SLHS 227 - Chapter 4

Lexical Semantics: 

  • meaning of words

  • Synonyms: words that have the same meaning in some or all contexts

    • Dialect difference: lift vs elevator

    • Stylistic difference: formal vs informal; ex: insane vs looney

    • Connotation difference: generic vs negative; ex: house vs hut

  • Antonyms: words that have opposite meaning 

    • Complementary: alive vs dead; present vs absent

    • Gradable pairs: big vs small; hot vs cold

    • Relational: give vs receive; buy vs sell

  • Homonyms: words that have different meaning but sound the same

    • Ex: bear vs bare

  • Polysemous: multiple conceptually/historically related meanings

    • Ex: diamond: the shape or stone

  • Hyponyms: relationship between specific term and a general term 

    • Ex: rose, iris, poppy, daisy → flower

  • Hypernyms: relationship between a general term and specific instance of that term

    • Ex: color → red


Argument Structure: 

  • different kinds of verbs take different numbers of arguments

  • Intransitive: none; ex: sleep

  • Transitive: 1 augment; ex: find

  • Ditransitive: 2 arguments; ex: give 



Phrasal Semantics: 

  • meaning of syntactic units larger than 1 word