Vocabulary Ch 6

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

The study of linguistic meaning.

Question 2

Lexical semantics

Answer 2

A subfield of semantics that studies meanings of lexical expressions.

Question 3

Compositional semantics

Answer 3

A subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of phrases expressions, and how those meanings arise given the meanings of lexical expressions they contain and how they are syntactically combined.

Question 4

Sense

Answer 4

A mental representation of an expressions meaning.

Question 5

Reference

Answer 5

A component of linguistic meaning that relates to the sense of some expression to entities in the outside world. The collection of all the referents of an expression.

Question 6

Referent

Answer 6

An actual entity or individual in the world to which some expression refers.

Question 7

Mental image

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Prototype

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Usage-based definition

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Hyponymy or Hyponym

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Sister terms

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Synonymy or Synonym

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Antonymy or antonym

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Complementary antonyms

Answer 14

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 it is not a member of the set denoted by the first word implicates that it is the set denoted by the second word.

Question 15

Gradable antonyms

Answer 15

Words that are antonyms and do note as it ends of a scale. (Also known as gradable pairs and as scalar antonyms.)

Question 16

Reverses

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Converses

Answer 17

Antonyms in which the first word of the pair suggests a point of view opposite to that of the second word.

Question 18

Proposition

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Truth value

Answer 19

Either true or false. The reference of a sentence.

Question 20

Truth conditions

Answer 20

The set of conditions that would have to hold in the world in order for the proposition expressed by some sentence to be true.

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

Mutual entailment

Answer 22

The relationship between two propositions where they entail one another.

Question 23

Incompatibility

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Principle of compositionality

Answer 24

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 25

Compositional meaning

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Idiom

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Pure intersection

Answer 27

The relationship between the reference of an adjective and a noun it modifies such that 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 adjective and the reference set of the noun.

Question 28

Intersective adjective

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Relative intersection

Answer 29

Type of relationship between adjective and noun reference where the reference of the adjective is determined relative to the noun reference.

Question 30

Subsective adjectives

Answer 30

Adjectives whose reference is included in the set of things that the noun they modify refers to.

Question 31

Non-intersection adjective

Answer 31

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 32

Anti-intersection adjective

Answer 32

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