Questions tagged [semantics]
Semantics is the study of meaning, used to understand expressions through language.
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What's the term used to describe the words are used to explain sets? [closed]
I would like to know what scientific term is used to describe the words that explain sets
For example
Part of
Belongs to
An element of
Member of
Partly
Composed of
To put it differently, all the words ...
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sense and denotation of predicates [closed]
My question is about whether or not functions as an extensional predicate.
And: What is the meaning of "predicate and denotation of the predicate"?
I now understand the answer is no. I will ...
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Research on Preposition semantics
Is there any literature on preposition semantics available online?
Much of it is centered around spatial prepositions but what I want to know is more general approaches to the subject matter.
Thank ...
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Relation Between Unreal & Past Tense Forms
Background
I am learning English grammar. Having been confused about modal usage, I decided to pick out a book on the subject, coming to "Modality and the English Modals" by F. R. Palmer. In ...
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Is there a linguistic term for a term in a language refering to a specific technology, outliving said technology?
In language, phrases and various semantic expressions referring to technologies often make their way into the language, even if that technology is mostly obsolete.
Examples of this could include "...
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Paralinguistic features
If pragmatics deal with how the extralinguistic environment affects the interpratation of an utterance, which branch of linguistics deals with how the paralinguistic environment affects the ...
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Does a sound denote a thing and a word denote that sound or a word denote a thing a sound denote that word?
Recently, I picked up a book on mathematics that highlighted the importance of distinguishing between a word and what it represents. Now, if only words and things that they denote were involved in ...
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"Guys" losing its gendered meaning in American English [migrated]
*Disclaimer - I have very little knowledge of semantics, and I am mostly just a phonetics enthusiast. Thus, my question and the way I explain it may be unprofessional or may lack linguistic rigor.
I'm ...
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Can an inference be be an implicature and also a presupposition?
A sentence like ‘the boy stopped working’ gives the inference that he was working before. Is this inference an implicature or a presupposition? Is it possible that it is both?
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Why are reflexives prohibited in partitive constructions?
In a partitive construction, reflexives do not usually occur:
Julie and Bob are talking about the two of them/*themselves.
The following example is from COCA:
The men, all of them, stared into ...
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Denotation of common nouns
Do common nouns have any singular 'denotation' or do all of them denote entirely contextually? For example in 'a car' is 'car' denoting a type of object and the entire phrase describing an object of ...
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What is the difference between if and if-then?
According to [33]. Davis, W. (1983). Weak and strong conditionals. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 64(1), 57-71., there exist two versions of if conditional as shown below.
(1) a. If it is humid, ...
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Using 'is' after non-denoting phrases
Usually 'is' can be an identity statement 'John is my boss' or a predication like 'John is angry', how about using 'is' for something that refers to no particular idea or object?
For example 'a ...
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Semantics- predicate calculus and quantifiers
I have a sentence of "No A is B" (No child is sad)
I been given 2 formulas:
¬∃x[C(x) ⋀ S(x)]
∀x[C(x) →¬ S(x)]
I needed to show that they are the same by deriving the truth conditions.
I got ...
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Judgment about obligatory de se reading
(1) John himself said he hates himself.
(2) John said he hates himself.
In sentence (1), does he obligatorily refer to John? Or it can refer to other people as well like in sentence (2).
In more ...
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Relationship of spoken and written language and truth of sentences
I am not entirely sure if this is the appropriate site and whether these are the appropriate tags for this topic, so if that is not the case, please feel free to let me know.
I never thought twice ...
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Question about the application of skolem function in linguistics
I came across skolem function a lot when I read the literature. I have a hard time understanding the complicated interpretation online from Wikipedia
An example can be given below:
This procedure is ...
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Is there a term for "if" statements not intended as conditions, like "if you want"
I might say, "There is food in the fridge, if you want, Fred."
I do not mean that food in the fridge will only exist if Fred wants it to exist.
I mean, "There is food in the fridge, [...
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What is the nature of punctuation marks, are they paralinguistc features; where are they studied?
I am not sure I understand the distinction between paralinguistic and extralinguistic.
Let's eat, grandma. Here, grandma is the adressee of the message, the actor (invited). Grandma is the one to eat.
...
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Using 'it' in sentences with indefinite noun phrases
I was looking at indefinite noun phrases like 'a man' or specifically sentences of this form:
'If I were to bring a chicken home, my dog would try to eat it.
Why is it that 'a chicken' does not refer, ...
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Denoting with 'ambiguous descriptions'
I understand why definite descriptions like 'the king of england' are denoting phrases according to Russell, but why does he suggest that 'a king' is equivalent to 'some king'?
In 'On denoting', ...
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Definite descriptions and 'concrete numbers' in language
'Concrete numbers' are a type of phrase consisting of a number and a unit expressed with a noun, such as 'two metres', 'three apples' etc. Historically called numerus numeratus
Take '5 men', it does ...
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Does epistemic modality include logical possibility?
Are all epistemically necessary propositions necessarily logically possible?
According to the definitions used in common by McCawley's 1993 'Everything that linguists have always wanted to know about ...
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What is 'deontic modality' really? How to tell it apart from epistemic?
I have to walk the dog is deontic modality. I had to walk the dog is also deontic. But I must have walked the dog is epistemic (I am pretty sure) because the speaker means that, according to what they ...
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Can clauses with transitive verbs that stand for experiences be passivized across the attested languages that have passive voice?
