Semantics: Ling 525 |
Semantic Terms and Relations |
Linguistics 525 |
Term |
Definition |
Examples |
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Entailment | p entails q (p ==> q) if and only if whenever p is true, q is true. |
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Analytically True Sentence |
A sentence that must be true in virtue of the meanings of the words in it. |
A bachelor is unmarried A dog is a mammal. If Fido is a dog, then Fido is a mammal. A boy is male. Two beans is fewer beans than three beans. Someone who is very tall is tall. A tall man is a man. |
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Lexeme | A word (with a particular [core] meaning) in all its forms |
walk: walk, walking, walked, walks (but not walker, walkathon) steal: steal, stealing, stole, stolen, steals (but not thief, theft) |
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Synonymy | the relation two linguistic forms (for example, lexemes) have when they mean the same |
None of the following examples are uncontroversial:
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Word | ??? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
polysemy | The property a lexeme has when it has a number of closely related meanings. |
I go for a run every morning. The bears are here for the salmon run. There's been a run on the dollar. |
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ambiguity (lexical case: = homonymy) |
The property a linguistic form has it when it has two clearly distinct meanings (one form; two lexemes) |
The Israelites wandered for many years after their flight from Egypt. John waited a long time at the airport for his flight from Egypt. |
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vagueness | The property a linguistic form has it when it applies to a variety of situations, with the distinctiuons between them determined by context (one lexeme; multiple functions contextually determined) |
Cowell Mountain is little more than a hill a by Rocky Mountain standards. The workmen left a hill of dirt in my backyard. John is tall (for a basketball player). Our publicist will attend. He/she ..... |
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collocational variation |
A single meaning that seems to change forms based on words in context |
herd, pack, flock, coven, exaltation strong (coffee, medicine), powerful (car) |
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antonymy | The relation that holds between two words when they have opposite (?!) meanings. In the case of simple antonyms, the negation of one implies the other. A minimal condition on all antonyms A and B is that they are incompatible. Nothing can be both A and B at the same time. |
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hyponymy | Word A is a hyponym of word B if and only if the meaning of B is more general than the meaning of A |
dog, cat are hyponyms of animal kestrel is a hyponym of hawk which is a hyponym of bird |
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meronymy | Word A is a meronym of word B if and only if the meaning of A names a PART OF B |
finger is a meronym of hand keel is a meronym of ship |
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taxonomic sisterhood |
Word A is a taxonomic sister of word B if and only if word A and word B are hyponyms of all the same words (sisters in a hyponymic hierarchy) |
Basic color terms are taxonomic sisters dog, cat are not taxonomic sisters (canine, feline) dog, cat are taxonomic sisters (if we stick to basic vocabulary) |
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adjective inchoative causative |
The inchoative of an adjective is an intransitive verb for which x VERBs means y BECOME-ADJ; the causative is a transitive verb for which x VERBs y means x CAUSES y to BECOME ADJ |
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