1.5 Semantic/conceptual and spatial structure
If phonology and syntax are fairly well settled at least at this relativelygross level, there is considerably less agreement
abouttheproperformulationofsemantic/conceptual structure,evenwithrespecttowhether thereis sucha thing. Fig.
1.1 unabashedlypresentsoneaspectofthisstructureinmyown versionofthenotation.Chapter12 willcallthisaspect
thedescriptive tier; it corresponds roughly to the information that might be encoded in a predicate logic.Chapter 12 will
alsomotivateother tiersofsemantic/conceptual structure, related tothistierinroughlytheway thetiersofphonology
are related. One is thereferential tier, which corresponds roughly to the aspects of meaning added when moving from a
predicate logic to a quantificational logic. Another is the tier ofinformation structure, the division of the content of the
sentence into foreground and background (topic/focus and presupposition).
The structure given in Fig. 1.1 is a labeled bracketing, in which each pair of brackets surrounds aconceptual constituent.
The label on a constituentdesignates itas belongingtoa major conceptual type such as Situation,Event,State,Object,
Place, or Property.
Twokinds of relationamong conceptual constituents appear in thisstructure. Thefirst is function-argumentstructure,
notated as in (5).
Here F is a function that maps a constituent of type Y and a constituent of type Z into a constituent of type X.(5)
shows a two-place function. BEis such a function in Fig. 1.1. There are also one-place functions (such asBESIDEin
Fig. 1.1) and possibly three-place functions. The second kind of relation is modification, notated as in (6).
(6) is a constituent of typeX, in which the inner constituent, of typeY, specifies a further characteristic of the outer
constituent. An example of this in Fig. 1.1 is the modification of thefirst Object constituent by the PropertyLITTLE.
Using this notation, the conceptual structure in Fig. 1.1 says that there is a Situation in the present, consisting of a
State. This State is one of an Object being located in a Place; the functionBEmaps the Object and the Place into this
State.
Nowlookat theObjectthatis thefirst argumentofBE. Ithas three pieces ofstructure. Thefirst designates theObject
as of the categorySTAR(which presumably has more internal articulation, not notated here: see Chapter 11). The
second piece is a markerDEF(‘definite’), which indicates roughly that the identity of