Linguistics PDF

# Linguistics ## 4.1.3. Coherence Coherence refers to the ways a text makes sense to the readers through the organization of its content and the relevance and clarity of the idea. The text is coherent if it develops a main idea. In other words, it is the quality of being unified and meaningful. In...

# Linguistics ## 4.1.3. Coherence Coherence refers to the ways a text makes sense to the readers through the organization of its content and the relevance and clarity of the idea. The text is coherent if it develops a main idea. In other words, it is the quality of being unified and meaningful. In the previous example you can see that the sentences are put together haphazardly in terms of semantics. The key to the concept of coherence is not something that exists in words or structures, but something that exists in people. It is people who make sense of what they read and hear. They try to arrive at an interpretation that is in line with their experience of the way the world is. In casual conversation, for example, we are continually taking part in conversational interactions where a great deal of what is meant is not actually present in what is said. Take the following excerpt: * A: We are going out tonight? Wanna come? * B: I have an exam tomorrow. There are no cohesive devices in this piece of discourse, however people can interpret it. It has been suggested that exchanges of this type are best understood in terms of the conventional actions performed by the speakers in such interactions. We can characterize this conversation as: * A suggests B doing an activity. * B gives a reason to reject the offer. If this is a reasonable analysis of what took place in the conversation, then it is clear that language-users must have a lot of knowledge of how conversation works that is not simply linguistic knowledge. ## 4.2. Conversational Maxims/ Cooperative Principle Before elaborating on this principle, let's introduce some simple terms. In exploring what it is we know about taking part in conversation, or any other speech event (e.g. debate, interview, etc.), we quickly realize that there is enormous variation in what people do in different circumstances. Some factors which give rise to this variety are the roles of speaker and hearer and their relationships, whether they were friends, strangers, men, women, young, old and so on. Generally speaking, there are some principles observed in all speech events. In simple terms, English conversation can be described as an activity in which, for the most part, two or more people take turns at speaking. Typically, only one person speaks at a time and there tends to be an avoidance of silence between speaking turns. Studies of conversation analysis have revealed the strategies that people use in turn-taking. Some of these strategies may be the source of what is sometimes described as rudeness (if one speaker cuts in on another speaker). For the most part, participants wait until-one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by signaling a completion point. Speakers can mark their turns as complete in a number of ways such as asking a question, or by pausing at the end of a completed syntactic structure like a phrase or sentence. Conversation studies have shown that those who tend to hold the floor', avoid having normal completion points. For example, they don't pause at the end of the sentences; make their sentences run by using connectors like and, then, so, etc.; produce filled pauses like em, er, you know (gap fillers) as in: * A: I mean his other ...em his later films were much more ...er really more in the romantic style. We recognize these subtle indicators as ways of organizing our turns and negotiating the intricate business of social interaction via language. In fact, one of the most noticeable features of conversational discourse is that it is generally very cooperative. This observation is formulated in principles of conversation. The idea that conversation proceeds according to a principle, known and applied by all human beings, was first proposed in a limited form by the philosopher Paul Grice (1975), who put forward what he described as the cooperative principles. He defines it as 'make your conversational 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 engaged. Supporting this principle are four maxims, often called the Gricean maxims * **Quantity:** do not say more or less than is required * Submaxim 1: Make your contribution as informative as is required. * Submaxim 2: Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. * **Quality:** try to make your contribution one that is true. * Submaxim1: Do not say what you believe is false. * Submaxim 2: Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence * **Relevance:** ensure that all the information you provide is relevant to the current exchange; therefore omitting any irrelevant information * **Manner:** be perspicuous * Submaxim 1: Avoid obscurity of expression – i.e., avoid language that is difficult to understand. * Submaxim 2: Avoid ambiguity – i.e., avoid language that can be interpreted in multiple ways. * Submaxim 3: Be brief – i.e., avoid unnecessary prolixity. * Submaxim 4: Be orderly - i.e., provide information in an order that makes sense, and makes it easy for the recipient to process it. One way to show that we are concerned with the cooperative