Introduction to Linguistics Summary

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Theoretical Linguistics
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Core areas of Theoretical Linguistics:

* Phonetics (speech sound analysis)
* Phonology (analysis of the function of speech sounds)
* Lexicon
* Syntax
* Sematics
* Pragmatics
* Discourse
Theoretical Linguistics is seen from a Chomskyan point of view.

Main questions of Theoretical Linguistics:

* What is the nature of the cognitive language system?
* How do we acquire this system?
* How is this system used in speaking and understanding?
* How is this system repesented in the brain?

Knowing a language: Having a mental representation of its grammar.

Competence: The theoretical abstract ability of doing something. (Theorie)

Performance: The actual solving of a task. (Praxis)

Extension of a word: The set of entities denoted by the word.

Referent of a word: An element of the word's extension.

Learning of a language: According to Chomsky, language is not learned like other faculties because
* There is no stimulus for learning
* There is no explicit instruction (resp. instructing children to learn their mother tongue does not work)
Hence there must be an innate language faculty.

Innate language faculty, Universal Grammar, UG: Built-in, species- specific (i.e. human) faculty of
acquiring a language. It characterizes the concept of a possible human language. The UG combines
with external experience of linguistic data and forms a language-specific grammar.

Relevance of grammar: Linguistic processing is not just grammar.

Grammar accords no rule to the plausibility of linguistic
utterances.

Plausibility: (?)

Language in the brain: Information on the location of the language system in the brain can be acquired
from
* brain lesions
* imaging techniques (e.g. event-related potentials, ERP)
* specific language impairments (SLIs)
It has been found out that Broca's area is responsible for language production (Broca = Broduction :-)
while Wernicke's area is responsible for language comprehension.

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History of Linguistics
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Early romanticism, humanism (180x):

People studied historical-comparative linguistics as part of the study of culture.
Researchers: Friedrich Schlegel ("Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Inder"), Wilhelm von Humboldt,
Johann Gottfried Herder, Franz Bopp.

Becoming scientific (182x):

Grimm's law marked the beginning of the desire to make linguistics a scientific domain.

Grimm's law (Jacob Grimm 1822): Words morph according to certain "sound shifts" from Proto-Indo-
European to Proto-Germanic.
Example: unaspirated (p,t,k) -> asprirated (f,th,h), "pied" -> "foot".
These laws succeed in the majority of cases but still have exceptions.

Neogrammarian view (1878):

The desire to find language rules with no exceptions was written down in the "Neogrammarian
manifesto" of 1878. Nevertheless, people were aware of the fact that analyzing language would also
have a
historical, a social and a psychological dimension.
Researchers: Karl Brugmann, Berthold Delbrueck, Hermann Paul.

From History to structure (1916):

De Saussures Structuralism founded the study of language as a structure. Facts outside this system
(like culture or society) were considered less important.

Structuralism (Ferdinand de Saussure, 1916): Studying language as a structure where everything fits
with everything else ("ou tout setient").
* Language is seen as a system of signs (i.e. a structure of relations). This means that every element
of language is understood by its relation to the other elements. The basic relations are paradigmatic
and syntagmatic relations.
* Distinction between "la parole" and "la langue".
* Priority of spoken language
* Descriptive, not prescriptive linguistics
* Priority of synchronic, not diachronic study of language
* The linguistic sign is arbitrary

Synchronic: Concerning the current state.

Diachronic: Concerning the process of one state in time to another.

La Parole: Human speech.

La Langue: The language system behind "la parole".

Paradigmatic relation: A and B are in a paradigmatic relation if one can be substituted by the other.
Example: The words "John" and "Peter" are in a paradigmatic relation because "John" can be
substituted by "Peter" in a sentence like "John is running".
All elements that can occur in the same context are paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic relation: A and B are in a syntagmatic relation if A follows B or B follows A.

Example: The words "John" and "runs" are in a syntagmatic relation because one precedes the other
in a sentence like "John runs".

Linguistic sign, signe: Arbitrary association of a sound and a concept.

The concept ("le signifie") is described by a sound image ("le signifiant"). The relation is arbitrary, i.e.
it the signifie cannot be determined by the signifiant or vice versa without explicit knowledge about
the relation.

American Structuralism (1930):

Linguistics was seen as a scientific explanation of linguistic behavior (behaviorism). Speech was seen
as a substitute social action, where a stimulus (language) triggered a conditioned response (an action
or an answer). No speculation was done about the process in between (a black box process).
Researchers: Leonard Bloomflied ("Language", 1933), Edward Sapir ("Language", 1921), Zellig Harris
("Methods in structural
linguistics", 1951).

