File 6: Semantics

Question 1

Semantics

Answer 1

the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

Question 2

Lexicon

Answer 2

the complete set of meaningful units in a language.

Question 3

Contemporary semantic theory

Answer 3

a theory which assigns semantic contents to expressions of a language.

Question 4

Pragmatics

Answer 4

the branch of linguistics dealing with language in use and the contexts in which it is used, including such matters as deixis, the taking of turns in conversation, text organization, presupposition, and implicature.

Question 5

Lexical semantics

Answer 5

a subfield of linguistic semantics. The units of analysis in lexical semantics are lexical units which include not only words but also sub-words or sub-units such as affixes and even compound words and phrases.

Question 6

referent

Answer 6

the thing that a word or phrase denotes or stands for.

Question 7

hyponymy

Answer 7

a word or phrase whose semantic field is more specific than its hypernym.

Question 8

hypernymy

Answer 8

A word with a broad meaning constituting a category into which words with more specific meanings fall; a superordinate.

Question 9

synonymy

Answer 9

the state of being synonymous.

Question 10

antonymy

Answer 10

the sense relation that exists between words which are opposite in meaning.

Question 11

compositional meaning

Answer 11

the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them.

Question 12

Pure intersection

Answer 12

The relationship between the reference of an adjective and a noun it modifies such that each picks put 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 13

Principle of Compasionality

Answer 13

is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them.

Question 14

Reverses

Answer 14

a word that reads the same backwards as forwards, then a semordnilap is a word that spells out a different word when read backwards

Question 15

Idioms

Answer 15

word combinations that have a different figurative meaning than the literal meanings of each word or phrase.

Question 16

Complementary Antonyms

Answer 16

no continuous spectrum between odd and even but they are opposite in meaning

Question 17

Incompatible

Answer 17

the most general type of semantic relation between lexical items, the meaning of which entails exclusion

Question 18

Gradable Antonyms

Answer 18

one of a pair of words with opposite meanings where the two meanings lie on a continuous spectrum.

Question 19

Non-Intersection Adjectives

Answer 19

is where it gets a little weirder. Non-intersective adjectives are descriptors that may or may not describe their noun.

Question 20

non-intersection adjective

Answer 20

descriptors that may or may not describe their noun.

Question 21

Anti-Intersection Adjectives

Answer 21

descriptors that negate the noun—the described noun cannot be a member of its own set.

Question 22

Converses

Answer 22

relational antonyms are pairs of words that refer to a relationship from opposite points of view, such as parent/child or borrow/lend.

Question 23

relative intersection

Answer 23

the reference of the adjective has to be determined relative to the reference of the noun; ex: all mice, big mice; all whales, big whales. subsective adjectives.

Question 24

Prototypes

Answer 24

a cognitive reference point, i.e the proto-image of all representatives of the meaning of a word or of a category.

Question 25

Homograph

Answer 25

each of two or more words spelled the same but not necessarily pronounced the same and having different meanings and origins.

Question 26

Homophone

Answer 26

each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling.

Question 27

Polyseme

Answer 27

A word or phrase that has multiple meanings, or, more specifically, multiple etymologically related meanings.

Question 28

Heterophone

Answer 28

a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling.

Question 29

Heterograph

Answer 29

words that sound the same as other words, but they have different spellings and different meanings.

Question 30

Mental Image definitions

Answer 30

an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses.