Exam questions Flashcards
What is the principle of Compositionality⁷
the priciple states: the meaning of a complex sentence is determined by the meanings of its parts and the rules used to combine them. problems:
- Sentence meaning vs speaker meaning
- contextualized meaning
- Knowledge problem
- Individual differences
- circularity
What is a semantic Constituent
any part of a sentence that bears meaning and combines with the meanings of other parts
What are the two conditions must be met by a lexical unit?
The lexical unit must be: at least a single word, (2) and semantic constituent
What is the test of semantic contrast
Semantic contrast:
Distinguishes one lexical unit from another
“Male” is the contrastive semantic component distinguishingmanfrom
woman,andboyfrom girl
what is the notion of semantic traits?
name 5 traits
Semantic traits are syntagmatic properties given to an entity and can be of different types: example if a dog was part of a sentence.
–critical: animal–dog
ex. It’s a dog so logically It’s an animal:
–expected: bark–dog:
ex. It’s a dog, so it should bark.
–unexpected: singing dog
ex. anything other than a bark is unexpected
–possible: brown–dog
ex. dogs can be described by its colors
–excluded: cat–dog
ex. It’s a dog logically entails It’s not a cat.
–canonical: has four legs–dog
A canonical trait is an expected trait whose absence is
regarded as a defect.
ex.The typical dog has 4 legs.
what are idioms?
a group of words with a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. over the moon, see the light)
-Idiomaticity: the quality of being idiomatic a scale
-Semantic transparency is the degree to which the meaning of a compound word or an idiom can be inferred from its part
opaque expressions: not so obvious expressions-ex: red herring/ladybird
what are collocations?
what is semantic cohesion?
what are the two factors?
a pair or group of words that are habitually juxtaposed.
“‘strong tea’ and ‘heavy drinker’ “
Cohesion: sticking together
Cohesion refers to the many ways in which the elements of a text are linked together.
two factors: repetition and collocation. Repetition uses the same word -ex: “what you own ends up owning you”collocation uses related words -ex: once upon a time
What is a dead metaphor?
A dead metaphor is a figure of speech which has lost the original imagery of its meaning by extensive, repetitive, and popular usage…(hour glasses are no longer used)
Words form two kinds of affinities:
Syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic
–Syntagmatic:
semantic associations between items within a sentence: ex. dog … barked . . .
“semantic traits” of a target word.
–Paradigmatic:
semantic associations between two grammatically identical/interchangable words
-ex: I haven’t yet fed the [dog/cat
Explain the notions- seme: sememe: lexical unit: lexeme: moneme: phraseme:
seme: the smallest unit of meaning in semantics ex.un
sememe: two or more semes existing together ex.undo
lexical unit: a unit that reps form+ meaning e. tree
lexeme: dictionary word a family of lexical units
moneme: an unanalysable word ex. concieve
phraseme:idiomatic phrase, multi-word expression, or idiom,
Mathews 1974- three types of words
- phonological /orhtographic: sound/letter
- lexeme: dictionary word
- grammatical word:
Promotion and demotion
highlighting backgrounding
Promotion and Demotion: The subconcious modification of the hierchy of lexical traits ex: pouring v Butter into a dish Solid is demoted liquid is promoted In contrast Highlighting and Backgrounding The emphasizing of a semantic trait Ex my car is fast: performance is emphasized and the other feature like appearance is in the background
4 Logical relations: point of departure
Congruence
- Identity- synonym (SMART/CLEVER)
- inclusion- hyperonym/hyponym (FLOWER/TULIP)
- overlap- polysemy (BEAM)
- disjunction- homonymy (WRITE/RIGHT)
What are Quasi-relations?
“Nearly but not quite”relations between items -ex: red yellow green are not quite subordinate to colored/ knife fork and spoon are not really subordinate to cutlery
Explain three basic criteria for distinguishing between homonyms and polysemantic lexemes.
Polysems are words with many additional meanings and the meanings could have subtle to obvious connection to each other.
While homonyms are two words which accidently sound alike and have totally different meanings
- Homonyms have 3 types
- Polysems have many meaning while homonyms have usually 2
- the definitions of polysem can be similar while the def off homonyms are completely different.
Can we speak of synonymy between lexical units or between lexemes. Justify your claim
No Because a lexical unit is the union of a lexical form and a single sense while a lexeme is a family of lexical units
Explain the term cognitive synonyms
Cognitive synonymy: synonyms so similar that they cannot be differentiated either denotatively or connotatively -ex: fade, die, decease, nibble off, kick the bucket.
Describe complimentary, converseness
complimetary: Male /female married/single one or the other
converseness: Buy/Sell one implies the other
What is the Difference between converseness and conversion?
conversion: is the creation of a new word with a new class from an existing different word class without changing the form. -ex. noun green (golf field) from a descriptive adjective the color of the field (green)
converseness: is a phenomenon of words implying each other-ex: parent/child
What is the difference between homonymns and conversions?
-Homonyms are spelt and pronounced the same; or only spelt in the same way; or only pronounced the
same, but they have completely different meanings
-Conversion: is the creation of a new word with a new class from an existing different word class without changing the form.
Main difference conversion changes the word class
Contraries vs. contradictories
Contradictions are instances disproving a theory or idea contraries are other ideas…
with contradictions one can be true and the other false, or the reverse. In a contrary, one may be true and the other false, or the reverse, or they may both be false.
Explain the criteria of dominance and difference for lexical configurations
-the capacity to form and contain indfinately long chains of elements proves dominance. -ex:moutain hillock mound
Animal Pet to dog and cat Animal is dominant
Transitive: is a logical hierchy
Intransitive: would be a erroneus hierchy
Explain the asymetric principle of the relation of dominance
When two languages are compared assymetry and gaps are revealed in the subsystems:
Lioness but no horseess
When a higher abstract term is missing the language will correct this with a nominal phrase: parent in law
Also assymetry may come out in context only: bachelor/spinster
Explain proportional series
with four elements, the pattern/relationship is such that you can guess the fourth with the knowledge of 3
Dog-puppy Cat- kitten
Basic principles of componential analysis
To describe an infinate number of words universally by their semantic featues
The semantic features, are indicated as “present”, “absent”
ex. male= + man + boy - woman - girl
idioms vs collocations
collocations are words that naturally go together and idioms are words that form expressions when grouped together
What is the difference between redundancy-free and redundant notation in componential analysis
redundancy rules predict automatic relationships between componants to avoid redundancies ex: human/ animate(redundant)
What is a proposition?
the basic semantic content of a sentence.
Example:The tall, stately building fellis said to express propositions corresponding to the following:
“The building is tall.”
“The building is stately.”
“The building fell.”
What is difference between denotative and connotative?
Denotation is the actual literal definition or meaning of a word or term. … Connotation is an association of a term. It can also be an emotional input attached to a word thus making it more figurative and suggestive.
what is a contradiction?
when a proposition opposes another
ex: John killed mary. -contradiction Mary is alive.
Explain predicate, predicator
In the sentence”: tom the scared the baby
“scared the baby” is the predicate (consists of a verb phrase)
And “scared” is the predicator (part of the verb phrase)
Define analytic sentence
Define synthetic sentence
Analytic sentences are about logic and about language use. no meaningful information about the world. Synthetic statements, are about our sensory data and experience.
