Semantic Competence

Roadmap
• What is Semantics?
- Semantic Competence
• How does semantic competence manifests itself?
The empirical Domain:
- intuitions of truth-conditions, meaning relations between
sentences (entailment, equivalence, & contradiction), and ambiguity.

• Infinite Creativity and Compositionality

• Meaning and Context: Pronouns, Implicatures, Presuppositions

 What is semantics?

• Naïve Answer:
Semantics is the study of meaning

But…
What exactly is meaning??????
 What is meaning?
• It is not easy to tackle this question head-on; and
while it is an important question to keep wrestling
with, a total answer is not required in advance of
doing fruitful work on semantics, anymore than
biologists wait for the answer to the still-difficult
question "what is life?" before getting down to work.
(Partee 1995:311)
 The Question for a Linguist
Semanticists ask themselves a different question:

-How can we characterize the ability of speakers

when we say that they "understand the meaning of
a word, a phrase, a sentence or an utterance?”

 What is it that speakers (subconsciously) know

that enables them to interpret sentences of the
language they speak?
 …so what is Semantics?

A theory of semantics is not a theory of meaning

itself but a theory of the the component of
Human Language Faculty that we call Semantic
Competence

Semantic Competence (knowledge of meaning):

the subconscious knowledge that allows us to
attribute an interpretation to natural language
expressions
 Semantic Facts
How knowledge of meaning manifests
itself
 Semantic Facts:

•Intuitions of Truth Conditions

•Intuitions of meaning relations
 Semantic Facts:

•Intuitions of Truth Conditions

 Things we know because we have a
semantic competence:
1. Truth Conditions
We use sentences to talk about the world/the reality …
outside or inside ourselves, past present or future,
actual or hypothetical….

For example the sentence The cat is on the mat

Says something about the way the world is.

 Knowledge of Meaning and Truth:
A speaker that understand the meaning of
The cat is on the mat
Can tell that this sentence is true in a situation as
the one depicted here:
 Knowledge of Meaning and Truth:
…and can tell that it is FALSE here:
 Knowledge of Meaning and Truth:
…but again true here…
 Knowledge of Meaning and Truth:

Independently of where we are, what cat we are talking about,

the size or the color of the mat, and many other irrelevant
details…if we understand what the cat is on the mat means we
know what would make it true and what can make it false!!!

If we don’t understand the meaning of a sentence (for

examples if it is a sentence of a language we do not speak)…we
do not have this ability!!!!
 Truth Conditions
So, a speaker that understands a
sentence, knows when it is true and when
it is false…she knows under which
conditions it is true and under which
other conditions it is false:
=>
She knows the TRUTH CONDITION of that
sentence!
 An Important Distinction:
Understanding a sentence does not imply
knowing if it is actually true (or false)- its TRUTH
VALUE:

My sister is wearing a green T-shirt right know

But implies understanding under which

circumstances it would be true – its TRUTH
CONDITIONS
 Truth-Conditional Semantics

Although everyone acknowledges

that there is more to what a
sentence may convey than its truth
conditions, most current research in
semantics takes this component of
semantics competence to be central
(“core meaning”)
 Semantic Facts:

•Intuitions of Truth Conditions

•Intuitions of meaning relations
Things we know because we have a semantic
competence:
2. Meaning Relations
A. Entailment
In virtue of understanding a sentence, we have the ability to
take deductions on other sentences.
Example:
If I know that John eats beef is true
I can deduce that John eats meat is also true!

I know that the first sentence entails the second!

 A. Entailment
• …..and I can also tell that the reverse does not
hold!

I cannot infer from the truth of John eats meat the truth
of John eats beef
(he can very well eat just chicken or pork)

… I can tell that John eats meat does not entail

John eats beef
 Entailment
and Negation
…and it is because I understand the meaning of the two
sentences and the meaning of negation, that I have the
ability to tell that, if I negate both…the relation of
entailment goes in the opposite direction!!!

If John doesn’t eat meat is true then John doesn’t eat

beef must be true.

But not the other way around!

