Semantic projection rules

Compositionality principle: the meaning of a sentence is a function of the word senses and the way the words are syntactically linked with each other within it.
Reformulation of the compositionality principle necessitated by the fact that meanings in a natural language are expressed not only by words but also by other language units, such as grammatical forms and prosody. Trivial and non-trivial meaning interaction. An example of non-trivial meaning interaction (McCawley 1968): John almost killed him.
General and lexically bound (dictionary) rules of meaning interaction. A sample dictionary rule for dolzhen ‘must’ as distinct from its synonyms objazan = ‘obliged’ and sleduet = ‘should’:

• Vy ne dolzhny khodit' na aeto sobranie = a) ‘You are not allowed to attend this meeting’, b) ‘You are allowed not to attend this meeting’;
• Vy ne objazany khodit' na aeto sobranie = ‘You are under no obligation to attend this meeting’;
• Vam ne sleduet khodit' na aeto sobranie = ‘You are not allowed to attend this meeting’.

Dictionary rules of lexical meaning interaction. Dictionary rules of interaction between lexical and grammatical meanings.