Phenomena
Adjectives
Adjectives like happy or unhappy introduce, like events, variables
denoting states. Typical roles for adjectives are Attribute, Value,
and Degree. Adjectives that say something about mental or physical
states of person have the roles Experiencer and Stimulus. There are
various modifiers of adjectives that say something about the degree an
adjective is applied to an indivudual. The following scale exemplifies
these modifications in the meaning of adjectives:
| happy | not happy | ||||||
| very happy | rather happy | unhappy | |||||
| extremely happy | slightly happy | ||||||
| happiest | least happy | ||||||
Aspectual Verbs
Aspectual verbs like
start
or
stop are analysed as
sub-events from the event they say something about. This relation is
modelled by the PartOf role. Although aspectual verbs are
known to be presupposition triggers, they aren't analysed that way.
Some of the entailments supported by aspectual verbs can be derived via first-order axioms.
- Kadmon (2001): Formal Pragmatics, p. 208
Conditionals
A conditional sentence is something
iffy.
Conditionals introduce
universal quantification over objects. This is encoded in the
semantic representation of a sentence by introducing two new boxes
connected by an implication symbol.
- Kadmon (2001): Formal Pragmatics, p. 34
- Kamp and Reyle (1993): From Discourse to Logic, p. 141
Discourse Relations
Following recent theories of discourse we assume that a text is
hierarchically structured. The relations between units of discourse
can be coordinating or subordinating. Examples of discourse relations
are: NARRATION, BACKGROUND, RESULT, CONTINUATION, PARALLEL, CONTRAST,
ELABORATION, INSTANCE, TOPIC, EXPLANATION, PRECONDITION,
COMMENTARY. These relations can be lexically triggered or be the
results of updating the discourse by including new sentences in the
interpretation.
- Asher (1993): Reference to Abstract Objects in Discourse.
- Asher and Lascarides (2003). Logics of Conversation.
- Asher and Vieu (2005): Subordinating and coordinating discourse relations. Lingua 115: 591–610
Indexicals
Indexical pronouns introduce special variables in the meaning representation:
for the first person pronoun
I
this is the free variable speaker, and
for the second person pronoun
you
it's hearer.
These variables can be bound by contexts presenting direct speech.
- Bos (2017): Indexicals and Compositionality: Inside-Out or Outside-In?
Negation
Negation introduces explicit scope in the meaning representation with a negation operator.
Expessions that introduce negation are
not,
never, and
instead of.
- Kadmon (2001): Formal Pragmatics, p. 29
- Kamp and Reyle (1993): From Discourse to Logic, p. 99
Numeral Expressions
Numeral expressions such as
twenty, introduce the thematic role Quantity linking a concept with a numeral value.
For vague expressions, for instance
about 6, we use a set of comparison operators to indicate approximative, lower, or higher values.
- Kennedy (2015): A "de-Fregean" semantics (and neo-Gricean pragmatics) for modified and unmodified numerals. Semantics and Pragmatics 8: 1-44
Plurals and Groups
The model behind the DRSs used in the PMB deals with plural phrases by
treating them as collections (groups). Every group associates with a cardinality.
Singular entities are seen as groups with exactly one member.
- Link (1998): Ten Years of Research on Plurals - Where do we Stand?
- Schwertel (2005): Plural Semantics for Natural Language Understanding. A Computational Proof-Theoretic Approach. PhD thesis, University of Zurich
Proper Names
Proper names single out a specific individual. They are used to name
persons, animals, organisations, locations, vehicles, buildings,
events, planets, and natural phenomena (such as hurricanes). They can
appear as single words (for instance,
Tom)
or as multi-word expressions, such as
Marilyn Monroe).
Semantically they
are analysed as "the X named Y", where X is a predicate specifying the
concept to which the named individual belongs, and Y the name given to it.
- Geurts (1997): Good news about the description theory of names.
Reflexive Pronouns
Some pronouns like
himself
and
herself
behave in a
reflexive manner: they refer (usually) to the subject of the
clause. We deal with this in the syntax-semantics interface by
assigning them a category that changes a transitive verb into an
intransitive verb, and specify in the lexicon that the same variable
abstracts over both the subject and object.
- Van Benthem (1991): Language in Action, p. 127-128
- Szabolsci (1992): Combinatory Grammar and Projection from the Lexicon.
Repetition Triggers
Scopal modifiers that presuppose the existence of a similar event are not thoroughly analysed in the Parallel Meaning Bank.
Examples are
also,
again,
too,
and
yet.
Repetition triggers are hard to analyse semantically, because they interact with focus and require complex representational operations. So they are simply ignored! This is fine for the purpose of giving a sentential semantic representation, as repetition triggers usually do not add any meaning to the sentence, but rather put constraints on the context.
- von Stechow (1996): The Different Readings of Wieder 'Again': A Structural Account. Journal of Semantics 13: 87-138
Temporal Deixis
The temporal adverb
ago is related
to the time of utterance. In this example, Monroe died at a time point that meets the beginning of a 33-year-long period, which end meets the time of utterance (now).
We represent this with the abut operator.
- Kamp and Reyle (1993): From Discourse to Logic, p. 573
Universal Quantification
Words like
everyone
and
each
introduce
universal quantification over objects. This is represented in the
semantic representation of a sentence by introducing two new boxes
connected by an implication symbol.
- Kamp and Reyle (1993): From Discourse to Logic, Chapter 2