Sentence Relations and Truth

Semantics
Chapter 4
 Sentence Relations
1. a. My brother is a bachelor.
b. My brother has never married. a and b are synonymous.

2. a. The anarchist assassinated the emperor.

b. The emperor is dead. a entails b.
3. a. My brother has just come from Rome.
b. My brother has never been to Rome a contradicts b.
4. a. The mayor of Manchester is a woman.
b. There is a mayor of Manchester. a presupposes b.
5. a. Ireland is Ireland.
b. Rich people are rich. a and b are tautologies.
6. a. ?He is a murderer but he’s never killed anyone.
b. ?Now is not now. a and b are contradictions.
 Logic and Truth
 The tools of logic can help us to represent sentence
meaning.
13. Modus ponens (긍정식)
a. If Arnd left work early, then he is in the pub.
b. Arnd left early. premises
c. Arnd is in the pub.
conclusion
14. Modus tollens (부정식)
a. If Arnd has arrived, then he is in the pub.
b. Arnd is not in the pub.
c. Arnd has not arrived.
15. Hypothetical syllogism
a. If Arnd is in the pub, then he is drinking beer.
b. If Arnd is drinking beer, then he is drinking Guinness.
c. If Arnd is in the pub, then he is drinking Guinness.
16. Disjunctive syllogism
a. Arnd is in the public bar or he is in the lounge.
b. Arnd isn’t in the public bar.
c. Arnd is in the lounge.
 Truth
 A part of logic is a concern for the truth of statements
and whether truth is preserved or lost by putting
sentences into different patterns.
 Truth means a correct descriptions of states of affairs
in the world; truth is empirical (or contingent)
because we have to have some access to the facts of
the world to know whether a statement is true or not.
17. My father was the first man to visit Mars.
 Truth Value
 Truth value- a sentence’s being true or false
 Truth conditions- the facts that would have to obtain in reality
to make a sentence true or false
19. a. Your car has been stolen.
b. Your car has not been stolen.
20. a. p logical 21. p ¬p (negation)
b. ¬p forms T F
F T
 Connectives: and
22. a. The house is on fire.
b. The fire brigade are on the way.
c. The house is on fire and the fire brigade are on the way.
23. p q p∧q (conjunction)
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F F
 The study of the truth effects of connectives are called
propositional logic.
 Connectives: or
24. p q p∨q (disjunction; inclusive or)
T T T
T F T
F T T
F F F
25. I’ll see you today or tomorrow.
26. p q p∨eq (disjunction; exclusive or)
T T F
T F T
F T T
F F F
27. You will pay the fine or you will go to jail.  ‘but not both’
 Connectives: if… then
28. p q p  q (material implication)
T T T
T F F consequent
F T T antecedent
F F T
29. If it rains, then I’ll go to the movies.
 p is a sufficient condition for q (rain will cause me to go) but not a
necessary condition (other things might take me go; it might snow!)
`
 Connectives: if… then
 Material implication captures some but not all aspects
of our use of if . . . then.
30. If Patricia goes to the party, the Emmet will go too.
 A natural implication of sentence 30 is that Emmet is
going because Patricia is. What if Patricia isn’t
going?
 Connectives: if… then
32. a. If I were an ostrich, then I would be a bird.
b. If I were an ostrich, then I would not be a bird.
Because p is false here, both 32a and 32b have to be true
according to the truth table. This is against our intuitions.
The material implication relation does not fit our use of
counterfactuals.
 Connectives: if and only if (iff)
33. p q p ≡ q (biconditional↔)
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F T  (pq) ⋀ (qp)
34. We’ll leave if and only if we’re forced to.
 p is a necessary condition for q, i.e. p is the only possible cause for q.
 Plausible translation of our use of counterfactuals such as 30.

To sum up, statements have a truth value; this truth value depends on a
correspondence to facts; and different ways of connecting statements have
different effects on the truth value of the compounds produced.
 Types of Truth
 Semantic distinction (depending the meaning of the
words within them)
• Analytic truth- follows from the meaning relations within
the sentence. e.g. My father is my father.
• Synthetic truth- depends on the accordance with the facts of
the world. e.g. My father has been to Mars.
 Mogadishu is Hamar.  Necessarily true, but can be a posteriori