Things we know because we have a semantic
competence:
2. Meaning Relations
B. Synonymity/Equivalence
It is in virtue of understanding their meaning, that we can
tell that the following two sentences are synonymous,
convey exactly the same message:

John sold a car to Mary.

Mary bought a car from John.

Our semantic competence enable us to recognize

equivalence!
 B. Equivalence & Entailment
Notice that:
When John sold a car to Mary is true then
Mary bought a car from John is also true!
And vice versa!

When Mary bought a car from John is true

John sold a car to Mary is also true!

Equivalent sentences entail one another

• How about these two sentences?

John is dead.
John is alive.
Things we know because we have a semantic
competence:
2. Meaning Relations
C. Contradiction
We have very clear intuitions relative to the relation
between the sentence John is dead and the sentence John
is alive.
Our semantic competence enable us to tell that they
contradict one another, they are contradictory! …that is,
they can never be both true or both false. And that their
conjunction is a contradiction!
John is dead and John is alive.
 Entailment
Negation and Contradiction
Let us return for a moment to our intuition that

(1) John eats beef entails (2) John eats meat

What is the intuition here:

John eats beef = (1)
John doesn’t eat meat = negation of (2)
And here?
John eats beef and doesn’t eat meat
 Entailment
Negation and Contradiction
When a given sentence S1 entails a sentence S2,
S1 and the negation of S2 are contradictory

…. And, as a consequence…
The conjunction of S1 and the negation of S2 is a
contradiction.

We will see that this is not the case for other kinds of
inferences that one can draw when a sentence is uttered
(different form entailment)!!!!
 Entailment
and Redundancy
When a given sentence S1 entails a sentence S2, the
conjunction:
“S1 and/but S2” is redundant (repetitive!)

# “ John eats beef and/but John eats meat”

We will see that this is not the case for other kinds of
inferences that one can draw when a sentence is uttered
(different form entailment)!!!!
 Entailment
Tests
One can use the last two generalizations to establish whether
two sentences are in an entailment relation.
Suppose I am wondering whether S1 entails S2. I can form S3
and S4 as follow:
S3= S1 and negation of S2
S4= S1 and/but S2”

If S3 is a contradiction and S4 is redundant I can conclude

that S1 entails S2
• In class activity: we talked about entailment, equivalence, and
contradiction. Let us train ourselves on these notions. What, if
any, of these relations, holds between the sentences in the
pairs below:
(1)a. Kermit is green b.Kermit is a green puppet
 
(2)a. Jack is a bachelor b. Jack is an unmarried adult male  

(3)a. Some students smiled b.Not all students smiled

(4)a. John met Mary or Susan. b. John didn’t meet both.

(5) a. Goldilocks put on her PJs and went to bed.

b. Goldilocks put on her PJs before she went to bed.
 
(6)a. Mary is married b. Mary is single
 
(8)b. It is raining b.The sun shines
-Do we need to know whether …
•sentences S1 and S2 are true or false to know
whether S1 entails S2? Or that S1 and S2 are
equivalent? Or that S1 and S2 are contradictory?
Semantic Competence II:
Compositional Semantics
• So… in virtue of understanding sentences we know under which
conditions they are true and under which other conditions they are
false…..but…for how many sentences?
a cat is sleeping
a cat behind the dog is sleeping
a cat behind the dog behind the barn is sleeping
…
and… in virtue of understanding the meaning of sentences we can
tell which ones entail which others, and which ones are
equivalent and which ones are contradictory…..but…for how
many sentences?
a cat behind the dog is sleeping entails
a cat is sleeping
And a cat behind the dog behind the barn is sleeping entails
a cat behind the dog is sleeping
……
This is can be achieved only by a combinatorial
system: a systematic knowledge that derives
the meaning of larger expressions (sentences,
phrases) from of the meaning of their parts
(morphemes, words) combining the latter in a
rule governed fashion .
COMPOSITIONALITY of MEANING
The meaning of natural language synstactic
constituents and sentences is fully determined
by the meanings of their parts (words and sub-
constituents) and the way they are combined
together.
 Several, if not most, current semantic
theories
are compositional (and truth-conditional)
theories
 Application to a simple example:
How do we get to the TCs of Kermit swims

Step 1: establishing the meaning of the parts

-The proper name Kermit refers to the individual

named Kermit, its meaning is its referent

Meaning of Kermit:
 Meaning of VPs
…but what can verbs like swims refer to?

