Semantic Terms

Componential Analysis



The theory that the meanings of words can be analysed into a finite number of reusable semantic components. For eg: The meaning of vixen could be said to have the following components: [mammal],  [+ adult], [- male], [+ vulpine]. These sense of each unit is distinguished from others by a set of semantic features/components.

Prototypes

An approach to word meaning that regards semantic categories as fuzzy and suggests that for any word we have a notion of what is prototypical about its meaning., so that some instances will fall centrally into the category, while others will be more peripheral, into the category. 

Eg: A prototypical tree has a trunk, branches, twigs and leaves; but there are cases where we might call something a tree, even though it doesn't have all the prototypical features. Eg: Rose tree (as against rose bush).

Implicature

By "implicature", semantists mean something that is stated obliquely rather than directly, so that the hearer has to draw the implication from what is said. For example, if on a country walk someone suddenly shouted Bull! you would take this as advice to run as fast as possible for the nearest gate. Again, within a household, the statement The phone's ringing would usually be taken to mean, "Would you answer the telephone?"

Thus implicatures are implied meaning which exist in addition to what is explicitly stated. An other example for implicature is: If I ask you who has eaten my chocolates and you reply John was in your room this morning, I am entitled to assume, by the maxim of relevance, the implicature "John ate your chocolates".

P. H. Mathews in the "Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics" defines implicature as any meaning that a sentence may have that goes beyond an account of its meaning in terms of truth conditions. This includes both conversational implicature and conventional implicature.

Entailment 

Entailment may be explained as "the truth of one proposition that follows from the truth of another".

Eg: "The ex-president has been hanged" entail that "The ex-president is dead".

Thus "Mary is not standing still" is entailed by "Mary is running".

Entailment is distinguished from implicature (which is usually described as propositions, entailed by sentences), in that entailments are not defeasible: that is, they cannot be overridden in a specific context. Implicatures are defeasible, but entailments are not.

In entailment there is a logical relationship between two sentences such that the truth of the second sentence necessarily follows from the truth of the first.

Eg: (a) John killed Bob.

      (b) Bob died.

The entailment her is the consequence of the sematic relationship between kill and die.

Implication

Relation in logic such that, if p is true, then q is also true. Commonly written p → q. 

Eg: "girl (×) - female (×)" (2f × is a girl then × is a female).

Mutual implication, written p ↔ q, is the case where each proposition implies the other. 

Thus, implication is the relationship between the two statements of a conditional  statement. "P" is called ANTECEDENT and "q" is the CONSEQUENT, when "p" implies "q".

Pre Supposition

A background belief or assumption behind a proposition. For eg: "The king of England is bold" presupposes that England is ruled by a king.

The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics explains presupposition on a relation between propositions by which "a" presupposes "b", "f" for "a" to have a truth-value, "b" must be true.

thus, in one analysis "The king of France is bald" is neither true nor false unless the presupposed "There is a king of France" is true.

This term was developed in philosophy by P. F. Strawson; theine to linguistics in the late 1960's.

Eg: "I'm sorry John is not here" presupposes "John is not here"; also that this is known to an address (S). 

Prepared by:

Dr. Susan Mathew


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