1. Unit 5
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2.  My dog bit the postman
 Mrs Wraith is waiting for the downtown bus
 The semantic structure:
Simple declarative
sentences
one or more words not part of
referring any of the referring
expressions expressions
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3. The ‘remainders’ 
a varied set
 itis possible to discern one word (or part of a
word) which ‘carries more meaning’ than the
others.
 write in example (2) carries more specific
information than is and the suffix -ing.
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4.  Ifone strips away such less meaningful
elements, one is left with a sequence of
words, which, though ungrammatical and
inelegant, can still be understood as expressing
a proposition.
 The result is a kind of ‘Tarzan jungle talk’
 Boy bad for The boy is bad,
 Woman write speech for The woman is writing
the speech.
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5.  The PREDICATOR of a simple declarative
sentence is the word (sometimes a group
of words) which does not belong to any
of the referring expressions and which, of
the remainder, makes the most specific
contribution to the meaning of the
sentence. Intuitively speaking, the
predicator describes the state or process
in which the referring expressions are
involved.
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6.  Mummy is asleep
 The white man loved the Indian maiden
 Jimmy was waiting for the downtown bus
 Thesemantics of tense e.g. the indicators of
past and present tense  contributes to the
meaning of a sentence differently  will not
be pursued here.
 The verb be in its various forms
(is, was, are, were, am)  is not the
predicator  in any example sentence that we
have seen so far. 6

7.  The predicators in sentences can be of various parts of
speech:
adjectives (red, asleep, hungry, whimsical)
verbs (write, stink, place)
prepositions (in, between, behind)
nouns (crook, genius).
Predicators in Sentences
obvious syntactic differences semantically similar
can function as the predicators of
different types of words sentences.
 Exception: words of other parts of speech  cannot serve
as predicators in sentences.
E.g. conjunctions (and, but, or) & articles (the, a)
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8. Analyzing simple declarative sentence, there are two major semantic
roles:
The role
The role(s) of argument(s)
of predicator
played by the
played by predicates
referring expression(s)
Example:
Marcus Brutus killed Julius Caesar.
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9. The traditional
The semantic
grammatical
analysis of a
analysis of a
sentence into
sentence into
predicator and
subject and
argument(s)
predicate
  Although there is some overlap, the semantic analysis does not
correspond in most cases to the traditional grammatical analysis .
 In this book  concerned almost exclusively with the semantic
analysis of sentences,
  will not make use of the notion ‘grammatical predicate (phrase)’
  but will use the term ‘predicate’ in a semantic sense developed
within Logic.
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10.  A PREDICATE is any word (or sequence of words)
which (in a given single sense) can function as the
predicator of a sentence.
adjectives (red, asleep, hungry, whimsical)
verbs (write, stink, place)
prepositions (in, between, behind)
nouns (crook, genius).
  predicates
conjunctions (and, but, or) & articles (the, a)
  not predicates
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11.  The definition of ‘predicate’ contained two
parenthesized conditions.
(or sequence of words)  wait for, in front of 
seems sensible to analyse as single predicates.
(in a given single sense) more important 
illustrates a degree of abstractness in the notion
of a predicate.
A ‘word’  can be ambiguous, i.e. can have more
than one sense  but we use ‘predicate’ in a way
which does not allow a predicate to be ambiguous.
 A predicate can have only one sense.
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12.  Normally the context  clarifies what
sense (what predicate) we have in mind
 Occasionally  use subscripts on words to
distinguish between different predicates.
 E.g. bank1 and bank2
man1 (noun) human being
man2 (noun) male adult human being
man3 (transitive verb) as in The crew manned the
lifeboats.
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13. Predicate vs. Predicator
identifies elements in the language
identifies semantic roles
system
played by a word (or more) in a
independently of particular examples
particular sentence
can envisage a list of predicates in
can’t list the predicators of English
English
 The term ‘predicator’  is similar to the grammatical term ‘subject’
  one can talk of the subject of a particular sentence  but it makes
no sense to talk of a list of ‘the subjects of English’
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14. A simple sentence only has one predicator.
A tall, handsome stranger entered the saloon
 Predicator  enter
 Predicates  tall, handsome, stranger, and saloon
 can function as predicators in other sentences
John is tall
He is handsome
He is a stranger
That ramshackle building is a saloon.
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15. 15

16.  The DEGREE of a predicate is a number
indicating the number of arguments it is normally
understood to have in simple sentences.
Asleep is a predicate of degree one (often called a
one-place predicate)
Love (verb) is a predicate of degree two (a two-
place predicate)
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17.  The child screamed  one-place predicate
 A verb that is understood most naturally with just two
arguments, one as its subject, and one as its
object, is a two-place predicate.
Example
In Martha hit the parrot, hit is a two-place predicate: it has
an argument, Martha, as subject and an argument, the
parrot, as direct object.
 There are a few three-place predicates; the verb
give is the best example.
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18.  Cairo is in Africa  two-place predicate
 The lamp is over the table  two-place
predicate
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19.  Cairo is dusty
 In fact, the majority of adjectives are one-place predicates.
The role of the prepositions such as of and from in afraid of and different from.
1. Not predicates.
2. Some adjectives in English require (grammatically) to be joined to a following
argument by a preposition.
3.  adj. + prep. + argument
4. Relatively meaningless linking particles.
5. The combination of adjective + linking particle  complex or multi-word
predicate with basically one unified meaning.
6. Often: different linking prepositions = same meaning
e.g. (in some dialects) different to, or even different than.
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20.  Cairo is a large city
 Elijah is the neighbor of Sebastian.
 Most nouns are one-place predicates.
 But a few nouns could be said to be ‘inherently
relational’.  two-place predicates
 These are nouns such as
father, son, brother, mother, daughter, neighbour.
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21. Sometimes, two predicates
the
of different can have
corresponding
grammatical nearly, if not
predicates
parts of exactly, the
have the same
speech same sense
degree
 Ronald is foolish, Ronald is a fool
 Timothy is afraid of cats, Timothy fears cats
 My parrot is a talker, My parrot talks
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22.  This is the relation found in equative sentences.
 The identity relation has very basic role in the communication
of information.
E.g. George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States
Verb be  in English
1. Expresses the identity of the referents of two different
referring expressions (instances of the identity predicate).
2. A grammatical device: links a predicate that is not a verb) to
its first argument, as in John is a fool
3. A device for ‘carrying’ the tense (present or past) of a
sentence.
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23.  Semantics: A Coursebook by JAMES R. HURFORD , RENDAN
HEASLEY, MICHAEL B. SMITH
 SEMANTIC ROLES, Lets Study Together
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