THEORETICAL BACKGROUND REPORT

To start our discussion, let us refresh our mind and define what is a predicate? Since elementary, predicate has
already been introduced to us as part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the
subject. Meaning, it can either be the verb or the verb phrase. For example, in the sentence “John went home”,
went home is our predicate while John is our subject. Next is the Predicate Logic Notation, which is a static system in
semantic analysis that represents the meaning of one individual sentence. Which will be done throughout our
discussion.

So before we are able to proceed into the main topic of our group which is the dynamic semantics and the
representation of discourse, it is important for us to have the knowledge or set up our mind for us to fully
comprehend what is dynamic semantics, especially the discourse representation theory.

So first, let start with a simple case “A man arrived, and he sat down”. Where the first thing to do is look for
Coreferential which means they have the same referent or an expression referring to the same person or thing. If we
are to analyze the simplified syntax of this sentence “A man arrived, and he sat down”, obviously we’ve got two
sentences combined where first sentence “a man arrived” was connected or conjoined by an “and” into our second
sentence “he sat down” as simple as that.

But if we are to analyze this in semantics, there is obviously big difference.

First is that there is a proposition split up into an extra quantifier phrase conjoined by a conjunction into a
proposition which is not into the syntax. So, in our sentence “A man” we are assuming it is an existential quantifier
that express the quantity of the object. the existential quantifier (Baliktad na E) represents some while universal
(baliktad na A) which basically means all.

So, in our quantifier phrase, there is an X introduced which serves as the restriction to our quantifier to only just
man. On the other side of the proposition, we can also see a two variable X showing up which means that they are
bound to our quantifier phrase or in other terms the idea is that quantifier phrase is hierarchically the highest in this
sentence which is controlling all branches.

But what if our case is like this: “Patty bought a donut. She ate it”

We can see that antecedent or coreferential are also visible in our next case just like our first example where “it”
goes back to donut, and “she” likewise goes back to Patty but this time there are no conjunctions and instead, it was
separated into two different propositions. This is where a problem occurs because in our second proposition, there
will be no quantifier to introduce our variables x and y which makes it an unbound or free variables that does not
represent a proper noun or constant like Patty. And because in logical sense, it is a violation for proposition to
contain unbound variable which makes it an open proposition that cannot have a true value.

For us to understand more further, our next reporter will start to unfold formal semantics which refers to formulas
in finding a true sentence and find the meanings of those certain words.