Salahaddin University-Hawler
Postgraduate Studies Board
(Applied Linguistics/Master)
General Linguistics
BOOK REVIEW
Lexical Semantics
D.A. Cruse
Reviewer:
Wria Ahmed Rashid
(M.A Student in Applied Linguistics)
Instructor
Assist. Prof. Dr. Himdad Abdul-Qahar Muhammd
2011
Introduction:
The title of the book is Lexical Semantics by D. A. Cruse. It is first published in
1986 by Cambridge University Press. The book is bulky and consists of twelve long
chapters. The writer devotes the first chapter mainly to contextual approach, the
relation between meaning and grammar and data collection in semantics. Next,
The Syntagmatic Delimitation of Lexical Units is covered; there are talks about
Semantic Constituents, indicators, tallies, categorizers, idiom, collocation, and
dead metaphor. Chapter three concentrates on the selection and modulation of
senses, establishment of senses, and syntactic delimitation. Introducing lexical
relations comes next with much explanation on cognitive synonymy, hyponymy,
compatibility, incompatibility, and partial relations. When it comes to Lexical
Configuration, the writer sheds light on hierarchy, and proportional series.
Chapter six and seven covers taxonomies and meronomies respectively. In
chapter eight non-branching hierarchies with its types are covered. Then, in three
consecutive chapters the writer sheds light on opposites which includes;
complementaries and antonyms, directional opposites, antipodal, impartiality, and
polarity. The writer ends the book elaborating different aspects in synonymy.
Chapter One: A Contextual approach to Lexical Semantics
In its introductory part, the book explains that there must be certain basic
assumptions concerning meaning. It is assumed that the semantic properties of a
lexical item are fully reflected in appropriate aspects of the relations it contrasts
with actual and potential contexts. So contextual approach is adopted because of
three reasons; first, the relation between a lexical item and extra-linguistic contexts
is mediated by the purely linguistic contexts.
Second, any aspect of extra
linguistic context can be mirrored linguistically and third linguistic context is more
easily controlled and manipulated. The writer explains that the information about
word’s meaning should be derived from its relations with actual and potential
linguistic contexts.
In the meaning and Grammar part, the writer states that a clear- cut distinction
between meaning and grammar cannot be made, because they are interwoven
(grammar serves meaning); he argues that the distinction between the two has a
strong intuitive basis. Then he goes on discussing the deviance of grammar and
meaning, he gives many examples to clarify different scenarios; among them are:
It is too light for me to lift.
I have nearly completed.
In sentence 1, the deviance disappear by substituting word ‘light’ with ‘heavy’, so
the sentence semantically and syntactically sounds well. However, in sentence 2,
the syntactic deviance can be treated by adding the word ‘them’ at the end, but
semantically it is almost empty. Then the writer suggests that to correct a deviant
sentence, we can depend on close set items and open set items. He defines the
former as items belong to classes whose membership is virtually constant during
the lifetime of an individual speaker, while the latter is defined as those who
belong to classes which are subject to a relatively rapid turnover in membership, as
new terms are coined and others fall into obsolescence.
In the Data of Semantics part, the writer states that for lexical semantics there are
two principal sources of primary data, the first one is productive output, spoken
or written, of native users of the language. The disadvantage of this source is when
it comes to the study of dead languages, as the evidence available to the
researchers is a corpus of written utterances. The second source is intuitive
semantic judgments by native speakers of linguistic materials of one kind or
another. Two important questions arise from these judgments, first what sort of
linguistic items should native speakers be asked to pass judgment on? And second
is; what sort of judgments should they be asked to make?
In the Disciplining Intuitions, the author explains that no empirical science can
operate without human intuitive judgment intervening at some point. But at the
same time science would be much less advanced than it is if the only available data
were intuitive estimates of quantities, and since obtaining straightforward
institution is difficult we must ask our informants questions that can be answered
reliably and accurately. According to the writer the simplest and the most basic
semantic judgments is concerned with the oddity of an utterance produced by a
native speaker. For example:
- ? This is a club exclusively for married bachelors.
- This is a club exclusively for married men.
- ? Let’s sit by the stream and have a drink of time.
- Let’s sit by the stream and have a drink of tea.
On the other hand, the writer explains that an odd sentence is not necessarily
meaningless (it is signal for creativeness)
It's tea-time for my pet rabbit.
It's tea-time for mv pet scorpion.
