语言学定义(1)

Semantics

IV. Define the following terms:

31. Semantics: Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning in

language.

32. Sense: Sense is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic

form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is

abstract and decontextualized.

33. Reference: Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real,

physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element

and the non- linguistic world of experience

34. Synonymy: Synonymy refers to the sameness or close similarity of

meaning.

35. Polysemy: Polysemy refers to the fact that the same one word may have

more than one meaning.

36. Homonymy: Homonymy refers to the phenomenon that words having

different meanings have the same form, i.e. , different words are identical in

sound or spelling, or in both.

37. Homophones: When two words are identical in sound, they are called

homophones

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38. Homographs: When two words are identical in spelling, they are

homographs.

39. Complete homonyms: When two words are identical in both sound and

spelling, they are called complete homonyms.

40. Hyponymy: Hyponymy refers to the sense relation between a more

general, more inclusive word and a more specific word.

41. Antonymy: Antonymy refers to the relation of oppositeness of meaning.

42. Componential analysis: It defines the meaning of a lexical element in

terms of semantic components, or semantic features.

43. The grammatical meaning: The grammatical meaning of a sentence

refers to its grammaticality, i.e. , its grammatical well- formedness . The

grammaticality of a sentence is governed by the grammatical rules of the

language.

44. Predication: The predication is the abstraction of the meaning of a

sentence.

45. Argument: An argument is a logical participant in a predication. It is

generally identical with the nominal element (s) in a sentence.

46. Predicate: A predicate is something that is said about an argument or it

states the logical relation linking the arguments in a sentence.

47. two-place predication : A two-place predication is one which con-tains

two arguments.

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Pragmatics

IV

. Define the following terms:

31. Conversational implicature: In our daily life, speakers and listeners

involved in conversation are generally cooperating with each other. In other

words, when people are talking with each other, they must try to converse

smoothly and successfully. In accepting speakers

’

presuppositions, listeners

have to assume that a speaker is not trying to mislead them. This sense of

cooperation is simply one in which people having a conversation are not

normally assumed to be trying to confuse, trick, or withhold relevant

information from one another. However, in real communication, the

intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he or she

says. The real intention implied in the words is called conversational

implicature.

32. Performative: In speech act theory an utterance which performs an act,

such as Watch out (= a warning).

33. Locutionary act: A locutionary act is the saying of something which is

meaningful and can be understood.

34. Horn

’

s Q-principle: (1) Make your contribution sufficient (cf. quantity);

(2) Say as much as you can (given R).

37. Pragmatics: Pragmatics can be defined as the study of how speakers of a

language use sentences to effect successful communication.

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38. Context: Generally speaking, it consists of the knowledge that is shared

by the speaker and the hearer. The shared knowledge is of two types: the

knowledge of the language they use, and the knowledge about the world,

including the general knowledge about the world and the specific knowledge

about the situation in which linguistic communication is taking place.

39. Utterance meaning: the meaning of an utterance is concrete, and

context-dependent. Utterance is based on sentence meaning; it is realization

of the abstract meaning of a sentence in a real situation of communication, or

simply in a context.

40. Sentence meaning: The meaning of a sentence is of-ten considered as the

abstract, intrinsic property of the sentence itself in terms of a predication.

41. Constative: Constatives were statements that either state or describe, and

were verifiable ;

42. Performative: performatives, on the other hand, were sentences that did

not state a fact or describe a state, and were not verifiable. Their function is

to perform a particular speech act.

43. Locutionary act: A locutionary act is the act of uttering words, phrases,

clauses. It is the act of conveying literal meaning by means of syntax,

lexicon and phonology.

44. illocutionary act: An illocutionary act is the act of expressing the

speaker's intention; it is the act performed in saying something.

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45. Perlocutionary act: A perlocutionary act is the act per-formed by or

resulting from saying something; it is the consequence of, or the change

brought about by the utterance; it is the act performed by saying something.

46. Cooperative Principle: It is principle advanced by Paul Grice. It is a

principle that guides our conversational behaviours. The content is: Make

your conversational contribution such as is required at the stage at which it

occurs by the accepted purpose or the talk exchange in which you are

engaged.

Historical Linguistics

IV. Define the following terms:

51. Apocope: Apocope is the deletion of a word-final vowel segment.

52. Metathesis: Sound change as a result of sound movement is known as

metathesis. It involves a reversal in position of two neighbouring sound

segments.

53. Derivation: It is a process by which new words are formed by the

addition of affixes to the roots, stems or words.

54. Back-formation: It is a process by which new words are formed by

taking away the supposed suffix of an existing word.

55. Semantic narrowing: Semantic narrowing is a process in which the

meaning of a word becomes less general or inclusive than its historically

earlier meaning.

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56. Protolanguage: It is the original form of a language family that has

ceased to exist.

57. Haplology: It refers to the phenomenon of the loss of one of two

phonetically similar syllables in sequence.

58. Epenthesis: A change that involves the insertion of a consonant or vowel

sound to the middle of a word is known as epenthesis.

59. Compounding: It is a process of combining two or more than two words

into one lexical unit.

60. Blending: It is a process of forming a new word by combining parts of

other words.

61. Semantic broadening: Semantic broadening refers to the process in

which the meaning of a word becomes more general or inclusive than its

historically earlier denotation.

62. Semantic shift: Semantic shift is a process of semantic change in which

a word loses its former meaning and acquires a new, sometimes related,

meaning.

63. Great Vowel Shift: It is a series of systematic sound change at the end of

the Middle English period approximately between 1400 and 1600 in the

history of English that involved seven long vowels and consequently led to

one of the major discrepancies between English pronunciation and its

spelling system.

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