Lexical Relation (1)

TWO APPROACHES:1. SEMATIC FIELD THEORY2. TRUTH CONDITIONAL

SEMANTICS

1. FIELD THEORY

AN ATTEMPT TO CLASSIFY LEXEMES ACCORDING TO SHARED AND DIFFERENTIATING FEATURES.

e.g.(1) wasp, hornet, bee denote flying, stinging insects (2) moth, housefly denote flying, but not stinging insects. (3) ant, termite denote insects that neither fly nor sting.

2. TRUTH CONDITIONAL SEMANTICS

TO ACCOUNT FOR THE MEANING RELATIONS BETWEEN DIFFERENT EXPESSIONS IN A LANGUAGE (e.g. entailment, paraphrase, contradiction)

For example, entailment (the relation between two propositions) e.g. if p is true, q must also be true, but if q is true, it does not necessarily follow that p is true.

1a My necktie is maroon 1b My necktie is red

1.1 Field Theory: Lexical fields

A word in field share a common ‘semantic component’ or ‘features.’

e.g. tennis, badminton, soccer set of

sports.

However, this set may also different features from each other though troublesome.

Some lexical involve part-whole relationships: e.g. arm includes hand, which includes finger and thumb.

Some sets form paradigms: e.g. man, woman, boy and girl denote humans.

The determination of such set is called componential analysis.

Analyzing Components of Meaning

Binary Features [+/-ANIMATE] the meaning of a word

may be composed of the component [+ANIMATE] or of the component [-ANIMATE] e.g. vixen marked as [+ANIMATE] apple marked as [-ANIMATE] a high level of generality

vixen[+/-MAMMAL] subsume [+ANIMATE]

apple [+/- FRUIT] subsume [-ANIMATE]

A more specific nature

A more specific feature

e.g. A vixen is a female fox the class of mammals the component [+MAMMAL] implies the components [+ANIMATE], [+ANIMAL].

the vixen is the female, in contrast to the dog fox, and marked [-MALE], it refers to adult fox and marked [+ADULT]

Thus, the components—[+MAMMAL], [-MALE], [+ADULT]

A vixen marked as [+MAMMAL], [-MALE], [+ADULT]. These components, adult female mammals also refer to dog, cow, horse.

How to distinguish vixen from all of them? We need a genus ( a class of animals), like,

[+VULPINE] for fox, [+CANINE] for dog, [+BOVINE] for cow, [+EQUINE] for horse, etc.

Thus, within a genus, the components can usefully distinguish the meaning of the relevant set of lexemes, e.g.

VULPINE ADULT MALEfox + +/- +/-

(dog) fox + + +vixen + + -

fox cub + - +/-

KINSHIP: Relation through blood ties and marriage

To show these relations, use the components:

[MALE], [ASCENDING GENERATION], [DESCENDING GENERATION] [LINEAL DESCENT]

The components [ASCENDING GENERATION] and [DESCENDING GENERATION] account for a three-way meaning distinction between:

(a) same generation as self [-ASCEND], [-DESCEND](b) higher generation than self [+ASCEND], [-DESCEND](c) lower generation than self [-ASCEND],

[+DESCEND] * The combination [+ASCEND]/[+DESCEND] is impossible. [LINEAL DESCENT] direct relation

Accounting for the following kinship terms in English:

MALE ASCEND DESCEND LINEALfather + + - +mother - + - +uncleauntbrothersistercousinsondaughternephewniece