(Semantics) saeed's book ch 9

Meaning
Components
____________________________________________________________________________________
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Semantics – LANE 621
Meaning Components – Ch9
From Saeed’s (2016). Semantics – Ch9
King Abdulaziz University
Department of European
Languages & Literature

Outline
Pustejovsky’s Generative Lexicon
Problems with components of meaning
Summary
3
2
Processes of semantic combination
4
1

Processes of semantic
combination

• Jackendoff employs his conceptual primitives to investigate the
relationship between semantics & grammar.
• In English some combinations of a semelfactive verb (flash,
blink, knock, sneeze) & a durative adverbial do not result in
an anomalous sentence but are given instead an iterative
interpretation, as in:
a. The beacon flashed. (describes a single flash)
b. The beacon flashed for two minutes. (describes a series of flashes)

• The way Jackendoff approaches this process is to view it in terms
of levels of embedding in conceptual structure.
• Introducing a durative adverbial is taken to have the effect of
taking an unbounded event, like (a), and producing a bounded
event, like (b):
a. Ronan read. [-b]
b. Ronan read until 5 am. [+b]

In an iterative sentence like: The beacon flashed until 5 am.
the adverbial until 5 am is taking an inherently bounded event and producing
a further bounded, multiple event. Jackendoff describes this as involving a rule
of construal that inserts a PLURAL (PL) component as an intermediate level
between the two events, as in:

• This account is part of a larger enterprise to provide a semantic
account of a range of morphological and syntactic processes of
combination.
For example:
If we look at nouns, these combinatory processes include plural formation,
the construction of compounds like chicken curry,
and the various semantic uses of of-constructions, as in a grain of rice, a w
all of the house, a house of bricks, and so on.

Staying with the features [± BOUNDED] and [± INTERNAL STRUCTURE],
Jackendoff proposes six combinatory functions which map features of [b] and [i]
together. These are divided into two types:

The headings Including and Extracting identify two different types of
(part–whole relation) that results from the process of combination:
 The Including functions map their arguments into a larger entity
containing the argument as a part.
 The Extracting functions pull out a sub-entity of their arguments.

Including functions:
1. Plural (PL)
Reflects the process of pluralizing nouns and changes their feature specifications
for boundedness and internal structure, for example:
The semantic representation for the plural noun bricks is shown in:

2. Composed of (COMP)
For example: the nominal a house of wood, which is
given the representation:
COMP links an individual entity house, [+b, −i], with a
substance wood, [−b, −i], and the whole unit has the
semantic features of the grammatical head of the
construction, house.
COMP function links an individual with a plural aggregate,
where the semantic structure of a house of bricks.

3. Containing (CONT)
Used to describe compound nominals like chicken curry or cheese
sandwich, where the first element describes an important, identifying
element of the second.
chicken curry
The CONT function does not change the values of the features, mapping
the mass nouns, chicken and curry into the compound chicken curry.

Extracting functions:
1. Element of (ELT)
Describes the semantics of phrases like
a grain of rice and a stick of spaghetti
where the first noun picks out an individual from the aggregate
described by the second noun, creating overall a count noun.

2. Partitive (PART)
Describes the semantics of partitive constructions, N of NP, like
leg of the table or top of the mountain
where the phrase identifies a bounded part (the first noun) of a larger
bounded entity (the second NP).
These constructions often have semantically equivalent compound nominals like
table leg or mountain top

3. Universal grinder (GR)
Used for instances where what are usually count nouns are used to describe
substances, as in Jackendoff’s unpleasant example:
There was dog all over the road
Using a count noun dog without (an article) triggers a rule of construal where
dog loses its boundedness and is construed as a substance.

3. Universal grinder (GR)
It is the opposite process to COMP in I’ll have a coffee where a mass noun
(i.e. a substance) is interpreted as a count noun.
This GR function also allows us to use animal names for their meat as in:
a. Have you ever eaten crocodile?
b. Impala tastes just like mutton.

Jackendoff’s approach uses lexical decomposition to investigate the
(semantics–grammar interface.)
Jackendoff’s approach in particular presents a view of semantic primitives
occurring in highly articulated semantic representations. In this theory, these
representations are proposed as conceptual structures underlying linguistic
behavior.

a. Event structure
b. Qualia structure

• James Pustejovsky has proposed a
compositional account of lexical semantics
which both extends the compositional
representation in some areas and incorporates
more general or encyclopedic knowledge into
the account.
• The central thrust of this approach is
computational. James Pustejovsky

James Pustejovsky
• Pustejovsky argues that lexical meaning is
best accounted for by a dynamic approach
including rules of combination and inference,
rather than the essentially lexicographic
tradition of listing senses of a lexeme.
• So he proposes four levels of semantic
representations for lexical items:

Pustejovsky’s levels of semantic representations
for lexical items
Argument structure: Event structure:
Lexical inheritance
structure:
Qualia structure:
the semantic arguments
of an item and the
linking rules to syntax.
the situation type
of an item.
a classification of
the properties of
an item.
how the item fits
into the network
of the lexicon.

