linguistics test

Constituent

something that has a complete structure in a tree - if you can answer a question
the cat sleeps on the mat constituents:

The cat" (noun phrase)
"sleeps on the mat" (verb phrase)
"on the mat" (prepositional phrase).

Grammar

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

Grammaticality

Describes a well-formed sequence of words, one conforming to rules of syntax of a language

Utterance

a spoken word, statement, or vocal sound

Lexical semantics

Lexical semantics is the study of how words and their meanings work

Lexical ambiguity

the existence of multiple word meanings in one work

bank:
river bank
financial bank

phrasal semantics

the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word - the study of how the meaning of a phrase comes from the meanings of the words in it and how those words work together in a sentence.

structural ambiguity

a situation in which a single phrase or sentence has two (or more) different underlying structures and interpretations

"I saw the man with the telescope"
I saw him through the telescope
he had the telescope

denotative meaning

the literal or explicit meaning of a word or phrase

my folder full of seventh grade work

connotative meaning

Connotative, figurativex meaning in linguistics refers to the additional, implied meanings or emotional associations that a word carries beyond its literal, dictionary definition

The word "snake" has a denotative meaning of a reptile.
The connotative meaning of "snake" might include feelings of danger, betrayal, or deceit, due to cultural associations with snakes being symbols of those things.

inference

inference refers to the process of drawing conclusions based on available information or context (he got wet outside - infer its raining)

sense

the general idea of a thing

phone cases should be in the bin is sense and THAT phone case should be in the bin is reference

Reference

reference is what a word actually refers to in the real world. It's the object or concept the word points to, while sense is about the meaning of a word in a particular context, reference is about what the word directly refers to in the world.

dog points to an actual dog

prototype

prototype refers to the typical or most central example of a category or concept, from which other examples are compared. It represents the "ideal" or most common characteristics that define a category
For example:
The prototype of the category "bird" might be a robin, because it's a common

Synonym

A word that means the same another word

"Big" and "large"

Antonym

Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings.

"Hot" and "cold"

Complementary distribution

the situation in which phones never occur in the same phonetic environment

Hypernym

a word that is more general than another (e.g. animal is a hypernym for horse, plant is a hypernym for flower)

Hyponym

a more specific word within a category or under a hypernym (pizza is a hyponym for food)

Metonym

A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with.

"The White House" can be a metonym for U.S. President or government, because the White House is where the President works.

Meronym

A meronym is a word that refers to a part of something, or a smaller component of a whole.

As I look out at all the faces in the crowd

Contranym

word that can mean the opposite of itself

overlook, dust

Speech act

A speech act is when we use language to do something, like making a request, giving an order, or asking a question.