Intro to Semantics Bill Ladusaw University of California, Santa Cruz - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

intro to semantics
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Intro to Semantics Bill Ladusaw University of California, Santa Cruz - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Intro to Semantics Bill Ladusaw University of California, Santa Cruz Course Overview ladusaw@ucsc.edu Canvas resources (Files, Announcements, Assignments?) Attendance and weekly responses due by Tuesday class O ffi ce Hours:


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Intro to Semantics

Bill Ladusaw University of California, Santa Cruz

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Course Overview

  • ladusaw@ucsc.edu
  • Canvas resources (Files, Announcements, Assignments?)
  • Attendance and weekly “responses” due by Tuesday class
  • Office Hours: T-F by arrangement
  • Library Reserves: Portner and Kearns
  • LSA Statements
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Syllabus

  • F 7/7: Meaning & Understanding; Context & Content
  • T 7/11: Basics of Formal semantics
  • F 7/14: Predicates and their arguments
  • T 7/18: Reference, generality, descriptions, & opacity
  • F 7/21: Quantification
  • T 7/25: Tense, aspect, modality, and attitudes
  • F 7/28: Given, new, focus, and discourse coherence
  • T 8/1: Punchlines, themes, and horizons
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Ready to Begin?

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Four Guideposts on
 Meaning,
 Inference,
 and Communication

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  • I. The Front Door
  • Unexpected situations trigger hypotheses about what’s

going on (interpretations)

  • Hypotheses are sensitive to background and contextual

circumstances.

  • The door doesn’t intend for you to understand it.
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The Dumb Show

  • Unexpected action from another cognitive agent
  • Hypothesis is about the goal of the agent
  • Decision to accept or object subsequent to interpretation
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SLIDE 8

Buying Limes in Egypt

  • Market as situational frame
  • Shared background increases effectiveness and

efficiency

  • Knowledge of language not needed; 


Knowledge of ??? crucial.

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SLIDE 9

Coffeeshop Sign

  • Do not serve dead customers.
  • To anyone.
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Coffeeshop Sign

  • Metaphorically dead
  • Creepy subject
  • Intricacy of knowledge of language
  • Processing in real time

Do not serve dead customers.
 To anybody.

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Utterance Understanding ≠ 
 Sentence Meaning

Natural meaning
 Speaker’s meaning Linguistic meaning

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Slicing the Onion of Interpretation

  • Cognitive agents interpreting their environment
  • Interpreting the behavior/actions of other agents


(hypotheses about communicative intent)

  • Recognizing background information and context
  • Assessing shared background and context


(“Common ground”)

  • Knowledge of the language: conventional linguistic

meaning

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SLIDE 13

The (Gricean) Pragmatic Envelope

  • After I handed her the book, she gave it back to me.
  • Is Jim in his office?
  • Yes/No
  • The light is on.
  • I hear someone talking in there.
  • I like you a lot.
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Unpacking Context

  • Participants
  • Location (temporal, spatial)
  • Deixis and indexicality


here, there, then, now, this, that, before, ago

  • Reference into the described situation (aboutness)
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SLIDE 15

Where is 
 “Semantics”
 ?