It's tea-time for my pet amoeba.
Then the writer says; a very useful intuition for semantic analysis is that of
entailment, and it can be used directly, thus, the statement ‘that’s a dog’ entails
‘that’s an animal’.
The writer also talks about four logical relations which can be deduced from
intuition of entailments, they are:
1. Unilateral entailment:
2. Mutual entailment, or logical equivalence :
3. Contrariety
4. Contradiction
In the meaning of a word part, there is a discussion about contextual relations, the
writer argues that the meaning of a word is fully reflected in its contextual relations
and the meaning of a word is constituted by its contextual relations. He then talks
about affinity and classifies them into two kinds: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.
Syntagmatic affinity is established by a capacity of a normal association in an
utterance for example the relation between ‘dog’ and ‘barked’.
Chapter two: The Syntagmatic Delimitation of Lexical Units
It its introductory part it mentions that a lexical item can be characterized in three
distinct ways; first by its form (graphic and phonological), second by its
grammatical function and third by its meaning.
In this part the writer also
elaborates that the basic syntagmatic lexical units of a sentence will be defined as
the smallest parts which satisfy the following two criteria;
(i) a lexical unit must be at least one semantic constituent
(ii) a lexical unit must be at least one word.
In Semantic Constituents part, he explains that any constituent part of a sentence
that bears a meaning which combines with the meanings of the other constituents
to give the overall meaning of the sentence will be called as a semantic constituent
(example, a cat sat on the mat). However, a semantic constituent, which cannot be
segmented into more elementary semantic constituents, will be called minimal
semantic constituent (the, cat, sat, on, the, mat). The writer introduces a diagnostic
test for semantic constituency which is called recurrent semantic contrast. He
illustrates it by giving below example:
Cat/dog (The----sat on the mat=cat/dog (We bought a -----)
In Semantic Constituents which fail the test part, the writer clarifies that in large
number of items semantic constituent test can be applied appropriately; however,
there are certain peripheral types of semantic constituent which cannot be directly
subjected to the test due to their occurrence in association with other elements like
cran- of cranberry. It is also the case in the collocational uniqueness. Furthermore,
the writer talks about the Discontinuous Semantic Constituent for example in
those books, the s does not signal the plurality alone, it is by the help of those.
In Indicators, tallies, and categorizers part, the writer explains that when an
element does not carry any meaning at all can be called Semantic tally, and its
partner element which indicates a general category is called semantic
categorizers. He also talks about semantic indicators as elements which fall short
of being constituents but has a semantic function related to the meaning of the
same form.
In word part, he talks about two characteristics of words; first a word is the
smallest element of a sentence which has positional mobility. Second, words are
typically the largest units which resist ‘interruption’. New materials cannot be
inserted between its constituent parts.
Then in Idiom part, the writer defines idiom as an expression whose meaning
cannot be inferred from the meanings of its parts. Idiomatic expressions must be
distinguished from non-idiomatic one.
Based on the notion of semantic
constituent, an idiom should be lexically complex and it should be a single
minimal semantic constituent. Any expression which is divisible into semantic
constituents is called semantically transparent.
In idioms and Collocation part, colocations is defined as terms that refer to
sequences of lexical items which habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless
fully transparent in the sense that each lexical consistent is also a semantic
constituent. Examples are torrential rain, fine weather, etc. Unlike idioms, most
colocations are lexically not complex, and when they are they are called bound
collocations.
In the Idiom and dead metaphor part, the writer explains that a metaphor induces
the hearer to view thing as being like something else by applying to the former
linguistic expressions which are more normally employed in references to the
latter. Consider the following:
They tried to sweeten the pill.
They tried to sugar the medicine.
First sentence contains a dead metaphor and it is substituted by near synonym.
Dear metaphors are the ones who lose their characteristic flavor, their capacity to
surprise, and hearers encode the metaphorical meaning as one of the standard
senses of the expression due to their frequent use.
Chapter three: The Paradigmatic and Syntactic Delimitation of
lexical units
In the Introductory part, the writer makes distinction between lexical units and
lexemes. He states that lexical units are those form- meaning complexes with
relatively stable and discrete semantic properties which stand in meaning relation
such as hyponymy (dog, animal). Lexemes on the other hand, are the items listed
in the lexicon or ‘ideal dictionary’ of a language.
