Meaning for people

• What do we mean when we say semantics has both a 'internal' and an 'external' aspect?
• What does the contrast of 'dog house' vs. 'fire house' demonstrate about semantic interpretation?

Meaning for computers

• Give a 'computerese' definition of semantics.

Ontology

• What is an ontology?
• Name two basic ontological categories
• Once we've put a formalism for producing more complex categories out of primitives, we have a _________________ semantics, which like its syntactic counterpart can generate an infinite number of meanings.

Roles

• Use likely-sounding role names to describe a schema for the class of events described by the word 'wash'. Use the verb primitives 'cause' and 'go'.

Rules and Inference

• Give an example of a semantic constraint for the event described by the word 'drink'.
• Give an example of a rule of inference we'd associate with the event described by the word 'eat'.

Inheritance

• Let's say we've used Jacobs and Rao's role inheritance scheme to define a commercial transaction. Then we create a descendant of that to represent the experience of going to the supermarket. Which role would the [cashier] descend from? Why?

Classes and Instances.

• What is the type/token distinction?

Knowledge representation

• In addition to an explicit set of facts (predicates) which describe a given situation, what must we have in order to 'fill in the gaps'?