Chapter 6 Flashcards
Lexical Semantics
Meanings of words and other lexical expressions
Compositional semantics
How lexical meanings combine into phrasal meanings and how phrasal meanings are assembled
Sense
Mental representation of of it’s meaning. Ex: Cat-four legged, furry, Garfield, etc
Referents
Entity or individual in the world to which some expression refers. (individual cats within a reference (group of cats))
Reference
A linguistic meaning that relates the sense of some expression to entities in the outside world. A collection of referents in an expression. (all cats)
Mental image
A picture stored in our mind if a words meaning.
prototype
For any given set of meanings of a word, a member that exhibits the typical qualities of the members of the set
Usage-Based Definition
A characterization of a word’s sense based on the way that word is used by speakers of a language
Hyponymy
A meaning relationship between two words where the reference of some word X is included in the reference of some other word Y. X is a hyponym of Y, and conversely Y is a hypernym of X
Hypernym
Larger group in set (dogs)
Hyponym
Subset of larger group of words (poodles)
Sister terms
Have exactly the same hypernym. (sister terms poodles & boxers are hyponyms of hypernym dog)
synonymy
Two words having exactly the same reference. (couch/sofa)
antonymy
opposite in some sense
Complimentary pairs
Pair of antonyms where everything is described by the first word, 2nd word or neither. (married/unmarried, existent/nonexistent, alive/dead. win/lose)
Gradable pairs
antonyms and denote opposite ends of the scale. Do not represent an absolute value. (wet/dry, easy/hard, old/young, love/hate) there is an identifiable state between the two words.
Reverses pairs
Antonym pairs that suggest some kind of movement. One word undoes the movement suggested by the other. (expand/contract, ascent/descent)
Converses pairs
Two opposing points of view or a change in perspective. (lend/borrow, send/receive, employer/employee, over/under) they reference each other.
Proposition
The claim expressed by a sentence
Truth value
The ability to be true or false
Truth conditions
The conditions that would have to occur in the world in order for the proposition to be true.
Entailment
Relationship between propositions (sentences) where a proposition is said to compliment the other, if one is true so has to be the other. No dogs bark, Sally’s dog doesn’t bark.
Mutual entailment
When two propositions entail one another.
Mutually Incompatible propositions
Impossible for both to be true. (No dogs bark, all dogs bark)
Principle of compositionality
The meaning of a sentence is a function of the meanings of the words it contains and the way in which these words are syntactically combined.
Compositional
Predictable meanings of words from their syntactic combination.
Idiom
Multi word expression who’s meaning is not compositional . “Kick the bucket”
Pure intersection
The intersection of all things in both reference sets of adjective and noun, whereas the two sets can also be identified independently, and are absolute
Intersective Adjective
An adjective whose reference is determined independently from the reference of the noun that it modifies.
Relative intersection
The reference of the adjective is determined relatively to the noun (Big whales, Big Mice)
Subsective Adjectives
Adjective whose reference is included in the set of things that the noun it modifies refers to.
Non-intersection Adjective
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. (possible solution, alleged thief)
Anti-intersection adjectives
Adjective that whose referents are not in the set referred to by the noun that modifies. (fake Picasso)
