This document summarizes a lecture on pragmatics presented by Maggie Yu. It includes examples and explanations of entailment, exercises testing entailment, and definitions of analytic, synthetic, and contradictory sentences. The examples discuss whether sentences are true, false, or unknown based on entailment and the meaning of words. The document also provides an example discussing the relationship between actors Jackie Chan and Andy Lau to illustrate synthetic truths.

1. 2014.12.02
Course: Pragmatics
Presenter: 49972120 余允中 Maggie
Instructor: Professor Huang

2. Outline
 Exercise 1
 Entailment
 Exercise 3
 Exercise 2
 Analytic / Synthetic / Contradiction

3. Exercise 1
 It’s been an amazing year for Crystal Palace over the
past 12 months.
 The robbery was committed by a pair of identical
twins, both are said to be about age 20.
 Send in your competition answers with your name, age,
and how old you are.
 So you’re a housewife and a mother. Do you have any
children?

4. Exercise 1
 Examples
 There is a cat with four legs.
 陳先生，請問您貴姓?
There is a dog with three legs.

5. Entailment
 Generally speaking, entailment is not a pragmatic
concept, but instead is considered a purely logical
concept, symbolized by ||.
-- Yule, George “Pragmatics”
 A relationship between two sentences such that if
the first is true, the second must also be true.
Having to do with
speaker meaning

6. Exercise 3
 Annie caught a trout.
 Annie caught a fish.
 Annie is thin.
 Annie is not fat.
 Annie baked a cake.
 Annie baked something.
A
B
B is an entailment of A.
A entails (||) B.
Hyponym

7. Exercise 3
 Examples
 David stole a pound of beef.
 David took a pound of beef.
 全班的學生都喜歡英文。
 有人喜歡英文。

8. Exercise 2
 My mother is a woman.
 My mother is a doctor.
 The tiger is unhappy.
 The tiger is an animal.
 My mother is a boy.
 The tiger is a reptile.
True
True
False
False
Unknown
Unknown

9. Analytic / Synthetic / Contradiction
 An analytic sentence is one that is necessarily true, as a
result of the meaning of the words in it.
 A contradiction is a sentence that is necessarily false,
as a result of the meaning of the words in it.
 A synthetic sentence is one which is not analytic but
may be either true or false depending on the way the
world is.

10. Analytic / Synthetic / Contradiction
 You would need other, non-linguistic, information
about my mother and the particular tiger I am
referring to.
 Synthetically True
 Synthetically False

11. Analytic / Synthetic / Contradiction
 Examples
影帝張家輝入行以來因和“大哥”張學友外形十分相像，多讓人誤會
為張學友的親弟弟，而張家輝對此毫不避諱更大呼 “張學友確實是我
哥”、 “他很有個人魅力”等等，對“大哥”張學友的敬愛之情溢於言
表。“親大哥”是假，兩人確為多年好友，私下關係好到足以“兄弟”
相稱。此次騙倒眾網友，同樣也得到粉絲的稱讚“影帝好演技！”