Semantics Flashcards
1
Q
Homonyms
A
- Words that look the same, but have different etymologies
- bank - riverside, financial situation
2
Q
Referential meaning
A
- Referent - the thing in the world that is meant by a word
- Sense: the general idea covered by the word
- Words without referents: unicorn, quidditch, numbers
3
Q
Social meaning
A
Information about the speaker’s context or background
4
Q
Affective meaning
A
Information about the speaker’s emotions or attitude
5
Q
How do the three types of meaning work together?
A
- Words can share the same referential meaning but have different social and/or affective meanings
- lift/elevator
- John is very determined/stubborn/pig-headed
6
Q
Sense relations (comparing words)
A
- Synonymy - oblivion, forgetfulness; sodium chloride, salt
- Antonymy - oblivion, remembrance; hot, cold
- Hyponymy – tulip, flower; snake, reptile (categories and members of those categories)
- Meronymy - vehicle, wheel; person, head (the relationship between the prototype and its parts)
7
Q
Near synonyms
A
- Please keep/retain your ticket for inspection (interchangeable)
- We keep/retain the door locked at night (doesn’t always work)
8
Q
Four types of oppositeness
A
- Complementary pairs - up/down, alive/dead
- Gradable antonyms - cold/hot, tall/short
- Converses - relational (mother/child), directional (give/take)
- Mutual incompatibles - January/February/March
9
Q
Semantic field
A
A cluster of related words
- laugh, giggle, titter, guffaw, howl
- flower, tulip, daffodil, primrose, carnation
- aviation, aircraft, aeroplane, airbus, boeing
10
Q
Semantic features (laugh and giggle)
A
- Laugh = communication, vocal, audible, non-linguistic, showing pleasure or amusement
- Giggle = communication, vocal, audible, non-linguistic, showing pleasure or amusement, high pitched, repetitive
11
Q
Componential analysis (meaning & problems)
A
- Breaks down meaning into smaller semantic components
- Criteria are binary and can be categorised according to the presence or absence of semantic properties - or their semantic features
- Features are necessary and sufficient
- Require sharp, fixed boundaries between semantic properties - they are not always available
- The concepts expressed by words do not always have clear-cut boundaries - they can be fuzzy - how rich is rich? How old is old?
12
Q
Prototype theory (Roach 1975)
A
- An alternative way to look at conceptual meaning - reflect our understanding of the world
- Conceptual categories are structured around the best examples of thar category
- Best examples/highly representative members of a category are called the prototype
- Items are included in the category according to whether they sufficiently resemble the prototype or not - degree
13
Q
Prototype
A
- Best, clearest example of a cateogry
- Combines all the typical features
- Results from frequent exposure
- Represents the category as a whole
14
Q
Semantic contexts - connotation
A
- Connotation - associate a word with a positive or a negative connotation - youngster, juvenile, boy, adolescent, youth, lad, teenager
- The connotation of a word describes its associations attached to the literal meaning over time
- Connotation can often add a layer of opinion to what appears to be a neutral report
- Ideological differences often include battles over language
15
Q
Connotation and political correctness
A
- Political correctness - the way society talks about itself, especially certain groups of people
- Normally used in sensitive domains, such as: race, gender, sexual affinity, ecology, physical and mental personal development
16
Q
Conceptual metaphor theory - Lakoff & Johnson
A
- Metaphor is a way of understanding the world
- We understand one thing in terms of another
- Language (and the metaphorical use of language) is a window on this process
17
Q
Conceptual metaphor
A
- Language represents the reality of the speaker and the speaker’s position
- Metaphorical thinking directly deliverable from basic bodily experiences
- “Things are looking up” - we naturally look up before we look down - upwards movement always involves rewarding human effort
- Health and life are up/illness and death are down - “I’m at the peak of my health” “he fell ill”
- Knowledge is light/ignorance is dark - “that idea is very clear” “I was left in the dark about what happened”
18
Q
Hyperbole
A
- Main function - to intensify the utterance
- Also evaluate
- Introduce humour and informality
- Mark solidarity and mutuality between speakers
- To gain attention
19
Q
Use of metaphor in everyday language - talking about theory
A
- That is a well-constructed theory
- His theory is on solid ground
- That theory needs support
- She put together the framework of a very interesting theory
- Their theory collapsed under criticism
- Conceptual metaphor - theories are buildings
20
Q
Metonymy
A
- Links things by means of contiguity rather than similarity
- The use of an entity to refer to another that is related to it in such a way
- We like to read Emily Dickinson/I have bought a Picasso - not reading or buying the people themselves
- Many people are loyal to the crown
- Number 10 declined to comment
- Involves only one conceptual domain - metaphor involves a blending of two conceptual domains
21
Q
Synecdoche
A
- A particular type of metonymy - the use of the part to represent the whole
- I’ve got a new set of wheels (wheels represent the car)