In the Selection and modulation of senses part the writer illustrates his points in
the below two sentences:
Sue is visiting her cousin
We finally reached the bank
In the first example, although the word ‘cousin’ does not refer to ‘male cousin’ or
‘female cousin’, the sentence can function as a satisfactory communication due to
its generality in meaning. However, in the second example, the word ‘bank’ can
be interpreted in more than one way (margin of river or an establishment for the
custody of money). So the word ‘cousin’ is general, but the word ‘bank’ is
ambiguous.
The writer also gives thorough explanation about direct and indirect ambiguity and
he introduces some criteria for each. Then he concentrates on some difficult cases
related to ambiguity.
In Non-Lexical sources of ambiguity part, he states that not all sentence
ambiguity originates in lexical ambiguity, and tests applied are not capable in
discriminating between lexical and non-lexical varieties. Thus he introduces some
other types of ambiguity such as:
- Pure syntactic ambiguity (old men and women)
- Quasi-syntactic ambiguity (A red pencil) (painted red or writes red)
- Lexico-syntactic ambiguity (I saw the door open)
- Pure lexical ambiguity (He reached the bank)
In Establishment of senses part, the writer explains that a lexical form may be
associated with an unlimited number of possible senses, but they are not with equal
status. However, each lexical term has at least one well-utilized sense. The writer
illustrates that since the establishment is represented differently in the mind’s
lexicon, it is better to distinguish two types of contextual selection. First is passive
selection when the selection is acts as a kind of filter as the sense is preestablished. The second one is productive selection when the context acts as a
stimulus for a productive process. Then he says the number of fully established
senses is finite at any one time, and it might be advantageous to limit the class of
lexical units to these. Still the writer does not hide that there is a problem and it is
related to different members of language communities therefore, he believes such
limit will result in a distorted picture of word meaning.
He then talks about sense-spectra and defines it a certain aspects of word meaning
that are difficult to reconcile with the view of well-establishment senses and
somehow awkward. For example in the case of dialect continuum, where mutual
intelligibly is somehow lost.
In syntactic delimitation part the writer argues that two occurrences of lexical
form which represents two different grammatical elements should be regarded as
lexically distinct.
In lexemes part the writer states that one of the remarkable feature of language is
making infinite use of finite resources. The writer also gives a short account
about the derivational and inflectional affixes. He then, clarifies that some lexical
units are basic and others are central for making lexemes and thus he divides them
into primary and secondary.
Chapter 4: Introducing lexical Relations
As the writer explains, sense relations are of two fundamental types; paradigmatic
and syntagmatic. They have their own distinctive significance. Paradigmatic
relations represent systems of choice a speaker faces when encoding his message.
On the other hand, syntagmatic lexical meaning serve discourse cohesion, adding
necessary information redundancy to the message, and at the same time controlling
the semantic contribution of individual utterance through disambiguation.
In congruence part, the writer introduces four basic classes for dealing with lexical
relations; they are;
1. Identity (when class A and class B have the same members)
2. Inclusion (When class B is wholly included in class A)
3. Overlap (Class A and class B have members in common but each has
members not found in the other)
4. Disjunction: (When class A and class B have no members in common)
In Cognitive synonymy part, the writer explains that X and Y are synonym if they
are syntactically identical and any grammatical declarative sentence S containing
X has equivalent truth conditions to another sentence S1. One example is in the
case of ‘fiddle’ and ‘violin’.
Then, hyponymy is defined as the lexical relation, corresponding to the inclusion
of one class in another. For example (dog, animal)
Compatibility is defined as the lexical relations which corresponds to overlap
between classes. It has two important characteristics; first, there are no systematic
entailments between sentences differing only in respect of compatibles in parallel
syntactic positions. Second it guarantees a genuine relationship of sense; a pair of
compatibles must have a common superordinate.
The writer defines incompatibility as the sense relations which is analogues to the
relation between classes with no members in common (it is a cat entails it is not a
dog)
Partial relations are described as relations which hold between lexical items
whose syntactic distributions only partially coincide. In the remaining parts of this
chapter, the writer talks about quasi-relationship, Pseudo-relations, and Pararelations.
Chapter 5: Lexical Configuration
This chapter deals with two complex types of lexical configuration; they are
hierarchies and proportional series.
A hierarchy is a set of elements related to one another in a characteristic way.
Two structural types of hierarchy may be distinguished, those which branch and
those which due to the nature of their constitutive relations are not capable of
branching. Branching and Non- branching hierarchy can be further classified
according to the writer.
