Chapter 6 - Semantics

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The subfield of linguistics that studies meaning in language

Question 2

Lexical

Answer 2

Deals with the meanings of words and other lexical expressions, including the meaning relationships among them

Question 3

Compositional

Answer 3

How lexical meanings combine to give rise to phrasal meanings

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 entitles in the outside world

Question 6

Referent

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 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

Prototype

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Hyponymy/ Hyponym

Answer 10

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 11

Sister terms

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Synonymy

Answer 12

A meaning relationship between words where their reference is exactly the same

Question 13

Antonymy

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Complementary antonyms

Answer 14

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 15

Gradable antonyms

Answer 15

Words that are antonyms and denote opposite ends of a scale

Question 16

Reverses

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Converses

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Proposition

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Truth value

Answer 19

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence

Question 20

Truth conditions

Answer 20

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 21

Entailment

Answer 21

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 22

Mutual entailment

Answer 22

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another

Question 23

Incompatibility

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Principle of compositionality

Answer 24

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 25

Compositional meaning

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Pure intersection

Answer 26

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 reference set of the adjective and the reverence set of the noun.

Question 27

Intersective adjectives

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Subsective adjectives

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Non-intersection adjective

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Anti-intersection adjectives

Answer 30

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