The semantics of NP - understanding talk about things English Grammar BA - 2nd semester Lecture 7...
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The semantics of NP- understanding talk about things
English Grammar
BA - 2nd semester
Lecture 7
Torben Thrane
Lectures - Dates[All lectures Monday 855 - 940 in U1]
Week Date Topic Paragraphs in Leech and Svartvik
6 5.2. Understanding talk about things
57-101
9 26.2 Ways of identifying things 102-112; 170-193; 215-239
12 19.3. Understanding talk about situations
113-169
14 2.4. Ways of identifying situations
240-297
17 23.4. Attitudes to situations 298-350
19 7.5. Structuring information 194-214
The organization of meaning ...
Meanings in con-nected discourse
Mood, emotion and attitude
Information, reality and belief
Concepts
… related to communicative functions ….
Action with social con-sequences
Production of text with relevance
Reference and predication withtruthfunctional values
Mapping of situations, i.e. establishment ofrelations betweenentities
… and to units of language and language use
Speech act
Utterance
Sentence, clause andphrase Words and
morphemes
An example
Are you coming? We’re eating!
Here I’m producing a text, consisting of an utterance oftwo sentences, Are you coming? and We’re eating!
Each sentence contains two phrases: {Are…coming, you}and {are eating, we}.
These in turn are made up of words and morphemes, someof which are lexical {you, we, come, eat}, some gram-matical {are, -ing}.
… example (continued)
The lexical words [come and eat] specify whattype of situation the sentences relate to
The lexical words [we and you] specify who is involved in these situations.
The grammatical morphemes [are and -ing] speci-fy when the situations occur in time.
…example (continued)
At another level, I have also performed a speech act - in facttwo:
I’ve asked a question, and I’ve made a statement
Speech acts are actions that have social consequences. By my question I impose a requirement on you to respondeither verbally or not. And I impose the requirement on myself to be serious and honest relative to ‘the facts’.
Sentence
Phrase
Word, morpheme
Who, what, where
Situations
Utterance
Speech Act
Summary
Social consequences
Division of labour
The study of sentences, phrases, words, and morphemes is the province of Grammar: The structure of language
The study of utterances and speech acts is the provinceof Pragmatics: The use of language
The study of the relationship between sentences andsituations is the province of Semantics: The meaning oflanguage
So -
The sentence “the cat is on the mat” is TRUE
if and only if this is a situation in which
the cat is on the mat!
- and “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” is TRUE if and only if this is a situation
in which the thing referred to by “Ceci”is not a pipe
It isn’t. It is a PICTURE of a pipe.So, the sentence is TRUE.
The cat ison the mat
Language
‘creates’
Mental Model
The Functional Theory of Truth and Reference
- may or may not ‘fit’
‘Reality’
According to the functional theory of truth and reference -
Linguistic utterances convey information that creates
mental models of situations that may or may not fit
real world situations in virtue of their meaning
The information our minds need for constructing mental models of THINGS - both CONCRETE things like people, cats, water and screwdrivers, and ABSTRACT things like structures, rules, love and drinks parties- is provided by the structural properties of Noun Phrases.
Helen
ProperName
NP
She
Pronoun
NP
upstairs
D Num
Spec
Adv A
AP
N Adv
N´
N´
NP structures
NP
the two verypretty girls
NP
the two very pretty girls upstairs
Spec N´
D Num AP N´
Adv A N Adv
Information types in NP structures
Referring (for speakers)
Individuating‘mass’ v. ‘count’Enumerating‘one’, ‘two’…‘many’
Classifying‘Kind’‘Properties’
Identifying (for listeners)
the two pretty girls smiled
Guideline for identification : KNOWN
Classification : GIRL
Property Assignment: PRETTYIndividuation :yes Enumeration: 2
Speakers use NP’s to refer to things ---
Listeners use information conveyed by NP’sto identify things
Identifying things
• in terms of their kind: hand me a spanner, please
• in terms of their properties: hand me a larger one, please
• in terms of their location: hand me that one, please
The information needed for identifying things in terms of their kind stems from the lexical Head Noun in NP.
The information needed for identifying things in terms of their properties stems from Premodifiers and Postmodifiers.
The information needed for identifying things in terms of their location stems primarily from the secondary nominal categories.
tool
hammerspannerwrench tongs screwdriver….
GeneralVocabulary
sledgehammer clawhammer pickhammer
TechnicalVocabulary
artefactTechnicalVocabulary
Kinds of things: lexical organization
Hyponymy: meaning hierarchy
The Secondary Nominal Categories
•Definiteness = {definite, indefinite}
•Gender = {masculine, feminine, neuter}
•Countability = {countable, uncountable (mass)}
•Number = {singular, plural}
•Person = {first, second, third}
•Case = {common, accusative, genitive}
Standard problem areas• article usage
• number (concord)
• pronominal usage (gender & case)
• propositional usage
• comparison
Differences in use of the indefinite article
han er dykker he is a diverhan er klovn he is a clownhan er en klovn he is a clownhan har radio i bilen he has a radio in the carhan har bil he has a carhan holder hest he keeps a horsehan kører bil som om ... he drives a car as if the Devil were ..han læser til ingeniør he is studying to become an engineerhan spiller overlæge he plays a chief surgeonhan leger overlæge he is playing the chief surgeonhan tog frakke på he put on a coat
Danish English
Incorporation
Danish incorporates Subject Complements and Direct Objects by changing them from referring to classifying expressions, and by stress reduction.
English does not have any formal means of incorporation.
- a syntactic process by which a verb plus its central complement (Subject Complement or Direct Object) together form a complex predicator of fixed meaning.
Cf. han tog | frakke | på med han tog en | frakke | påhan | spiste | bøf han | spiste en | bøf
Differences in use of the definite article
Danish English(Incorporation) (No incorporation)
han spiller trombone he plays the trombonehan har mæslinger he has the measles
(Generic of abstract N: -en) (Generic of abstract N: -ART)
Kærligheden besejrer alt Love conquers everything
Livet er en karrusel Life is a merrygoround
… til døden skiller jer ...till death you doth part