Chapter 6: Semantics

Question 1

semantics

Answer 1

the meaning of words and sentences

Question 2

context

Answer 2

in which the utterance occurs also effects the meaning that is expressed

Question 3

logical entailment

Answer 3

holds when the truth of one sentence requires the truth of another

Question 4

contradiction test

Answer 4

used to test if one sentence entails another
If we join sentence p with the negation of sentence q and the result is contradictory, then we know that p entails q

Question 5

logical equivalence (paraphrase)

Answer 5

P entails q and q entails p
P & Q are only logically equivalent if both are true or if both are false

Question 6

logical contradiction

Answer 6

Opposite truth values
If you know that one is true than the other one is automatically false and vise versa

Question 7

logical contrariety

Answer 7

If p true than q must be false
Both sentences can also be false but both cannot be true

Question 8

scalar adjectives

Answer 8

associated with a scale of degrees

Question 9

logical subordination

Answer 9

similar to logical entailment
One word is subordinate to the other word

Question 10

logical equivalence

Answer 10

Terms A and B have a relation of logical equivalence just in case A and B have the same meaning
Either both true or both false

Question 11

logical complementarity

Answer 11

The case of meanings of A and B do not overlap and together exhaust the set of relevant possibilities

Question 12

logical incompatibility

Answer 12

The case of the meanings of A and B do not overlap but do not exhaust the set of relevant possibilities

Question 13

ambiguous

Answer 13

when a word has more than one meaning, if the word in a sentence is ambiguous then the sentence is ambiguous too

Question 14

homonyms

Answer 14

two words are this if they have different meanings but either sound the same or have the same written form

Question 15

homophones

Answer 15

homonyms that have different meanings but sound the same

Question 16

homographs

Answer 16

homonyms that have different meanings with the same written form

Question 17

lexical ambiguity

Answer 17

ambiguity at the level of the word

Question 18

polysemy

Answer 18

when a word have 2 or more related meanings

Question 19

vagueness

Answer 19

when the corresponding concept of the word has fuzzy boundaries

Question 20

synonyms

Answer 20

two words that have the same or almost the same meaning

Question 21

antonyms

Answer 21

two words that have opposite meanings

Question 22

structural ambiguity

Answer 22

when words can be grouped in more than one way making it ambiguous

Question 23

thematic roles

Answer 23

semantically defined labels

Question 24

argument

Answer 24

the NP to which a thematic role is assigned

Question 25

agent

Answer 25

the entity that initially performs an action

Question 26

theme / patient

Answer 26

the entity that is affected by the an action

Question 27

experiencer

Answer 27

the entity that experiences a psychological state

Question 28

stimulus

Answer 28

the trigger of a psychological state

Question 29

benefactive

Answer 29

the entity that benefits from an action

Question 30

goal

Answer 30

the entity toward which an action is directed

Question 31

source

Answer 31

the entity from which something is moved by performing an action

Question 32

thematic grid

Answer 32

representing the information about thematic roles associated with particular verbs within angled brackets

Question 33

theta criterion

Answer 33

a sentence is grammatical only if each thematic role is assigned to an argument and each argument receives a thematic role