Lecture Ten: Semantics Part II
Componential analysis
In this lecture we shall unravel two of the complex processes involved in
the field of semantics. One of those processes is called ‘predication analysis’
which we shall look at in due course. The other is known as ‘componential
analysis’, which is where we shall begin.
Originally developed by anthropologists to compare the vocabularies of
different cultures componential analysis is now a linguistic approach to studying
the meanings of words and phrases. The idea is that the meaning of a word or
phrase is analysable in terms of the combined meaning of each component part,
hence ‘componential’.
Components of meaning
Lexical items - for example, dog/cat/money/sorry/TV set, etc. - often share
similar meanings and properties. For example, ‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘hamster’ and ‘rabbit’
are all domesticated animals; ‘doe’, ‘girl’ and ‘mare’ all share the quality of
femaleness; and ‘James’, ‘London’, ‘the White House’ and ‘China’ are all proper
nouns. What makes pairs like ‘London’ and ‘James’ different are the other
properties belonging to each lexeme (e.g. ‘James’ is human, ‘London’ is not).
Componential analysis draws out the differences and similarities between
words by breaking them down into their component parts. The semantic
properties of a linguistic item are determined by a set of fixed component parts.
We may use plus (+) and minus (-) signs to show the presence or absence of a
certain quality. Let’s take the related lexemes ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ as
an example:
man
woman
boy
girl
+ HUMAN
+ HUMAN
+ HUMAN
+ HUMAN
+ ADULT
+ ADULT
- ADULT
- ADULT
+ MALE
- MALE
+ MALE
- MALE
Here is a further example based on verbs of motion:
walk
+ NATURAL
- HURRIED
+ FORWARD
march
run
limp
jump
crawl
- NATURAL
- NATURAL
- NATURAL
- NATURAL
- NATURAL
+ HURRIED
+ HURRIED
- HURRIED
+ HURRIED
- HURRIED
+ FORWARD
+ FORWARD
+ FORWARD
+ FORWARD
+ FORWARD
+ 1 FOOT
ALWAYS ON
THE GROUND
+ (ibid.)
- (ibid.)
+ (ibid.)
- (ibid.)
+ (ibid.)
Such analysis also interestingly highlights which areas of a lexicon are lacking.
In English, for example, we can ascertain that there is no word to denote ‘a
human using legs to go backward’ (viz. the table above).
Many symbols can be used in componential analysis beyond + and - . Here
is a small sample of them:
Binary taxonomy: + , - . (E.g. +LIVE [= alive] vs. -LIVE [= dead]).
Polarity:  ,  , ,  . (E.g. DIRECTION [= towards] vs. DIRECTION [=
away from]; and HEAVY [= heavy] vs. HEAVY [= light]).
Other: o . (E.g. oDIRECTION [= does not express any direction]).
A further dimension to the theory has been put forward by Leech. He
suggests that, generally speaking, there are four types of componential
relationships:
1. Synonymy: (more than one form with a similar meaning) e.g. ‘footpath’ and
‘sidewalk’.
2. Polysemy: (same form with more than one meaning) e.g. ‘set’ = put down and
‘set’ = stick together.
3. Hyponymy: (inclusion of one meaning in another) e.g. ‘woman’ is hyponymous
to ‘female’.
4. Incompatibility: (exclusion of one meaning from another) e.g. ‘man’ is
incompatible with ‘woman’.
Usually we are only interested in the latter two, hyponymy and
incompatibility.
Hyponymy expresses the relationship between two meanings where the
componential part has all the features of the other part. (Note: this is like the
relationship between a subordinate lexeme and its superordinate). For example,
‘man’ is hyponymous to ‘grown up’ because all the features of ‘grown up’ are
found in ‘man’, namely +HUMAN and +ADULT. ‘Boy’ is not hyponymous to
‘grown up’ because ‘boy’ does not have all the features found in ‘grown up’,
namely ‘boy’ is -ADULT and ‘grown up’ is +ADULT. Thus, ‘boy’ is incompatible
with ‘grown up’.
Sentence meaning
Defining sentence meaning is a more complex procedure than defining an
individual lexeme, not least because the meaning of a sentence is not merely the
sum meanings of all the components. For example, ‘The dog ate the bone’ and
‘The bone ate the dog’ produce two very different meanings because of different
word order in particular. The first sentence is logical and makes sense, the
second one is illogical from a semantic point of view. All that is despite the fact
that both sentences share the same syntactic structure. It can, therefore, be
concluded that different noun phrases have different grammatical meanings.
The meaning of a sentence includes both grammatical and lexical
meanings. So, when we are studying the meaning of a sentence, we are studying
the ways in which lexemes may be combined in different ways to produce
different meanings. Two things should be remembered:
(a) Grammaticality: This means the acceptability of the sentence according to
grammatical and syntactic rules. For example, ‘the dog eats the meat’ and ‘the
meat eats the dog’ are both correct grammatically and syntactically. But, *‘is
eating the dog the meat’ is unacceptable according to English syntax and
grammar. (N.B. in Welsh, as in several other languages, the latter is perfectly
normal word order: ‘Mae’r ci yn bwyta’r cig.’).
(b) Meaningfulness: This means the acceptability of the sentence according to
semantic rules. Therefore, that is why ‘the dog eats the meat’ is acceptable
and why ‘the meat eats the dog’ is semantically impossible, and so not
acceptable in English.
