Semantics1 Week 2

Additional material for the meeting of week 2, April 22, 2015.

Our literary scenario: Game of Thrones (TV series)

• Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones
  Site on season 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_%28season_1%29
• Short summary of season 1 on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atxp6x3YreI

Getting into our literary scenario

Watch the trailer of Season 1 of Game of Thrones:

<mediaplayer>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YinJaXzgzqI</mediaplayer>

Having watched the video, which of the following statements are true in our scenario?

Click on those statements that are true in our scenario.

	John Snow is Ned Stark's son.
	Catelyn wants that her husband becomes the king's Hand.
	Catelyn wants her husband to become the Hand of the king.
	There is a king.
	There is no king.

The meanings of some of these sentences are unrelated. What do you observe for the following sentence pairs?

Catelyn wants that her husband becomes the king's Hand. and Catelyn wants her husband to become the Hand of the king.

Check your answers

The two sentences are paraphrases of each other, i.e., in every situation, whever the first is true, so is the second.

There is a king. and There is no king.

Check your answers

The two sentences contradict each other. Whenever one is true, the other must be false.

Catelyn wants that her husband becomes the king's Hand. and There is a king.

Check your answers

Whoever utters the first sentence must also assume the truth of the second. (Technically, the second sentence is presupposed by the first, but this doesn't matter here.)

What we need in a formal model

<mediaplayer>http://youtu.be/4a3mXelw7H4</mediaplayer>

For next week

• Get information on our literary scenario: Game of Thrones (TV series)
  • Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones
    Site on season 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_%28season_1%29
  • Short summary of season 1 on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atxp6x3YreI
• Read Levine et al. (in prep.), Chapter 2, Section 1 [available at olat].
• Define a model based on the Game of Thrones-scenario that contains:
  • three individuals,
  • two properties,
  • one binary relation (2-place relation), and
  • one ternary relation (3-place relation).
• Add the corresponding name symbols and predicate symbols.
  For an example see the solution to this excercise.
• Provide two statements that can be evaluated with respect to your model. One of them should be true, the other false.