Chapter 6 Semantics

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

A subfield of linguistics that studies meaning in language.

Question 2

Lexical Semantics

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Compositional Semantics

Answer 3

A subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of phrasal expression and how those meanings arise given the meanings of the lexical expressions they contain and how they are syntactically combined.

Question 4

Sense

Answer 4

Having a mental representation of its meaning.

Question 5

Reference

Answer 5

The collection of all referents of an expression.

Question 6

Referents

Answer 6

The particular entities in the world to which some expression refers.

Question 7

Mental Image

Answer 7

A conception of a words’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

Hyponymy

Answer 9

A meaning relationship between words where the reference of some word X is included in the reference of some word Y.

Question 10

Hypernym

Answer 10

Y is a hypernym of X.

Question 11

Sister Terms

Answer 11

Words that, in terms of their reference, are at the same level of the hierarchy. For example, have 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

Gradable Antonyms

Answer 14

Words that are antonyms and denote opposite ends of a scale.

Question 15

Complementary Antonyms

Answer 15

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 16

Proposition

Answer 16

The claims expressed by a sentence.

Question 17

Truth Value

Answer 17

The ability for a proposition to be true or false.

Question 18

Converse

Answer 18

Have to do with two opposing points of view or a change in perspective: for one member of the pair to have references the other must as well.

Question 19

Principle of Compositionality

Answer 19

The meaning of a sentence (or any other multi-word expression) is a function of the meanings of the words it contains and the way in which these words are syntactically combined.

Question 20

Compositional

Answer 20

Predictable from the meanings of words and their syntactic combination.

Question 21

Pure Intersection

Answer 21

Simplest form of adjectival combination.

Question 22

Intersective Adjective

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Subsective Adjectives

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Non-intersection

Answer 24

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 25

Anti-Intersection Adjectives

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Hyponym

Answer 26

A meaning relationship between words where the reference of some word X is included in the reference of some word Y.

Question 27

Reverses

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Mutual Entailment

Answer 28

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another.

Question 29

Incompatible

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Idioms

Answer 30

A multi-word lexical expression whose meaning is not compositional.