The simplest Proportional series consists of a single cell which has four elements.
The relation between the elements must be such that from any three of the
elements the fourth can be uniquely determined.
Mere
stallion
Ewe
ram
But the writer explains that it is not always the case, consider the below:
Apple
fruit
Dog
animal
Chapter 6: Taxonomies
The writer regards taxonomy as a sub-species of hyponymy. It is characterized in
terms of a relation of dominance and a principle of differentiation which were
more intimately related.
Recognizing taxonomy is one thing; describing its essential nature is another and
more difficult task. A strong correlation can be observed between taxonomies and
what are called natural kind terms. They show proper names in the way that they
refer. The referents would not lose their entitlements to current labels whatever
changes in our perception of their nature were to come about.
The writer brings an imaginary example and says: Suppose that all cats were
discovered one day to be not animals at all but highly
sophisticated self-
replicating robots, introduced to earth millions of years ago by visitors from
outside our galaxy. Would this discovery lead us to explain (Ah, cats do not exist).
The writer clarifies some characteristics of natural taxonomies, one of them is that
they typically have no more than five levels, and frequently have fewer (unique
beginner, life-form, generic, specific, and varietal). According to the writer the
specific of an expression can be included in two ways; first by adding syntagmatic
modifiers, the book, the red book, the tattered red book, etc. second by replacing
one or more lexical items in an expression by hyponyms (including taxonomies),
It’s an animal, it’s a monkey, it’s a colobus.
Chapter 7: Meronomies
It is one of the major types of branching lexical hierarchy. It is part whole type. For
example (palm+ finger= hand). The writer here also mentions some characteristics
of parts such as topological stability and spatial continuity, having their boundaries
motivated and their definite functions is relative to their wholes, ex. Eye for seeing,
Brake for stopping, etc.
In the part tilted Aspects of transitivity, the writer refers to two causes of failure
of transitivity of the part whole relation; the first involves the notion of functional
domain, consider the below example:
The house has a door.
The door has a handle.
? The house has a handle.
The second failure is caused by a special type of part which is called attachment:
A hand is attached to an arm. (Attached to some larger entity, it is normal)
? The palm is attached to a hand (it is integral part of the entity, it is odd)
There are various dimensions in the whole part relations:
1. Concreteness: bodies, trees, and cars are all concrete but one may also
speak of non-concrete entities such as events, actions and states.
2. Degree of differentiations amongst parts: the parts of body, the car are
highly differentiated.
3. Structural integration: The numbers of a team are more integrated than
books in a library but are less so than parts of a body.
4. Items in a relationship are count nouns or mass nouns.
Chapter 8: Non-branching hierarchies
The writer classifies non-branching into two sub types: first there are those which
are closely bound up with branching hierarchies, and they can be regarded as
secondary derivations from them. Second, there is quite a large family of
independent non-branching hierarchies not derived from or connected in any way
with branching hierarchies. Non-branching can mainly be applied on sentences
which are not like human bodies, when well-formed, they do not all have to
contain the same inventory of parts. Some are more compels than others and
consists of a larger number of parts. Still the multiplication of parts is not
haphazard, but it is subject to certain constraints, in the absence of which it would
not be possible to label the parts. The writer explains that the simplest way of
deriving a non-branching hierarchy from branching one is to provide labels for the
levels. For example; sentence level, clause level, phrase level, word level, and
morpheme level.
Chapter 9: Complementaries and antonyms
The writer explains that of all the varieties of opposites, complementarity is
perhaps the simplest conceptually. They divide some conceptual domain into two
mutually exclusive compartments so that what does not fall into one of the
compartments must necessarily fall into the other. There is no neutral ground. For
example true, false, or deal, alive. Complementaries can be recognized by the fact
that if we assert one term, we implicitly deny the other. For example, John is not
dead entails and is entailed by John is alive.
According to the writer Complementaries are either verbs or adjectives. An
interesting feature of verbal complemnatries is that the domain within which the
complementarity operates is often expressible by a single lexical item, for
example; obey and disobey. The write also talks gives short account of four types
of opposites, they are; reversives (born, die), interactives (stimulus-response),
satisfactives (try, succeed), and counteractives (attack, defend).
Antonymous is exemplified by such pairs as long/short, fast/slow, easy/difficult.
They share the following characteristics:
1. They are fully gradable
2. Members of a pair denote degrees of some variable property such as length,
speed, accuracy, etc.
