Equips students to analyze meaning across languages using clear tools and rich examples
Semantics in Action provides an accessible yet rigorous introduction to natural language semantics. Organized around core semantic phenomena such as quantification, relative clauses, modality, events, tense, and aspect, this concise textbook builds skills through detailed, compositional analyses and carefully chosen illustrative examples. Author Toshiyuki Ogihara, a leading voice in cross-linguistic semantic theory and research, anchors the discussion in English and supplements it with Japanese examples.
Balancing clarity with linguistic diversity, each chapter offers lucid explanations, guided analyses, and exercises that help students develop a precise understanding of semantic theory and its application. Ogihara emphasizes the compositional nature of meaning, the syntax-semantics interface, and the utility of semantic reasoning in linguistic research. Providing the foundation to engage deeply with natural language semantics, either as part of formal coursework or as preparation for more advanced research, Semantics in Action:
Offers a step-by-step approach to compositional semantic analysis with simple, well-chosen examples Integrates English as the primary object language with targeted Japanese data to highlight theoretical contrasts Supports cross-linguistic analysis, especially for students whose native language differs structurally from English Includes exercises as well as charts and figures throughout
Equipping students with both theoretical insight and practical tools for independent research, Semantics in Action is ideal for advanced undergraduates or beginning graduate students enrolled in courses such as Formal Semantics and Natural Language Semantics.
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
List of Abbreviations and Special Symbols xiv
1 Introduction: Compositional Semantics for Natural Language 1
1.1 How to study semantics of natural language 2
1.2 Motivations for adopting a referential theory of meaning 3
1.3 Compositional semantics: first steps 4
1.4 Our official syntax-semantics interface system in a nutshell 6
1.5 Some important syntactic concepts 9
1.6 How we use the Japanese data 11
1.7 Typological differences between English and Japanese 11
1.8 Semantics and Pragmatics 13
2 Set Theory and Higher-Order Logic 17
2.1 Set Theory The bare-bones essence needed for semantic research 18
2.2 Propositional Logic 24
2.3 Predicate Logic without quantifiers syntax 27
2.4 Predicate Logic without quantifiers semantics 28
2.5 Quantifiers in Predicate Logic 30
2.6 Higher-order logic with the lambda operator syntax 33
2.7 Higher-order logic with the lambda operator semantics 36
3 Simple Sentences 42
3.1 The overall architecture of the theory 43
3.2 Names 43
3.3 Intransitive verbs 44
3.4 Adjectives 44
3.5 Common nouns 45
3.6 Transitive verbs 46
3.7 Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases 47
3.8 Some exceptional cases 48
3.9 Intransitive verbs in Japanese 50
3.10 Adjectives and adjectival nouns in Japanese 51
3.11 Transitive verbs in Japanese 51
3.12 Double subject constructions in Japanese 52
4 Adnominal Modifiers 56
4.1 Introduction 57
4.2 Prepositional Phrases as modifiers 57
4.3 Participial modifiers 58
4.4 Adjectives used attributively 59
4.5 Attributive nouns 65
4.6 Postpositional phrases in Japanese 66
4.7 Participial modifiers in Japanese 67
4.8 Attributive adjectives in Japanese 68
5 Determiners and Determiner Phrases 70
5.1 Introduction 71
5.2 Quantified DPs are not referential expressions 71
5.3 Relational analysis of determiners 74
5.4 Compositional semantics for English DPs 77
5.5 Some examples of compositional semantic computations 79
5.6 The semantics of determiners 83
5.7 The definite article the 85
5.8 Names as generalized quantifiers 87
5.9 Japanese quantifiers 89
6 Relative Clauses 95
6.1 Introduction 96
6.2 English relative clauses 97
6.3 Japanese gapped relative clauses with no quantifiers 102
6.4 Japanese gapped relative clauses with quantifiers 105
6.5 Externally-headed Japanese relative clauses with no obvious gaps 106
6.6 Internally-headed relative clauses in Japanese 108
7 Quantifier Scope and Pronouns 113
7.1 Introduction 114
7.2 DP quantifiers in the object position 114
7.3 Quantifier scope ambiguity 118
7.4 Free-variable pronouns and bound-variable pronouns 120
7.5 Japanese quantifiers and scope ambiguity 124
7.6 Negation and quantifiers in English 126
7.7 Negation and quantifiers in Japanese 129
8 Intensionality and Modals 134
8.1 Introduction 135
8.2 English modal auxiliaries and their semantic properties 135
8.3 How Japanese expresses modal concepts 143
8.4 Compositional semantics 145
9 Believe and Its Kin 151
9.1 Introduction 152
9.2 Propositional attitude verbs and the interpretation of complement
clauses 153
9.3 A formal analysis of believe 154
9.4 De dicto vs. de re 156
9.5 De se 158
9.6 Indefinite DP cases 160
9.7 Intensional adjectives 162
10 Tense 164
10.1 Introduction 165
10.2 Present tense 165
10.3 Past tense 167
10.4 Future tense 170
10.5 Tense in Japanese 170
10.6 Compositional semantic calculations 171
10.7 Tense in complement clauses 173
10.8 Temporal examples of de se attitudes 176
10.9 Topic Time 177
11 Events 180
11.1 Introduction 181
11.2 Adverbs 181
11.3 Pronominal anaphora 182
11.4 Event nouns 183
11.5 A compositional semantic analysis of Davidsons proposal 184
11.6 Neo-Davidsonian Theory of events 186
11.7 Additional motivations for introducing events to semantic theory 188
11.8 Some implications of the neo-Davidsonian analysis 189
12 Aspect 192
12.1 Introduction 193
12.2 Aktionsarten lexical aspect properties of predicates 193
12.3 Formal characterization of action types (or Aktionsarten) 195
12.4 The progressive 198
12.5 The semantics of the English progressive 199
12.6 The English perfect Informal discussion 203
12.7 Japanese Aktionsarten 205
12.8 The Japanese te iru construction 206
12.9 The perfective, the imperfective, and the perfect 207
13 Count, Mass, Bare Nouns, and Plurals 212
13.1 Introduction 213
13.2 Distributive reading and plurality 213
13.3 Collective readings with plural DPs 216
13.4 Counting and measuring in English 218
13.5 Counting and measuring in Japanese 220
13.6 Bare plurals and bare nouns 222
14 Discourse, Pragmatics, and Beyond 229
14.1 Introduction 230
14.2 Quantified DPs vs. indefinite and definite descriptions 230
14.3 Donkey anaphora 233
14.4 A solution to the donkey anaphora problem 236
14.5 Temporal properties of discourse 239
14.6 Pragmatic meaning types 242
14.7 Japanese data and their theoretical implications 243
15 Summary and Conclusion 248
15.1 Introduction 249
15.2 Set Theory basics, predicate logic, and its extensions 249
15.3 Simple sentences 249
15.4 Adnominal modifiers 251
15.5 Determiners and determiner phrases 251
15.6 Relative clauses 252
15.7 Quantifier scope and pronouns 254
15.8 Intensionality and modals 255
15.9 Believe and its kin 256
15.10 Tense 257
15.11 Events 258
15.12 Aspect 259
15.13 Count, mass, bare nouns, and bare plurals 259
15.14 Discourse, pragmatics, and beyond 262
15.15 Conclusion 262
Solutions to Exercises 264
Index 000
TOSHIYUKI OGIHARA is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington. His research focuses on formal semantics, with particular expertise in tense, aspect, and modality in both English and Japanese. He has published extensively on temporal semantics and the syntax-semantics interface and has co-authored comparative work on Hebrew, Korean, and historical Japanese.
