Linguistic Concepts: Definitions and Examples

Linguistic Concepts

2. (1.5p) Define the following concepts as they have been used in this course, giving an example of each:

Meronymy

Meronymy is the semantic relation between a lexical item denoting a part and that denoting the corresponding whole. Meronyms are mentally triggered, since our minds have scripts, e.g., knowledge about event sequences due to knowledge of the world. We have scripts for events that commonly occur in our lives, such as going to a doctor's office, a restaurant, a library, or the supermarket.

Converses

Converses are pairs of opposite terms characterized by the following feature: when one member of the pair is substituted for the other, the new sentence can be made logically equivalent to the original one by interchanging two of the noun phrase arguments. Examples:

• above : below
• in front of : behind
• before : after
• husband : wife

John is in front of Helen - Helen is behind John.

John is Helen's husband - Helen is John's wife.

Beneficiary

The beneficiary is the optional, non-central participant in three-participant processes such as fetch. It represents the one for whom some service is done. This often amounts to being the intended recipient. However, it is not necessarily the same as receiving the goods. Example: I can bake a cake, but perhaps you don't want it.

Ergative Pair

An ergative pair occurs when the affected object of a transitive causative clause is the same as the affected subject of the corresponding intransitive clause.

Example: Paul opened the door - The door opened.

agent material process affected      affected material process

Folk Category

Folk categories are categories as they are conceptualized by ordinary language users. Folk categories are organized in folk taxonomies, which group categories of a certain area of knowledge. Folk categories are often inaccurate or have gaps but are effective for a person's everyday needs.

Example: In Spanish, the distinction between ave and pájaro is based on size rather than on scientific characteristics.

Semantic Tallies

Semantic tallies are elements that do not carry any meaning but distinguish a variety of the general category indicated by the other component of the word they belong to: cranberry, bilberry, dormouse.

Phonaestheme

Phonaesthemes are groups of phonemes that have a sort of meaning but cannot be considered morphemes because the remaining part of the word is not a morpheme. For instance, fl- means 'moving light'.

Entailment

Entailment is a relationship between two sentences where, if the first is true, the second is necessarily true. Example: Peter painted a picture entails Someone painted a picture.

Facultative Meronymy

Facultative meronymy is optional meronymy; the facultative meronym is part of some entities of a certain kind but not others. Example: underground is a facultative meronym of city.

Habitual Simple Present

The habitual simple present is a meaning of the simple present that indicates that a state or event occurs frequently (but not all the time). It has occurred frequently in the past, and it predictably will occur frequently in the future. Example: Jim plays tennis on Fridays (he is not always playing tennis).