Two names for the same city, the capital of Somalia

 Types of Truth
42. a. Either Germany will win the World Cup or Germany won’t win it.
 Either p or not-p
b. If Germany are champions and Brazil are runners-up then Germany are
champions.
 if p and q then p Logical words
d. If Germany beat Brazil then Brazil lose to Germany.
 If G X B then B Y G.; truth relies on the individual lexical relations (beat
and lose)
 Sentences can be analytically true because of the behaviour of logical words or
because of the meaning of individual nouns and verbs.
 Entailment
52. a. The anarchist assassinated the emperor.
b. The emperor died.
53. Entailment defined by truth:
p entails q when the truth of the first guarantees the truth of the second,
and the falsity of the second guarantees the falsity of the first.
55. Composite truth table for entailment
p q
T T
F  T or F
F F
T or F  T
 Entailment
58. The Etruscans built this tomb. Paraphrases; mutual entailment
59. This tomb was build by Eratuscans.
60. Composite truth table for synonymy
p q
T  T
F  F
T  T
F  F
64. Mr. Jones stole my car. contradiction
65. Mr. Jones did not steal my car.
63. Contradiction
p q
T  F
F  T
T  F
F  T
 Presupposition
66. a. He’s stopped turning into a werewolf every full moon.
b. He used to turn into a werewolf every full moon.
67. a. Her husband is a fool.
b. She has a husband.
a presupposes b
 entailment vs. implicature (sensitive to facts about the context)?
 Presupposition as a truth relation
 Sentences are views as external objects
73. Step 1: If p is true then q is true.
Step 2: If p is false then q is still true.
Step 3: If q is true, p is either true or false.
74. A First Truth table for presupposition
p q Composite truth table for entailment
T  T p q
F  T T T
F  T or F
T or F  T F F
T or F  T
 Presupposition as a truth relation
75. a. I saw my father today.
b. I didn’t see my father today
c. I saw someone today. (a entails c)
76. a. The mayor of Liverpool is in town.
b. The mayor of Liverpool isn’t in town.
c. There is a mayor of Liverpool. (a presupposes c)
 Negating the presupposing sentence does not affect the
presupposition, whereas negating an entailing sentence
destroys the entailment.
 Presupposition as interactional
 This approach views presupposition as one aspect of a speaker’s strategy of
organizing information for maximum clarity for the listener.
71. John’s brother has just got back from Texas.
79. Assertion 1: John has a brother X.
80. Assertion 2: X has come back from Texas.
 79 is backgrounded by being placed in an NP while 80 is foregrounded.
Why?
 It depends on the speaker’s intention and her guesses about the kn held by
the listeners.
 Note that a speaker can use 71 even if the listener does not know that John
has a brother. In that case, the speaker has decided to rank them in a
particular order.
 Presupposition Failure:
Truth Relational
82. a. The King of France is bald.
b. There is a King of France.
83. A Second Truth table for presupposition
p q
T  T
F  T
T or F  T If q is false, the status of p is dubious;
?(T or F)  F neither true nor false  truth-value gap
 The simplicity of the truth-based approach seems to be in danger of being
lost.
 Presupposition Failure:
Interactional
85. Heronymous is bringing us a crate of champagne.
If you don’t know the person called Heronymous, you are
likely to say ‘Who’s Heronymous?’, thus signalling the failure.
There is an interactional condition on referring: a speaker’s
use of a definite nominal usually carries a guarantee that the
listener can identify the referent.
The issue of presupposition failure focuses on the question of
what conventions license a speaker’s referring use of definite
nominals.
 Presupposition Triggers
 Words or constructions which produce presupposition
1) Pseudo-cleft
86. It was his behaviour with frogs that disgusted me.
88. Something disgusted me.
2) Time adverbials and comparative clauses
89. a. I was riding motorcycles before you learned to walk.
b. You learned to walk.
3) Factive verbs
91. Sean realized/thought that Miranda has dandruff. (c.f. believe)
93. Miranda has dandruff.
 Presupposition Triggers
4) Judgement verbs
97. John blamed me for telling her.
99. I told her.
5) Change-of-state verbs
100. a. Judy started smoking cigars.
b. Judy used not to smoke cigars.
 Presupposition and Context
102. a. She cried before she finished her thesis.
b. She died before she finished her thesis.
c. She finished her thesis.  defeasibility
104. It was Harry who Alice loved.
105. It was Alice who loved Harry.
 They belong to different conversational contexts, even though the propositions
are the same.
 Intonation
108. Alice loved HARRY. Vs. ALICE loved Harry
 Projection problem
110. a. John will regret doing linguistics.
b. John is doing/will do linguistics
111. If John does linguistics, he’ll regret it.
 110(b) disappears in a conditional clause