Aspects of a sign (Morris 1938):

A linguistic sign has three aspects:
* Its relation to other signs (syntax)
* Its reference to a real world object (semantics)
* Its use (pragmatics)

Mentalism (1950):
Chomsky began concentrating on language competence rather than on performance and founded
"Mentalism":
* Focus on the speakers knowledge of language (competence)
* Notion of linguistic creativity
* Importance of grammar
* Empirical testing of deductively developed theories
* Idea of a universal grammar

Linguistic creativity: The human ability to generate infinitively many sentences.

Structuralist Phonology (Trubetzkoy): Linguistic sounds receive their identity not from their physical
quality, but from their distinctiveness. (s.b. -> "Phonology")

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The sounds of language
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Speech sounds: All sounds which

* serve communication and
* are produced by the human speech organs.
Human speech organs:
* Lungs
* human vocal organs

Human vocal organs:

Here is a list of the most important human vocal organs
* Nasal cavity (Nasenhoehle)
* Hard palate (harter Gaumen)
* Alveolar ridge (Zahnansaetze)
* Soft palate, velum (weicher Gaumen)
* Tip of the tonue, apex (Zungenspitze)
* Dorsum (Zungenruecken)
* Uvula (Zaepfchen)
* Radix
* Pharynx (Rachen)
* Epiglottis
* False vocal cords
* True vocal cords :-)
* Larynx (Kehlkopf)
* Esophagus
* Trachea
(?) Translation still missing for all of these
Sound spectogram: Graphical representation of a sequence of sound frequencies.

Phonetics: The study of speech sounds independent of their role and function in language. Studies the
following properties of sounds:
* physical, physiological, acoustic properties
* articulatory properties
* auditory properties

Segmentation: Dividing a continuous speech into a list of elements.

Classification: Establishing categories of similar sound elements.

Vowel classification, vowel quadrilateral: Categorizing vowels in a two-dimensional matrix according

to their frequency (high, middle, low) and location of production in the mouth (front, central, back).

Consonant classification: Categorizing consonants according to

* their manner
* plosive
* frictative
* nasal
* liquid
* semivowel
* their place of production (cf. ->"Human vocal organs")
* labial (lips)
* dental (teeths)
* labiodental (lips+teeth)
* alveolar (gums)
* palatal (palate)
* palate-alveolar (gums+palate)
* velar (soft palate)
* glottal (glottis)
* their voicing
* plus voicing (like "b", "d")
* minus voicing (like "p", "t")

The international phonetic alphabet, IPA (revised 1993): Mapping of combinations of phonetic
properties to signs.
Example: The fricative labiodental sound is described by "f".

Phone: A speech sound as classified by the IPA.

Phonology: The study of the role and function of speech sounds in language. Phonology thus does not
care for
* color of voice
* stammering
* stuttering etc.
What matters are the phonemes.

Phoneme: A category of phones which differ in a way which is not linguistically relevant. Redundant
(i.e. predictable) sound differences do not count as linguistically relevant. Phonemes are particular to
a language. A phoneme is defined by a minimal pair.

Minimal pair: A pair of two different words which in their phonetical form just differ in one sound.
Example: "fill" and "feel" demonstrates that the difference between [i] and [i:] is linguistically relevant.
Thus, [i] and [i:] belong to two different phonemes.

Complementary distribution: A and B are complementary distributed, if they never occur together. If
A and B are phones and are complementary distributed, their occurance is predictable (if A, then not
B) and hence redundant.

Phonetic variant of a phoneme, allophone of a phoneme: One of those phones which belong to the
phoneme. The differences between the allophones/phonetic variants of one phoneme are not
linguistically relevant.
Examples:
* In German, [s] and [th] are phonetic variants, since mixing them up (as do lisperers) does not change
words
* In English, the difference between [ei] and [e:i] in "mate" vs. "made" is a phonetic variant since it is
determined by context: [ei] and voiced consonants appear in complementary distribution, either there
is a [ei] or there is a voiced consonant.
* In English, the difference between aspirated and unaspirated plosives (as in "pit" vs. "spit") is a
phonetic variant: At the beginning of a word, the plosive is aspirated while after an [s], it is not. The
pattern is hence predictable and thus redundant.
* In Chinese, [l] and [r] are phonetic variants, while in English, they are not (minimal pair: "low" vs.
"row").
* In Spanish, [v] and [b] are phonetic variants, while in English, they are not (minimal pair: "vat" vs.
"bat").

Relevance of Context: Two phonetically identical utterances may have different meanings depending
on the context.
Example:
It's hard to recognize speech.
It's hard to wreck a nice beach.

