SEMANTIC, LEXICAL RELATIONS, COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS by AYU MONITA and ABILL WIMANDA UDINUS INDONESIA

1. B Y:
AB I L L W I M AN D A
AY U M O N I TA
LEXICAL RELATIONSCHAPTER 5
DIAN NUSWANTORO UNIVERSITY
SEMARANG
2013

2. Content
2
1. Lexical field
2. Kinship
3. Hyponymy
4. Synonymy

3. A lexeme is a minimal unit that can take
part in referring or predicating.
All the lexemes of a language constitute
the lexicon of the language, and all the
lexemes that you know make up your personal
lexicon.
Lexical relation means two or more things
are connected with the words of language.
In this chapter, we are going to learn what
kind of lexical relations in this world and how
they can be made up.
3

4. Two or more lexemes may have some semantic
relationship:
FATHER and MOTHER
FATHER and SON
FATHER and PATERNAL
EMPLOYER and EMPLOYEE
BIG and LARGE
BIG and LITTLE
REDYELLOWBLUE
4

5. Two approaches to describe lexical relations:
1. Semantic Field Theory
2. Truth Conditional Semantics
1. SEMANTIC FIELD THEORY
Field theory is an attempt to classify lexemes according
to shared and differentiating features.
E.g: wasp, hornet, bee  ‘flying, stinging insects’
moth and housefly  ‘insects that fly but do not sting’
ant and termite  ‘names of insects that neither fly
nor sting’
5

6. 2. TRUTH CONDITIONAL SEMANTICS
- It studies lexical relations by comparing predications that
can be made about the same referring expression.
- Its task is to account for the meaning relations between
different in a language.
- Three such relations are:
Entailment
Paraphrase
Contradiction
6

7. ENTAILMENT
is the relation
between two
propositions.
Truth Table for
entailment:
a b
T T
F T or F
F F
T or F T
Example 1:
a. My necktie is (entirely) maroon.
b. My necktie is red.
Look how this would work for our
examples:
Q: If a is true (T) that my necktie is
(entirely) maroon, is b true that my
necktie is red?
A: Yes, it is true.
Q: If b is true that my necktie is red, is a
true that my necktie is maroon?
A: It can be true or false.
A entails B so that if A then
automatically B (John I. Saeed,2003 :
7

8. Example 2:
a. The anarchist assassinated the emperor.
b. The emperor died.
How this relation would work? Check this out!
Step 1: If a (The anarchist assasinated the emperor) is true,
is b (The emperor died) automatically true? YES.
Step 2: If b (The emperor died) is false, is a (The anarchist
assasinated the emperor) also false? YES.
Step 3: Then a entails b. Note if a is false then we can’t say
anything about b; it can be either true or false.
a b
T T
F T or F
F F
T or F T
8

9. PARAPHRASE
is a sentence
which expresses
the same
proposition as
another sentence.
Table Truth of
Paraphrase.
Example 1.
a. My necktie was cheap.
b. My necktie was inexpensive.
Example 2.
a. John sold the book to a grandson of
W.B. Yeats.
b. A grandson of W.B Yeats bought the
book from John.
Caution:
Thus (A) has the same truth value as (B),
so that if (A) is true, (B) is true and vice
versa.
Also if (A) is false, then (B) is false and vice
versa.
(Huford&Heasley ,1983: 105)
a b
T T
F F
9

10. CONTRADICTION
is a negation of the
other propositions.
Example 1.
a. My necktie was cheap.
b. My necktie was expensive.
a b
T F
F T
T F
F T
10

11. 1. LEXICAL FIELD
An important organizational principle in the
lexicon (word).
This is a group of lexemes which belong to a
particular activity or area of specialist
knowledge.
Example: The differences using of the terms in
cooking or sailing; or the vocabulary used by
doctors, coal miners, or mountain climbers.
(John I. Saeed: 63) 11

12. 1. LEXICAL FIELD
To some extent we can ‘define’ a lexeme by telling
what ‘set’ it belongs to and how it differs from other
members of the same set.
It is not difficult to say what the members of each
set have in common. It may be more troublesome to
say just how much is included in the set and to find the
truly essential characteristics that differentiate each
lexeme in a set from all the others in the same set, to
establish the most economical system of features that
explains how the members of the set are related to one
another.
12

13. Male Female
Adult man Woman
Child boy girl
The words man, woman, boy and girl.
[Human] is the semantic feature shared by all members of the setBracket is
used to
indicate
such
semantic
feature.
[male/female] and [adult/child] are the features or
components, that differentiate the members of the set from
one another.
Componential
Analysis
(the determination of
such features)
13
Human

14. stool chair bench sofa
 [piece of furniture]
 [furniture for sitting]
For one person Having back
stool + -
chair + +
bench - +/-
sofa - +
* A better candidate for a differentiating feature is [having upholste
A sofa must be [+upholstery] and bench is [-upholstery]
 for example table, but not by door.
 table does not share.
14

15.  The important point here is the
recognition of two kinds of features;
distinctive and non-distinctive.
 All features that can be recognized in an
entity are part of its description,
but the definition of a lexeme within a set
or field requires us to note what feature or
features distinguish it from other members
of the set and what features are just
‘there’, not distinctive.
15

16. There is a problem, however, about the lexeme
stool.
A so-called ‘bar stool’  longer legs than most
stools, may have back.
16

17. Advantage Probably Disadvantage
 It reflects the system
through which lexeme
have their respective
senses.
 To tell what something is
requires us to tell what it
is not, what it contrast
with; and what feature or
features make the
contrast possible.
 We may find ourselves
unduly concerned with
classification of the
phenomenon
represented in
language, forgetting
that our concern is
language itself.
Componential Analysis
17

18. 2. KINSHIP
18
 Interesting area for componential
analysis,
 Universal,
 Differ from society to society.

