File 6 - Semantics

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The study of linguistic meaning.

Question 2

Lexical Semantics

Answer 2

A subfield of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions.

Question 3

Compositional Semantics

Answer 3

A subfield of semantics that 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.

Question 4

Sense

Answer 4

A mental representation of an expressions’ meaning.

Question 5

Referent

Answer 5

An actual entity or an individual in the world to which some expression refers.

Question 6

Mental Image Definition

Answer 6

A conception of a word’s sense as a picture in the mind of the language user that represents its meaning.

Question 7

Hyponymy

Answer 7

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 8

Sister Terms

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Synonymy

Answer 9

A meaning relationship between words where their reference is exactly the same. For example, couch and sofa are synonyms.

Question 10

Antonymy

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Complementary Antonyms

Answer 11

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 12

Gradable Antonyms

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Reverses

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Converses

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Proposition

Answer 15

The sense expressed by a sentence. Characteristically, propositions can be true or false.

Question 16

Truth Value

Answer 16

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence.

Question 17

Truth Conditions

Answer 17

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 18

Entailment

Answer 18

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 19

Mutual Entailment

Answer 19

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another.

Question 20

Incompatibility

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Principle of Compositionality

Answer 21

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 22

Compositional Meaning

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Idiom

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Pure Intersection

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

Intersective Adjective

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Relative Intersection

Answer 26

Type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference.

Question 27

Subsective Adjectives

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Non-Intersection Adjective

Answer 28

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 29

Anti-Intersection Adjective

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Prototype

Answer 30

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