Universal Phonology (Jakobson 1951): The approach to describe phoneme differences for all human
languages in terms of a universal inventory of distinctive features.

Suprasegmental phonology, prosody: The study of linguistically relevant properties of speech sound
that are not properties of phonetic speech elements (like word stress and sentence stress).

Word stress: Emphasis of a word, sometimes resulting in different meanings (e.g. "UMfahren" vs.
"umFAHRen"). Thus, word stress is linguistically relevant and belongs to the domain of phonology.

Sentence stress: Emphasis of a sentence, sometimes resulting in different meanings (e.g. questions vs.
claims). Thus, sentence stress is linguistically relevant and belongs to the domain of phonology.

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Morphology
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Morphology: The study of the formation of new words.

Word: Undefined syntactic constituent of a linguistic utterance. Pragmatic definition: Roughly

everything that goes between two interpunctuation marks or blanks in a written sentence. According
to this definition, "and" and "and" are two different words, since they occur in different places of the
sentence. (cf. "Counting the words of a text.")

Word form: A category of equivalent words.

Example: The different words "went", "went" and "went" all belong to the same word form, namely
"went" Word forms may by grammatically ambiguous, i.e. in many cases you cannot tell the
grammatical function of a word form without its context.

Lexeme, lemma: An category of related word forms, usually written in uppercase.

Example: the word form "went" and the word form "goes" belong to the lexeme "GO"

Grammatical word: A word form plus an unambiguous grammatical description.

Example: "sleep 1st person singular present"
or "sleep 1st person plural present"

Homonym: A graphic form (word form) which realizes different, semantically unrelated lexemes.
Example: "bank"

Homophon: A phonological form which realizes different lexems.

Example: [rait] ("right", "rite", "write")

Synonym: A word is a synonym of another word if both have the same meaning.
Example: "boat" is synonymous to "ship"

Polysem: A word which has different, though related meanings.

Example: "work" can either be a verb or a noun
Antonym: A word is an antonym of another word if their meaning is opposed. This opposition may be
binary (as in "dead" vs. "alive") or scalar (as in "hot", "arm", "cold").

Hyperonym: Superconcept.
Example: "vehicle" is a hyperonym of "car"

Hyponym: Subconcept.
Example: "car" is a hyponym of "vehicle"

Ambiguous expression: An expression which has multiple meanings.

Lexical ambiguity: The ambiguity resulting from homonyms.

Example: "bank"

Syntactical ambiguity: The ambiguity resulting from an unclear grammatical structure of a sentence.
The ambiguity can be resolved by specifying a PS for the sentence.
Example: "They were visiting relatives"

Morph: A minimal constituent of a word which carries meaning.

Morpheme: A category of morphs which carry the same meaning.

Free morpheme: A morpheme which may occur as a single word.

Example: "house"

Bound morpheme, affix: A morpheme which can not occur as a single word.
Examples: "-ly", "-ion", "-ness", "un-", ...

Root: A simple morpheme that can take affixes.

Example: "agree"

Stem, base: A stem is ((a root) or (a stem plus an affix)).

Examples: "establish" in "establishment", "disagree" in "disagreement"

Allomorph of a morpheme: A morph which belongs to this morpheme.

Allomorphs of one morpheme carry the same meaning.

Phonological allomorph: An allomorph which is different from other allomorphs of the same
morpheme by a distinction in sound.
Example: "cats" [kats] and "dogs" [dogz]

Lexical allomorph: An allomorph which is different from other allomorphs of the same morpheme by
a distinction in writing.
Example: "knives" and "indices"

Allomorphic variation: The differences between two allomorphs of the same morpheme.

Suppletion: The fact that the stems of two word forms of the same lexeme differ.

Partial suppletion: The fact that the stems of two word forms of the same lexeme differ, although they
are still similar.
Ablaut suppletion: Special form of partial suppletion where the stem vowel in one word form is
another than in the other word form.
Example: "drink", "drank", "drunk"

Full suppletion: The fact that the stems of two word forms of the same lexeme are completely
different.
Example: "good", "better", "best"

Portemanteau morph: A morph which simultaneously belongs to several morphemes.

Examples: "te" in German "legte" realizes past tense and 3rd person singular.

Cranbery morph: A morph which only occurs as a constituent of one word.

Examples: "cran" in "cranberry", "Schorn" in "Schornstein"

Inflection: The fact that different word forms belong to one lexeme.
Examples: "amo", "ami", "ama", "amiamo", "amate", "amano"

Inflectional category: A category of grammatical morphemes which are complementary. (?)

Example: The grammatical morphemes for "Plural" and "Singular" are complementary. Their
inflectional category is "number".

Inflectional categories of nouns:

(with their complementary morphemes)
gender: masculine, feminine, neuter, ...
number: singular, plural, dual, trial, ...
case: nominative, dative, ...
class: animate, dangerous, ...
Different languages know different subsets of this incomplete list.

Inflectional categories of verbs:

(with their complementary morphemes)
person: 1st, 2nd, ...
number: singular, plural, ...
tense: past, future, ...
aspect, aktionsart: state, process, perfect, ...
modus: indicative, conjunctive, ...
polarity: negative, positive
Different languages know different subsets of this incomplete
list.

Word formation, morphological process: The process of building new lexemes. Morphological
processes are highly constrained and only take place under certain conditions.

Concatenative word formation: The process of building a new word from combining morphemes with
other morphemes.

Derivation: A special concatenative word formation where a bound morpheme is combined with a
free morpheme.
Example: "verwert-bar"
Constraints on derivation:
* by parts of speech of base
Example: "-bar" can only be attached to verbs
* by syntactic properties of base
Example: "-bar" can only be attached to transitive verbs
* by sematic properties of base
Example: "Ge-e" can not be attached to stative verbs
* by (morpho)phonological properties of the base
Example: bases ending in "-lich" can take "-keit" but not "-heit"
* by morphological character of base
Example: "Ge-e" only with unprefixed verbs
* by origin of base
Example: "-abel" only with foreign nouns
* various semantic constraints

Compounding: A special concatenative word formation where two free morphemes are combined.
Example: "Haus-Boot"

Compound: A word resulting from compounding. The meaning of a compound is undetermined and
cannot be predicted without knowing the word.

lexicalized compound: A compound whose meaning cannot be derived well from the menaing of its
constituents.
Example: "kindergarten" is not a garden

Endocentric, determinative compound: A word of two morphemes (Modifier+Head) whose extension

is a subset of the head. The modifier adds a property to the head. The head fixes the syntactic
properties of the compound.
Endocentric compounding is highly productive in English and German.
Example: A house-boat is a kind of boat

Synthetic compound: A special endocentric compound where the modifier fills the argument slot of
the head.
Example: "cab driver"

Exocentric compound: A word whose extension is not a subset of the head's extension but rather
something new.

Possesive, bahuvrihi compound: A special exocentric compound which denotes a feature of its
referents.
Example: A "red hair" has red hair.

Copulative, dvandva compound: A special exocentric compound which denotes an entity made up of
the parts denoted by the compounded words.
Example: Austria-Hungary

Non-concatenative word formation: The process of building new words without appending
morphemes to other morphemes.

Conversion: A special non-concatenative word formation where the grammatical function of a word
is changed.
Example: "gruenen" from "gruen"

Clipping: A special non-concatenative word formation where parts of words are cut off.
Example: "Bus" from "Autobus"

Blending: A special non-concatenative word formation where parts of words which are not
morphemes are assembled to new words.
Example: "Smoke"+"Fog" becomes "Smog"

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Lexicon
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Lexicon: A list of free and bound morphemes which cannot be derived from the general rules. Even
phrasal morphemes (like "to take off") belong to the lexicon.
In contrast to word formation by the rules of morphology, the lexicon provides a faster access for
known and frequent words.

Criteria for listedness: Criteria for being listed in the lexicon.

* difficulty of deriving the linguistic properties according to rules ("non-transparency of composition")
* high frequency
* identity of meaning (?)

Data in the lexicon: The lexicon contains for each item

* the phonemic representation
* the ortogrpahic representation
* morphological properties
* syntactic (grammatical) properties
* sematic properties (aspects of its meaning)
* the concept representation (the main meaning)

Speech error: Mistake in speaking.

Spoonerism: A speech error involving a stem exchange.

Example: "I left the briefcase in my cigar"

Affix shift: A speech error where an affix which belongs to one word swapped to another.
Example: "I have forgot abouten that"

Function word shifts: A speech error where words of different grammatical function swapped. This
speech error does not occur.
Example: "I left the in my cigar briefcase"

Blocking: A process in which a listed item in the lexicon prevents the word formation of a new word.
Example: "went" blocks the creation of "goed"
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Grammar
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Phrase: A sequence of words which belong together.

Observation concerning speech pauses: Speech pauses tend to occur at phrase junctures.

Observation concerning repetitions and corrections: Repetitions and corrections tend to concern
whole phrases.

Unit of substitution: A set of paradigmatic words.

Grammar: Generative device which defines a language. It is a finite mechanism which generates an
infinite set of sentences. It is often described by a phrase marker.

