Semantics Flashcards
(30 cards)
Denotative meaning
The logical meaning, which indicates the essential qualities of a concept which distinguish it
from other concepts.
Connotative meaning
The additional or associated meaning, which is attached to the denotative, conceptual
meaning. It consists of associations made with a concept whenever that concept is referred to.
Social meaning
It is the meaning that a word possesses by virtue of its use in particular social situations and
circumstances
Thematic meaning
It lies in the manner in which a message is organized for emphasis.
Hyponymy
When the meaning of one form is included in the meaning of another, the relationship
Prototype
It explains the meaning of certain words like bird not in terms of component feature (e.g. „has wings‟) but
in terms of resemblance to the clearest examplar; e.g. native speakers of English might wonder if ostrich or penguin
should be hyponyms of bird, but have no trouble deciding about sparrow or pigeon. The last two are prototypes.
Homophony
When two or more differently written forms have the same pronunciation but different meaning; e.g.
sea-see.
Homography
When two or more forms are the same only in writing but different in pronunciation and meaning they
are described as homographs such as lead ([lid]) and lead ([led]).
Homonoymy
It is when one form (written or spoken) has two or more unrelated meanings, but have the same
pronunciation and spelling; e.g. bank (of a river) and bank (financial institution)
Synthetic Synthesis
Synthetic sentences may be true or false depending upon how the world is
polysemy
It can be defined as one form (written or spoken) having multiple meanings which are all related by
extension. e.g. head refers to top of your body, top of a glass of beer, top of a company
Collocation
Those words which tend to occur with other words; e.g. hammer collocates with nail; wife with husband
and knife with fork.
Semantics
is the study of meaning in language
Extension
In philosophical semantics or the philosophy of language, the ‘extension’ of a concept or expression is the set of things it extends to, or applies to, if it is the sort of concept or expression that a single object by itself can satisfy
Coreference
occurs when two or more expressions in a text refer to the same person or thing; they have the same referent, e.g. Bill said he would come
Anaphora
is the use of an expression whose interpretation depends upon another expression in context (its antecedent or postcedent).
Deixis
refers to words and phrases, such as “me” or “here”, that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information
Referants
is the person, thing, or idea that a word or expression denotes, stands for, or refers to.
The Principle of Compositionality
is the principle that the meaning of a (syntactically complex) whole is a function only of the meanings of its (syntactic) parts together with the manner in which these parts were combined.
Compositional Semantics
deals with how those lexical meanings combine to form more complex phrasal meanings.
Lexical Semantics
Linguists who are interested in the meanings of words, and the relations among words‟ meanings
The Theory of Naming
maintains that language is a
communication system which works with two elements; the signifier, and the signified
Signifier
the sound associated with or image of something (e.g., a tree)
The Conceptual Theory of Meaning
In the theory of meaning, just explained, words and things are directly related.
But in the conceptual theory of meaning words and things are related through the mediation of concepts of the mind.
