Questions tagged [semantics]
Semantics is the study of meaning, used to understand expressions through language.
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Do "only if..." and "if... only then..." have the same LF representation?
I'm currently writing a term paper where I am comparing if... then..., only if..., and if... only then... statements.
I've noticed that only if p q and if p, only then q have the same truth conditions ...
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Do most semanticists maintain that there is a distinction between secondary agents and tools?
I've heard some people say that there are two types of instrument: secondary agents and tools.
A secondary agent is something that accomplishes a task when the agent wields it. So we CAN say ...
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Is there evidence that English speakers associate black with bad and/or white with good
Prompted by the recent move towards replacing the terms "blacklist" and "whitelist", I wonder if there is research around the topic of how people feel about the words "black&...
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How was excession expressed in Proto-Germanic?
The state of excession (of an adjective) is indicated differently accross Germanic languages.
West Germanic Languages (E: too long, Du: te lang, G: zu lang) build it by the use of descendants from ...
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How does the Natural Semantic Metalanguage deal with proper names?
The natural semantic metalanguage gives definitions of common words in terms of semantic primes, as can be found here.
I am curious, however, as to how the NSM deals with proper names (or does it?) ...
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Do puns necessarily involve referring to two (or more) extant words?
What exactly constitutes a pun? Do the words in the pun have to both be extant, or can one be a nonce/nonsense word? — Over the years, I've heard numerous usages of "puns" where one word in the ...
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Any examples of any language bifurcating the past into past before one's life and past during one's life?
It can be either from a conlang or a natlang but I wasn't able to find any examples.
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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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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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How would languages that use an absolute frame of reference say that the heart is on the left side of the body?
In languages that use a relative frame of reference we can say that the heart is on the left side of the body, and no matter what direction you are facing that is true. But in an absolute frame of ...
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Term for universally-used quote with additional, non-compositional meaning
There exist certain fixed expressions which people use to convey quite specific meanings and (at least to me) always invoke a famous saying which is assumed to be common knowledge, such as
I am not a ...
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Using (e.g.) Stanford NLP for retrieving specific “indirect” objects
I am a computer scientist using Stanford NLP for extracting a Semantic Graph from plain text.
Through this tool I am already getting the universal dependencies but now I want to get all the possible ...
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Is there count/mass distinction in European Portuguese as it is in English?
It is said that European Portuguese has count/mass distinction as many Indo-European languages. However I noticed out that all products/items at stores in Portugal are labeled in singular form. In ...
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Tool for manually POS tagging texts
I'm interested if there is a text or set of texts where each word is correctly POS tagged.
I know there are algorithms that can associate POS tags to the words, but there are always many of ...
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Why must adversative coordination be binary?
At Glottopedia we read that adversative coordination expresses semantic contrast between the coordinands. In English, adversative coordination is usually accomplished with “but,” as in these sentences....
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Is "non-existent" a privative adjective?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privative_adjective
Is "non-existent" a privative adjective like "imaginary", "fictional", "hypothetical", etc.?
user43077
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Is there a "Range" Phrase?
Is anyone aware of any discussion in linguistics of the possibility of a "range" phrase? As I tentatively conceive of the range phrase, a true range phrase refers to a readily identifiable ...
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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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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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Question on the semantic role of the objects of verbs indicating prevention
It goes without saying that the title of this question is perhaps rather prolix, so allow me to illustrate what I mean.
Consider the below sentence.
The man's heroic actions prevented the innocent ...
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On modality and semantic roles
Do modal verbs (can, may, must, etc.) in any way affect the semantic roles of the arguments of the verbs that they govern?
For example, consider the simple sentence:
He plays basketball.
Here, if I ...
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A question regarding semantics of "only"
I have a question regarding semantics of only provided by Beaver & Clark (2009) and Chierchia (2013).
for something like "Sandy only met [Bush]F" (let this proposition be called p). ...
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Are there tests for conditionality?
I am looking for ways to test whether something that (at least superficially) looks like a conditional actually has the necessary properties to qualify as one. Are there any such established semantic ...
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Inverse scope reading
It is well known that any sentence with two or more quantifiers will result in in multiple possible readings depending on the ordering of the quantifiers. To take a known example (1), there will be ...
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What is the difference between theta-role, theta-grid and argument?
I know that theta-role has the distinctions like agent, theme, goal, etc., but all of them refer to entity, right? And argument can refer to both entity and sentence? Could you please explain them as ...
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Tools for converting text to logical form
What's the State of the Art in software for converting text to some sort of logical form? Pros and con's of different packages approaches, if more than one exists?
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Which are the social differences which lead to the variance in the way to address a person?
My question is: Which are the social differences which lead to the variance in the way to address a person?