principles is to use hedges. Hedges can be defined as words or phrases used to indicate that we are not really sure that what we're saying is sufficiently correct or complete. Thus, hedges are used to show our appreciation of the quality maxim. Examples of hedges are: * Kind of/sort of… * As far as I know * Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but… * I'm not absolutely sure, but * I think/feel * It is possible/likely… * I may/could… To keep the flow of communication, participants should abide by these conversational maxims, or there will be a breakdown in conversation. But, the speaker may not intend to be cooperative and may deliberately flout one or more maxims by saying more or less than the occasion requires. What then? What happens then is that the person spoken to derives a meaning that is not the literal meaning of the sentence. Such inferences are known as implicatures. Implicatures are deductions that are not made strictly on the basis of the_content_ expressed in the discourse. Rather, they are made in accordance with the conversational maxims, taking into account both the linguistic meaning of the utterance as well as the particular circumstances in which the utterance is made. According to Yule implicature is an additional conveyed meaning. Consider a domestic scene: a husband and wife getting ready to go out for an evening. The wife asks the husband: * Wife: How do you like my new hat? * Husband: It's ten past eight already. On the face of it, husband's statement is not an answer to wife's question. Husband doesn't say 'very much' or 'I don't like it'. Yet, wife will immediately interpret the statement as meaning 'I don't like it'. To grasp this additional meaning, wife depends on the assumption that husband is being relevant and informative. Given that the answer contains relevant information, wife can work out that her husband's opinion is not positive. Thus, husband's answer contains an implicature. ## 5. Pragmatics Pragmatics is the study of meaning of words, phrases and full sentences, but unlike semantics which deals with conventional aspects of meaning (i.e., objective meanings of words that can be found in dictionaries), pragmatics deals with aspects of meaning that are not looked up' but which are worked out' on particular occasions of use. Pragmatics is more concerned with intended speaker's meaning as it is sometimes referred to. It can be said that pragmatics attempts to analyze how it happens that often more is communicated than said. In Fromkin et al.'s terms, pragmatics is the study of the invisible meaning. It is concerned with the interpretation of linguistic meaning in (non-linguistic) context. | Definition | Semantics | Pragmatics | |---|---|---| | Definition | It is a term which is derived from the Greek word seme meaning sign. Semantics is all about studying the meaning of linguistic expressions. | It understands the language meaning by keeping the context in mind. | | Focus | Meaning | Language use | | Scope | Narrow as it deals with only meaning. | Broad as it deals with aspects beyond text. | | Meaning of an utterance | Context independent | Context dependent | ## 5.1. Deixis/ Indexicality In all languages, the reference of certain words and expressions relies entirely on the situational context of the utterance, and can only be understood in light of these circumstances (Proper names and noun phrases that contain the definite article the are not considered deictic expressions). There are different types of deictic expressions. * **Person deixis:** expressions such as that worker, these children, etc. and all pronouns (including their subjective, objective and possessive forms) are deictic for they require situational information in order for the listener to make a referential connection and understand what is meant: * I am going to the movies. * Do you know that actor? * They tried to hurt me, but he came to the rescue. * **Time/Temporal deixis:** such expressions like now _, this_ time, tomorrow, etc are deixis because we need to know when an utterance is pronounced to know its reference. For example, the expression next week uttered on January 1st has a different reference from that found in an outdated newspaper published the month before that. * **Place/Spatial deixis:** to understand such expressions like there, this house, outside, etc, also we need to know the context.  For example, when A asks B Come here?, B should go there. In other words, the same location (where A is standing) has two interpretations (here and there) based on where the two people are standing. To get their meaning, you need to know the orientation in space of the conversation participants. Other examples of place deixis are: * I enjoy living in this city. * Here_ is where we will place the statue. * She was sitting over there. You should have noticed the use of this, that, these and those with other expressions of deixis. This show that demonstrative articles are also deictic expressions. **Definiteness:** is communicated in various ways in languages. English communicates definiteness particularly with the definite article the, with demonstratives including this and that, and with the personal pronouns my, you, her, etc. For example, in Sara gave Joey the book, the definite article the presupposes that the hearer has an idea about the book being talked about. Also, in