Compile a glossary of linguistic terms in demand!

Sense: This term is used in various ways in semantics.

One important use is as a translation of Frege’s (1892) German term Sinn. Here it is used for the knowledge that allows a speaker to match successfully a linguistic expression with its extension and thus use it to refer. This use relates sense to the thought expressed by a linguistic expression such as a word.

 

Sense is used in lexical semantics to identify the distinct lexemes linked by homonymy, so an ambiguous word like bark is said to have more than one sense.

Similarly the related meaning distinctions identified in polysemy are also called senses, so a polysemous word like the noun run (a fast pace, a race, an errand, continuous production, sequence of cards, score in cricket, etc.) is also said to have multiple senses.

The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Linguistics

E.g. 

syntax: the formal relation of signs to each other;

semantics: the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs

are applicable;

pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters. (adapted from Morris 1938, 1955)

 

Predicate: In the traditional linguistic distinction between subject and predicate, the predicate contains the verb and perhaps other elements that give information about the subject.

In predicate logic the predicate is a function that requires (at least) a subject argument to be complete. Predicates are represented by capital letters, A, B,etc.

Presupposition: A proposition assumed by a speaker when making an assertion.

So a speaker saying Harry has stopped sending his ex-wife Christmas cards presupposes that Harry used to send his ex-wife Christmas cards. Traditionally this was viewed

as a semantic relationship between two propositions but the assumption’s sensitivity to context has led some scholars to view it as a pragmatic phenomenon, reflecting participants’ management of shared assumptions in a conversation.

Presupposition failure: This is an extreme case of infelicitous use of presuppositions: when a speaker communicates an assumption that is not or cannot be shared

by the addressee(s). Some cases can be rescued by accommodation, where the addressee(s) supply the missing assumptions, e.g. if someone says My wife is ill when

you didn’t know they were married. Others cannot, e.g., if they clash with known reality, as the famous example

The King of France is bald uttered when there is no

king of France. The philosophical use of the term presupposition failure is restricted to these latter cases.

Presupposition trigger: A linguistic element that signals the speaker’s presuppositions, such as lexical items like the English factive verbs realize or regret, and constructions like clefts, such as It was the butler who murdered the guests, which presupposes

somebody murdered the guests.

Proposition: Part of the meaning of a sentence that describes some state of affairs.

The same proposition can be expressed in various sentences, which can then be spoken or written as utterances. Some philosophers describe propositions as communicable beliefs that are capable of being judged true or false.

Propositional attitudes: A term from philosophy for mental states held about a proposition. These are typically represented in language by verbs that take sentential complements, for example English believe, think, expect, hope.

 

Reference: The act of using of linguistic expressions to identify things in the world.

 

Referent: The thing identified by an act of reference.

 

Register: A term describing a variety of language speci©c to certain social situations or purposes.

Representational approach: An approach to meaning that focuses on the relationship between linguistic expressions and mental representations.

 

Scripts: Representations of knowledge associated with specific social situations.

 

Semiotics: The general study of signs, including both linguistic and non-linguistic signs.

 

Sense: This term is used in various ways in semantics. One important use is as a translation of Frege’s (1892) German term Sinn. Here it is used for the knowledge that allows a speaker to match successfully a linguistic expression with its extension

and thus use it to refer. This use relates sense to the thought expressed by a linguistic expression such as a word. Sense is used in lexical semantics to identify the distinct

lexemes linked by homonymy, so an ambiguous word like bark is said to have more than one sense. Similarly the related meaning distinctions identified in polysemy are also called senses, so a polysemous word like the noun run (a fast pace, a race, an

errand, continuous production, sequence of cards, score in cricket, etc.) is also said to have multiple senses.

 

Signification: The relationship created by the cognitive process of allowing one entity to stand for another in communication, thus creating signs.

 

Signifier/signified: Saussure’s (1974) distinction of parts of a sign, where for a linguistic sign the signifier is the linguistic expression and the signified is the concept. 

Saussure emphasized the arbitrariness of the relation between the two.

Thematic / semantic role: A semantic relation an argument takes in relation to a verb, such as agent, patient, theme, instrument, location, source, goal,etc.

Thematic role grid: A representation of a verb’s required arguments in terms of their thematic role.

Theme: This term has two uses:

(a) a thematic role, the entity which is moved by an action, or whose location is described;

and (b) in opposite to theme, a division of a sentence’s information structure, comparable to topic/comment structure.

 

Theta-Criterion: A proposal that thematic roles and syntactic arguments must be in a one-to-one relationship.

 

Topic: This term has several uses in linguistics. In information structure it is used at sentence level for a sentence constituent in languages that mark a topic/focus or a topic/comment distinction by syntactic structure or special morphemes.

At a higher level the term is used for a unifying element in the unfolding structure of discourse, the discourse topic, which is what participants understand the discourse or conversation to be about.

Topic/comment structure: The proposal that some languages, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, present a sentence structure that distinguishes between a topic, which is what the sentence is about and that links to the previous discourse, and the comment about the topic, which is new information. Some writers see the traditional subject-predicate sentence division as a subset of this distinction.

Trajector: In Langacker’s (2008) Cognitive Grammar, the opposition trajector versus landmark identifes a relation where one item (the trajector) is of higher salience

than the other (the landmark). In motion events it is similar to the ©gure/ground distinction of other writers but it also covers other semantic areas, e.g. spatial relations (X isabove Y versus Y isbelow X) and the relationship between thematic roles

(AGENT versus PATIENT).

 

TASK

Below is a list of English compound nouns.

One very common pattern is for the second element to identify the type of thing the compound is, while the 1rst is some kind of qualifier. The qualification can identify a subtype, be what the thing is used for, what the thing is made of, where or when the thing happens, etc. So a teacup is a cup used for tea. Divide the list below into two types: one where the meaning is predictable from the meaning of the two parts and a second type where the meaning is not predictable in this way. For the 1rst type, which shows a certain compositionality, how would you characterize the type of qualification made by the 1rst part of the compound?

Check your explanations against a dictionary’s entries.

 

agony aunt ;

 

eye candy;

 

houseboat;

 

shopping list;

 

blackmail;

 

firsthand;  

 

housewife;

 

software;

 

boyfriend;

 

flea market;

 

human being;

speed limit;

 

businessman;

 

foxhound;

 

mailbox;

 

spin doctor;

 

bus stop;

 

gravy train;

 

monkey business;

 

sunglasses;

 

climate change;

 

greenhouse;

 

mousetrap;

 

sweatshop;

 

daydream;

 

horseshoe

nightmare;

 

taste bud;

 

doormat;

 

hotdog;

 

redhead;

 

video game.