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<Paper uid="C82-2055">
  <Title>ON MEANING IN THEORETICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL S~ANTICS</Title>
  <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="abstr">
    <SectionTitle>
ON MEANING IN THEORETICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL S~ANTICS
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Theoretical semantics is concerned with the modelling of meaning proper, and computational semantics (natural language understanding systems, machine translation, dialogue systems), with the modelling of communicative meaning, or meaning as used purposefully by people in communication (&amp;quot;By uttering X with meaning proper Y the speaker intends a communicative maning Z'). The distinction between meaning proper and communicative meaning Is difficult to make since in everyd~7 apeech~ which is the only observable manifestation of meaning, people are apt to confuse the thing Itself with what it is intended to stand for as well as for some other reasons (e.g. that both meanings are slmultaneosly acquired In our childhood). It is clearly cutj however, in forelgn language acquisition. In foreigh language acquisition people learn the meanings of words and expressions rather than how these meanings are used for the purposes of communlcatlon~ since in the general case, the letter Is part of their own native language knowledge. This explains wh~ we speak that for a Bulgarian to have learned the meaning of the English I wa~t to sleep is to have learned that in Bulgarian It has meaning equivalents llke ~skam da sDda~ ~ etc., and not to have learned that in communicative acts the former English sentence may be puPposefully used b~ the speaker wlth the Intention of stating that he (she) is willing to sleep, or urging someone to leave hlm (her) alone so that he (she) can sleep, and so on. Furthermore~ - 226 we can imagine situations In which one knows the communicative meanlng of a language expression without knowing Its meaning proper.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Communicative meaning lles at the basis of our intuitive under~tandlng of language. Understanding of language crucial1.y depends upon different mental processing accomplished by native speakers such as explicating Implicit connections in sentences, logical deducing (Schank, Rieger) etc. Strictly speaking, this processing does not Involve meaning proper and as such As not a part of linguistics. In this sense, the claim made In ore.rant semantic theories that linguistic semantics should e3plaln the In~Itlve understanding of the language by native speakers Is not true, unless, of course, the notion of llngulatlc meaning Is extended to meanlngleesness. null In the paper, some cases of unacceptable conceptions of linguistic meaning In the works of semantic theorlsts are discussed.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> For further explication of the difference between meanlng proper and communicative meaning (In the sense above) classes of amblgultIes are discussed which have different meaning proper but still their different semantic representat-Ions preserve the same communicative meanlnE. These classes of ambiguities share the same (l) referent, (Ii) Implication, (Ill) presupposition, or (iv) present communicative equivalents In a less well-deflned way.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> In the paper, It Is noted that, In addition to deepening Its concept of semantics along the lines of studylng commun-Icative meanPSng, as an applied science, computer llnguistlos searches for strategies avoiding ~ather than solving some of Its most difficult semantical problems.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> :Two such strategies ar~dlscussed. One Is concerned with the tackling of the ambiguity between marked and unmarked lexlcal items. In the other, It Is proposed that Instead of - 227trying to resolve some cases of A. Syntactical ambiguity, and B. Semantical ambiguity in the analysis (e.g. for the purposes of MT), sentences are synthesized An the target languase which are syntactically ambiguous (in the same sense), so that the user himself, rather than the linguistic anelyser, resolves the ambiguities in question.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> A. John hit the dog with the lor~ bat (Schank) (it ls not clear whether wlth the long b~t' is s modifier of hat or of do~) ma~ be translated Into Bulgarian as _D3on udarl k~etq which preserves the ambiguity of the original sentence (udarA -~ ~ or ~ -~ P--~I~MI_;MM~) * B. NOW for breakfast we shall want a f ry~n~-u.n (~arrls said It was Andl~estlble; but we nearl,y urged him not to bo IP._aa~...) (J.K.Jerome) (it is not clear whether for breakfast they want to eat the frying-pan Itself or just need the frying-pan to prepare their breakfast In it) may be translated Into Bulgarian as the s tructura~S_~L~L~ ~ edln titan da saC-aim... ( v~p~.~_J~n ~- ~ or -~ titan da~zakuslm).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> As an aid to the above-mentioned strategy, a llst Is made (within dependency grammar framework) of 36 models of structural ambiguity in English and Bulgarian.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> - 228 -</Paragraph>
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