Flashcards: Semantics

In linguistics, a grammatical agent (abbreviated A) is a thematic relation that refers to the cause or initiator of an event.

In linguistics, anaphora (/əˈnæfərə/) is the use of an expression whose interpretation depends upon another expression in context (its antecedent or postcedent).

Context and content are both points-of-view.

An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, less commonly the Greek-style oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory, but which contain a concealed point.

Pleonasm (/ˈpliːənæzəm/; from Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmos), from πλέον (pleon), meaning "more, too much") is the use of more words or parts of words than is necessary or sufficient for clear expression: examples are black darkness, burning fire, or people's democracy.

In linguistics, a homonym is one of a group of words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings, whether spelled the same or not.

A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that refers, for rhetorical effect, to one thing by mentioning another thing.

For example, in arithmetic, it allows the expression of the statement that every natural number has a successor.

Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikos, "significant") is primarily the linguistic, and also philosophical study of meaning—in language, programming languages, formal logics, and semiotics.

A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional arguments, that is, for each combination of values taken by their logical variables (Enderton, 2001).

Meronymy (from Greek μέρος meros, "part" and ὄνομα onoma, "name") is a semantic relation specific to linguistics, distinct from the similar meronomy.

A question is a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or the request made using such an expression.

Polysemy (/pəˈlɪsᵻmi/ or /ˈpɒlᵻsiːmi/; from Greek: πολυ-, poly-, "many" and σῆμα, sêma, "sign") is the capacity for a sign (such as a word, phrase, or symbol) to have multiple meanings (that is, multiple semes or sememes and thus multiple senses), usually related by contiguity of meaning within a semantic field.

In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, a presupposition (or ps) is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse.

In linguistics, sound symbolism, phonesthesia or phonosemantics is the idea that vocal sounds or phonemes carry meaning in and of themselves.

Analogy (from Greek ἀναλογία, analogia, "proportion") is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject (the analogue or source) to another (the target), or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process.

Ideophones are words that evoke an idea in sound, often a vivid impression of certain sensations or sensory perceptions, e.

Metonymy (/mᵻˈtɒnᵻmi/ mi-TONN-ə-mee) is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by a metonym, the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept.

Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning.

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning.

Case grammar is a system of linguistic analysis, focusing on the link between the valence, or number of subjects, objects, etc.

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, and may differ in spelling.

In linguistics, meaning is what the source or sender expresses, communicates, or conveys in their message to the observer or receiver, and what the receiver infers from the current context.

Denotation is a translation of a sign to its meaning, precisely to its literal meaning, more or less like dictionaries try to define it.

Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of Noam Chomsky: John R.

In linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) refer to functional relationships between constituents in a clause.

Semantic primes or semantic primitives are semantic concepts that are innately understood, but cannot be expressed in simpler terms.

A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning (and sometimes pronunciation) when it is capitalized; the capitalization usually applies due to one form being a proper noun or eponym.

According to Rudolf Carnap, in logic, an interpretation is a descriptive interpretation (also called a factual interpretation) if at least one of the undefined symbols of its formal system becomes, in the interpretation, a descriptive sign (i.e., the name of single objects, or observable properties).

Indeterminacy, in philosophy, can refer both to common scientific and mathematical concepts of uncertainty and their implications and to another kind of indeterminacy deriving from the nature of definition or meaning.