Week 3: semantics Flashcards
Mental lexicon
Stock of words and associated meanings stored in our brains.
Semasiological approach to meaning
Starts with a languages individual lexemes and tries to specify meanings of each one.
Onomasiological approach to meaning
Starts with a particular meaning and lists the various forms available for its expression.
Semasiology and onomasiology - linking to dictionary of thesarus?
Semasiology = dictionary
Onomasiology = thesaurus
Learning meanings by ostension
showing pointing to an object/event
Learning meanings by typical context
giving an example of a situation where it would be appropriate to use the word in question
Learning meaning by distribution
Using contexts
Learning meanings by synonyms
Using lexemes with approximately the same meaning, in the same (thesaurus) or different (bilingual dictionary) languages
Problem with ostentation
May not be sufficiently clear, e.g. the gavagai problem
Problem with learning meaning by typical context
It can be hard to understand what is does or doesn’t apply to
Problem with learning meaning by synonymns
There are rarely exact meaning equivalents; often synonymy is just partial
_____ relationships
Options for blank word
Syntagmatic
Paradigmatic
Syntagmatic relationships
holds between lexemes which can co-occur in some contexts.
Paradigmatic relationships
holds between lexemes which can substitute for one another in some contexts
Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships - which is “horizontal” and which is “vertical”?
Syntagmatic = “horizontal”
Paradigmatic = “vertical”
Selectional restrictions
semantic components which constrain the choice of expressions which can meaningfully be combined with a given lexeme
Paradigm
The term for the different inflectional forms (word forms) of the same lexeme.
Hypernym
A superordinate word
A is a hyponym of B if
a) A is a subtype of B
b) The meaning of A is included in the meaning of B
c) If X is A then X is B
Entailment
If A entails B, then if X is A, X is also B.
Taxonomy
Like hypernymy but restricted to natural terms (plants, animals, etc.)
Co-hyponymns
other subordinate words/expressions
Meronymy
a part-whole relation between the kind of things denoted by A and by B
Meronym
Term for the parts (in meronymy)
Holonym
Terms for the whole (in meronymy)
Antonyms
Two items belonging to a single domain that cannot simultaneously apply
Semantic knowledge
knowledge of the essential meaning of a word that all speakers must possess and which dictionaries must accurately represent in order to allow the meaning to be acquired for the first time
Encyclopaedic knowledge
-not essential to the meaning of a word
-can vary from speaker to speaker
-not linguistic in nature
Gradable pair of antonyms
names points on a scale which have a midpoint
Non-gradable pair of antonyms
antonyms that do not contain a midpoint
assertion of one entails denial of the other
Heteronyms
Expressions that express exclusive alternatives in some domain but there is more than one possibility.
Synonymy, antonymy and meronomy are what kind of semantic relationship?
Paradigmatic relationship
What types of antonyms are open to comparison?
Gradable
What is the neutral member in a pair of antonyms?
In questions and comparative constructions, it serves to invoke the dimension of contrast as a whole.
Equipollent gradable antonyms
symmetrical in their distribution and interpretation with neither member having an uncommitted use.
autoantonymous
words that are their own opposite
lexical synonymy
synonymy between individual lexemes
phrasal synonymy
synonymy between expressions consisting of more than one lexeme
sense-synonymy
the synonymy of some, but not all, the senses of a word
polysemy
the possession of a single phonological form of several conceptually related meanings
monosemous
a word containing a single meaning
homonymy
where a single phonological form possesses multiple unrelated meanings
