Semantics - intro + rules

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22 Terms

1
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What is semantics 

a subfield of linguistics 

Linguistics - a formal study of Language, the human capacity

2
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Language

  • refers to all languages (capital l)

Aspects of language: compositionally, recursively, displacement

  • Displacement - you can move words around and get the same meaning - scrambling

  • you can also talk about ideas that are not here right now, ex: talking ab what you did yesterday

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Semantics is the formal study of how

Humans understand each other through language

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What does it mean to understand something

Validity - if its true in our world

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Goal - come up with a formal way to represent meaning

  • coding system understood across all languages - ipa of semantics

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We use sentences to describe worlds 

Worlds have specific characteristics and things that are true within them 

Ex of worlds 

  • where New Brunswick was in MA

  • where Dorothy allowed the nickname “Dot”

  • where our class was located somewhere else

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Instead of worlds we use

models

(we will use ‘model’ and ‘world’ somewhat interchangeably)

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models

simplified representation of a state of affairs.

contains all of the relevant entities, properties, and relations

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A model has

  • a set of entities

  • specification of their properties 

  • specification of relations 

Ex: 

  • RJ, scarf 

  • giraffe, green

  • wears

Less fine-grained than words 

<ul><li><p>a set of entities </p></li><li><p>specification of their properties&nbsp;</p></li><li><p>specification of relations&nbsp;</p></li></ul><p></p><p>Ex:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><p>RJ, scarf&nbsp;</p></li><li><p>giraffe, green</p></li><li><p>wears</p></li></ul><p></p><p>Less fine-grained than words&nbsp;</p>
10
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Knowing the meaning of a sentence means

knowing its truth conditions

  • what worlds it is true in 

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Meaning = truth condition examples

RJ is wearing a green scarf = {w 1 , w 2 , w 3 , ...}

a set containing w 1 , w 2 , w 3 (and more)

<p>RJ<span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is wearing a green scarf = </span><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">{w 1 , w 2 , w 3 , ...}</span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>a set containing w 1 , w 2 , w 3 (and more)</strong></span></p>
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RJ has a green scarf

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How would you represent “Po is blue”?

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RJ has a green scarf and Po is blue.

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RJ has a green scarf or Po is blue.

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RJ doesn’t have a green scarf.

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If p and q are sentences:

- “p and q” is true in the worlds in which p is true and q is true


- “p or q” is true in the worlds in which at least one of p or q is true


- “not p” is true in the worlds in which p is not true
(but has all the relevant entities in the domain!)

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We will treat sentences as representing propositions

Proposition- a claim that can be true or false

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Proposition

a claim that can be true or false

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A sentence represents a

proposition (a claim about the world that can be true or false),

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knowing the meaning of a sentence is knowing its

truth conditions

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Often, knowing just the truth conditions does not suffice. We must also know the different ————- a sentence makes

inferences