Ch.1 Creativity: The characteristic of language which makes it possible for us to produce and understand utterances we have never heard or produced before. Arbitrariness: The characteristic of language such that there is no natural relation between words and what it stands for. Syntax: The study of how words go together to form sentences. Anomalous sentence: A meaningless sequence of words which deviates from the rules for sentence formation. Paraphrase: An alternative way of expressing the content of a sentence Synonym: A word that is equivalent in sense to another word (in a particular context or contexts). Contradiction: The relation between two propositions such that if one is true, the other must be false Antonym: A word that is opposite in meaning to another word. Ambiguity: The condition whereby any linguistic form has two or more interpretations Presupposition: The information that must be assumed in order for a sentence to be meaningful. Grammar: The rules by which a language operates, and therefore the implicit knowledge that speakers of that language have which makes them competent to use the language; also, an account of the rules. Ch.2 Utterance: A stretch of speech by one person; it may consist of a single word, a single sentence, or numerous sentences. Sentence: A grammatical construction that is complete in itself. Linguistic meaning: The meaning conveyed by linguistic forms, as distinct from meanings conveyed by the circumstances of an utterance, which is speaker meaning. Discourse: A continuous stretch of spoken or written language, consisting of at least one sentence and usually more than one. Implicature: A meaning derived not from what is said but deduced from the necessary way of interpreting what is said. Ch.3 Lexeme: A minimal form that conveys one meaning and can be used in reference or predication Function: The role played by a word in a sentence. Morpheme: The smallest contrastive unit of meaning. Reference: The relation between a language form and some physical entity, which is the referent of that sign Denotation: The objective relationship between a linguistic form and its referent. Connotation: The personal associations produced by words. Sense relations: The relations of meaning between words, as expressed in synonymy, hyponymy, antonymy, etc. Syntagmatic: The relation of words to one another when they form a construction. Paradigmatic: The relation of items that can substitute for one another at the same place in a sentence. Lexicon: The vocabulary of a language, together with information about the pronunciation, use, and meaning of each item in it. Homonyms: Words with the same pronunciation but different meanings Prospective verb: A verb that expresses some action or attitude oriented toward a later time Ch.4 Proposition: The meaning of any sentence that is asserted to be true or false. Focus: Special attention to one element in a sentence, in speech focus it is often accomplished through accent. Tense: The expression of time in a verb; in English a verb has two tenses, present (play) and past (played). Aspect: The expression of some temporal characteristic of a predicate; includes ingressive, durative, egressive, prospective, and retrospective. Modality: The expression of necessity, possibility and probability, often through modal verbs. Subject: The noun phrase about which something is stated. Object: The noun phrase that names the entity which receives the action of the verb Complement: Any form that follows a predicate and completes its meaning: Valency: The number of arguments (noun phrases) that a predicate may have in one sentence. Weather predicate: An adjective like rainy or a verb such as snow which occurs with the empty subject it. Actor: the role of an argument that performs some action without affecting any other entity. Affected: the role of an argument that undergoes a change due to some event or is affected by some other entity Affecting: the role of an argument that, without any action, affects another entity. Agent: the role of an argument that by its action affects some other entity. Associate: the role of an argument that tells the status or identity of another argument, the theme. Effect: the role of an argument that comes into existence through the action of the predicate occur. Place: the role of an argument that names the location in which the action of the predicate occurs. Theme: the role of an argument that is the topic of a predicate that does not express actionstative predicate. Stative verb: A verb that expresses some state of affairs, rather than an action or event. Ch.5 Semantic field: A group of lexemes that are defined with respect to one another: kinship, colors, etc Hyponym: A word whose referent is included in the referent of a more general word, called the superordinate. Co-hyponyms: Two or more lexemes that have the same superordinate. Collective noun: A noun that refers to a group of entities. Binary antonyms: Two lexemes such that, if used as predicate for the same subject, only one can be true: dead, alive. Non-binary antonyms: Two lexemes that have opposite meanings but for which there are intermediate degrees of the same quality: hot and cold. Converse antonyms: Two lexemes so related that either one presupposes the other. Goal: The role that expresses what is affected by the action of a predicate Reciprocal: A relationship that can be expressed by each other or one another. Ch.8 Statement: A sentence that tells something Gerund: The form of a verb ending in -ing used as (part of) a noun phrase. Infinitive: A non-finite form of a verb; in English often, but not always, consisting of to+the verb Perceptual predicate: A verb that expresses the activity of any of the five senses.