Page 406 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes introspection. As Bierwisch says, ‘all semantic structure might finally be reduced to components
representing the basic dispositions of the cognitive and perceptual structure of the human organism’.
Whereas other semantic approaches regard the meanings of lexical items as unanalysable or
undefinable wholes, this approach defines the meaning of a lexical element explicitly in terms of
semantic components.
These components or categories are not a part of vocabulary of the language itself, but rather
theoretical elements ‘postulated in order to describe the semantic relationship between the lexical
elements of a given language.’ These components are connected again by ‘logical constants.’ For
example, Bierwisch’s following analysis :
1. boy : ANIMATE and HUMAN and MALE and NOT ADULT.
2. girl : ANIMATE and HUMAN and FEMALE and NOT ADULT.
3. Man : ANIMATE and HUMAN and MALE and ADULT.
4. Woman : ANIMATE and HUMAN and FEMALE and ADULT.
A system of such explicitly defined lexical elements, as suggested by Bierwisch, might be supplemented
by a set of implicational rules of the following type :
1. HUMAN ANIMATE
2. MALE not FEMALE
3. FEMALE not MALE
4. MALE ANIMATE
5. FEMALE ANIMATE
These implicational rules automatically complete a redundancy free entry like the (la) to its fully
specified (lb)
la.boy : HUMAN and FEMALE and not ADULT.
lb. boy : ANIMATE and HUMAN and MALE and not FEMALE and not ADULT.
‘Rules of this type’, remarks Bierwisch, ‘not only simplify the necessary dictionary specifications;
they also express relevant generalization about the semantic structure of the vocabulary described’.
Semantic Features
Within generative-transformational theory meaning is studied through semantic features where
the deep syntactic structures of a sentence and the meaning of words used in that structure
together represent the total meaning of the sentence. Features mention the permissible relationships
among words. For example, in the following sentences :
That’s a fond hope
The house remained empty
The cat died
The man spoke
a linguist may chose to assign at least the following semantic features to the nouns :
[hope ] house ] [cat ] [man ]
[+noun ] [+noun ] [+noun ] [+noun ]
[—concrete ] [+concrete ] [+concrete ] [+concrete ]
<—animate> <—animate> <+animate> <+animate ]
[—human ] [—human ] [—human ] [+human ]
[—count ] [+count ] [+count ] [+count ]
[—definite ] [+definite ] [+definite ] [+definite ]

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