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

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images. 1929

Talk about things …..

The cat ison the mat

Language ‘Reality’

The Correspondence Theory of Truth and Reference

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