File 6 semantics key terms Flashcards
(30 cards)
anti-intersection adjective
an adjective whose referents are not in the set referred to by the noun that it modifies
antonymy or antonym
a meaning relationship between words where their meanings are in some sense opposite
complementary antonyms
pair of antonyms such that everything must be described by the first word, or neither; and such that saying of something that is not a member of the set denoted by the first word implicates that it is in the set denoted by the second word
compositional meaning
the meaning of a phrasal expression that is predictable from the meanings of smaller expressions it contains and how they are syntactically combined
compositional semantics
a subfield of semantics that studies the meanings of phrasal expressions and how those meanings arise given the meanings of the lexical expressions they contain and how they are syntactically combined .
converses
antonyms in which the first word of the pair suggests a point of view opposite to that of the second word
entailment
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
gradable antonyms
words that are antonyms and denote opposite ends of a scale. Also known as gradable pairs and scalar antonyms
hyponymy or hyponym
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.
Idiom
a multi-word lexical expression whose meaning is not compositional
incompatibility
the relationship between two propositions where it is impossible for both of them to be true simultaneously
mental image definition
a conception of a word’s sense as a picture in the mind of the language user that represents its meaning
mutual entailment
the relationship between two propositions where they entail one another
non-intersection adjective
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
proposition
the sense expressed by a sentence. Characteristically, propositions can be true or false
prototype
for any given set, a member that exhibits the typical qualities of the members of that set
pure intersection
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
reference
a component of linguistic meaning that relates the sense of some expression to entities in the outside world. The collection of all the referents of an expression
referent
an actual entity or an individual in the world to which some expression refers
reverses
antonyms in which one word in the pair suggests movement that undoes the movement suggested by the other
sense
a mental representation of an expressions meaning
sister terms
words that, in terms of their reference, are at the same level in the hierarchy, or have exactly the same hypernyms
synonym
a meaning relationship between words where their reference is exactly the same
truth conditions
the set of conditions that would have to hold in the world in order for the proposition expressed by some sentence to be true