Have you heard that song?, that shows that the hearer is assumed to know what song is being referred to. ## 5.2. Ambiguity It exists when a form has two or more meanings. Ambiguity is different from vagueness. With vagueness the number of possible meanings is quite open. For example, there is vagueness when somebody says I bought a dog; the dog' could be male or female, brown or white, big or small, etc. There are two kinds of ambiguities in language: lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity. * **Lexical ambiguity:** is ambiguity in the form of a morpheme or word. Lexical ambiguity results from the existence of homonyms. For example, Let's meet by the bank. Bank' may be interpreted either as a 'financial organization' or 'riverside'. Other examples include She is looking for a match; He wore a light suit; The duchess can't bear children. * **Structural/Grammatical ambiguity:** exists when a phrase or sentence has two or more meanings because of structure, either of grouping/or function. * **Grouping ambiguity:** exists when the same string of words may have two meanings based upon different possible groupings of the words. For example, The police searched for the car with broken headlights is a sentence concerning either police car had broken headlights' or 'police was looking for the car whose headlights were broken. Other examples include The girl hit the man with an umbrella; The car needs new brakes and antifreeze. * **Function ambiguity/Transformationally induced ambiguity/Derivation ambiguity:** exists when a word or phrase potentially fulfills two or more grammatical relations. In this type of ambiguity, groupings are the same for both meanings. For example, Jumping horses can be interesting is a sentence concerning either * **horses that jump** (horse is the object of jump) or **the activity of jumping horses** (horse is the object of jump). Other examples include I love ice-cream more than you; I know clever people like you; Smoking cigars can be dangerous; The shooting of the hunters is interesting. ## 5.3. Figures of Speech We usually take certain meanings to be basic, expected, or literal language. Linguistic expressions are said to be figurative, if their intended meaning is something other than their literal meaning, i.e. their meaning is novel and creative. By pragmatic inferences hearers/readers ordinarily recognize non-literal language: * **Metaphor:** this is substituting words for others with which they share characteristics of meaning. Metaphor involves a relation of resemblance or analogy, although this is not explicitly stated, e.g. The ship plows the sea. * **Metonymy:** is a word substituted for another word or expression with which it is closely associated. The example England were beaten 4 –3 by Germany denote countries, but here the names are used to refer indirectly to sporting teams representing those countries. Notice that, unlike metaphor metonymy does not rely on a relation of resemblance or analogy. The sorts of associative relations could be REPRESENTATIVE via SYMBOL * The crown visited Italy; The White House refused to stop the war; * CONTAINED via CONTAINER * the kettle is boiling; He drank the bottle) * WHOLE via PART * I noticed several new faces tonight; Can I borrow your wheels?. * The last case is also called synecdoche. * **Personification:** is a type of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to something non-human, which shows similar characteristics, e.g. The wind stood up and gave a shout. * **Hyperbole:** is a type of metaphor in which comparison is implied to similar but extravagant case to make emphasis, to increase impact or to attract attention, e.g. Her brain is the size of a pea. * **Irony:** is a type of metaphor in which comparison is implied to an opposite or unreasonably extreme case In other words, it is the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning, as, for instance, when someone says You've been a great help! to a person whose actions or words have just precipitated a disaster. Metonymy is to metaphor as index is to icon. A metaphor is an iconic sign, effective because of actual characteristics it shares with what it substitutes for. Metonymy is an indexical sign, effective because of a natural association, in time or space, with what it substitutes for. ## 5.4. Speech Act It is the patterned, routinized language that speakers and writers in a given speech community use to perform functions such as thanking, complimenting, requesting, refusing, apologizing, etc. If you say I'll be there at six you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act of promising. A distinction is made by John L. Austin in the theory of speech acts between three different types of act involved in or caused by the utterance of a sentence {respectively, this leads to two different types of meaning}: * **Locutionary act:** is the saying of something which is meaningful and can be understood. For example, saying the sentence Shoot the snake is a locutionary act if hearer understands the words shoot, the, snake.{Propositional Docutionary meaning: is the basic literal meaning of the utterance which is conveyed by the particular words and structures which the utterance contains.