Chapter 6

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The study of linguistic meaning.

Question 2

Lexical Semantics

Answer 2

A sub-field of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions.

Question 3

Compositional

Answer 3

The meaning of a phrasal expression that is predictable from the meanings of smaller expressions it contains 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

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

Prototype

Answer 8

For any given set, a member that exhibits the typical qualities of the members of that set.

Question 9

Usage-Based Definitions

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Reverses

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Complementary Antonyms

Answer 11

Pair of antonyms such that everything must be described by the first word, the second word, or neither; and such that saying of something that it is not a member of the set denoted by the first word implicates that it is in the set denoted by the second word.

Question 12

Mutual Entailment

Answer 12

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another.

Question 13

Incompatible

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Synonymy

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Pure intersection

Answer 15

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 16

Intersective Adjectives

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Truth Value

Answer 17

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence.

Question 18

Truth Condition

Answer 18

The set of conditions that would have to hold in the world in order for the proposition expressed by some sentence to be true.

Question 19

Non-Intersection

Answer 19

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 20

Subsective Adjective

Answer 20

An adjective whose reference is included in the set of things that the noun it modifies refers to.