sentence declarative assertive affirmative negative performative imperative affirmative negative interrogative yn-interrogative wh-interrogative affirmative negative agentive experiencer property contentive assertion realis person communicant speaker person communicant hearer object abstract ideal artificial phrastic quality property total truth situation event action mental situation state relation situation existential agentive experiencer contentive existential property agentive agentive experiencer affective contentive property performance realis person communicant speaker person communicant hearer object abstract ideal artificial phrastic quality property total truth situation event action change situation event action mental situation state relation situation existential agentive agentive affective experiencer contentive existential property agentive experiencer contentive agentive request hypothesis person communicant speaker person communicant hearer situation event action mental situation event action phrastic existential agentive experiencer contentive agentive agentive experiencer experiencer contentive resultive agentive contentive property y/n-question hypothesis person communicant speaker person communicant hearer object abstract ideal artificial phrastic quality property total truth situation event action mental situation state relation situation existential agentive experiencer resultive agentive experiencer existential contentive contentive property agentive experiencer experiencer contentive resultive agentive contentive attribute value derivation wh-question hypothesis person communicant speaker person communicant hearer object abstract ideal artificial phrastic object abstract attribute object abstract value situation event action mental situation state relation value object formal property temporal local graduator existential agentive experiencer resultive agentive experiencer existential contentive attributive contentive value

Section 3-5 SEMANTIC COMPONENTS OF THE SENTENCE

There are three main types of sentence from a syntactic point of view. It turns out that to express definitions for just these three types the analyst can do with symbols for a relatively small number of general concepts, such as speaker, hearer, information, behavior, etc. The definitions of these concepts cannot be given; they are ad hoc for English. Determining to what extent the concepts symbolized here apply to other languages involves an empirical investigation that would be much more intense than I am prepared to undertake. Here we investigate the primitive semantic components for the three tropics for English sentences: declarative, imperative, and interrogative. So far we have been inclined to separate out three sub-tropics: performative (from an affirmative declarative) and 1) yes-no interrogative, and 2) wh-interrogative (from interrogative). There are possibly others that will be found upon a deeper examination.
Subclasses of the three tropics: an ontology for the sentence

The declarative sentence.  
Typically a declarative sentence makes an assertion. This is the tropic of such a sentence. To express the speech act in the predicate calculus the analyst needs something to represent the “hearer;” logically this would be a constant (h). Since the language user is conveying information, the phrastic, i.e., the content or fact conveyed (x) becomes the other argument of a formal predicate of perception.
PERCEIVE(h,TRUE(x))h = ‘hearer’x = fact conveyed
The predicate TRUE( ) represents the neustic of the declarative sentence, in this case full commitment on the part of the author. In an assertion it is the “speaker,” a second role in the speech act, that in a sense wants to cause this perception to take place in the hearer. A possible formal expression of this as a proposition might involve the predicate ASSERT( ):
ASSERT(s,x)s = ‘speaker’x = fact conveyed
CAUSE(s,PERCEIVE(h,TRUE(x)))
It appears that the linguist may interpret these two additional predicates and constants as close as desired to what Hare meant by the tropic of the declarative sentence.
Semantic representations of a declarative sentence

Figure 3 illustrates possible ways to describe the semantics of a declarative sentence. MultiNet accepts sixteen C-roles (based on theta-roles and ultimately the universal cases of Fillmore) for relating objects to situations in natural languages. Instead of CAUSE(), this system has “Causator,” to which AGENTIVE and INTRUMENTAL are more specific sub-relations. There is also a role for the “Mental content” (CONTENTIVE) and one for the “Mental experiencer” (EXPERIENCER). PROPERTY is just one of 74 relations available in MultiNet for representing knowledge. MultiNet does not single out speaker, hearer, or the property of being true (TRUE()) for special consideration. However, if we do so, it is possible to distinguish the affirmative (realis), the negative (irrealis), and hypothetical (hypothesis) from the speaker’s point of view. These ideas are made use of in the simple abbreviation indicated in the figure at the top on the right side. In a natural language a phrastic is often ambiguous between (the concept or) the ideal object residing in the mind and (the concept of) the physical object representing the ideal. In the abbreviation the phrastic takes the form of the situation being conveyed by the declarative sentence. If we allow ourselves to make the fundamental elements more complex, the semantic structure becomes simpler. We will try to avoid the abbrevations of the first order logic in (1) as used by MultiNet. The form in (2) illustrates our alternative equivalent expression. The philosophy of logic maintains that any form is ad hoc, and hence, the choice between them is based on convenience and consistency.

