Chapter 5 SemanticsChapter 5 Semantics.docVIP

Chapter 5 Semantics I. Definition of terms denotation: the part of the meaning of a word or a phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world or in a fictional or possible world. connotation: a term in a contrast with denotation, the additional meanings that a word or phrase has beyond its central meaning. conceptual meaning: The central meaning or core meaning of a lexical item, which contains logical, cognitive, or denotative content. It refers to that part of the meaning of a word or phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world or in a fictional or possible world. sense: Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualised. reference: Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience. hyponymy: a relation between two words, in which the meaning of one word (the superordinate) is included in the meaning of another word (the hyponym). semantics: Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in language. synonymy: Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of meaning. polysemy: Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have more than one meaning. homonymy: Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having different meanings have the same form, i.e. , different words are identical in sound or spelling, or in both. homophones: When two words are identical in sound, they are called homophones homographs: When two words are identical in spelling, they are homographs. complete homonyms: When two words are identical in both sound and spelling, they are called complete homonyms. antonymy: Antonymy refers to the relation of oppositeness of meaning. componential analysis: Componential analysis is a way to analyze word meaning. It was proposed by structural semanticists. Th