SEMANTICS Flashcards
What is Semantics?
The study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.
What is conceptual meaning?
The basic, essential components of meaning that are conveyed by the literal use of a word.
What’s associative meaning?
Different people have different associations or connotations attached to words and these associations are not treated as part of the word’s conceptual meaning.
Name a few semantic features?
+animate, -animate, +female, -female
What is meant by semantic roles?
Instead looking at words as containers of meaning, we can look at the roles they fulfill within the situation described by a sentence.
What’s another word for semantic roles?
Thematic roles.
What’s an agent?
The entity that preforms the action.
What is a theme?
The entity that is involved or affected by the action.
What is an instrument?
The entity that the agent uses to perform an action.
What is an experiencer?
A noun phrase used to designate an entity as the person who has a feeling, perception or state.
What is the location?
Where the entity is.
What’s the source?
Where the entity moves from.
What’s the goal?
Where the entity moves to.
What is the analysis of lexical relations?
Characterizing the meaning of words, not in terms of their component features, but in terms of their relationships to other words.
What is synonymy?
When two or more words are closely related. These are called synonyms.
What is antonymy?
When two words have opposite meanings they are called antonyms.
What are gradable antonyms?
They can be used in comparative constructions such as “I’m bigger than you’’ but “I’m not bigger than you” doesn’t mean I’m smaller than you.
What are non-gradable antonyms?
They are not normally used in comparative constructions. We don’t say someone is ‘‘deader’’ than someone else.
What are reversives?
When one word means to do the reverse of the other, as opposed to the opposite of the other. E.G To dress and then to undress.
What is hyponymy?
When the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another.
What are superordinate terms?
The higher level of a hyponym, E.g. Animal.
What are co-hyponyms?
When two or more words share the same superordinate term, such as dog and horse both sharing the superordinate term Animal.
What are prototypes?
The idea of chateristic instance of a category is known as the prototype.
What are homophones?
Two or more different words that have the same pronunciation.
What are homonyms?
When ONE form has two or more meanings.
What is polysemy?
Two or more words with the same form and related meanings.
What is metonymy?
Substituting the name of one object for another object closely associated with it (“The pen [writing] is mightier than the sword [war/fighting].”)
Give an example of polysemy.
Foot- of a river, of a person, of a mountain.
Give an example of a homonym.
Bank of a river and a financial bank.
Give an example of homophones.
Meet/meat
Give one example of a prototype?
“Bird” being used to categorize both canaries and penguins even though we don’t recognize them as being the same type of bird.
