COMPOS IT IO N A L

SE M A N T IC S
HER
PUTTING MEANING TOGET

• MAY SOE SEINT PHYU

• KHAING MOE ZIN

• SANDI HTUN

• TUN SU SU SAN
THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPOSITIONALITY
• THE MEANING OF PHRASAL EXPRESSIONS DEPEND ON THE MEANING OF THE WORDS THEY
CONTAIN.
Different propositions
• EG 1; SARAH LIKES COFFEE and meaning
SARAH LIKES CAKES

• EG 2; DAVID LOVES GARFIELD TRUE Different proposition

GARFIELD LOVES DAVID FALSE

GARFIELD IS THE OBJECT OF LOVE

DAVID IS ITS SUBJECT
• HAVE DIFFERENT SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE AND EFFECT ON THE MEANING.
• EG.3 THE COP SAW THE MAN WITH THE BINOCULARS.
 CAN BE USED AS DISTINCT PROPOSITIONS.
 WITH THE BINOCULARS (PP) VP, NP
• THE MEANING OF THE SENTENCE NOT ONLY DEPEND ON THE MEANING OF WORDS BUT
ALSO ON THE SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE.

WHAT IS THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPOSITIONALITY?

• THE MEANING OF WORDS THAT CONTAINS IN A SENTENCE AND THE WAY IN WHICH
THESE WORDS ARE SYNTACTICALLY COMBINED.
• ALSO STATES THAT THE MEANING OF MULTI- WORDS EXPRESSIONS ARE
COMPOSITIONAL.
THE FAILS OF COMPOSITIONAL

• EG; SARAH KICK THE BUCKET.

• “KICK THE BUCKET’’= “DIE” (BECOMES NON- COMPOSITIONAL)

IDIOM( LEXICAL EXPRESSION)

• SOME MULTI-WORD EXPRESSION IS NOT COMPOSITIONAL

• HAS TO BE STORED IN MENTAL LEXICON
• BUT THE MOST CASES OF PHRASAL MEANINGS ARE COMPOSITIONAL.
COMBINING THE MEANING OF VERB PHRASES AND
NOUN PHRASES

• SENTENCES IN ENGLISH TYPICALLY CONSIST OF A NP AND VP

• EG. SALLY RUNS

NP VP
• SANDY REFERS TO SOME INDIVIDUAL SANDY
• RUNS REFER TO THE SET OF ALL RUNNERS IN THE WORLD
• SANDY IS A MEMBER OF THE SET THAT IS THE REFERENCE OF RUNS.
• TRUTH CONDITIONS FOR SOME PROPOSITION

RUNS

ROBIN SANDY
KIM LEE MICHEAL

• SANDY RUNS IS FALSE, SINCE SANDY IS NOT IN THE SET THAT IS THE
REFERENCE OF RUNS.
• THE PROPOSITION EXPRESSED BY A SENTENCE IS TRUE JUST IN CASE THE
REFERENT OF THE SUBJECT NP IS A MEMBER OF THE SET THAT IS THE
REFERENCE OF THE VP.
Pure intersection
For instance,

Healthy cow, blue shirt,

working woman pure intersections

Set of all
Set of all Green
Sweaters
things
Healthy, blue, working intersective
adjectives

Green sweaters

Green sweater is a pure intersection and green is the intersective adjective.

Relative intersection
For instance,

WHALES Big mice, big whales, big feet,

big refrigerators, big planets relative
MICE intersection

BIG Big subsective adjective

BIG WHALES
MICE
“big” selects a subset for any other
set that we might want to identify
big elements of…
RELATIVE INTERSECTION (ANOTHER
INSTANCE)

Judged on how sturdy and

useful it is
 Good refers to - a scale of quality
- anything that fits our Good ladder
purposes well Judged on its taste
GOOD Good beer
 Purposes vary - with the object
- with how that object is used
in a given case Good
record
Judged on how pleasurable the
music is
 NON-
INTERSECTION
Anti-intersection
Alleged thief adjective

All set of • Fake Picasso cannot refer to a

All set of
being Picasso
thief
alleged
• Fake is called an anti-intersection
•
adjective
They cannot overlap each other

• Alleged thief does not

necessary refer to a thief