chp 6 semantics Flashcards
Semantics
the subfield of linguistics that studies the linguistic meaning and how expressions convey meanings. deals with the nature of meaning itself what
lexical semantics
meanings of words and other lexical expressions, including meaning relationships among them
compositional semantics
meanings of phrases and how phrasal meanings are constructed from lexical meanings, the relationship between sentence meanings (references) and the world
sense
a mental representation of an expression’s meaning, some kind of concept
reference
an expression’s relationship to the world, collection of referents
referents
the particular entities in the world to which some expression refers
dictionary-style definitions
words are defined in terms of other words, but also reflect use, the mind is an “idealized dictionary”
mental image definitions
words stored as mental images, use them to conceptualize reality
prototype
the default mental image as a typical or ideal example of the kind of thing the word represents
usage-based definitions
knowledge of when it is suitable to use a word to convey a particular meaning or grammatical relationship
hyponymy
X is a hyponym of Y, if the set that is the reference of X is always included in the set that is the reference of Y (when set X is included in set Y, X is a subset of Y) (e.g. poodles are a subset of dogs)
hypernym
Y is a hypernym of X, if X is a subset of Y (e.g. dogs are a hypernym of poodles)
synonymy
two words have exactly the same reference (may have different senses) (e.g. couch and sofa, quick and rapid, groundhog and woodchuck)
antonymy
meanings are related, but contrastive, definition of “opposite” meanings can be complementary pairs, gradable pairs, reverses, or converses
complementary pairs
nothing in the world is a part of both X’s reference and Y’s reference (one or the other or neither), stating that something is X generally implies that it is not Y (e.g. married and unmarried, existent and nonexistent, alive and dead, win and lose)
gradable pairs
everything is either in one’s reference or the other’s or neithers, saying “not X” does not imply “and therefore Y” (e.g. wet and dry, easy and hard, old and young, love and hate)
reverses
suggest some kind of movement, one word “undoes” the other (e.g. left and right, inside and outside, etc.)
converses
opposing points of view, both words must have reference (e.g. lend and borrow, send and receive, employer and employee, over and under)
proposition
claim expressed by a sentence
truth value
the ability of a sentence to be true or false, represents the relationship between the sense expressed by a sentence and the world, the reference of a sentence
truth conditions
the conditions of the world that are necessary for a sentence to be true
entailment
if proposition A is true, proposition B is true, A entails B (e.g. Ian owns a Ford Focus. Ian owns a car.)
mutual entailment
when two propositions entail one another, if A is true, B is true, and vice versa (e.g. Ian has a female sibling. Ian has a sister.) (aka logical equivalence)
incompatible
when two propositions can’t both be true (e.g. No dogs bark. All dogs bark.)
