FACTOID # 142: Americans consume the sixth-most spirits, the eighth-most beer and the 18th-most wine. They’re also likely to view heavy drinkers as undesirable neighbors.
 
 Home   Encyclopedia   Statistics   Countries A-Z   Flags   Maps   Education   Forum   FAQ   About 
 
WHAT'S NEW
RECENT ARTICLES
More Recent Articles »
 

FACTS & STATISTICS    Simple view

  1. Select countries to view: (hold down Control key and click to select several)

     

     

    Compare:

     

     

  1. Select fact or statistic: (* = graphable)

     

     

     

  2. (OPTIONAL) Compare to statistic: (both need to be graphable)

     

     

     

  3. View result as:

     

       
(OR) SEARCH ALL encyclopedia, stats & forums:   

Encyclopedia > Compositional semantics

The Principle of Compositionality in semantics is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. It is frequently taken to mean that every operation of the syntax should be associated with a opertion of the semantics that acts on the meanings of the constituents combined by the syntactic operation. As a guideline for constructing semantic theories, this is generally taken, as in the influential work on the philosophy of language by Donald Davidson, to mean that every construct of the syntax should be associated by a clause of the T-schema with an operator in the semantics that specifies how the meaning of the whole expression is built from constituents combined by the syntactic rule. In some general mathematical theories (especially those in the tradition of Montague grammar) this guideline is taken to mean that the interpretation of a language is essentially given by a homomorphism between an algebra of syntactic representations and an algebra of semantic objects. In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... Donald Davidson (March 6, 1917-August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... In linguistics, syntax is the study of the rules, or patterned relations, that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ... The T-schema is the inductive definition that lies at the heart of any realisation of Alfred Tarskis semantic theory of truth, expressing the commutation of truth over logical operators. ... In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... Montague grammar is an approach to natural language semantics, based on formal logic, especially lambda calculus and set theory. ... This word should not be confused with homeomorphism. ...


The principle of compositionality has been the subject of intense debate. Indeed, there is no general agreement has to how the principle is to be interpreted, although there have been several attempts to provide formal definitions of it. Scholars are also divided as to whether the principle should be regarded as a factual claim, open to empirical testing, an analytic truth, obvious from the nature of language and meaning, or a methodological principle to guide the development of theories of syntax and semantics. The principle has been attacked in all three spheres, although so far none of the criticisms brought against it have been generally regarded as compelling. Most proponents of the principle, however, make certain exceptions for idiomatic expressions in natural language. Empirical is an adjective often used in conjunction with science, both the natural and social sciences, which means an observation or experiment based upon experience that is capable of being verified or disproved. ... Analytic may refer to analytic proposition or analytic philosophy, in philosophy analytic geometry, analytic function, analytic continuation, analytic set in mathematics. ... An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not compositional — that is, whose meaning does not follow from the meaning of the individual words of which it is composed. ...


This principle is sometimes called Frege's Principle, because Frege is widely credited for the first formulation of it. This claim has also been disputed. Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (November 8, 1848 - July 26, 1925) was a German mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is regarded as a founder of both modern mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. ...


The Principle of Compositionality also exists in a similar form in the denotational semantics of programming languages. In computer science, denotational semantics is one of the approaches to formalize the semantics of computer programs. ... Other listings of programming languages are: Categorical list of programming languages Generational list of programming languages Chronological list of programming languages Note: Esoteric programming languages have been moved to the separate List of esoteric programming languages. ...


See also

In computer programming, a referentially transparent function is one that, given the same parameter(s), it always returns the same result. ...

Links


  Results from FactBites:
 
Game semantics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (425 words)
Game semantics (German: dialogische Logik) is an approach to the semantics of logic that grounds the concepts of truth or validity on game-theoretic concepts, such as the existence of a winning strategy for a player.
Paul Lorenzen was the first to introduce a game semantics for logic, doing so in the late 1950s.
Consequently, game semantics has led to fully abstract semantic models for a variety of programming languages and, to new semantic-directed methods of software verification by software model checking.
LINGUIST List 2.523: Compositional Semantics (1038 words)
For the problem with plurals (the subject of a thriving debate in formal semantics), there are two immediate options to consider: (i) The less interesting one claims that there is in fact a zero morpheme converting "dog" into "dog sg.".
While this may be the correct way to go, there is a more basic answer: (ii) It is entirely conceivable that the semantics given to a plural common noun like "dogs" is in fact the result of a pluralisation operation applied to the meaning of "dog sg.".
The use of the term "function" in some previous messages on compositional semantics, though perhaps traditional, is a bit dangerous, as it seems not to agree with the use of the term in mathematics.
  More results at FactBites »


 

COMMENTARY     


Share your thoughts, questions and commentary here
Your name
Your comments
Please enter the 5-letter protection code

Want to know more?
Search encyclopedia, statistics and forums:

 


Lesson Plans | Student Area | Student FAQ | Reviews | Press Releases |  Feeds | Contact
The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL.
Images may be subject to relevant owners' copyright.
All other elements are (c) copyright NationMaster.com 2003-5. All Rights Reserved.
Usage implies agreement with terms.