Paraphrases- similar or identical?

[Deborah Sprang]

I think that’s a rather complicated question to answer…
The paraphrases “The dog chased the cat” and “The cat was chased by the dog” technically have the same meaning. I mean, the ACTION, that what happens is exactly the same. So I guess you could say that what can be concluded from these sentences is identical. However, I get that linguists struggle here since paraphrases are never perfectly the same. In fact, there is a subtle difference of emphasis between the two sentences! In the first one, the focus lies more on the dog, who is chasing the cat. If we’d imagine a picture of that sentence, I think we would all rather see an angry/exciting dog which is running. (?) If we were to imagine a picture for the second sentence however, in my head I see a scared cat running away since the emphasis of that sentence is the cat being chased.
As I said, I get how the phrases are different and one could therefore argue, that the meaning is slightly different. But I think, what the sentences entail (the action that happens) is identical?

That was probably not a perfect explanation for linguists….
I’m happy to hear your thoughts!

 

 

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