I agree with your conclusion. We use gradable pairs and semantic relationships every day but never think about it. An example that you gave is water. Water doesn’t have to be hot or cold, it can be anything in between.
One thing that I found interesting in this week’s reading is synonymy. Two words are synonymous if they have exactly the same reference. Examples from the book include couch/sofa, quick/rapid, and […]
I remember having trouble making the “th” sound when I was younger. Whenever I tried saying words like “three”, “their”, or anything with a “th” in the word, I would pronounce it either with a “t” or “d”. Same […]
The benefit of the descriptivist approach favored by linguists is that there is no right or way to the usage of language. Unlike prescriptivism, which has a black and white way of describing the correct way to use […]
I think the turning point of when our ancestors advanced from mere animal communications to what would be considered language was when they acquired the five characteristics described by Napoli. Eventually, humans […]