There are many constraints in any language, which prevent deviant
forms like ‘the meat eats the dog’ from occurring. For example, ‘meat’ cannot be
the subject of the verb ‘eat’, ‘corpse’ cannot be directly preceeded by ‘living’, etc..
Such constraints on lexemes are called selectional restrictions.
So, how does componential analysis actually analyse a sentence? Well, it
does it by means of forming a hierarchy of units called predication.
Predication
Predication is a category that is made up of a statement. (Any statement
is possible; e.g. declarative, exclamatory, interrogative…). The statement is then
divided into a predicate which is the link or ‘centre’ of the argument of the
statement which is the other half of the division. Look at these two examples:
1. ‘The sun shines on the earth.’ = predication (statement).
The sun = first argument.
shines on = predicate.
the earth = second argument.
2. ‘I am moving into the new house.’ = predication (statement).
I = first argument.
am moving into = predicate.
the new house = second argument.
Once a predication has been divided into a predicate and any arguments
we can use componential analysis to analyse each part, and thereby get the
meaning of the whole. Look at this example:
Predication: ‘The boy is behind the girl.’
Predicate: (is) behind
First argument: the boy
Second argument: the girl
Apply componential analysis:
the boy: +HUMAN, +MALE, +SINGULAR, -ADULT
the girl: +HUMAN, -MALE, +SINGULAR, -ADULT
behind: DIRECTION, -LATERAL
The result of the analysis is:
Predication
Predicate
DIRECTION
-LATERAL
Argument (a)
Argument (b)
+HUMAN
+MALE
+ SINGULAR
-ADULT
+HUMAN
-MALE
+SINGULAR
-ADULT
The result of componential analysis may be summarised in this way:
‘A predication consists of arguments and predicates which in turn
consist of identifying features.’
Predication and Predication analysis
Predication analysis takes the process of identifying the predication
structure one stage further.
Belonging to any predicate there may be more than one argument or none
at all. In our example above there were two arguments. In the predication ‘I am
tired’ there is only one argument (i.e. ‘I’. ‘Is tired’ is the predicate). ‘It is raining’
has no argument at all, because ‘it’ doesn’t actually refer to anything, it is simply
there, because the rules of grammar say a verb must have a subject. The same is
true of ‘it is necessary’ and other comparable constructions. We generally use
symbols to indicate how many arguments a predication has:
p² = a two-place predication (it has 2 arguments).
p¹ = a one-place predication (it has 1 argument).
pº = a no-place predication (it has 0 argument).
Predications
One predication may consist of two predicates. If so, we call it a
subordinate predication. This can be discovered by expanding the predication.
For example, ‘John angered Bill’ could be expanded into ‘John caused Bill to
become angry’. ‘John caused’ is the primary predicate and ‘Bill to become angry’
is the secondary predicate. Here’s a further example: ‘The film bores me’ can be
expanded into ‘the film makes me feel bored’. ‘The film causes’ is the primary
predicate and ‘me feel bored’ is the secondary predicate.
The opposite of expanding is simplifying or ‘down-grading’. Down-grading
can be achieved by making the secondary predication a feature of the primary
predication. There are two types of secondary predication which may downgrade.
The first is called a modifying predication, because it modifies the
primary predication like an adverb qualifies a verb. It includes adverbs,
adverbial prepositional phrases and adverbial clauses. For example, ‘he left the
room in great haste’.
The second is called a qualifying predication, because it modifies the
primary predication like an adjective qualifies a noun. It includes adjectives,
relative clauses and qualifying pre-prepositional phrases. For example, ‘she is
the woman who looks very beautiful.’
The way we down-grade either kind of predication is by turning the
modifier into an adverb and the qualifier into an adjective belonging to the
primary predication, in so doing we make it into a feature of the predicate. For
example, ‘the man with the red face’ can be down-graded to ‘the red-faced man’
which can be further down-graded to ‘the ruddy man’.
Predication analysis
In analysing the predicate we may discover the following semantic
properties:
1. Entailment: This is where we find hyponymy in the argument where one
proposition could just as well be another. E.g. ‘I am eating chips’ entails ‘I am
eating carrots’. (N.B. remember form classes!).
2. Inconsistency: This is where the predicate of one proposition is incompatible
with another predicate. E.g. ‘she likes sport’ is incompatible with ‘she
dislikes sport’.
3. Tautology: Information in the argument of a predication also includes
information found in the rest of the predication. For example, ‘the boy is
male’ where ‘male’ is tautologous of ‘boy’. (N.B. tautology = repetition).
4. Contradiction: The information in an argument is incompatible with the
information in the predicate. For example, ‘he is female’.
5. Semantic anomaly: The predicate or one of the arguments of the predication
contradicts itself. For example, ‘the girl who hates pizzas ate her favourite
pizza’.
6. Presupposition: This is where a meaning is never made explicit, but is
implicitly understood. For example, ‘the painter should be here now’
presupposes that the painter was due to come in the first place.
Idioms
Finally, just a brief word about idioms. In semantics idioms are seen as
one lexeme. This is because each ‘word’ of the idiom is not taken literally, but the
words that make up the idiom as a whole create a particular meaning. For
example, ‘to kick the bucket’ basically means ‘die’ and ‘to fly off the handle’
means ‘to become enraged’. Analysing idioms means taking the whole idiom and
seeing it as one unit of meaning, as a ‘lexeme’ in its own right.