Although predicates like swims don’t pick any

specific individual out in the world, their use and
interpretation still depends on facts regarding the
world/the reality we are talking about….therefore
we can describe their referent in terms of the
individuals those predicate describe…more
precisely in terms of the Collecton or SET of such
individuals
 Meaning of VPs
Under this view when we use the VP (T’) swims
we refers to the set of individuals that swim…
whoever they are…

Meaning of swims =
 Meaning of VPs
Under this view when we use the VP (and T’)
swims we refers to the set of individuals that
swim…whoever they are…

Meaning of swims = A

A= Set of swimmers whoever they are

 Application to a simple example:
How do we get to the TCs of Kermit swims

Step 1: establishing the meaning of the parts

Meaning of Kermit:

Meaning of swims =
A
Step 2: establishing how these two parts
combine to give us TCs…
Kermit swims is true if


Set of swimmers

…and false otherwise.

Kermit swims is true if the referent of the NP

Kermit is a member of the referent of the VP
(and T’) swims and is false otherwise
Similarly…
Piggy sleeps is true if

Set of individuals that
sleep

…and false otherwise.

Piggy sleeps is true if the referent of the NP

Piggy is a member of the referent of the VP (and
T’) sleeps and is false otherwise
..and…
Elena smokes Lucky Strikes
is true if
Set of individuals
that smoke Lucky
 Strikes

…and false otherwise.

Elena smokes Lucky Strikes is true if the referent of

the NP Elena is a member of the referent of the VP
(and T’) smokes Lucky Strikes and is false otherwise
 …and the way the parts combine:
Generalizing from our examples:
Semantic Rule I:
If the meaning of an NP (an individual) is an element
of the meaning of a VP/T’ (a set of individuals) then
the sentence NP T’ is true, otherwise it is false.
This gives us at least a general idea of how speakers
arrive at intuitions of truth conditions for a very
large number of sentences starting with the
knowledge of the meaning of the parts and one
semantic rule that combines them….that is: via
compositionality of meaning…
 Deriving some entailments
compositionally
We have the semantic intuition that the sentence
Elena smokes Lucky Strikes
entails
Elena smokes cigarettes

How do our minds arrive at this intuition?

 Deriving some entailments
compositionally
Entailment:
A sentence S1 entails a sentence S2 if and only if
whenever S1 is true, S2 is true.

SO we have to PROVE that speakers know the following,

based on their knowledge of compositional semantics:

Whenever Elena smokes Lucky Strikes is true

Elena smokes cigarettes is also true

How do our minds arrive at this intuition?

Let us assume then that Elena smokes Lucky
Strikes is true. It follows from this that

Set of individuals
that smoke Lucky
 Strikes

.
Because our semantic competence our minds can
compute this much…
Our word knowledge tells us that, no matter who
the Lucky Strikes smokers are, the collection of
cigarette smokers include them all. In set theory
terms we represent this as follows:

A
B
A = the set of LS smokers
B= the set of cigarette smokers
. AB A is a subset of B
Given this, if Elena is an element of the set A, she
must also be an element of set B!


B
.
Since B is the set of cigarette smokers it
follows from our rule that Elena smokes
cigarettes is also true.
Given this, if Elena is an element of the set A, she
must also be an element of set B!

A
B
.
Since B is the set of cigarette smokers it
follows that when Elena smokes Lucky Strikes is
true then Elena smokes cigarettes is also
true…that is: the first sentence entails the
second.
From the truth of “Elena Smokes Lucky Strikes”
and our semantic rules we derived the necessity
of the truth of “Elena smokes cigarettes”, thus
providing a simple model of how speakers
compute inferences.

.
In class activity: How do we derive
compositionally that:

Elena smokes cigarettes

Does NOT entail
Elena smokes Lucky Strikes