Event structure
Pustejovsky provides a compositional account of the situation type distinctions.
Several classifications systems were reviewed:
• Vendler’s (1967) influential division into states, activities, accomplishments,
and achievements. These distinctions are viewed as part of the lexical semantics
of verbs.
• Jackendoff includes semantic components of event structure in his
representations, namely EVENT and STATE, with constituent components
of CHANGE (INCHOATION) and CAUSE. These categories combine in
semantic representations with other categories like THING and PLACE.

Event structure
The term event structure is used for what we have called situation
type, that is, for the lexically encoded aspectual distinctions in verbs.
Since events in this use also include states, a more neutral term like
Bach’s eventualities might be preferable.

Event structure
• A verb’s event structure is modified as it combines with other elements,
including noun phrases and adverbials, to build verb phrases and sentences.
• A major feature of Pustejovsky’s approach is the claim that events are
composed of smaller events (sub-events) and that this relationship needs
to be represented in an articulated way, by a form of syntax.

Event structure
The three main event types that Pustejovsky identifies are :
States
Processes
Transitions

Event structure
1. States (S):
are single events that are evaluated relative to no other event,
represented as:
Examples are stative verbs like understand, love, be tall.

Event structure
2. Processes (P):
are sequences of events identifying the same semantic
expression, represented as:
Examples are verbs like sing, walk, swim.

Event structure
3. Transitions (T):
are events identifying a semantic expression that is
evaluated relative to its opposition, represented as follows (where E is
a variable for any event type):
Examples are verbs like open, close, build.

Event structure
This event structure (ES) representation is united with other semantic information
at two other levels:
- A level of logic-like predicate decomposition called LCS.
- An interface level which incorporates lexical semantic elements but maintains
the event structure more transparently, called LCS’.
The relations between can be shown in the causative/inchoative alternations
(John closed the door/The door closed)

The inchoative close is an achievement,
and the causative close is an accomplishment.

Event structure
One main justification for this type of sub-event structural description
is that it allows the recognition of regular differences in adverbial
interpretation, such as the ambiguity a, shown by the paraphrases in b and c:
a. Joan rudely departed.
b. Joan departed in a rude way.
c. It was rude of Joan to depart.

Event structure
The representations in a, b, and c allow such differences to be analyzed as adverbial
scope over a sub-event rather than the whole event: narrow-scope versus wide-scope
readings. Pustejovsky proposes that the interpretation in (b. Joan departed in a rude
way) is a result of the adverb having scope over the process sub-event, shown as:

Event structure
On the other hand, the interpretation in (c. It was rude of Joan to depart)
has the adverb taking wide scope over the whole event, shown as:
Thus the ambiguity of adverbial interpretation is given a structural account.

John almost killed the cat
Event structure
Another related example discussed by Pustejovsky and Alsina concerns an
ambiguity of interpretation with almost that occurs in accomplishments but
not in other event types.
almost has scope over
the resulting State
almost has scope
over the Process
John nearly undertook an act
ion that would have
killed the cat
John's action resulted in
the near-death of the cat

Event structure
An achievement verb like walk will have only one reading:
the “nearly undertook the action” reading, as in
I almost walked
because there is only one undifferentiated event constituent in
the event structure.
The essential claim made by this approach is that a representation
which does not have access to sub-events, will lack explanatory power.

Qualia structure
Pustejovsky claims that listing senses in a dictionary, making (Sense
Enumeration Lexicons), cannot adequately account for polysemy.
He discusses examples like the variation in the meaning of:
• Good in a good meal, good soccer player, good book, good husband
• Fast in a fast car, fast driver, fast decision, fast food and so on.

Qualia structure
There are two traditional approaches to such variation:
• that there are a number of related senses here.
• that these adjectives are simply vague, so that good, for
example, is simply a general term of approbation whose
meaning must be derived by contextual rules of inference.

Qualia structure
Pustejovsky argues for a variation of the multiple senses
approach and against an explanation via general reasoning.
His arguments are:
• Firstly that any inferences must rely on linguistic information
in the accompanying nouns.
• Secondly that the variation is systematic, with different classes
of items patterning together.

