File. 6 Semantics key terms

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The study of the linguistic meaning.

Question 2

Lexical

Answer 2

A subfield of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions.

Question 3

Referents

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Mental Image

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Hyponymy

Answer 5

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 6

Antonymy

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Proposition

Answer 7

The sense expressed by a sentence. Characteristically, propositions can be true or false, i.e. have truth values.

Question 8

Truth Value

Answer 8

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence.

Question 9

Truth Conditions

Answer 9

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 10

Entailment

Answer 10

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 11

Mutual Entailment

Answer 11

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another.

Question 12

Incompatible

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Principle of compositionality

Answer 13

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 14

Complementary

Answer 14

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 15

Gradable

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Sense

Answer 16

A mental representation of an expression’s meaning.

Question 17

Reference

Answer 17

A component of linguistic meaning that relates the sense of some expression to entities in the outside world. The collection of all the referents of an expression.

Question 18

Compositonal

Answer 18

A subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of arise given the meanings of the lexical expressions they contain and how they feel