Phrase Structure, PS, PS-grammar, constituent structure:

A set of rules how to construct complex language structures from simpler language structures. They
are of the form <identifier> -> <structure> where <structure> is one of the following
* <identifier> (e.g. "N" "V" "VP")
* <structure> + <structure> (indicating a combination)
* <structure> ( + <identifier> ) (indicating an optional part)
* { <identifier>, <identifier>, ... } (indicating a choice)

Example: S -> NP + VP
means "A sentence consists of a noun phrase an a verb phrase"

The rules thus define a linear order, a constituent structure (s.b.) and syntactic categories (s.b.).

Non-terminal, constituent: A structure of a PS-grammar, as denoted by an <identifier>.

Examples:
* S Sentence
* N Noun
* NP Noun Phrase
* V Verb
* VP Verb Phrase
* A Adjective
* P Preposition
* C Complement
* D Determiner (Article)
* DP Proper name

Phrase Marker: Graphical representation of a Phrase structure in form of a tree. The root of the tree
represents the most complex structure (in most cases "sentence") and its children are its constituents
(in most cases "NP" and "VP"). Every constituent is again a sub-tree of the same form down to basic
language
constituents. If a constituent consists of known sub-constituents, it can be "abbreviated" by a triangle.

Mother: A parent node in a phrase marker is called mother.

Daughter: A child node in a phrase marker is called daughter.

Sister: A child node in a phrase marker is called sister if there are other children of this node's mother.

Domination: Relation between a mother and a daughter in a phrase marker.

c-commanding: Relation between sisters in a phrase marker.

Terminal element, lexical item: A word of the language.

Lexical insertion: Defining terminal elements for a PS-grammar.

Rules of the form <identifier> -> {<word>, <word>, ...} specify which lexical items are appropriate for
insertion for a constituent.

Syntactic category, type, lexical category, part of speech, grammatical function of a word: The PS-
constituent the word belongs to.

Subcategorization: Making multiple different PS-constituents of one PS-constituent in order to be

more precise and prevent undesired output of the grammar.
Example: Introduce the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs to prevent sentences like
"John slept Franzerl."
Complement clause: A PS-constituent which contains a "sentence" as a constituent.
Example: CP -> C + S, "that *you go*"

General phrase structure: A phrase structure of the form

X'' -> Specifier + X'
X' -> X (+ Complement)
"X'" is also written as "XP".
All major constituents such as N, V, A, P, D show the general phrase structure pattern.

Head of phrase: The X of a general phrase structure. In English, this is the leftmost sub-constituent of
a XP. Lexical properties of the head are projected to the XP.

X' theory: The theory of general phrase structures. The X' theory is regarded to be part of the universal
grammar.
///// Something might be missing here (?)

head parameter: An additional information needed to build a general phrase structure, namely
whether X precedes the complement (parameter value is "left") or the complement precedes X
(parameter
value is "right"). In English, "left" is required, while in Japanese, "right" is required.

Test for constituent structure: A method of finding out which words of a sentence belong to the same
PS-constituent.

Substitution: A test for constituent structure involving the replacement of a word by another, near-
synonymous word. A terminal element of a PS-constituent can be replaced by another similar word.
Example: "John" and "Bob" belong to the same PS-constituent since they can be replaced for each
other in "John hit Franzerl".

Question formation: A test for constituent structure involving the trial to ask for a specific part of a
sentence. A constituent can be the answer to a question.
Example: John hit Franzerl. Who hit Franzerl? John.

Conjunction of constituents: A test for constituent structure involving the insertion of an "and" plus
another word. Identical constituents can be conjoined.
Example: "John (and Bob) hit Franzerl."

Pseudo-clifting: A test for constituent structure involving the construction of a sentence beginning
with "It is...". A constituent can be pseudo-clefted.
Example: "It is John who hit Franzerl."

Discontinuous constituents: Constituents which are spread over a sentence.

Example: "Fred called up Mary" or "Fred called Mary up"

Particle: Part of a discontinuos constituent.

Transformation: A re-arrangement of a phrase marker which preserves meaning.

Particle movement: A special transformation which moves the particle of a discontinuos constituent
to the correct place. Particle movements are mostly optional, but obligatory for object pronouns.
Example: "Mary called up him" -> "Mary called him up"

Specification of a transformation: A transformation is specified by a structural description (the

sequence of consituents before the transformation, each with a number) and structural change (a new
sequence of these numbers).
Example: "Mary called up Fred"
X V Particle NP
1 2 3 4
->
"Mary called Fred up"
1 2 4 3

Syntacic base, base component: The part of any language producing

system which
* contains all the generative power of the linguistic description
* accounts for constituent structure, categories, and linear order
* contains a Phrase Structure grammar (with) a lexicon (a set of transformations)

PF-LF-Pair: A sentence produced by the base component has a phonological interpretation (performed
by a phonological component and leading to a phonological form PF) and a semantic
interpretation (performed by a semantic component, leading to a logical form LF).