In English, verbs that stand for experiences (e.g. see, hear, sense, notice, realize) can occur in passive forms and clauses as we see in these examples:
"Tommy sees the baby sloth." --&...
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Why can't pronouns inside of a coordinated NP refer to -human
Anna Cardinaletti and Michal Starke (1999)'s paper discusses the fact that it is always true that a coordinated personal pronoun cannot refer to a non-human entity.
My question is why it is true.
I ...
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Why are these words lacking picturesque meaning?
I was thinking about words that would be as hard as possible to mime (for example, in a game like Charades).
I thought of some words - “the”, “of”, “as”, “a”, “if”, “general”, “abstract”.
Consider how ...
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Do predicates always map to truth values in formal semantics?
I have been informed here What is the difference between function and predicate? that in formal semantics, predicates are always functions that map from individuals (i.e. arguments) to truth values. ...
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Is polysemy inevitable in all language including mathematics, and why?
Several languages (including Mathematics) use polysemy.
My question is why?
Specially in mathematics, where precision is important, polysemy seems to be undesirable but it seems it is inevitable in ...
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Is binding semantic?
Does binding theory occur in syntax or semantics?
Personally, I think the index of the pronouns is semantic because who it refers to is interpreted in the meaning, which should be regarded as ...
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What is the difference between function and predicate?
I am currently watching videos on formal semantics in Youtube. I find that the terms function and predicate are used a lot and that what they mean is similar. Functions take one or more arguments, and ...
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How do you write "in" in logical form?
"There is a beer in the fridge."
There exists a beer and there exists a fridge such that the beer is in the fridge.
\exists x [BEER(x)] \exists y [FRIDGE(y)] IN(x,y)
I guess I never ...
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Is there a controlled language that controls discourse?
Attempto Controlled English can be used to require people to use a particular kind of English, for standardization.
Is there any controlled language that controls not only the grammar and vocabulary ...
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Are there four potential readings in the examples?
I read that Fiengo & May (1994: 115-117) points out that through the analysis of strict and sloppy readings in elliptical environments, it has shed light not only on more general notions of ...
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why is this ambiguous sentence disambiguated in its wh-question form?
The sentence 'I saw the man in the room' is ambiguous (either I was in the room and saw a man, or the man was in the room and I saw him)
If we transform it into a wh-question, 'In which room did you ...
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Meaning in Original vs. Summarized Texts
I've been wondering for a while now if it is possible to compare two texts - an original text and a summarized/simplified version of it in terms of meaning?
Specifically, whether or not meaning is ...
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Is there any constructed language that builds concepts from primitives?
I know about semantic primitives but I was curious about a usable system where you actually construct words out of those primes.
The idea is to have a keyboard of the primes and to build concepts by ...
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Why are "eat" and "drink" different words in languages?
In theory, the words "eat" and "drink" are fundamentally the same action to me: putting something (...edible?) in your mouth. Oftentimes when speaking English, I confuse the words &...
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What is a modern framework for a “complete” description of a concept’s content?
I am wondering if there is a theory/field/framework in linguistics today which attempts to explicitly describe completely the intrinsic content of a “concept”.
Of course, concepts reside in the mind-...
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What languages use a conceptual parallel to the Hebrew verb ירש?
The Hebrew verb ירש is loosely translated to mean "inherit," but does not quite mean the same thing as the English word inherit because the Hebrew verb refers to an heir inheriting his ...
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Types of transliteration and/or translation
There are cases where abbreviations or proper names like brands get transliterated/translated differently. This question is asking whether there are linguistic names for these phenomena, e.g.
The ...
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What is the difference between an implicature and a presupposition
I have been reading on pragmatics from Levinson, Yule, Cadzar etc. English is not my native language, though i can understand basic concepts such as maxims, implicatures and its types(generalized, ...
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Is telicity a property of verbs or predicates?
In English, the verb "walk" is atelic. One could in principle walk indefinitely. Fatigue and aging limit the activity, but that fact is not an inherent part of the meaning of the verb. ...
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What is the term for a phrase that connects two objects with some relation?
In mathematics, we usually see symbols that join two objects: numbers, sets, etc. The more familiar one is the equality symbol "=" which in a formal standpoint means "is logically ...
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Do sentences that mutually entail each other have similar predicate-argument structures?
An active sentence entails its passive counterpart, and vice versa. Thus, the two sentences John likes Joan and Joan is liked by John mutually entail each other. My question in this regard concerns ...
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What's the opposite of semantic parsing?
Semantic parsing is the task of translating natural language into a formal meaning representation on which a machine can act.
What's the opposite called? I.e. "translating a logical formalism ...
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'Long stories are easy to tell to the children' and 'The children are easy to tell long stories to' - entailment?
What is the entailment pattern across the next two sentences: Long stories are easy to tell to the children and The children are easy to tell long stories to?
I am studying entailment patterns and I ...
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Semantic class of a word?
I read about the term semantic class and I can't quite figure it out.
Can anyone please explain to me with examples when 2 words are in the same semantic class?
Can a plural word can be in the same ...
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Giving a technical description of Greek Circumstantial / Adverbial Participles
I am looking for a good way to articulate a technical description of the function of Greek circumstantial participles (alternately called adverbial participles). This is my first-pass attempt at doing ...
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Formalizing Natural Languages
I've been interested in the subject of metalanguages [in mathematical logic] and how (if) we can formalize them. Most metalanguages I've encountered use some variation of a natural language (such as ...
