Recap

Expression Meaning isn’t Utterance Understanding.

The semantic content of a linguistic expression is fundamental to constructing an understanding of an utterance of that expression in context.

But it is not to be confused with the understanding in context.

The expression meaning of a linguistic expression is constant across contexts. It is indexical to context in many respects.

Developing Content-in-Context
(“Utterance Meaning”)

A (logically) first step in developing an utterance understanding is to instantiate the expression’s meaning in the context by (at least):

· Resolving the (intended) reference of certain expressions (demonstratives, pronouns, definite descriptions).

· Anchoring other indexical elements.

· Accommodating a frame in which degrees of precision, standards of comparison, etc. are interpreted.

These are processes that resolve indeterminacy and limit vagueness.

Ambiguity Defined

Note that to use an expression meaning to construct an utterance interpretation requires that the interpreter identify the expression that was uttered.

This is a non-trivial task.

When the speaker can’t or doesn’t determine which expression has been uttered, there is a perception of ambiguity.

Ambiguity results from incomplete disambiguation: failure to determine which linguistic expression has been uttered.

Multiple Interpretations:
Indeterminacy/vagueness or Ambiguity?

1. The clowns all sat on Jumbo’s trunk.

2. Sandra talked to Maria about her aunt.

3. The chancellor told the proctor to stop drinking in the dorms.

4. I didn’t buy an SUV because it uses a lot of gas.

Word Meanings (Lexical semantics)

Counting lexical items

lexeme or lexical item – connects a meaning with a cluster of grammatical properties. We refer to it with a citation form (dictionary form, lemma).

This is the linguistically significant unit of lexical meaning.

Lexemes can be realized in multiple grammatical forms, each of which has a pronunciation and orthographic representation.

Lexical ambiguity

When we say a word out of context is lexically ambiguous, we usually mean that the pronunciation or spelling before us is consistent with more than one lexeme.

When we say the use of a word in context is lexically ambiguous, we usually mean that the syntactic context, discourse topic, and an assessment of “plausibility” isn’t sufficient to make a determinate choice of lexeme in context.

Polysemy

A lexeme’s meaning will often have many related variants. These variants are (sub)senses of the meaning. A lexeme with multiple senses is polysemous.

Intuitions of ambiguity may also be associated, both in and out of context, with polysemy. It isn’t always easy to decide whether an ambiguity is due to polysemy (within one lexeme) or “polylexy”, multiple lexemes.

Lexical semantics is the theory of how to describe the meanings of the lexemes of a language.

Phrase and sentence meanings
(Compositional semantics)

Meanings for phrases and sentences depend upon the meanings of their constituent parts.

The meaning of a phrase (or sentence) depends upon how the meanings of their constituent parts are assembled into a coherent meaning for the phrase.

Compositional semantics studies how coherent meanings for linguistic expressions are assembled from the lexical meanings of their atomic constituents.

The Syntax-Semantics Interface

The fundamental question of the syntax-semantics interface is:

How is the syntactician’s notion of grammatical structure related to the way in which lexical meanings are assembled into phrasal and sentence meanings?

Different answers to this fundamental question yield different ideas about “logical form”.

Next Time:

· Implications, undeniable and deniable.

· Criteria for representing sentence meanings/structures of composition.

· Ontological considerations.

Suggested Reading:

· Löbner, chapters 1 and 3. Chapter 2 recommended, but not part of course exposition.

· de Swart, chapters 1 and 2.