File 6 Semantics Key Terms and Phrases

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

the study of linguistic meanings

Question 2

Lexical semantics

Answer 2

meaning of words and other lexical expressions

Question 3

Compositional semantics

Answer 3

phrasal meanings and how they are assembled

Question 4

Sense

Answer 4

a mental representation of an expression’s meaning

Question 5

Reference

Answer 5

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 6

Referents

Answer 6

particular entities in the world to which some expressions refer

Question 7

Mental Image Defintion

Answer 7

a conception of a word’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

Usage-Based Defintion

Answer 9

a characterization of a word’s sense based on the way the word is used by speakers of a language

Question 10

Hyponymy

Answer 10

a meaning relation between words where the reference of some word (X) is included in the reference of another word (Y)

Question 11

Hypernym

Answer 11

(Y) in reference to the definition of hyponymy

Question 12

Sister terms

Answer 12

words that, in terms on their reference, are at the same level in the hierarchy (i.e. have exactly the same hypernymy)

Question 13

Synonymy

Answer 13

a meaning relationship between words where their reference is exactly the same

Question 14

Antonymy

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Complementary antonyms

Answer 15

pair of antonyms such that everything must be described by the first word, the second word, or neither

Question 16

Gradable antonyms

Answer 16

words that are antonyms and denote opposite ends of a scale

Question 17

Reverses

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Converses

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Proposition

Answer 19

the claim expressed by a sentence; the sense expressed by a sentence

Question 20

Truth value

Answer 20

true or false proposition

Question 21

Truth conditions

Answer 21

the condition that would have to hold in the world in order for some proposition to be true

Question 22

Entailment

Answer 22

relationship between propositions where a proposition is said to entail another just in case the ford is true as well

Question 23

Mutual entailment

Answer 23

when two propositions entail one another

Question 24

Incompatible propositions

Answer 24

impossible for both propositions to be true

Question 25

Principle of Compositionality

Answer 25

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 26

Compositional meaning

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Idioms

Answer 27

a multi-word lexical expression whose meaning is not compositional

Question 28

Pure intersection

Answer 28

relation ship between the reference of an adjective and a noun it modifies such that each picks out a particular group of things

Question 29

Intersective adjectives

Answer 29

adjective whose reference is determined independently from the reference of the noun that it modified

Question 30

Relative Intersection

Answer 30

type of relationship between adjectives and noun reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference

Question 31

Subsective adjectives

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Non-intersection adjectives

Answer 32

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