Yes-No-Question: A question requiring a binary answer.

Inversion: Changing the order of verb and subject of a sentence.

Example: "John hit Franzerl" -> "hit John Franzerl"

Yes-No-Question formation: The creation of a binary question by applying inversion. Works only if
there is an auxiliary verb which functions as the main verb.
Example: "It is cold" -> "Is it cold?"
Wh-questions: Questions containing one of the words "Who? Where? Why? What? How?" and
requiring a non-binary answer.

Wh-question formation:
* Generate the question-pronoun in the corresponding argument position
Example: "John's brother is who"
* Move the question pronoun to the beginning of the enclosing sentence ("Wh-movement"). This
results in a "gap" which still remains in a special relation to the question pronoun.
Example: "Who John's brother is ___"
* Apply inversion
Example: "Who is John's brother"

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Semantics
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Semantics: The study of meaning.

Types of meaning:
* linguistic meaning
* idiolect meaning
* language meaning
* dialect meaning
* regional meaning
* social meaning
* speaker meaning
* literal meaning
* non-literal meaning
* irony
* sarcasm
* metaphor

Meaning: A function from words or word constellations to entities or real world facts. Meaning cannot
be defined in terms of words because it is something outside the realm of language. The function
"Meaning_of(X)" is also written as "|| X ||".

Understanding a sentence: Knowing what is the case when the sentence is true (Wittgenstein).
Understanding a sentence is prior to knowing whether it is true.

Meaning of a sentence: The set of all situations where this sentence would be true.
Example: || "Peter sleeps" || = {s | Peter sleeps in s}
The meaning of a sentence is the meaning of its verb phrase applied to its Noun Phrase: || S || = ||
VP || ( || NP || )

Meaning of an intransitive verb: A function mapping an entity to a set of situations.

Example: sleeps(x) maps "Peter" to the set of all situations where Peter sleeps. (Note that you still
cannot tell which situations the verb "sleeps" applies to)
Meaning of a transitive verb: A function mapping the object of the verb to the meaning of an
intransitive verb.
Example: In "Peter kicks Franzerl", "kicks" is a function.
The result of "kicks(Franzerl)" is the meaning of an intransitive verb, namely "kicking_Franzerl". This
is again a function which, when applied to an entity (e.g. "Peter") returns the meaning
of a sentence: (kicks(Franzerl))(Peter).

Annotation: Transitive verbs are thus functions returning functions. This is only possible in very few
programming languages. Java is not one of them, but the same phenomenon can be obtained by an
array
containing arrays: kicks[FRANZERL][PETER]

Meaning of a proper name: The entity this proper name refers to.

Quantifier subject: A subject which does not denote a named entity.

Examples: "Nobody", "Everyody", "Somebody"

Meaning of a quantifier subject: The meaning of a quantifier subject is a function which maps a verb
(i.e. a function) to a set of situations where entities do the action expressed by the verb.
Example: In "Nobody sleeps", "nobody" is a function which needs another function as its argument.
We use "sleep" as an argument for "nobody" and "nobody" returns a set of situations where nobody
sleeps.

Semantic type: A formal symbol for carriers of meaning.

Examples:
"e" ("entity") is the semantic type for proper names
"p" ("proposition") is the semantic type for sentences
"<e,p>" is the semantic type for intransitive verbs, to be read as a function mapping an entity to a
proposition
"<p,p>" is the semantic type for sentence connectives, to be read as a function from propositions to a
proposition.
"<e,<e,p>>" is the semantic type for transitive verbs, to be read as a function mapping an entity to an
<e,p>
"<<e,p>,p>" is the semantic type for quantifiers, to be read as a function mapping an <e,p> to a p

Semantic rules: Rules for calculating with semantic types.

Example: VP<e,p>(DP<e>) = S<p> means:

An intransitive verb (a function from e to p) applied to an entity yields a proposition.

Example: (VP<e,<e,p>>(DP<e>))(DP<e>) = S<p>

A transitive verb (a function from e to <e,p>) applied to an entity yields an intransitive verb (a function
from e to p), which, when applied to another entity, returns a proposition.
Example: DP<<e,p>,p>(VP<e,p>) = S<p>

A quantifier subject (a function from a verb to a proposition) maps a verb phrase (a function from an
entity to a proposition) to a proposition.

