Week 9- semantics 1 Flashcards
what is a head word?
in compounds, the head determines the word class of a compound and the kind of thing it is. Usually (in English) it is the right-most element, so: cookbook is a type of book.
what is an allomorph?
if a morpheme occurs as different forms in different contexts, those different forms are called allomorphs. For example, in-, im-, in-, il- are all allomorphs of the same morpheme.
what is inflectional morphology?
affixes which don’t change the word class and are required by the grammar.
what is derivational morphology?
compounding and affixation result in a different lexeme and sometimes a different word class
what is semiotics?
the study of signs
what are the three types of signs?
– indices (an index) pointers, indications
– icons image, figure
– symbols meaning by convention
what are some challenges with semantics?
How to describe meaning problem of circularity What is part of meaning, what isn’t? linguistic knowledge / world knowledge role of context connotations What actually is meaning?
what is the referent?
A referent is the concrete object or concept that is designated by a word or expression.
eg: that particular thing at that particular time. When I say ‘this table’ it is a different table to the one I mentioned yesterday. People can refer to something from a particular time or place and it will refer to a particular thing. A referent is usually something physical. Doesn’t have to be here, but it does have to exist.
what is the referring expression?
referring expression (RE) is any noun phrase, or surrogate for a noun phrase, whose function in discourse is to identify some individual object.
what is a words sense and reference?
A word’s sense is how the word relates to other words in a language; it’s reference is how it relates to real world concepts
what is the Principle of compositionality?
combining different signs to make a meaning.
what is the principle of contrasts?
some differences matter, some don’t
who created the linguistic sign and what is it?
Saussure
- two halves of a circle
- concept & form, linked by convention, arbitrarily
- form can be the orthographic form (written down) or the phonetic form (head/said)
what is the prototype theory?
something that is a typical example of a concept, eg: a robin is a typical bird, a penguin is not.
what is social constructionism?
knowledge is socially constructed and creates shared assumptions about reality
what is positivism?
knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations
why do we have boundaries in our language? think about the colour wheel.
We can distinguish between blue and green and blue and red. We put boundaries in place, since the colours are out there in the world, the boundaries are a feature of reality. There is a boundary between blue and red and blue and green and this is what we have (in English).
how are linguistic signs are more than labels for things in the world?
they create things in the world
So (part of) the way we think is shaped by language
BUT there are universal aspects to word meaning, e.g. universal lexemes
Homophony
two homophones and two lexemes. eg: hare, hair
Phonetic form is the same, but different meanings and spellings
Homography
Homography- same sounds, different meaning. eg: present, present.
Two lexemes, mean completely different things.
homonymy
2 homonyms; 2 lexemes. eg: bank, bank
same sound and meaning
polysemy
These two items have a similar shape and a similar function. They are related. eg: computer keyboard, musical keyboard.
one lexeme but more than one meaning, the meaning is related.
monosomy
the property of having only one meaning
synonymy
one meaning
