Semantics Flashcards
Semantics
the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences
Pragmatics
the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used, including such matters as deixis, the taking of turns in conversation, text organization, presupposition, and implicature.
metaphor
a figure of speech in which a term is transferred from the object it ordinarily designates to an object it may designate only by implicit comparison or analogy
Metonymy
a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something
Synecdoche
a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to signify the whole, or vice-versa. In fact, it’s derived from the Greek word synecdoche: “simultaneous meaning.”
syntagmatic Relations
type of sematic relations between words that co-occur in the same sentence or text
paradigmatic relations
a relation that holds between elements of the same category, i.e. elements that can be substituted for each other.
synonymy
“sameness of meaning” (pavement is a synonym of sidewalk)
hyponymy
“inclusion of meaning” (cat is a hyponym of animal)
antonymy
“oppositeness of meaning” (big is an antonym of small)
incompatibility
“mutual exclusiveness within the same superordinate category” (e.g. red and green)
homonymy
the relationship between words that are homonyms—words that have different meanings but are pronounced the same or spelled the same or both.
polysemy
the coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase
compositional semantics
he meaning of a phrase is determined by combining the meanings of its subphrases, using rules which are driven by the syntactic structure.
reference
is the relation between the linguistic expression and the entity in the real world to which it refers
Sense
defined as its relations to other expressions in the language system
possible worlds semantics
a general approach to theories of meaning, on which meanings (or, more precisely, semantic values) are assigned to sentences in terms of the truth-values they take across all possible worlds.
entailment
a proposition (expressed in a sentence) that follows necessarily from another sentence.
Contradictory Sentences
are just the opposite of analytic sentences. While analytic sentences are necessarily true as a result of the words in them, contradictory sentences are necessarily false for the same
reason
Synthetic Sentences
may be true or false depending upon how the world is. In contrast to
analytic and contradictory sentences, synthetic sentences are not true or false because of the words that comprise them,
but rather because they do or do not accurately describe some state of affairs in the world.
Theme
The entity that is involved in or affected by the action.
Instrument
if an agent uses another entity in performing an action, that other entity takes the role of instrument
Agent
The entity that performs the action
Benefactive
denoting a semantic case or construction that expresses the person or thing that benefits from the action of the verb, for example for you in I bought this for you.