} * **Illocutionary act:** is an act performed by a speaker in saying something (with an appropriate intention and in an appropriate context). That is, illocutionary act is the speaker's intention in producing that utterance. For example by saying Shoot the snake, the marker is seeking something beyond just uttering this sentence to be understood literally by the listener; that is, the speaker is intending to order someone. Some of the illocutionary verbs include stating, offering, promising, betting, asserting, questioning, commanding, inquiring, ordering, naming, requesting, suggesting, inviting, advising, declaring, thanking, etc. There are two types of lllocution; direct and indirect. But, before explaining these two, you need to know that we usually use certain syntactic structures with the functions listed besides them in the following table: | Structure/Form | Functions | |---|---| | Did you eat the pizza? | Interrogative | Question | | Eat the pizza! | Imperative | Command (Request) | | You ate the pizza. | Declarative | Statement | * **Direct illocution/ Direct speech act:** is making the intent of speech evident in the overt form of he sentence, i.e. when a form in the set above is used to perform the function listed beside it. For example, It's raining (I'm telling you a fact about the weather right now). There are two ways to make overt illocutions: * By use of special grammatical forms (which directly express the intent, as in English yes/no questions in which an auxiliary verb precedes the subject as in May I open the window? * By use of a performative verb. * **Indirect illocution/ Indirect speech act:** is to leave the intent of speech unexpected or unovert in the form of sentences, i.e. when a form in the set above is used to perform a function other than that listed beside it. For example, It's raining (I'm suggesting that you should take an umbrella). Here, speaker/writer expresses his intent by relying on: * Shared background knowledge * Principles of conversation, such as the cooperative principle * convention * the ability of the addressee to make inferences * **Perlocutionary act (or actual illocutionary force):** is the effects or consequences of the utterance on the audience, whether intended or unintended, e.g. persuading, convincing, offending, insulting, surprising, upsetting, scaring, amusing, enlightening, encouraging, inspiring, frightening, or otherwise getting someone to do something. If, in the above example, the listener is convinced to shoot the snake, the sentence has had its effect. The philosopher Austin distinguished between performative and constative utterances. In speech act theory, a constative is an utterance which asserts something that is either true or false; for example, Chicago is in the United States. Performative sentence is an utterance which performs an action, such as I promise to buy you an ice-cream. As the name reveals, there is a performative verb in these sentences. It should be clear that performative verbs have to be uttered to be achieved while constative verb don't have to. If you don't pronounce the verb promise' nothing happens and this verb won't be achieved; however, if you don't pronounce the first sentence the fact that Chicago is located in the US remains intact. In addition, the speaker of a performative utterance is the subject, i.e. first person who by uttering the sentence is accomplishing some additional action; also all these sentences are affirmative, declarative, and in the present tense. An informal test to see whether a sentence contains a performative verb is to begin it with the phrase I hereby…. Only performative sentences sound right when begun this way. Compare I hereby pronounce you husband and wife' with 'I hereby hit you'. While the latter seems strange, the first one is normal. In his later work, however, Austin dropped this distinction in favor of a distinction between explicit performatives like I promise it will never happen again in which there is a performative verb and implicit performatives like It will never happen again (functioning as a promise) in which the performative verb is to be inferred. Even utterances_like Sara sat on the chair were considered as including a performative element of stating. ## 5.4.1. Types of Speech Act There are various kinds of speech acts, yet the following, classified by John Searle, have received particular attention: * **Commissives:** commit a speaker to some future action, e.g. I'll call you tonight. The different kids are promising, vowing, betting, pledging, threatening, offering, guaranteeing, volunteering, swearing, etc. * **Directives:** are used by a speaker who attempts to get the addressee to carry out an action, e.g. You'd better tidy up that mess. The different kinds are requesting, advising, commanding, challenging, inviting, daring, suggesting, begging, warning, etc. * **Assertives/representatives:** commit the speaker to the truth of what is said, e.g. I am a great singer. The different kinds are asserting, claiming, reporting, stating, concluding, boasting, describing, etc. * **Expressives:** express some sort of psychological state or the speaker's feelings or attitude, e.g. This salad is disgusting. The different kinds are thanking, congratulating, forgiving, welcoming, praising, greeting, apologizing, complaining, etc. * **Declarations:** are said to produce a change of some sort in the world, e.g. We find the defendant guilty. The different kinds are resigning, appointing, naming, christening, sentencing (in court), bidding (at auction), pronouncing, arresting, dismissing, etc. ## 5.4.2. Felicity Condition Appropriate grammatical form or use of performative verbs, however, does not guarantee an illocution. There are, for example, imperative verbs in advertisements (Call now!), which everyone ignores. Therefore, some conditions must be satisfied for a speech act to be properly performed. The conditions which validate an illocution are termed felicity conditions (also known as happiness conditions'). For example in questions about X the following felicity conditions should be met: * The speaker desires X. * The speaker believes the hearer is able and willing to provide X. Also, in requests for X, the following felicity conditions should be met: * The speaker desires X. * The speaker believes the hearer is able and willing to provide X. In the example of 'Call now!', the verb is not necessarily achived. One felicity condition for this verb would be that the company is capable of manufacturing the product. Another felicity condition is that the listener should need the product. However, as this second condition may not be present (that is the listener may not need the product), the verb may not be achieved. ## 5.5. Presupposition It is an assumption by a speaker/writer about what is true or already known by the listener/reader. For example, The owl sneezed again presupposes The owl has sneezed before. Or if you are asked the question When did you stop smoking?, there are at least two presuppositions involved. In asking this question, the speaker presupposes that you used to smoke and that you no longer do so. One of the tests to check for the presupposition(s) underlying a sentence involves negating a sentence with a particular presupposition and considering whether the presupposition remains true. This is called constancy under negation test. When you say My cat is sick the presupposition is that 'you have a cat'. When you negate this Sentence as My cart is not sick, the same presupposition holds true. Then, you can claim that the presupposition is a correct one. In the analysis of how speakers' assumptions are typically expressed, presupposition has been associated with the use of a large number of words, phrases and structures. These linguistic forms are considered here as indicators of potential presupposition, which can only become actual presupposition in contexts with speakers. The types of presupposition are: (the presupposition of each sentence is indicated in front of the sentence and marked by >>) * **Structural presupposition:** it is the assumption associated with the use of certain words and phrases. For example, wh-question, temporal clause, cleft structure, etc. are conventionally interpreted with presupposition. * When did she buy that house? >> She bought that house * After the Allies won the war, they divided Berlin >> The Allies won the war * It was Baird who invented the TV >> Someone invented the TV * **Existential presupposition:** it is the assumption of the existence of the entities as expressed in possessive constructions and definite noun phrases. * Tom's shirt is new >> Tom has_ a_ shirt * The cat caught a pigeon >> There is_ a_ cat * **Factive presupposition:** it is the assumption that something is true due to the presence of some verbs. * We regret telling him >> We told him * Sally didn't realize that it was raining >> It was raining * It is odd that he won the prize >> He won the prize * It am glad that you passed the course >> You passed the course * **Non-factive presupposition:** it is an assumption that something is not true. * I dreamed that I was a teacher >> I am not a teacher * She imagined that she had her own house >> She doesn't have her own house * **Counterfactual presupposition:** it is the assumption that what is presupposed is not only untrue, but is the opposite of what is true, or contrary to facts. For instance, some conditional structures, generally called counterfactual conditionals, presuppose that the information, in the if-clauses, is not true at the time of utterance. * If I had lots of money, I'd buy a yacht >> I don't have lots of money * They wish they could go on vacation now >> They cannot go on vacation now * **Lexical presupposition:** it is the assumption that, in using one word, the speaker can act as if another meaning (word) will be understood. For instance: * Andrew stopped smoking >> Andrew used to smoke * You sneezed again >> You sneezed once before * I managed to find my dog >> I tried to find my dog * Are you still living in that old house >> You lived in that old house * John returned to Cambridge >> John has been to Cambridge ## 6. Politeness In the study of linguistic politeness, the most relevant concept is 'face'. Somebody's face, in pragmatics, is someone's public self-image. This is the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize. Politeness can be defined as showing awareness of and consideration for another person's face.) Within their everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their expectations concerning heir public, or their face wants, will be respected. If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another person's expectations regarding self-image, that is called a face-threatening act (FTA). Alternatively, given the possibility that some actions might be