Chapter 6

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The study of linguistic meaning

Question 2

Lexical semantics

Answer 2

A subfield of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions.

Question 3

Compositional semantics

Answer 3

A subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of phrasal expressions, and how those meanings arise given the meanings of the lexical expressions they contain and how they are syntactically combined.

Question 4

Sense

Answer 4

A mental representation of an expression’s meaning

Question 5

Reference

Answer 5

A component of linguistic meaning that relates the sense of some expression to entities in the outside world. The collection of all the referents of an expression.

Question 6

Referents

Answer 6

An actual entity or an individual in the world to which some expression refers.

Question 7

Mental image definition

Answer 7

A conception of a word’s sense as a picture in the mind of the language user that represents its meaning

Question 8

Usage-based definition

Answer 8

A characterization of a word’s sense based on the way that the word is used by speakers of a language.

Question 9

Hyponymy

Answer 9

A meaning relationship between words, where the reference of some word X is included in the reference of some other word Y. X is then said to be a hyponym of Y, and conversely, Y is said to be a hypernym of X.

Question 10

Sister terms

Answer 10

Words that, in terms of their reference, are at the same level in the hierarchy, i.e. have exactly the same hypernyms.

Question 11

Synonymy

Answer 11

A meaning relationship between words where their reference is exactly the same. For example, couch and sofa are synonyms.

Question 12

Antonymy

Answer 12

A meaning relationship between words where their meanings are in some sense opposite.

Question 13

Complementary pairs

Answer 13

A non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 14

Gradable antonyms

Answer 14

Words that are antonyms and denote opposite ends of a scale. (Also known as gradable pairs and as scalar antonyms).

Question 15

Reverses

Answer 15

Antonyms in which one word in the pair suggests movement that “undoes” the movement suggested by the other.

Question 16

Converses

Answer 16

Antonyms in which the first word of the pair suggests a point of view opposite to that of the second word.

Question 17

Proposition

Answer 17

The sense expressed by a sentence. Characteristically, propositions can be true or false, i.e. have truth values.

Question 18

Truth value

Answer 18

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence.

Question 19

Entailment

Answer 19

A relationship between propositions where a proposition p is said to entail another proposition q just in case if p is true, q has to be true as well.

Question 20

Mutual entailment

Answer 20

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another.

Question 21

Incompatible

Answer 21

The relationship between two propositions where it is impossible for both of them to be true simultaneously.

Question 22

Principle of compositionality

Answer 22

The notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined.

Question 23

Idiom

Answer 23

A multi-word lexical expression whose meaning is not compositional.

Question 24

Pure intersection

Answer 24

The relationship between the reference of an adjective and a noun it modifies such that each picks out a particular group of things, and the reference of the resulting phrase is all of the things that are in both the reference set of the adjective and the reference set of the noun.

Question 25

Intersective adjectives

Answer 25

An adjective whose reference is determined independently from the reference of the noun that it modifies.

Question 26

Relative Intersection

Answer 26

Type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference.

Question 27

Subsective adjective

Answer 27

Adjective whose reference is included in the set of things that the noun they modify refers to.

Question 28

Non-intersection Adjective

Answer 28

An adjective whose reference is a subset of the set that the noun it modifies refers to, but that does not, in and of itself, refer to any particular set of things

Question 29

Anti-intersection adjective

Answer 29

An adjective whose referents are not in the set referred to by the noun that it modifies.

Question 30

Compositional Meaning

Answer 30

The meaning of a phrasal expression that is predictable from the meanings of smaller expressions it contains and how they are syntactically combined.