Meanings and representations: lexis and semantics Flashcards

Question

What is an eponym (lexical diffusion)?

Answer 1

- A person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc. Is named: - E.g. Celsius (Andres Celsius) The Cook Islands (James Cook) Parkinson’s disease (James Parkinson)

Answer 2

- Words derived from the initial letter of several words and use them as a new word. - E.g. ‘strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - SWOT’. - ‘Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus - Scuba’.

Answer 3

- Similar to acronyms but cannot be said as a whole word. - E.g. ‘Federal Bureau of Investigations - FBI’ ‘Central Intelligence Agency - CIA’ ‘Public relations - PR’ ‘For your information - FYI’

Answer 4

- Refers to the literal meaning of a word, or its dictionary definition. - E.g. ‘fungus’ means ‘any of various types of organisms that get their food from decaying material or other living things’

Answer 5

- Refers to the emotional and cultural associations of a word. - E.g. ‘fungus’ often has connotations with ugliness and disease’. - ‘discipline’ has unhappy connotations of punishment and repression.

Answer 6

- A writing error that occurs when a sentence contains a word that has more than 1 meaning. Also known as semantic ambiguity. - Obscures writer’s intent and confuses the reader. - Sometimes used intentionally to create a pun (play on words) - E.g. ‘I saw bats’, ‘insurance salesman are frightening people’.

Answer 7

- This is when meaning is suggested, rather than stated directly. - E.g. ‘You’re late could literally mean you are late or you are in trouble - explain why you’re late’.

Answer 8

- Words with the same or similar meaning. | - E.g. ‘happy, cheerful, merry’ or ‘sad, miserable, heartbroken’.

Answer 9

- Words with opposite meanings: ‘hot/cold’, ‘male/female’. - They are quite rigid and don’t necessarily work with other synonyms. - E.g. ‘hot/cool’, ‘male/feminine’, ‘day/evening’. - ‘bad vs good’, ‘hot vs cold’, ‘happy vs sad’. - Antonyms are used for comparisons.

Answer 10

- A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for 1 considered to be too harsh or blunt. - E.g. ‘passed away’ instead of ‘died’. - ‘make love’ instead of ‘sex’. - ‘let go’ instead of ‘fired’.

Answer 11

- A derogatory or unpleasant term used instead of a pleasant or neutral one. - e.g. ‘croaked’ and ‘6 feet under’ are dysphemisms for death. - ‘bookworm, brainiac’ are dysphemisms for a smart person. - ‘cancer stick’ for cigarette.

Answer 12

- The term used when words habitually go together. | - E.g. ‘fish and chips’, ‘tall and handsome’, ‘make sense’’.

Answer 13

- The words (lexis) that make up a semantic field. - A group of words connected in meaning: although the meaning of each word is different, they’re all part of the same framework.

Answer 14

- metaphor - simile - personification - oxymoron - metonymy - idiom - euphemism/dysphemisms - cliche

Answer 15

- Describing something as being something else.

Answer 16

- Comparisons using words ‘like’ or ‘as’.

Answer 17

- A type of metaphor where an object is given human qualities.

Answer 18

- 2 conflicting ideas placed together, e.g. bittersweet. - ‘suddenly, the room was filled with a deafening silence’. - ‘there is a real love hate relationship developing between the 2 of them’. - ‘this is another fine mess you have got us into’.

Answer 19

- A word is used because of its associations with an object instead of the object’s actual name. - E.g. ‘cash’ used to mean ‘money box’ but over time came to mean money itself. - Referring to the Royal family or a member as ‘the Crown’. - Referring to the President of the US or the US gov as ‘the white house’ - Referring to American film industry or celebrity culture as ‘Hollywood’.

Answer 20

- Sayings that don’t make sense when literally interpreted. - e.g. ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ - ‘bending over backwards’ - ‘barking up the wrong tree’

Answer 21

- overused idioms, e.g. ‘don’t put all of your eggs in 1 basket, I lost track of time, I’m like a kid in a candy store’.

Answer 22

- Refers to the process by which a word changes its meaning. The meaning may broaden, narrow or simply become different.

Answer 23

- Refers to the situation in which a word loses some of its original force and specificity. - E.g. ‘bloody’ no longer carries the force it did when it was considered blasphemous word (‘by our lady’) in a predominantly Christian culture.

Answer 24

- Refers to the use of a word beyond its immediate context. - E.g. someone may refer to a person as being in ‘default mode’ (from computer language). - Some linguists would see this as an extension of lexical diffusion.

