PSYCO104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Connotation, Denotation, Fallacy

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: Eric Legge

Document Summary

Language consists of symbols that convey meaning, plus rules for combining those symbols, that can be used to generate an infinite variety of messages. Language systems have a number of critical properties: language is symbolic. Spoken sounds and words represent objects, actions, events, and ideas: language is generative. An infinite number of novel messages can be generated by a limited number of symbols: language is structured. Sentences must be structured in a limited number of ways. Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning in a language: there are about 50,000 in the english language, they include words, prefixes, and suffixes. Semantics is the area of language concerned with understanding the meaning of words and word combinations: a word"s meaning may consist of both its: Connotation, which includes its emotional overtones and secondary implications. The system of rules for arranging words into sentences is known as syntax.