interpreted as a threat to another's face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This is called a face-saving act. Imagine a scene, where a young neighbor is playing his music very loudly and two roommates are trying to study for an exam. One of them proposes a face-threatening act and the other suggests a face-saving act: * Him: I'm going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now! * Her: Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it's getting a bit late and people need to get to sleep. Also, if you use direct speech act to ask someone Give me your pen, you are behaving as if you have a higher social status. Saying this sentence to your boss, you are performing a face-threatening act. On the other hand, by using indirect speech acts you remove the\assumption of\social power. You're only asking if it is possible. By saying Could I use your pen?, you make your request less threatening and thus performing a face-saving act. We have both a negative and a positive face. Negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others. The word 'negative’ here doesn't mean 'bad', it's just the opposite pole from 'positive'. A person's positive face is the need to be accepted, to be connected, to belong, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others. In simple terms, negative face is the need to be independent and positive face is the need to be connected. Both face-saving and face-threatening acts could be oriented to both positive and negative face: | Face Saving | Negative Face | Positive Face | |---|---|---| | Face Threatening | 1 | 2 | | | 3 | 4 | A face saving act which is oriented to the person's negative face (represented as 1 in the table) will tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of the other's time or concerns, and even include an apology for the mposition or interruption * I'm sorry to bother you * I know you're busy, but… A face saving act which is concerned with the person's positive face (represented as 2 in the table) will tend to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing, and that they have common goals. * Let's do this together * You and I have the same problem, so FTAs restricting the hearer's personal freedom (represented as 3 in the table) include acts predicating a future act of the hearer, e.g. orders/requests, suggestions/advice. * Give me that book → The speaker expresses an anticipation of some future action of the hearer and thereby restricts his/her personal freedom. FTAs threatening the hearer's positive face (represented as 4 in the table) include expressions negatively evaluating the hearer's positive face, e.g. disapproval, criticism, disagreements etc. * I think your report was not concise enough. → The hearer's positive face is threatened because s/he is blamed for having done sth badly. ## 7. Relation Between Semantic and Syntax ### 7.1. Grammatical Relations vs. Semantic Relations Grammatical relations include subject, object, and object of preposition. Unlike semantic roles, these are formal/grammatical relations, based upon sentence structure rather than on the meanings of noun and verb. In English, for example, agents are most often subjects of sentence and patients are typically objects. Grammatical relations and semantic roles are different, in least three ways: * **Formal nature of grammatical relations:** grammatical relations may be considered strictly to reflect constituent relations in phrase structure, whereas semantic roles reflect meaning. For example in Sara shot the rabbit with her gun, Sara' is the subject, as the NP immediately under S; the rabbit' is the object, as the NP immediately under VP; ‘her gun’ is the object of preposition, as the NP immediately under PP. * **Constancy of semantic roles in paraphrases:** in paraphrases, the semantic roles of the nouns are the same even though the grammatical relations of these nouns may be different. * Sara fed the dog → The dog was fed by Sara. * Sub/Ag Obj/Pa Sub/Pa Obj of prep/Ag * **Formal expression of grammatical relations:** unlike semantic roles, grammatical relations often have regular concrete, formal, properties of word order or morphology, according to requirements of the grammar of a language. For example, subjects in English ordinarily precede verb; the auxiliary verb precedes the subject in yes/no questions, etc. ## 7.2. Paraphrases and Semantic Roles Paraphrases may be regularly possible for sentences with verbs of certain types according to the semantic roles of their associated nouns. Here are five English examples. * **Verbs with causative/agent and patient:** these are so-called transitive verbs, which usually have the cause/agent as subject and the patient as object: * Parents love their children → Children are loved by their parents * **Change of state verbs:** verbs whose patient undergoes a change of state may have the patient as active verb subject: * Long trips empty the gas tank in my car → The gas tank in my car empties on long trips (in the first sentence, the verb 'empty' takes the patient 'gas tank' which undergoes a change, that is, a reduction in the amount of gas. Then, this patient becomes the subject of the paraphrase sentence) * **Verbs with agent, patient, and recipient:** these may have the patient as direct object and the recipient as object of preposition. In paraphrase, patient and recipient