Qualia structure
However, rather than treating this by listing senses,
Pustejovsky views the variants as products of specific rules
of semantic composition, tied to systematic properties of the
lexical item.
These properties are called qualia
(plural of the Latin noun quale “quality, nature”)

Qualia structure
Although all types of words have a qualia structure, we concentrate our
discussion on nouns.
Qualia structure has four dimensions, viewed as roles, with
characteristic values for nominals:

Qualia structure
a.
CONSTITUTIVE:
the relation between
an object and its
constituents, or proper
parts.
For example:
Material, Weight,
Parts and component
elements.
b.
FORMAL:
which distinguishes
the object within a
larger domain.
For example:
Orientation,
Magnitude, Shape,
Dimensionality, Color
c.
TELIC:
the purpose and
function of the object.
For example:
Purpose that an agent
has in performing an
act, Built-in function
or aim which
specifies certain
activities.
d.
AGENTIVE:
factors involved in the
origin or “bringing
about” of an
object.
For example:
Creator, Artifact,
Natural kind, Causal
chain.

Qualia structure
An example of the types of information represented by qualia for the example
of the noun novel:

Qualia structure
Without going into the formal detail we can sketch how the
knowledge about nouns represented by qualia can be used to
account for polysemy.
One example is the different interpretations of bake in
the following:

Qualia structure
a. Joan baked the potato.
b. Joan baked the cake.
a change-of-state interpretation
an additional creation sense
For Pustejovsky this polysemy is explained by rules of combination
between the verb and noun.
The difference between a and b above is results from
the qualia structures of the nominals.

Qualia structure
b. Joan baked the cake.
will have as part of its
agentive qualia
that it describes an act
of baking by an agent.
Agentive role:
it is an artifact.

Qualia structure
A further example is the variations in meanings of adjectives like
fast and good
modifiers of events
(event predicates)

Qualia structure
The noun typist is given this qualia structure :
Fast
a fast
typist
types
fast

Qualia structure
The noun knife is given this qualia structure :
Good
a good
knife is
one that
cuts
well

Qualia structure
• Variation in interpretations, this time in adjectives, is triggered
by specific types of knowledge represented
in the nouns with which they combine.
• General approach to polysemy in this theory:
It is accounted for by dynamic rules of combination, unifying
different forms of knowledge represented in lexical entries.

Problems with components
of meaning

The first concerns the identification of semantic primitives. They
have been attacked from both philosophical and psychological
perspectives.
• Philosophical:
These semantic components are simply a variation of, and equivalent to, the
Necessary and sufficient conditions approach to word meaning which proves
impossible to agree on precise definitions of word meaning.
• Psychological:
There is no experimental evidence for semantic primitives.
Words are not divided into subcomponents in order to understand them.

The second has been on the use of metalanguages.
• The criticism has been that these devices are ad hoc & unsystematic.
• This criticism is related to the more serious philosophical criticism
that attaching a set of primitives to a word or phrase is not a semantic
analysis in the deepest sense.
• Observations by the philosopher Quine, that this is in effect a form of translation
into another language, a language of primitive elements which is sometimes
pejoratively called Markerese, by linguists making this point.
• The claim is that to translate from the object language into an arbitrary invented
language doesn’t advance semantic analysis very far, if you then have to
translate the metalanguage.

The basic idea is that since the expressions of language are symbols,
they must be grounded somehow.
This grounding may be of different types:
• Formal semanticists:
attempt to ground semantic analysis in the external world.
• Cognitive semanticists:
ground their analyses in primitive level concepts derived from bodily
experience.

Summary
• Semantic representation should involve semantic components. These
components are primitive elements which combine to form units at the
level of grammar. The nature of their combination differs from author
to author.
From the original Katz and Fodor listings
of components at the word level,
to the more articulated representations used by
Jackendoff, where the components are arranged as functions and
arguments which can be successively embedded within one another,
and Pustejovsky, who proposes a
syntax of event structure.

Summary
• Linguists have argued that these components help characterize
semantic relations: both lexical relations and sentential relations
like entailment. They have also been used to investigate the
semantic basis for morphological and syntactic processes.

Summary
From the viewpoint of linguistic analysis these are claims that such
components are important units at the level of semantics.
From a wider perspective the question arises:
Are these components psychologically real? Do they form part of our
cognitive structures?
For some linguists, like Jackendoff, the answer is yes.
These elements play a role in our thinking and by identifying them
correctly we are establishing meaning.

Exercise
Pustejovsky’s qualia structure for
the noun novel.
Design a similar qualia structure
for the noun sandwich.

Exercise
Qualia structure for the noun sandwich.

References
Saeed, J. I. (2016 ). Semantics. Blackwell Publishers. British.

(Semantics) saeed's book ch 9

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to (Semantics) saeed's book ch 9 (20)

More from VivaAs (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

(Semantics) saeed's book ch 9