Generalized quantifier subject: A quantifier subject or a proper name. Proper names can also be
regarded as functions from <e,p> to <p>, because they could map an activity/property to a set of
situations where this individual has this property. An individual is then regarded semantically as the
sets of all those
properties the individual has.

Sentence connective: A word connecting sentences and thus assembling a new sentence.
Examples: "and", "or", "although", ...

Meaning of a sentence connective: The meaning of a sentence connective cannot be given directly.
Rather, one specifies the meaning of the combination <sentence> + <connective> +
<sentence>. The meaning of a sentence connective cannot be given in form of a truth-table, because
this would ignore their discourse function. Only if one interprets semantics in a narrower sense
(ignoring the discourse function), truth-tables can describe connectives.

Discourse function of sentence connectives: Meaning of a sentence connective which can not be
expressed by a truth-table:
Sentence connectives
* express intentions not capured by a truth table
Example: "although" means not just "and", but implies a contradiction
* express a temporal order
Example: "He went home and he got to bed"
* express importance by order
Example: "She's nice and she's beautiful"
* often mean the exclusive "or" rather than the inclusive one
Example: "I'll go by bike or I'll go by car"
* "either... or" often implies "if not... then"
Example: "Either we'll call a doctor or he will die"
* "if... then" is not always equivalent with implication
Example: "Ex falso quod libet" problem
* "and" and "or" can also link constituents (unlike & and |)
Example: "Peter and Mary laugh"
* conjunctions may be distributive
* conjunctions may be collective

distributive conjunction: A conjunction between constituents which could be transformed into a

conjunction between sentences without changing the meaning.
Example: "John and Mary laughed"
= "John laughed and Mary laughed"

collective conjunction: A conjunction which is part of the verb syntax.

Example: "John and Mary met"

Interdefinig connectives: Defining connectives by other connectives.

Example: "a <=> b" is the same as "(a=>b) & (b=>a)"

Atomic elements of semantics: (Negation) and (disjunction or conjunction).

Assumption of semantic atoms: The assumption that there exist some basic concepts by which all
other concepts are defined.

Principle of compositionality: The meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of

its parts.
Meaning postulate: A modeling of semantic relations between lexical expressions. Meaning postulates
are part of the descriptive apparatus of semantics (a meta-language).

Meaning postulate for a noun: A logical statement of the form Necessarily All x: W(x) <=> P(x) & Q(x)
& ...
where W is a noun and P, Q, ... are properties. Several variables may occur.
Example:
Necessarily All x, y: mother(x,y) <=> parent(x,y) & female(y).

Intersective adjective: An adjective for which the meaning of <Adjective>+<Noun> combines the
constraints of the adjective and the noun. The extension of <Adjective>+<Noun> is the intersection of
both extensions.
Example: "Friendly doctors": Those people which are both friendly and doctors.

Subsective adjectives: An adjective for which the meaning of <Adjective>+<Noun> is a hyponym of the
<Noun>. The extension of <Adjective>+<Noun> is a subset of the extension of the <Noun>.
Example: "Good doctors" are those doctors, which are good as doctors.

Non-intersective and non-subsective adjectives: Those adjectives which are neither intersective nor
subsective.
Example: "Former doctors" are no doctors and no "formers", but those persons who were doctors
some time ago.

Meaning of an adjective: The meaning of an adjective depends on its inherent semantics (i.e. its
potential for distinctions) and its set-theoretical mode of modification (i.e. whether it is intersective
or subsective).

Interpretation of an adjective: The concept an adjective refers to on a particular occasion of use. The
interpretation also depends on the context.

Eventuality, type of event: The category of an event, namely "state", "activity" or "telic eventuality".
Although events are expressed by verbs, the same verb may be used to express events of
different categories. This means that eventualities do not strictly classify the meanings of particilar
lexical verbs.

State: An eventuality of those events which ignore any reference to duration, start and end points of
the event.
State verbs cannot occur in the English progressive tense and cannot occur as imparatives, since their
subjects are not viewed as agents.
Example: "Peter knows Latin" (OK)
"Peter is knowing Latin" (progressive, not OK)
"Know Latin!" (imparative, not OK)
"It took Peter 2 years to know Latin" (duration, not OK)

Activity: An eventuality of those events which include at least somechange during the time span
viewed. Since any information about how the state came about is ignored, no duration expressions
may be used.
Example: "Peter shoves Franzerl" (OK)
"Peter is shoving Franzerl" (progressive, OK)
"Shove Franzerl!" (imparative, OK)
"It took Peter 2 hours to shove" (duration, not OK)

Telic eventuality: An eventuality of those events which express an achievement or an accomplishment.

