Form-meaning mismatch
A form-meaning mismatch is a case of the grammatical form failing to match its expected meaning. There is often an expectation of a one-to-one relationship between meaning and form, and indeed, many traditional definitions are based on such an assumption. For example,
Verbs come in three tenses: past, present, and future. The past is used to describe things that have already happened (e.g., earlier in the day, yesterday, last week, three years ago). The present tense is used to describe things that are happening right now, or things that are continuous. The future tense describes things that have yet to happen (e.g., later, tomorrow, next week, next year, three years from now).[1]
While this accurately captures the typical behaviour of these three tenses, it's not unusual for a futurate meaning to have a present tense form (I'll see you before I go) or a past tense form (If you could help, that would be great).
Subject-agent mismatches
The subject of a sentence is often defined as a noun phrase that denotes "the doer of the action".
a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun that usually comes before a main verb and represents the person or thing that performs the action of the verb, or about which something is stated.[2]
Dummy subjects
Dummy there in there's a book on the table, is the grammatical subject, but there isn't the doer of the action or the thing about which something is stated. In fact is has no semantic role at all. The same is true of it in it's cold today.
Raising objects
In the case of object raising, the object of one verb can be the "doer of the action" of another verb. For example, in we expect JJ to arrive at 2:00, JJ is the object of expected, but JJ is also the person who will be doing the arriving.
Definiteness
From a semantic point of view, a definite NP is one that is identifiable and activated in the minds of the first person and the addressee. From a grammatical point of view in English, definiteness is typically marked by definite determiners, such as this. “The theoretical distinction between grammatical definiteness and cognitive identifiability has the advantage of enabling us to distinguish between a discrete (grammatical) and a non-discrete (cognitive) category”[3][p. 84]
So, in a case such as I met this guy from Heidleberg on the train, the underlined NP is grammatically definite but semantically indefinite;[3][p. 82] there is a form-meaning mismatch.
Number agreement
Grammatical number is typically marked on nouns in English, and present-tense verbs show agreement with the subject. But there are cases of mismatch, such as with a singular collective noun as the subject and plural agreement on the verb (e.g., The team are working hard).
The pronoun you triggers plural agreement regardless of whether it refers to one person or more (e.g., You are the only one who can do this).
Some words, such as everyone, have singular argeement even though they refer to more than one person (e.g., Everyone has arrived. They're all here.)
In some cases, the mismatch may be apparent rather than real due to a poorly chosen term. For example, plural in English suggest more than one, but non-singular may be a better term. We use plural marking for things less than one (e.g., 0.5 calories) or even for nothing at all (e.g., zero degrees).
Gender
In some cases, the gender of a word appears to be a mismatch with its meaning. For example, in German, das Fräulein means the unmarried woman. A woman is naturally feminine in terms of social gender, but the word here is neuter gender.
References
- ^ "Verb Tenses". Verb Tenses—–How to Use Them Correctly | Grammarly. 2017-01-24. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
- ^ "subject | meaning of subject in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English | LDOCE". www.ldoceonline.com. Retrieved 2021-03-25.
- ^ a b Lambrecht, Knud (1994-09-08). Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511620607. ISBN 978-0-521-38056-0.