An example of the difference is T-V distinction some languages abolished it while others ...
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Grammar induction from grammaticality rules
Let's have formalisation of grammaticality judgments in some deduction system. Is it possible to learn/induce grammar from rules that govern grammaticality judgments? Is there theory, that connects ...
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Am I understanding semantic entailment correctly?
I'm trying to make sure I understand entailment properly, but my prof basically said two sentences that only briefly explained what entailment is, and he's not teaching this course with a textbook.
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Is there a phrasal verb corpus somewhere online?
I'm working on a project where I have syntactic frames in the form of something like "N.agent V PP.stimulus", where each PP consists of a P and a N.
I have a set list of verbs, and a list of PPs for ...
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Connections between combinatory categorial grammars and abstract categorial grammars?
Are there connections/translation or common tools usage/adaptation between combinatory (concrete) categorial grammars (incl. Lambek calculus) and abstract categorial grammars? Can tools for one of ...
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Languages where smells are heard
In Russian, one can use the verb слышать ([ˈslɨʂətʲ], "hear") with both sounds and smells, though it's more common to use чувствовать ([ˈt͡ɕustvəvətʲ], "feel") for smells. Example from Wiktionary:
...
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Semantic roles of "tell"
What is the semantic/thematic/theta role of the object in a sentence like "John told Mary to go home."? Is it EXPERIENCER? Or is that only for sentences like "Mary heard what John said."? Is it GOAL? ...
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What makes a sentence difficult to understand?
When I learned Swedish I noticed I went through two phases of learning with regard to understanding the language. First I had to learn the meaning of common words. For example, "mening" means both "...
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Which annotation software can I use to annotate scope and focus?
I'm looking for an annotation software (no matter which OS), which lets me annotate focus and scope, as user-friendly as possible, e.g., via console input, or via a graphical editor (mouse-supported). ...
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Are there languages with separate words for 'mouth opening' and 'mouth cavity'?
I am looking for languages which have separate words for the visible opening of the mouth (the external part, including or not including the lips), and the cavity (the internal part). Put another way, ...
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Slot filling corpora
I was wondering if anyone knows of slot filling corpora such as ATIS. I tried finding ATIS but since I am not a member of LDC I couldnt get access to it. Do you know of any place where I can find a ...
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Sememe and semanteme
I'm not sure I understand what is the relationship between sememes and semantemes.
I have the following definitions :
A sememe is a semantic content of a lexeme.
A semanteme is a unit which together ...
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Dependency grammar based dictionary
A presupposition of constructing the dependency semantic structure of a sentence is the knowledge of semantic features of all sentence's semantemes (actants, semantemes' nature as predicate or name ...
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How does an opaque context come about in adverbials?
I cannot get my head around examples (19) and (20) in Maienborn & Schäfer (2011) (in v. Heusinger, Maienborn & Portner (eds), HSK 33.2). How is it that necessarily (as an epistemic adverbial) ...
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How to interpret Givón's (1981) implicational scale for indefinite articles developed from numeral 'one'?
I'm having trouble understanding the implicational scale for indefinite articles developed from numeral 'one' given by T Givón (1981: 50-52).
T. Givón in his paper "On the development of the ...
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How to show the difference between the opaque reading and the transparent reading via syntax?
Is there any way using any version of Generative Grammar (EST, REST, GB, MP) to show the difference between "the transparent reading" and "the opaque reading" of the same line ...
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Are argument clauses and verbal expressions individual constants or individual variables (or perhaps individual predicate-argument constants)?
I am studying first order predicate logic in the context of formal semantics for natural language. Propositions are understood in terms of predicates and their arguments. A given predicate takes 0 to ...
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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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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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Why is 'before' a Downward Entailing Operator, but 'after' is not?
I'm a teaching assistant for a linguistics class and I'm having a hard time finding a clear and concise way to explain the difference between "before" and "after" re: entailment.
...
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What counts as a factive verb in terms of presupposition triggers?
Though words like knew or realised are commonly know factive verbs that trigger presupposition. Does verbs like enjoyed, paid, looking forward, commended and delighted also count as factive verbs ...
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Database of Words and their Semantic Entropies?
I'm reading up on semantic entropies and it seems as though there aren't any actual databases of words and their associated semantic entropies for any given methodology. For instance, this study has a ...
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On semantic roles
What is the semantic role of the direct object in the below sentence? If I'm not mistaken, the answer is 'patient' (since 'He' is doing something [in this case, 'crossing'] to the river). However, I ...
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Troponym vs hyponym vs hypernym
I came across following table in Jurafsky's book:
Note that it calls noun subordinate as "hyponym" and verb subordinate as "troponym". But it names both noun superordinate and ...
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