Answer 25

- Broadening - Narrowing - Amelioration - pejoration - register drift - political correctness

Answer 26

- The meanings of a word gradually extend to a wider sense than the original meaning. - Also known as generalisation. - E.g. ‘Holiday’ originally meant a ‘holy day’ to mark a religious festival. - Lost its religious connotations. - Now a 20th century concept, taking a week off work to travel/enjoy yourself.

Answer 27

- opposite of broadening - the meaning gradually becomes more specialised or specific. - Also known as Specialisation. - E.g. The term meat was used for all types of food before semantic narrowing took place and it came to mean ‘a kind of food’, and then more specifically ‘the flesh of animals used for food’.

Answer 28

- A word with a very severe or taboo connotations gradually becomes less negative and milder in its use. - E.g. The word naughty originally meant someone who possessed nothing. - By the 16th century, naughty was applied to a wicked or evil person. Today it has a much milder application.

Answer 29

- Exact opposite of amelioration: words with neutral or even positive connotations gradually come to acquire pejorative associations. - E.g. The word silly meant ‘blessed’ in Old English then came to mean ‘innocent’. It has now come to mean ‘unwise’ or ‘foolish’.

Answer 30

- A word that is thought of as slang can eventually gain acceptance as respectable. - Also, some words can drift the opposite way and become less acceptable. - E.g. The word fag (a nuisance or something tiring) occurs in many 18th century sources as acceptable Standard English.

Answer 31

- More recent semantic change has occurred because of political correctness, which seeks to redress some of the linguistic bias featured in language and power/ gender. - E.g: - Man-made -> artificial - Fire man -> fire fighter - Prostitute -> body entrepreneur - Bin man -> recycling operative

Answer 32

- Refers to specific elements of a situation, e.g. effects of time, place, ideologies, relationships. - Context results in recognisable styles called registers, e.g. medical register, scientific register, sports, gaming, business, legal, advertising etc.

Answer 33

- A word, especially an adjective or a noun, that is placed before a noun and describes it or limits its meaning in some way. - E.g. ‘the beautiful animal died’, ‘beautiful’ comes before head noun ‘animal’. - ‘I heard a loud noise’, ‘loud’ comes before ‘noise’.

Answer 34

- A word or group of words that describes a noun phrase or limits its meaning in some way, and is placed after it. - E.g. ‘the zoo closed’, ‘closed’ comes after ‘zoo’. - ‘the house on the corner’, ‘on the corner’ is a postmodifier.

Answer 35

- a word or group of words containing a noun and functioning in a sentence as subject, object, or prepositional object. - E.g. ‘the (determiner) humble (pre-modifier) servant (head) bowed. - ‘the fierce lion’ - ‘the London bridge’

Answer 36

- a noun that classifies things into categories. - the name of a group of similar things, not a specific person, place, or thing. - e.g. ‘animal, city, table, book’.

Answer 37

- Refers to specific people, place, thing. They begin with a capital letter. E.g. ‘Aaron, London, Cadbury etc’.

Answer 38

- Refers to ideas, occasions, things that can’t be touched or seen with your 5 senses. - E.g. ‘joy, hate, life, belief, history etc’

Answer 39

- A noun that is singular in form but that refers to a group of people or things. - A collection of things taken as a whole. - E.g. fish, sheep, flock, family, herds, pride (lions) etc. - government, team, audience etc

Answer 40

- Refers to physical things/objects, e.g. ‘rock, chair, tree etc’.

Answer 41

- The words with specific meaning, under a hypernym. | - E.g. hyponyms of fruit could be ‘apples, oranges, bananas etc’.

Answer 42

- using physical things to represent a concept/idea. - E.g. ‘life is a gambling game -> instead of ‘I’ll take my chances’. - ‘time is money’ -> ‘stop wasting time’.

Answer 43

- A general term that classifies things. | - E.g. ‘Animal’ encompasses tiger, sheep, dogs, elephants etc.

Answer 44

- When the subject is emphasised in a sentence over the object and verb. The subject is emphasised. - E.g. ‘the pupil will read the book.’ - ‘Susan will paint the wall.’

Answer 45

- Juxtaposition of similar sounds, especially vowels. - E.g. ‘the light of the fire is a sight to behold’ (repetition of the long ‘i’ sound). - ‘Go slow over the road’ (repetition of the long ‘o’ sound).