The performative sentence.  
A certain kind of assertion fills the role of a performative sentence. It is possible to surround the assertion with an additional predicate to define this use of the declarative sentence. As a performative the whole sentence describes a speech act in which the speaker and possibly the hearer is involved. The speaker, who is typically endowed with some authority, announces that he is bringing about a certain state in the object and this announcement is in the form of a declarative sentence. The speaker’s intent is that the act of declaring the state of affairs should bring about precisely that state:
PERFORM(s,x) CAUSE2((ASSERT(s,x),TRUE(x)), x)
CAUSE2(CAUSE1(s,PERCEIVE(h,TRUE(x))),TRUE(x))
The first argument of CAUSE1( ) stands for a physical object, but the first argument of this new CAUSE2( ) stands for a proposition. There would be an air of magic in the fact that an utterance can bring about a new state of affairs, but the new state is as much a social convention as is the language. The careful semanticist may find here some motivation to invent a new word for this special kind of cause.
Semantic representations of a performative sentence

The MultiNet version of the semantic net uses the C-role relation AFFECTIVE to express the effect of change that the performative utterance has on the state of affairs described in the phrastic.
The imperative sentence.  
The imperative sentence is a request on the part of the speaker for the hearer to behave in a manner specified. Whereas the declarative speech act typically announces a state of affairs, the imperative speech act in a sense initiates the desired state:
INITIATE(CAUSE(s,PERCEIVE(h,P(h))),P(h))
No part of this proposition is an assertion. It is not a question of whether some proposition is true. The salient predicate is the one that takes the hearer as its sole argument. I have been using x for a variable proposition; now I need to use P to symbolize this predicate as a variable. In some cases the imperative is expressed by grammaticalizing the hearer into the second person subject of an assertion. The speaker is then assuming more control over the desired state of affairs. Unlike the speaker of an assertion the speaker of an imperative is not usually committed to a particular truth value. The truth of an imperative sentence is in the hands of the hearer; it depends on whether or not a particular state of affairs for the hearer is in fact initiated by the utterance. All that remains of Hare’s neustic for an imperative sentence is in the realm of the control and sincerity of the speaker.
Semantic representations of an imperative sentence

The yes-no interrogative sentence.  
The interrogative sentence may request the hearer to supply the truth value (the Boolean reply) of some fact. This type of sentence is the yes-no interrogative.
INITIATE(CAUSE(s,PERCEIVE1(h,x)),CAUSE(h,PERCEIVE2(s,truth(x))))
Here we employ subscripts to distinguish between two types of perception. The hearer’s perception is the proposition x, whereas the speaker’s perception is ultimately the value of a particular functor of proposition x, i.e., its truth value. An assertion would communicate the truth of a particular proposition, (truth(x) = +), but the yes-no interrogative communicates uncertainty (±) over this truth.
Semantic representations of a yes-no interrogative sentence

The wh-interrogative sentence.  
Both kinds of interrogative sentences inquire after the value of some functor of an underlying proposition. The yes-no interrogative asks for information relating to the truth value. In the case of the wh-interrogative the speaker inquires after the identity of some other aspect of the proposition. The language user may express the queried aspect as subject, object, or almost any other element of the sentence.
INITIATE(CAUSE(s,PERCEIVE1(h,x)),CAUSE(h,PERCEIVE2(s,f(x))))
Here I have used f as the symbol for a variable functor, in the same spirit in which I used x for a variable proposition and P for a variable predicate. The truth value of an interrogative sentence is undefined until an answer from the hearer is initiated by the utterance. The variables must be satisfied, before an assertion made and the truth value disclosed. The typical answer to a wh-interrogative is such an assertion with those aspects specified that correspond to the ones queried.
Semantic representations of a wh-interrogative sentence
MultiNet follows the syntax of English (and German) in using an ATTRIBUTE–VALUE combination whenever a functor and its value must be represented semantically.

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