Topic: Components and SentencePredicates and Arguments

Components and Sentence

There are two types of Components 1) Components of word2) Components of meaning

Component of meaningThe total meaning of a word being seen in terms of a number of distinct element or Components of meaning.

Example Man Woman ChildBull Cow CalfRam Ewe Lamb

Katz and Fodor

Katz and Fodor were two linguistics suggested that we can derive the meaning of the sentence from the meaning of words it contains. For this purpose they proposed set of rules to combine the meaning of individual lexical items. These rules are called Projection rules.

What are the

Projection

Rules

Projection rules stated that what may be amalgamated with what , and in what order in a sentence.

Amalgamation Amalgamation is thus a

combination of the markers and distinguishers.Paths

meanings are called paths, So paths are the structural analysis of meaning.

The example chosen by Katz and Fodor as an illustration of application of projection rules is

“The man hit the colorful ball.”

(The man) has only one path.

Colorful ________ an adjective

Colorful Ball

Path Cannon Ordinary Party

Color Hit

Collision Striking

We can combine colorful with ball (physical activity) in this case it is possible. But if we combine this colorful ball with hit then we will see syntactically it is correct but semantically it is wrong.So through this example we can say that components help us to understand the meaning of a sentence. The meaning is thus a human being strikes with an ordinary colorful ball.

Objection or Problems in Projections Rules

Cats chase Mice.Mice chase Cats.If we get it as Relational opposite then it gives a same meaning but if we take it as component then it gives the different sense.It is a flaw in it.

These seemingly identical sentence have totally different meanings.For Example:My son chased your dog away.Your dog chased my by son away.Mice chase Cats.Cats are chased by the Mice.

It is the first objection.

Second Objection:Problem arises is that the same component may at time merely provide the environment for amalgamation. At other be part of the derive part.If we take the example of word pregnant then according to projection rules this will occur only in the environment of (female)

Example:Pregnant Woman

notPregnant Man

But we used to say pregnant horse instead of pregnant mare.

So the componential analysis does not provide a simple way of proceeding from the meaning of lexical items to meaning of sentence by a process of the adding together of the components through amalgamation.

Conclusion

Predicate and

Arguments

Predicate:

The part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the subject.

Arguments:

Arguments usually indicates noun in a sentence.Example:

John loves Mary.

Arg Pre Arg

Predicates and Arguments In a sentence the verb is often best seen as a relational feature. So Relational terms seems to offer a far more satisfactory solutions to the problem of sentence meaning than the componential analysis.If we take the example of open sentences walk, love and give then the symbolic representation of these sentences areW(x), L(x,y) and G(x,y,z).in term of one, two,and three place predicate.

For Examples:

Fried thinks that John loves Mary.

Predicate ( Think )

It has two arguments.

Think

Fred [ John loves Mary] Proposition

The structure of this sentence can be given as

[ Think ] (x, ([ Love ] ( y, z )))

Where the round brackets show that ( [ Love ] ( x, z )

Is a single element and like ( x ) is one of the argument of [ Think ].

Predicate calculus provides a simple method of dealing with what is known in grammar as SUBORDNATION by allowing a proposition to function as an argument

In these examples the semantic interpretation has not been very different from that suggested by the Syntax of the sentence, But it is possible to break proposition down into far more basic elements than those indicated by the actual words of the sentence.

Bill gave Harry a book.[ Give ] ( x,y,z)

Example:

But we can interpret this sentence as

Bill caused harry to have a book.

The formula can be

[( cause ] ( x, ([ Have ] ( y,z )))

Where the arguments of [ cause ] are ( x )

( Bill ) and [ Have ] ( y,z )

( Harry have a book.)

Example:

KillSimilarly we might treat

Casue to dieCause to be

come not alive

John killed the Mary.

then would become

[ cause ] ( x, ([ Become ] ( y, ( [ - Alive ] ( y ))))).

Example:

John caused Mary become Mary not alive. This sentence can also be represent by tree diagram.

Prop

Pred Arg Arg

Cause John Prop

Pred Arg Arg

Become Mary Prop

Pred Arg

Alive Mary

It is a mistake, however, to confuse such a semantic representation with the syntax of a sentence. In particular

John killed Mary is not identical with john cause Mary to become alive.

It can only be identical if we say on Thursday john cause Mary to become not alive on Saturday.

The difference lies in the temporal marking of the Predicate and if there is only one verb in the original sentence. They can not be more than one time indication.

 As a means of showing sentence meaning (if we can restrict meaning to propositional or cognitive meaning), some kind of predicate calculus seems to be the most satisfactory. It allows us to move from word to sentence in that the formula for each word will usually form part of the whole sentence formula - though it will often be more than a single predicate or argument - as we have seen for give and kill. But it is equally clear that it will be far more complex than has so far been suggested.

Conclusion