Semantics

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The subfield of linguistics that studies meaning in language.

Question 2

Lexical Semantics

Answer 2

Deals with the meanings of words and other lexical expressions, including the meaning relationships among them.

Question 3

Compositional Semantics

Answer 3

Is concerned with phrasal meanings and how phrasal meanings are assembled.

Question 4

Sense

Answer 4

Some kind of mental representation of a word’s meanings, or perhaps some kind of concept.

Question 5

Reference

Answer 5

The collection of all the referents of an expression

Question 6

Referents

Answer 6

The particular entities in the world to which some expression refers.

Question 7

Dictionary-Style Definitions

Answer 7

defeines words in terms of other words.

Question 8

Mental-Image Definitions

Answer 8

A conception of a word’s sense as a picture in the mind of the language user that represents its meaning.

Question 9

Converses

Answer 9

Antonyms in which the first word of the pair suggets a point of view opposie to that of the second word.

Question 10

Prototype

Answer 10

For any given set, a member that exhibits the typical qualities of the members of that set.

Question 11

Usage-Based Definitions

Answer 11

A characterization of a word’s sense based on the way that the word is used by speakers of a language.

Question 12

Hyponymy

Answer 12

A meaning relationship between words where the reference of some word is X is included in the reference of some other word Y. X is then said to be a hypernym of Y, and conversely, Y is said to be a hypernym of X.

Question 13

Sister Terms

Answer 13

Words that, in terms of their reference, are at the same level in hierarchy, i.e., have the exact same hypernyms.

Question 14

Synonymy

Answer 14

A meaning relationship between words where their reference is exactly the same. For example: couch and sofa are synonyms.

Question 15

Antonymy

Answer 15

A meaning relationship between words where their meanings are in some sense opposite.

Question 16

Complementary Antonyms

Answer 16

Pair of antonyms, such that everything must be described by the first word, the second word, or neither; and such that saying of something that is not a member of that set denoted by the first word implicates that it is in the set denoted by the second word.

Question 17

Gradable Antonyms

Answer 17

Words that are antonyms and denote opposite ends of a scale.

Question 18

Reverses

Answer 18

Antonyms in which one word in the pair suggests movement that “undoes” the movement suggested by the pther.

Question 19

Proposition

Answer 19

The sense expressed by a sentence. Characteristically, propositions can be true or false, i.e., have truth values.

Question 20

Truth Value

Answer 20

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence.

Question 21

Entailment

Answer 21

A relationship between propositions where a proposition p is said to entail another proposition q just in case if p is true, q has to be true as well.

Question 22

Incompatible

Answer 22

The relationship between two propositions where it is impossible for both of them to be true simultaneously.

Question 23

Principle of Compasionality

Answer 23

The notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined.

Question 24

Compositional Meaning

Answer 24

The meaning of a phrasal expression that is predictable from the meanings of smaller expressions it contains and how they are syntactically combined.

Question 25

Idioms

Answer 25

A multi- word lexical expression whose meaning os not compositional.

Question 26

Pure intersection

Answer 26

The relationship between the reference of an adjective and a noun it modifies such as each picks out a particular group of things, and the reference of the resulting phrase is all of the things that are in both the reference set of the noun.

Question 27

Intersective Adjectives

Answer 27

An adjective whose reference is determined independently from the reference of the noun it modifies.

Question 28

Subsective Adjectives

Answer 28

An adjective whose reference is included in the set of things that the noun it modifies refers to.

Question 29

Non-Intersection Adjectives

Answer 29

An adjective whose reference is a subset of the set that the noun it modifies refers to, but that does not, in and of itself, refer to any particular set of things.

Question 30

Anti-Intersection Adjectives

Answer 30

An adjective whose referents are not in the set referred to by the noun that it modifies.