Semantics Flashcards
Signifiant
Signifier/ Form (Ausdruck des sprachlichen zeichens)
Signifié
Signified/Meaning (Inhalt des sprachlichen Zeichens)
Characteristics of the linguistic sign ( Ferdiand de Saussure)
- linearity
- conventionality
- arbitrariness (no link between form and meaning)
Denotation
relationship between a linguistic sign and its denotatum
Denotatum
the set of objects, people, etc of the world to which a word can be applied to
referent
the member of the set referred to
reference
the relationship between the respective phrase and the referent
referring expression
form + meaning
linguistic sign (word)
form + meaning
polysemous lexeme
more than one meaning
polysemy
same etymological roots
homonymy
different etymological roots
structural semantics
purly language-internal approach, without taking psychological and extralinguistic factors
lexical field
set of lexical units that:
- belong to the same word class
- share at least one specific semantic component (apple, pear, cherry are all fruits)
hyponymy
x is a kind of y ( unilateral entailment)
hyperonym
superordinate
hyponyms
subordinates
co- hyponyms
multiple hyponyms
meronymy
X is a part of y
holonym
whole
meronyms
parts
homographs
identical spelling, diffenrent sound
homophones
different spelling, same sound
synonymy
bilateral entailment
Example:
He shut the door.
He closed the door.
Near -synonymy
radio-wireless
previous- former
Kinds of Antonymy
- gradable antonyms
- complementaries
- relational antonyms/ converses
componential analysis
Example:
- man: +human+adult+male
- woman: +human+adult-male
- girl: +human-adult-male
semantic components need to be
- atomic
- recurrent
- binary
- universal
Problems with definiton of semantic components
- Where does atomization stop?
- Sometimes features have to used only one time
