synsemantic, a. Philol.
(sɪnsiːˈmæntɪk)
[ad. G. synsemantisch (A. Marty Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung d. allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie (1908) ii. i. 206): see syn-1, semantic a.]
Of a word or phrase: having no meaning outside a context; meaningless in isolation; syncategorematic; opp. autosemantic. See also note s.v. autosemantic a. (n.)
| 1929, etc. [see autosemantic a. (n.)]. 1954 Archivum Linguisticum VI. 18 These ‘synsemantic’ words ‘adsignify’ or contribute only to the sense of the whole group to which they belong. 1960 Analysis XXI. i. 3 According to Brentano ‘Paris’ is not a genuine constituent of ‘I am thinking-of-Paris’. It is in this context, as he sometimes says, a synsemantic expression. As such, it does not refer to anything. 1965 B. Collinder in Bessinger & Creed Medieval & Linguistic Stud. 28 The definite article is a synsemantic demonstrative pronoun. |