Answer 46

- The letters A E I O U

Answer 47

- A construction that serves to express a comparison between 2 entities or groups of entities in quality or degree. - E.g. ‘stronger, happier, more gentle, better, more expensive, less’.

Answer 48

- Made up of 2 independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, or so) or by a semicolon. - E.g. ‘the pirate captain lost her treasure map, but she still found the buried treasure.’

Answer 49

- a sentence that suggests one outcome would happen -> if under certain circumstances/situation etc: - E.g. ‘if it rains, the picnic will be cancelled’. - ‘If Bonnie had studied, she would have passed the test’.

Answer 50

- Consonance is the repetition of consonants. - E.g. ‘Mike likes his new bike’. - ‘it will creep and beep while you sleep’.

Answer 51

- Copulas, linking verbs or copulative verbs are a special type of verb that joins a noun complement or an adjective to the subject of the sentence. - E.g. ‘BE, SEEM, APPEAR, LOOK, GET’. - ‘he BECAME a chef’. - 'he LOOKS intelligent'

Answer 52

- A statement. E.g. ‘my dog is sick’, ‘it is cold today’.

Answer 53

- A modifying word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun group has. - E.g. ‘a, an, the, these, that, my, his, yours, some, every, six, no’.

Answer 54

- A sound formed by the combination of 2 vowels in syllable, in which the sound begins as 1 vowel and moves towards another. - E.g. ‘coin, loud, side, feat’.

Answer 55

- Use of impolite, harsh-sounding, and unusual words. Opposite of assonance, no similar combination of vowel sounds. - E.g. ‘the tent of the hills drummed and strained’. - ‘four beating wings, 2 beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling’.

Answer 56

- A verb that shows continued or progressive action on the part of the subject. Opposite of stative verb. - E.g. ‘become, drink, grow, learn, run, sleep, work, watch’.

Answer 57

- Expression of surprise, a strong emotion, or pain. Often by an exclamation mark. - E.g. ‘wow!’, ‘it’s a boy!’, ‘I’m really going to miss this place’, ‘you were meant to be back yesterday!’.

Answer 58

- The smallest linguistic part of a word that can have a meaning. - An element of meaning smaller than a word. - E.g. ‘talked’ has 2 morphemes (‘talk’ and ‘ed’). - The words ‘the, in and girl’ consist of 1 morpheme. The word ‘girls’ consists of 2 morphemes: ‘girl’ and ‘s’.

Answer 59

- A morpheme that can stand alone. | - E.g. ‘girl, house, fire, big, nice, sleep, walk, quick, say, eat’.

Answer 60

- a command. | - ‘do, don’t, come, go, stop, clean, work, watch, listen’

Answer 61

- A question which demands an answer? - E.g. ‘where do you live?’ - ‘What are you doing?’

Answer 62

- It is impossible for an object to follow these verbs. | - E.g. ‘arrive’ and ‘die’, you can’t ‘arrive’ something and you can’t ‘die’ something.

Answer 63

- When the object and verb is emphasised in a sentence over the subject. - The subject is not performing the verb in the passive voice, but is rather being acted upon by it. - E.g. ‘the book was read by the pupil’. - ‘the wall will be painted by Susan’.

Answer 64

- Pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person. - ‘I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them.’ - replaces the subject or the object -> I, he -> subject. -> me, him -> object

Answer 65

- A phrase is a group of words, but it doesn’t contain a subject and a verb. - E.g. noun phrase: ‘best friend’. - prepositional phrase: ‘in the bin’

Answer 66

- A word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession. - E.g. ‘mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs, mine, yours' - they show possession. - words like 'her, your' would be determiners rather than pronouns as they precede the pronoun rather than take place.

Answer 67

- A word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase. | - E.g. ‘I, you, he, she, my, your, their, himself, itself, yourself’.

Answer 68

- These pronouns refer back to the person or thing to indicate the relationship between the subject and object. - E.g. ‘myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves.’ - end in '-self' or '-selves'.

Answer 69

- They enrich sentences by offering extra info. As a type of subordinate clause, it offers additional info and should be used as a conjunction with a main or independent clause. - E.g. ‘who, which, that, whose etc’ - ‘ The farmer, whose name was Fred, sold as 10 pounds of potatoes.’ - ‘my mother, who is 86, lives in Paris.’

