Welcome to the flashcards tool for ‘The Study of Language, 6th edition’,

Chapter 9

This is designed as a simple supplementary resource for this textbook, and

aims to help students grasp the meaning of the core essential terms within the
book. Each term will appear on its own, and you can then click to check the
definition.

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 term:

semantics

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 definition:

the study of the meaning of

words, phrases and sentences

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 term:

associative meaning

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 definition:

the type of meaning that people

might connect with the use of
words (e.g. needle = “painful”)
that is not
part of conceptual meaning
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 term:

conceptual meaning

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 definition:

the basic components of

meaning conveyed by the literal
use of words

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 term:

semantic features

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 definition:

basic elements such as

“human,” included as plus
(þhuman) or minus (−human),
used in an analysis of the
components of word meaning
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 term:

agent

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 definition:
the semantic role of the noun
phrase
identifying the one who performs
the
action of the verb in an event
(The boy
kicked the ball)
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 term:

experiencer

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 definition:

the semantic role of the noun

phrase identifying the entity that
has the feeling, perception or state
described by the verb (e.g. The
boy feels sad)
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 term:

instrument

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 definition:

the semantic role of the noun

phrase identifying the entity that
is used to perform the action of
the verb (e.g. The boy cut the
rope with a razor)
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 term:

semantic role

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 definition:

the part played by a noun

phrase, such as agent, in the
event described by the
sentence

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 term:

theme

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 definition:
the semantic role of the noun
phrase used to identify the
entity involved in or affected by
the action of the verb in an
event (e.g. The boy kicked
the ball)
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 term:

goal

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 definition:

the semantic role of the noun

phrase identifying where an
entity moves to (e.g. The boy
walked to the window)

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 term:

lexical relations

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 definition:

the relationships of meaning,

such as synonymy, between
words

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 term:

location (in semantics)

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 definition:

the semantic role of the noun

phrase identifying where an
entity is (e.g. The boy is sitting
in the
classroom)
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 term:

source

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 definition:

the semantic role of the noun

phrase identifying where an
entity moves from (e.g. The boy
ran from the house)

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 term:

synonymy

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 definition:

the lexical relation in which two

or more words have very
closely related meanings (e.g.
“conceal” is a synonym of
“hide”)
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 term:

gradable antonyms

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 definition:

words with opposite meanings

along a scale (e.g. big–small)

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 term:

non-gradable antonyms

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 definition:

words which are direct

opposites (e.g. alive–dead)

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 term:

reversives

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 definition:

antonyms in which the meaning

of one is the reverse action of
the other (e.g. dress–undress)

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 term:

antonymy

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 definition:

the lexical relation in which

words have opposite meanings
(“Shallow” is an antonym of
“deep”)

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 term:

co-hyponyms

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 definition:

words in hyponymy that share

the same superordinate
(“daffodil” and “rose” are co-
hyponyms of “flower”)

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 term:

hyponymy

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 definition:

the lexical relation in which the

meaning of one word is
included in the meaning of
another (e.g. “daffodil” is a
hyponym of “flower”)
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 term:

superordinate

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 definition:

the higher level term in

hyponymy (e.g. flower–daffodil)

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 term:

homonyms

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 definition:

two words with the same form

that are unrelated in meaning
(e.g. mole (on skin) – mole
(small animal))

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 term:

homophones

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 definition:

two or more words with

different forms and the same
pronunciation (e.g. to–too–two)

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 term:

prototype

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 definition:

the most characteristic instance

of a category (e.g. “robin” is the
prototype of “bird”)

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 term:

polysemy

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 definition:

a word having two or more

related meanings (e.g. foot, of
person, of bed, of mountain)

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 term:

collocation

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 definition:

a relationship between words

that frequently occur together
(e.g. salt and pepper)

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 term:

corpus linguistics

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 definition:

the study of language in use by

analyzing the occurrence and
frequency of forms in a large
collection of texts typically
stored in a computer
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 term:

metonymy

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 definition:

a word used in place of another

with which it is closely
connected in everyday
experience (e.g. He drank the
whole bottle (= the liquid))
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