Spring 2012 IA165 Combinatory Logic for Computational Semantics by Juyeon Kang
Classwork N°.1
due to 24 February 2012
1. Some semantic phenomena (Quantifiers, Anaphora)
Question: What do you observe in the following sentences? Do you find some double readings
from one sentence?
(1) Every man loves a woman.
(2) Every car has a radio.
(3) John loves golf, and Mary too.
Answer: If we look at the first sentence (1), then we see that it has two readings.
1. There is one woman who is loved by every man.
2. For each man there is one woman whom he loves.
These correspond to distinct situations (or possible worlds) that make the sentence true.
For the second example (2) we only get one reading: the analogue of 2. The reason for this lies not in
the logical structure of the sentence, but in concepts involved. We interpret the meaning of the word has
as the relation “has as physical part”, which in our world carries a certain uniqueness condition: If a is a
physical part of b, then it cannot be a physical part of c, unless b is a physical part of c or vice versa.
This makes the structurally possible analogue to 1 impossible in our world and we discard it.
(3) who does what? John loves golf and loved Mary. And John loves golf and Mary loves golf too.
2. Basic notions: Function and argument
Question: Translate, as precisely as possible, the following fragments into the function and
argument structure. Remind you the concepts of operator/operand, complete/incomplete
expression and that of categoreme/syncategoreme expression.
# Convention: (Operator(Oprerand))
(4) The author of The American Way of Eating
(the((of(the ((of eating) (american way))))author))
Spring 2012 IA165 Combinatory Logic for Computational Semantics by Juyeon Kang
(5) She knows her way around a kitchen.
((knows((around (a kitchen))(her way)))she)
(6) The produce management is so sloppy
((is (so sloppy))(the(produce management)))
(7) She is gloomily aware.
((is (gloomily aware))she)
(8) I watch an endless assembly line.
((watch(an(endless(assembly line))))I)
Sentences from the NYT Feb 20 2012