationship with the world
- synthetic statements: where truth follows from the statement's
concordance with the facts of the world. This type of truth is semantic in
orientation.

• Analytic: Your father is your father.

• Synthetic: You are a father.

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4.4 Entailment.
4.4.1 Definition of entailment
It is claimed that there are fixed truth relations between sentences which
hold regardless the empirical truth of the sentences.

a. Pete killed the king ENTAILS b. The king is dead

Because of our knowledge of English we get from a to b
If a is true, b is true
If b is false, a is false
That is, a sentence a entails a sentence b when the truth of the first
guarantees the truth of the second, and the falsity of the second guarantees
the falsity of the first.
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4.4 Entailment.
4.4.1 Definition of entailment
p. Mary killed John
q. John is dead

In terms of a composite truth table:

p q
T → T (Mary killed John >> John is dead)
F → T or F (Mary didn’t kill John. John could be alive or dead because
somebody else could have killed him)
F ← F (John is not dead >> Mary did not kill him)
T or F ← T (John is dead. Mary could or could not have killed him)
When this set of relations hold between p and q, p entails q.
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4.4 Entailment.
4.4.2 Sources for entailment
In entailment, the relationship is given by linguistic structure: that is, we do
not have to check any fact in the real world to deduce the entailed sentence
(q) from the entailing (q).

That linguistic relationship can be lexical or syntactic.

Lexical: Mary killed John >> John is dead. The meaning of kill contains die.
Syntactic: Mary killed John >> John was killed by Mary. Active and passive
versions of the same sentence entail one another.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.1 Introduction
In ordinary language, presupposition involves assuming something. In
semantics, a presupposition is a proposition whose truth is taken for granted
from another utterance.

Ex.:
a. Her husband is a fool
b. She has a husband

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 4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.2 Presupposition and entailment
✓ In some aspects, presuppositions look like an entailment, but is some other
respects, it seems sensitive to the context (to pragmatics).
✓ Presupposition is not the same as entailment based on a main difference:
NEGATION
In an ENTAILMENT: If we negate the entailing sentence the entailment fails.
Ex.:

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 4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.2 Presupposition and entailment
In a PRESUPPOSITION: if we negate the proposition (the presupposing sentence),
we find the same presupposition.

Conclusion: negating the presupposing sentence does not affect the

presupposition, but negating an entailing sentence destroys the entailment.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.3 Presupposition failure
Presupposition failure is a phenomenon that has caused problems for a truth
relations approach. When using a name or a definite description, we assume
the existence of this entity.
1) p- Ronald is a vegetarian
q- Ronald exists.
2) p- The King of France is bald.
q- There is a King of France.
But what happens if there exists no referent? That is, there is no ‘King of
France’.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.3 Presupposition failure

If q is false (There is no King of France), the status of p is dubious, possibly

neither true nor false. This is a problem for truth-based theories, known as
the truth-value gap.

Solution: we generally assume that a speaker’s use of a name or a definite

description carries a guarantee that the listener can identify the referent and
that the referent exists.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.4 Presupposition triggers
Some types of words (as names) rise to a presupposition of existence.
Ex.: Peter has visited London ---- Peter exists

In the same way, there are some constructions that also produce
presupposition, which are called “presupposition triggers”. Some examples:
1. Cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences:
a. It was John who broke the window
b. Who broke the window was John
Both presuppose that the window is broken

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.4 Presupposition triggers
2. Time adverbial clauses and comparative clauses:
a. I was driving cars before you learn to walk → You learnt to walk
b. He is smarter than you → You are smart

3. Factive verbs: like ‘regret’ or ‘realize’

a. He realized that he is guilty → He is guilty
(this does not happen with ‘think’)

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.4 Presupposition triggers
4. Some verbs of judgement: like ‘blame’
a. John blamed me for telling my mother → I told my mother
(this does not happen with ‘accuse’)

5. Aspectual verbs (change of state): like ‘start’, ‘begin’, ‘stop’.

a. I stopped smoking → I used to smoke

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.5 Presupposition and context.
While a given sentence always produces the same entailment, presupposition
is sensitive to context.
Consider the following examples:
•1.
- She cried before she went to the market→ she went to the market
- She died before she went to the market→ *she went to the market

This case is known as defeasibility which means the cancelling of

presupposition does not depend on the context, but on world knowledge.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.5 Presupposition and context.
•2. Another two important examples of context sensitivity are:
- cleft construction: It was John who broke the window
- intonation: ALICE loved Harry.

•3. Finally, a narrow contextual feature is projection problem. Sometimes

the presupposition produced by a simple clause does not survive when
combined with a complex clause:
John will regret doing linguistics→ John will do linguistics.
If John does linguistics, he will regret it. → *John will do linguistics.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.6 Pragmatic theories of presupposition.
There are different theories that explain presupposition from a pragmatic
point of view.
• Leech divided presupposition into two types: pragmatic presupposition
(requires interaction) and semantic presupposition (related to truth
relations).
• Stalnaker argued that presupposition is essentially a pragmatic
phenomenon: part of the assumption made by participants in a conversation
which he called common ground.

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4.5 Presupposition.
4.5.6 Pragmatic theories of presupposition.
• Lewis claimed that presupposition can be introduced as new information.
He proposed the ‘principle of accomodation’:
- If at time t, something is said that requires presupposition p to be
acceptable,
- and if p is not presupposed just before t,
- then presupposition p comes into existence.
• Finally, Sperber and Wilson stated that presupposition is not an
independent phenomenon as it depends on intonation and syntactic
structure to show the hearer how the sentence fits into the conversation.

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- CHAPTER SUMMARY.
1. Introduction to sentence relations.
2. Introduction to logic and truth: logical arguments. Examples of linguistic effect on
truth value: negation, conjunction, disjunction...
3. Entailments and presuppositions.

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- CHAPTER SUMMARY.

“Important items”
(from curso virtual)

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Next session we will:
✓ Doubts from exercises in chapter 4.
✓ Summarise chapter 5.

thanks!
mancasas@sevilla.uned.es

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