Compositionality: meaning of an expression as some function,
specified by the
syntactic-semantic rule associated with the structure, of
the meanings of the sub-expressions
Rule-by-rule semantic interpretation
Unification-based approach
CONTENT of a sentence is the CONTENT of the VP, which is the
CONTENT of the verb
Verb lexical entries specify the semantic roles associated with
the verb and how they may onto the syntactic roles that
the verb subcategorizes for
CONTENT of an NP is the CONTENT of the head noun
Attributive adjective lexical entries specify restrictions that
are added to those associated with the CONTENT of the
noun phrase in which they occur
Problems for compositionality
Non-context-free meanings: red blood, red bricks,
a gun, a fake gun.
Idiomatic, figurative, metonymic language: she spilled the
beans, you are the sunshine of my life,
the mushroom omelet left without paying