3. The members of a pair move, as it were in opposite directions along the
scale representing degrees of relevance.
In this chapter the writer also briefly discusses Implicit Superlatives such as in
scale of size (tiny/huge, enormous/minute) and stative verbs (like/dislike)
Chapter 10: Directional opposites
The writer states that direction defines a potential path for a body moving in a
straight line, a pair of lexical items denoting opposite directions indicate potential
paths. Although there are no lexical pairs denoting pure contrary motion, there are
pairs which in their most basic senses denote pure opposite directions. They are all
adverbs or prepositions. Then he brings examples of north, south, up, down,
forwards, backwards and their uses in this regard.
Antipodal comes next in which one term represents an extreme in one direction
along some salient axis, while the other term denotes the corresponding extreme in
the other direction. For example if we go up as far as we can while remaining
within the confines of some spatial entity we reach its top, and in the other
direction the lower limit is the bottom.
As the writer indicates, reversives are those pairs of verbs which denote motion or
change in opposite directions. Examples are rise/fall, ascend/descend.
Syntactically, the most elementary type of reversive opposites are intransitive
verbs whose grammatical subjects denote entities which undergo changes of state:
appear/disappear, enter/leave.
Converses are defined as an important class of opposites consists of those pairs
which express a relationship between two entities by specifying the direction of
one relative to the other along some axis. Examples are servant/master,
ancestor/decedent.
Chapter 11: General questions
The writer sheds light on Impartiality and distinguishes two modes of it; they are
strong partiality (appears only in connection with gradable opposites, i.e. antonyms
and it is not restricted to any particular sentence type) and weak partiality (occurs
only
in
yes-no
questions,
they
appear
typically
with
non-gradable
Complementaries such as dead/alive).
Example of strong partiality:
How thick is it?
Mine is thicker than yours.
Examples of weak partiality
Is he married? (or not?)
Is he single/ (or not?)
In polarity part, the writer explains that many opposite pairs are asymmetrical in
that one member bears a negative affix, while the other has no corresponding
formal mark, example; happy/unhappy, like/dislike, etc. However, in an example
like, increase/decrease there is a formal mark which can be spoken about as
positive and negative terms of the opposition.
The writer believes that the results of 'morphological experiments' reinforce the
above mentioned intuitions. He also links the positive terms with strong partiality.
According to the writer opposition is a special case of incompatibility.
For
example long and short are incompatible, since nothing can be at once long and
short. He also talks about a lexical gap, for example when a word has opposite but
there is no such word to express the opposite, for instance in the word devout.
Chapter 12: Synonymy
In this long chapter, the writer starts with two robust semantic intuitions. The first
is that certain pairs or groups of lexical items bear a special sort of semantic
resemblance to one another. The second intuition is that some pairs of synonyms
are 'more synonymous’ than other pairs: settee and sofa are more synonymous than
die and kick the bucket. These two semantic intuition points to something like a
scale of synonymity. The writer further illustrates that since there is no neat way of
characterizing synonyms, we should approach the problem in two ways: first in
terms of necessary resemblance and permissible difference and second
contextually by means of diagnostic frames.
The writer talks about absolute synonym (identical synonym) and partial synonym
thoroughly. He also gives a short account of dialectal synonym which occurs due
to geographical variety and has minor significance, such as fall/autumn,
lift/elevator, glen/valley.
Conclusion
The book covers wide range of areas in semantics and lexical relations and is quite
beneficial to students. It is enriched with larger number of examples necessary for
easy understanding. It approaches the subject in detail starting with simplest
discussion and then making it more complex and thought-provoking which
encourages critical thinking. On the other hand, however, the language of the book
is difficult, and much background in semantics is needed to properly understand
every aspect mentioned by the writer. So for readers to follow the items and
arguments in the book, they must be equipped with sufficient basic, but detailed
information regarding concepts of meaning, lexical items, and other related
terminologies. Perhaps the book is most useful for well-advanced students in the
field of semantics. Moreover, since the book is written many years ago, it is
recommended that its content and subjects tackled, be compared with other
recently well-written books because the writer uses flexible approach in conveying
his opinion on the subjects leaving the door wide open to disagreement on his
statements.
It is left to mention that, personally I have gained some information regarding
meaning based on intuition, data collection in semantics, dead metaphor, semantic
constituents and establishment of senses.