change place and preposition is omitted: * Sara told a story to him → Sara told him a story. * **Verbs with source and goal:** if the source is subject, the goal is object of into Then, in paraphrase, goal is subject and source is object of from: * A seed develops into a rose → A rose develops from a seed * **Verbs with agent = patient:** these have the agent as a subject, and the same noun phrase agent may be expressed as an object reflexive pronoun: * Fred shave → Fred shaved himself ## 7.3. Paraphrases The grammar of paraphrases involves aspects of both form and meaning. Some sorts of paraphrases are possible for sentences with particular_meanings, while others are possible for sentences with particular forms. * **Paraphrase dependent on meaning:** verbs may differ in terms of the type of the semantic roles their NPs take. Here are three examples of paraphrases dependent on such verb types. * **Open-type verbs:** verbs of the open type include open, eat, etc. which form sentences with nouns in the semantic roles of agent and patient. The passive form is a paraphrase of the active form: Parents love their children → Children are loved by their parents * **Spray-type verbs:** verbs of the spray type include spread, stuff, etc. which involve filling a space or covering an area. When the location of direct object changes, paraphrase of the original form is obtained: We stuffed cotton into the pillow→ We stuffed the pillow with cotton * **Give-type verbs:** verbs of the give type include give, tell, etc. which form sentences with agents, patients, and recipients_The recipient may be the object of preposition to’ Then paraphrase is obtained through dative movement (recipient nouns of come languages are termed dative), in which recipient loses its 'to' preposition: They told a story to him→ They told him a story * **Paraphrases dependent on form:** other cases of paraphrases exist for sentences with nouns in all sorts of semantic roles, and depend only on the form of the sentences. * Yes/no questions Refer to chapter 10 section 7.19. * Information question Refer to chapter 10 section 7.19. ## 7.4. Interpretive Semantics vs. Generative Semantics As was mentioned before, the linguistic meaning of a sentence consists of more than just the sum of lexical meanings involved. Consider the following examples: * Sara is cooking! * Is Sara cooking? The word order of the subject noun phrase, Sara, and the auxiliary, is, shows whether the sentences is a statement or a question. These examples indicate that part of the meaning of sentences results from the syntactic structure in which lexical items occur. Consequently, some linguists maintain that\sentence semantics should be analyzed and described by rules that operate on the syntactic structures produced by a grammar Today, this approach is generally referred to as interpretive semantics, since semantic rules provide for sentence meaning by interpreting sentences through their structure and the lexical items they contain. The fundamental question for interpretive semantics is that: in a descriptive grammar, do semantic interpretation rules apply to deep structures, to surface structures, or to both? Then, three theories arise: * **Standard theory:** hypothesizes first the constituent structure rules apply, producing an underlying structure. Next, the lexicon and the rules of word formation of the language provide words for each of the constituents of this structure. The result is the deep structure (DS) of the sentence – the lexicon and phrase structure rules along with the created deep structure is called base component. Now, transformational rules apply, eventually yielding the surface structure (S-structure) – the transformational rules along with the created surface structure is called syntactic component But the surface structure of a sentence does not contain all of the information necessary to describe the correct phonetic form of the sentence. The phonological rules apply only after surface structures have been produced. Standard theory hypothesizes that semantic interpretation should take place at the level of deep structure, i.e. meaning resides in deep structure. In this version transformational rules don't change the meaning (TRs are meaning preserving). In this approach, sentence pairs such as the following will be assigned the same meaning since they have the same deep structure and it is at the level of deep structure that meaning is assigned. * Read the book! * You will read the book! The main advantage of assigning meaning at the deep structure, rather than at the surface structure, is that the deep structure contains elements that may be deleted by transformations; and it provides information about syntactic functions that may be changed by transformations.  * **Extended standard theory:** hypothesizes that for limited types of sentences, semantic interpretation depends on both deep structure and surface structure, i.e. meaning resides in both deep and surface structures. In this version, transformational rules change the meaning (TRs are not meaning preserving). This theory was developed, in part, because certain syntactically justified transformations/appear to cause changes in meaning. Consider the following sentences: Everyone in the room knows two languages. Two languages are known by everyone in the room. These two sentences have the