Answer 70

- A sentence consisting of only 1 clause, with a single subject and predicate. - Predicate: part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the subject (e.g. ‘went home’ in ‘John went home’) - E.g. ‘I cannot drink hot water’ - ‘a day without sun is like night’

Answer 71

- Repeated ‘s’ sounds, often described as a hissing sound. Could also be ‘sh’, ‘ch’, or a soft ‘c’. - E.g. ‘Satan’s signature upon his face’.

Answer 72

- A verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes in action. - E.g. ‘hate, doubt, love, own, know, recognise, think, have’.

Answer 73

- Of the highest quality or degree. | - E.g. ‘cleanest, happiest, bravest, fairest, most generous.’

Answer 74

- A word, morpheme, or phrase that mean exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given lang. - E.g. ‘happy’ = ‘cheerful, delighted, joyful, glad, jubilant, upbeat’.

Answer 75

- A verb that expresses action and is followed by a direct object. Most verbs are transitive. - E.g. ‘ate, borrow, bring, gave, hug, praise, offer, feed, buy.’

Answer 76

- A noun that is used as an adjective to modify other nouns. - E.g. a car that people drive in races is a ‘race car’, ‘race’ is the modifier. - a car with extra power or speed is a ‘sports car’, ‘sports’ is the adjectival noun.

Answer 77

- nouns that do not change their form whether singular or plural. -> e.g. sheep, deer

Answer 78

- nouns that can be counted. -> e.g. apple, tree, balls etc.

Answer 79

- nouns that can't be counted -> don't have a plural. -> e.g. air, rice, anger

Answer 80

- refer directly to a single subject/object. -> e.g. I, me, mine, myself

Answer 81

- refer to more than one person. -> e.g. we, us, ours, ourselves

Answer 82

- used when asking a question -> (who, whose, which and what)

Answer 83

- do not refer to specific persons or things. -> e.g. someone, anything, everything.

Answer 84

- points out at something or someone specific -> refers to it. -> E.g. 'that, these, this'. - however, if placed BEFORE the noun rather than replacing the noun, classed as a determiner.

Answer 85

- act as linking words in a sentence always placed immediately after the noun they refer to. -> refers to nouns previously mentioned, whether they are people, places, things, animals, or ideas. -> e.g. for people: whom, who, whose. -> for things: which, that.

Answer 86

- A word is classed as a pronoun when it occurs independently without a noun following it: -> THIS (pronoun) is a new CAR (noun). - When a noun directly follows the word it is a determiner: -> THIS (determiner) CAR (noun) is new.

Answer 87

- indicates something specific. -> e.g. 'the'

Answer 88

- indicates something more specific. -> e.g. 'a, an'

Answer 89

- one, two, first, second etc

Answer 90

- show quantity. -> 'few, many, enough'.

Answer 91

- the single verb that expresses the main action/meaning.

Answer 92

- the helping verb, placed in front of the main verb. - split in 2 categories: primary or modal. - E.g. I must have been driving too fast. -> 'must have' are the auxiliary verbs. -> 'driving' is the main verb.

Answer 93

only 3 primary verbs: - to BE: Margaret is applying to Yale. - to HAVE: Frank has just returned from a business trip. - to DO: Nana doesn't go out much anymore.

Answer 94

- modal verbs are only used with a main verb. -> can, will, shall, may, must, should, would, should, might. - E.g. 'You should move your car' - 'You could move your car.' - 'You must move your car.'

Answer 95

- If a verb is used actively, person or thing performing the action is emphasised as the subject of the verb: -> The minister has issued an apology.

Answer 96

- If the passive voice is used, the emphasis shifts to the object of the verb (the person or thing to which something has been done). The order of the sentence is reversed: -> An apology has been issued by the minister. - using the passive voice can avoid drawing attention to the person responsible for an action. - can also make the object seem helpless and a victim of whoever is doing the action.

Answer 97

- have a definite relation with the subject or noun. - usually the main verb of a clause or sentence. - used only in present and past tense. - Can be indicative of passive or active voice and also of number (singular or plural). - E.g. He loves (main verb/finite verb) camping (non-finite) in the woods.

Answer 98

- cannot be the main verb of a clause or sentence as they do not talk about the action that is being performed by the subject or noun. - do not indicate any tense, mood, or gender. -> used as nouns, adverbs and adjectives. - 3 types: gerunds, infinitives, participles.

Answer 99

- non-finite verb is used as a noun. -> e.g. he loves CAMPING in the woods.

