Semantics and Pragmatics Flashcards

Flashcards covering linguistic definitions of utterances, sentences, propositions, reference, sense, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, message, denotation, and connotation.

Utterance

What speakers say or write (any stretch of talk); the use by a particular speaker, on a particular occasion, of a piece of language (sentence, phrase, or word) as a physical event.

Sentence

A string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language expressing a complete thought.

Proposition

The basic idea or thought of a sentence (consisting of a predicate + argument(s)) that says something about events or states and can be confirmed and argued.

Utterance Meaning

Meaning that must be determined from context, including the intentions and relationship of the speaker and hearer, time, place, and roles.

Sentence Meaning

Meaning consisting of propositions that is independent of context.

Reference

Deals with the relationship between linguistic elements (words, sentences, etc.) and the non-linguistic world of experience.

Sense

Relates to the complex system of relationships that hold between linguistic elements themselves (mostly words), concerned only with intralinguistic relations.

Meaning (arti)

Basic and abstract semantic meaning.

Sense (makna)

Specific meaning of a single unit of lexeme, sentence, or utterance which is bound by structure, context, intonation, and background.

Syntagmatic Relation

A linear relation of language features in a certain rank (in praesentia).

Paradigmatic Relation

A relation of language features in a certain rank with other features that can be substituted (in absentia).

Message

Meaning or sense derived from a group of words, structure, or topics in texts (poetry, prose, essay, etc.) where individual word meanings are hard to catch.

Denotation

The straightforward or common-sense meaning; literally what is actually shown in an image or text.

Connotation

The extra, linked meaning that goes with any sign, connected to personal ideas, feelings, and extra layers of meaning.

Two-step Content Analysis of Pictures

An analysis method consisting of 1. Denotation (straightforward reading of what is in the picture) and 2. Connotation (the extra, linked meanings that go with the picture).