21 - The syntax–semantics interface

Summary

Introduction

The basis of all considerations of the interface between syntax and semantics is that we can understand novel sentences provided we know the meaning of the words used in the sentence and that we can understand its syntactic structure. This seems rather obvious: We do not understand the text in (1) because we have no idea what some of the words could mean – though it all looks like perfect English syntax. On the other hand, if we reorder the words of an ordinary sentence in an arbitrary way, say alphabetically, we cannot understand a sentence – even if it is one that we might know very well, see (2).

(1) ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

(Jabberwocky, from L. Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass)

(2) a able and at be brotherhood day down dream former former Georgia

have hills I of of of of on one red sit slaves slave-owners sons sons table

that the the to together will

(alphabetically ordered from M. L. King's speech I Have a Dream)

Frege (1892b) is usually credited with the introduction of this insight into themodern logical and semantic discussion, though versions of it have been around for many centuries and in various cultures, as briefly elaborated on in Pagin andWesterstahl (2011). This basic observation is summarized in the form of a Principle of Compositionality as in (3).

(3) The meaning of a complex expression is composed from the meaning of its component parts and the way in which they are combined.

Compositionality certainly describes the easiest case of when we can understand a sentence, but our everyday experience is more flexible by far: Even if we do not know the meaning of the word cruciverbalist, we understand sentence (4) and, in fact, infer themeaning of the word from it.We can also understand varieties of English that use slightly different syntax, even if we are not able to produce well-formed sentences of these varieties. Examples are given in (5) for “Yoda English”, dialects such as Singapore English, or older varieties such as Shakespeare English.