Answer 100

- non-finite verbs that use 'to' before them. -> 'I need to go to sleep' -> here the non-finite verb phrase is 'to sleep'.

Answer 101

- have '-ing' or '-ed' as suffixes and cause the verb to become an adjective are called participles. -> the 'SLEEPING dog caused a delay'. 'sleeping' becomes an adjective.

Answer 102

- the action is complete -> Elizabeth scored a hat-trick of goals.

Answer 103

- the action is/was still continuing. -> Elizabeth was playing a blinder. -> Elizabeth is playing a blinder. -> We expect her to be playing well tomorrow.

Answer 104

- How something is done, e.g. he talks incessantly, it was perfectly executed.

Answer 105

- where something is happening, e.g. the book is here, we are travelling TOWARDS the right place

Answer 106

- when something is happening, e.g. the exam is TOMORROW, the match is happening LATER

Answer 107

- how long something happens for e.g. The bridge is TEMPORARILY out of bounds. -> your membership is permanently cancelled.

Answer 108

What are adverbs of frequency how often something takes place e.g. Mandy visits sometimes. -> Mandy visits frequently.

Answer 109

- the extent to which something is done -> e.g. we COMPLETELY understand. -> we SOMEWHAT understand.

Answer 110

- 'my, ours, your, his, her, its, their'

Answer 111

- 'this, that, these, those'

Answer 112

- other determiners refer to quantity, either specifically: - one, two, three or vaguely: - some, few, many

Answer 113

- shows relationship between things in terms of space, time or direction. -> usually goes before the determiner and noun. - The books are underneath the bed (spatial) - She left before the end (time) - He moved towards the door (directional)

Answer 114

- declaratives - imperatives - interrogatives - exclamatives

Answer 115

- statements that give info.

Answer 116

- give orders, instructions, advice or directions.

Answer 117

- ask questions

Answer 118

- expressive function to convey force and end in an exclamation mark.

Answer 119

- minor - simple - compound - complex - compound-complex

Answer 120

Complete and meaningful statements that don't have a subject and verb combo. - Lots of everyday sayings are minor sentences. -> be quiet, goodbye, sounds good.

Answer 121

- A simple sentence must have a subject and a verb. It should express a complete thought e.g. -> The snow falls. Snow is the subject, falls is the verb.

Answer 122

- consists of a main clause and a subordinate clause (or subordinating clause) -> a subordinating conjunction connects the clauses together. -> E.g. when they heard the sound, the workers left the building. - 'When they heard the sound' (sub clause). - When (sub clause) - 'the workers left the building' (main clause)

Answer 123

- has at least 2 main clauses connected by a coordinating conjunction and at least 1 sub clause, e.g. -> some of the children went home early but the others remained because they had no transport. - first main clause: 'some of the children went home early'. - coordinating conjunction: 'but'. - 2nd main clause: 'the others remained'. - sub conjunction: 'because'. - sub clause: 'they had not transport'.

Answer 124

- include: 'and, but, or', used when parts of sentence to be joined are of equal value. -> connects 2 main clauses.

Answer 125

- connects a sub clause to a main clause. -> includes words 'because, although, unless, until'.

Answer 126

- an exaggerated idea about something -> statements that are not meant to be taken literally. E.g.: - I am freezing. - it is a whole train of evils.

Answer 127

- a word opposite in meaning to another. -> e.g. bad and good.

Answer 128

- the literal or primary meaning of a word, rather than the contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests. -> E.g. the denotation of the word 'blue' is the colour blue, but the connotation is the feeling of sadness or the blues.

Answer 129

- writer/author makes clear logical connections between ideas, and includes the use of facts and stat. - when we use cold arguments like data, stats or common sense to convince people of something rather than appeal to an audience's emotions. Examples in ads: - apple website that high lets latest features and specs. - fruit juice ad that highlights vitamin and calorie stats.

Answer 130

- writing intended to appeal to an audiences emotions -> persuade an audience by purposely evoking certain emotions to make them feel the way the author wants them feel. -> E.g 'I'm not just invested in this community, I love every building, every business, every member of this town. - If we don't do anything, things will become much worse.

Answer 131

- a rhetorical or written technique that appeals a reader's ethics. -> author achieves ethos by demonstrating they are a trustworthy source of accurate info. - refers to authority and credibility. E.g. - 'as a 3 time olympic gold medallist, I can assure you that this energy drink will improve fitness' - a commercial in which a celebrity endorses a product.