Telic events thus include a start and an end point or a culmination point.
Example: "Peter falls asleep" (OK)
"Peter is falling asleep" (progressive, OK)
"Fall asleep!" (imparative, OK)
"It took Peter 2 seconds to fall asleep" (duration, OK)

Meaning postulate for a verb: A logic formula of the form Necessarily All x1,x2,...: V(x1,x2,...) <=>
<expression> where V is a verb and the <expression> may contain the usual logical
operators and also the special predicates CAUSE(cause,effect) and BECOME(state)
Example:
Necessarily All x,y: kill(x,y) <=> CAUSE(x,BECOME(dead(y))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pragmatics
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pragmatics: The study of language use.

Aspects of usage of a linguistic sign:

* speaker
* environment
* purpose

Underdetermination by meaning: The fact that a particular utterance is not fully specifying the
speaker's intention. There are several underdeterminations:
* Underdetermination of communicative intent
Example: "I'll be there tonight"
- A promise, a threat or a prediction?
* Underdetermination of reference
Example "Our lecturer"
- Which lecturer?
* Underdetermination of intended meaning
Example: "I saw the boy with the binoculars"
- which of the two readings is intended?
* Underdetermination of speaker's intention
Example: "I have not yet done my linguistics assignment"
- Does the speaker aim to inform me about his progress or
does this mean he wants to copy _my_ linguistics assignment?
* Underdetermination of effect by meaning
Example: "I will" - uttered under the appropriate circumstances, this may
cause you to be married to the woman standing beside you
in the white dress.

Locutionary act, utterance act: The act of uttering a linguistic expression.

Speech act: An act performed with the help of uttering a linguistic expression.
Examples: Warning, commanding, requesting, apologizing,...
Illocutionary act: A speech act which consists of uttering a linguistic expression with a certain
intention. The speaker thereby performes a communicative act.
Illo-Check: Test whether the verb of the speech act can be used in a sentence like "I hereby XXX..."
Examples: Promising, reporting, asking, threatening, proposing,...

Felicity conditions for illocutionary acts: Conditions which must be fulfilled to successfully perform a
illocutionary act.
* The act must be a conventional procedure with conventional effects
* The circumstances and persons must be appropriate
* The procedure must be executed correctly and completely
* The participants must have the appropriate feelings and intentions

Perlocutionary act: A speech act which provokes certain effects in the audiance.
Examples: Intimidating, persuading, ...

Cooperative principle (Grice 1975): "Make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which
it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engendered".
This is the common-sense principle of good-naturedness in talking. It may be split up to the
conversational maxims.

Conversational maxims: The maxims of of quantity, quality, relevance and manner.

Maxim of quantity: "Be informative", i.e. tell as much information as is required, but not more.

Maxim of quality: "Only say true things", i.e. do not say anything which you know is false or for which
you lack evidence.

Maxim of Relevance: "Be relevant", i.e. talk in context to the current situation.

Maxim of Manner: "Be perspicious", i.e. avoid obscurity and ambiguity, be brief and be orderly.

Pragmatic anomaly: The fact that a sentence expresses something which contradicts the cooperative
principle.
Example: "John has two PhDs, but I don't believe he has"

Implicature: A conclusion from a linguistic utterance which is not alone based on this utterance.

Implicating: Drawing an implicature.

Conversational implicature: A conclusion from the things our partner said, the conversational maxims
and background knowledge.

Defeasibility of conversational implicature: The fact that conclusions drawn with the help of the
cooperative principle may be cancelled.
Example: "The Fachschafts-Site contains 12 of my summaries. Even 13 if you count this one" :-)

Non-detachability of conversational implicature: The fact that conversational implicatures may not be
viewed outside the context.
Calculability of conversational implicature: The fact that conversational implicatures may be formally
deduced from the literal meaning of the utterance plus the conversational maxims plus situational
background knowledge.

Non-conventionality of conversational implicature: The fact that conversational implicatures do not

rest on the conventional meaning of linguistic expressions alone

Conventional implicature: A conclusion drawn from the usual meaning of words.

Example: "I went home and got to bed" implicates that I first went home and then got to bed.

Presupposition: The assumption that something is true although it is not explicitely said. Typically, a
sentence and its negation share the same presuppositions!
Example: "I stopped smoking grass" presupposes that I smoked grass before, as well does "I did not
stop smoking grass".

Presupposition failure: If a presupposition of a sentence fails under certain circumstances, then under
those circumstances this sentence does not express a proposition, i.e. it cannot be true or false.
Example: "Have you stopped skipping the linguistics lectures?" cannot be answered because we never
skipped a linguistics lecture :-)