Chapter 6 Semantics Flashcards
Semantics
subfield of linguistics that studies meaning in language
sense
mental representation of an expression’s meaning
reference
relationship of an expression to the world
referents
entity or individual in the world to which some expression refers
mental image definition
conception of a word’s sense as a picture in the mind of a language user that represents its meaning
usage-based definition
a characterization of a word’s sense based on the way that the word is used by speakers of a language
hyponymy
meaning relationship between words, where the reference of some word X is included in the reference of some word Y. X is then said to be a hyponym of Y.
hypernym
meaning relationship between words, where the reference of some word X is included in the reference of some word Y. Y is the hypernym of X.
synonymy
occurs when two words have exactly the same reference
Antonymy
occurs when two words have meanings that are related, yet these meanings contrast with each other in some significant way. “opposites”
complementary (pairs)
Two words X and Y are complementary antonyms if there is nothing in the world that is part of both X’s reference and Y’s reference. “If not X, then Y”
gradable (pairs)
Two words X and Y are gradable antonyms if there is nothing in the world that is part of both X and Y but in this case, not X does not necessarily mean that it is Y.
reverses
pairs of words that suggest some kind of movement, where one word in the pair suggests movement that undoes the movement suggested by the other.
converses
have to do with two opposing points of view; for one member of the pair to have reference, the other must as well. (i.e. lend/borrow)
proposition
the sense expressed by a sentence. Characteristically , propositions can be true or false.
truth value
either true or false
truth conditions
the conditions that would have to hold for a proposition to be true
entailment
In entailment, if proposition expressed by sentence A is true, then the proposition expressed by sentence B is also true
mutual entailment
when two propositions entail one another
incompatible
describes situation in which it is impossible for both propositions to be true. The truth conditions for one are incompatible with the truth conditions for the other.
principle of compositionality
the meaning of a sentence (or any multi-word expression) is a function of the meanings of the words it contains and how these words are syntactically combined
compositional
predictable from the meanings of the words and their syntactic combination
pure intersection
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
intersective adjectives
adjective whose reference is determined independently by from the reference of the noun that it modifies
relative intersection
type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference
subsective adjectives
adjectives whose reference is included in the set of things that the noun they modify refers to
non-intersection adjectives
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
anti-intersection adjectives
an adjective whose referents are not in the set referred to by the noun it modifies
lexical semantics
studies the meanings of lexical expressions
compositional semantics
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