19. 19
a. Harold is Alice’s father.
b. Rose is Jerry’s sister.
Theme Predicate
Associate
Harold father-of Alice
Rose sister-of Jerry
A relationship is a kind of predicate.
2. KINSHIP

20. 2. KINSHIP
20
Some of the predicate relations in all kinship systems can be
described : [parent], [offspring], [sibling] and [spouse].
We also need the components: [male] & [female], which we’ll
indicates as M and F.
 father = M parent
 mother = F parent
 brother = M sibling
 sister = F
sibling
 son = M
offspring
 daughter = F
offspring
 grandfather= parent’s M parent
 grandmother= parent’s F parent
 grandson= offspring’s M offspring
 granddaughter=offspring’s F
offspring

21. 2. KINSHIP
21
Some kinship systems have ‘cross-siblings’. Tok
Pisin, the national language of Papua New
Guinea, the way the vocabulary is used often
reflects a different cultural outlook.
The word ‘borata’, from English ‘brother’,
means sibling of the same sex as oneself, and
‘sesta’, from ‘sister’, is a sibling of the opposite
sex.
male sibling female sibling
Male speaker borata sesta
Female speaker sesta borata

22. 2. KINSHIP
22
 Kinship systems in Mandarin Chinese uses terms
that distinguish older and younger siblings. For
example, ge for ‘older brother’ ; di ‘younger brother;
jie ‘older sister’, mei ‘younger sister’.
 In English grandmother names the mother of
one’s mother and the mother of one’s father, and
grandfather is similarly the father of either parent; the
sex of the person named is distinguished but not the
sex of the intermediate relative.

23. Cont’...
23
 Compare the Swedish terms farfar, farmor, morfar and
mormor, which, rather transparently, distinguish the four
grandparents from one another. Similarly, the words used in
English for siblings of one’s parents and offspring of one’s
siblings have rather wide application.
The lexeme cousin is the only English kinship term that does
not
distinguish sex (though it was borrowed from French, in
which the
distinction is made—cousin, cousine). We restrict the lexeme

24. Cont’...
24
Relations that exist from birth are consanguineal relations.
Relationships that are established through marriage are
called affinities (such as kinship system of Russian).
These are expressed in English with the suffix -in-law.
mother-in-law/father-in-law=spouse’s F/M parent
daughter-in-law/son-in-law=offspring’s F/M spouse
sister-in-law=spouse’s F sibling; sibling’s F spouse
brother-in-law=spouse’s M sibling; sibling’s M spouse

25. 3. HYPONYMY
25
Hyponymy is a relation of inclusion. A hyponym
includes the meaning of a more general word, e.g.
1a. My necktie is maroon.
1b. My necktie is red.
2a. There are tulips in the vase.
2b. There are flowers in the vase.
 The term maroon is a hyponym of red and tulip is
a hyponym of flower.
Red and flower are the superordinates or
hypernym of maroon and tulip.

26. 2. HYPONYMY
26
 Note that the denotation of the hyponym is
included in the denotation of the
superordinate, but the meaning of the
superordinate is included in the meaning of
the hyponym.
 A sentence with a hyponym (e.g. There is a
Palomino in that field) is more informative
than a sentence with the corresponding
superordinate (There’s a horse in that field).

27. HYPONYMY
Table truth of
hyponymy:
=
a b b a
T T T ?
F ? F F
27
The relationship between two sentences
[a] and [b] that differ only in that [a]
contains a hyponym and [b] contains a
superordinate can be summarized this
way:
 a  b ~ a  ? b ? ~ b 
~ a3a. Rover is a collie and (Rover is) a
dog.
Sentence 3a is a tautology. A tautology is
a sentence with two predications, such that
one entails the other.
a b
T T
F T or F
F F
T or F T

28. 3. HYPONYMY
28
Much of the vocabulary is linked by such systems
of inclusion, and the resulting semantic networks
form the hierarchical taxonomies.
bird
crow hawk duck etc.
kestrel sparrowhawk etc.
Source: John I. Saeed,2003:69
One term may be a superordinate to various
hyponyms and at the same time be a hyponym of
some higher superordinate.

29. 4. SYNONYMY
29
 Synonyms are different phonological words which have
the same or very similar meaning. (John I. Saeed)
 Some examples might be the pairs below:
couch/sofa boy/lad lawyer/attorney
toilet/lavatory large/big
 Synonymy is the relationship between two predicates
that have the same pairs. (Huford&Heasley)
Examples: a. Jack is a seaman.
b. Jack is a sailor.

30. SYNONYMY
Table truth of
Synonymy
Synonymy same truth value in
words
Paraphrase  same truth value in
sentences.
 a  b & b  a
(The truth of [a] entails the truth of
[b], and vice versa.)
 ~a  ~b & ~b  ~a
(The falsity of [a] entails the falsity
of [b],
and vice versa.)
30
a b
T T
F F

31. 31
As Palmer (1981) notes, the synonyms often have different
distributions along a number of parameters. They may have
belonged to different dialects and then become synonyms for
speakers familiar with both dialects .Or the words may belong
to different registers, those styles of language, colloquial,
formal, literary, etc. That belong to different situations. (John I.
Saeed, 2003: 65)
deep profound
a. You have my deep
sympathy.
b. This river is very deep.
a. You have my profound
sympathy.
b. This river is very profound.
√
×

32. Example:
32
c. Mr. Jenkins is our postman.
d. Mr. Jenkins is our mailman.
Comment: While postman and mailman make
equivalent predications, we consider this a dialect
difference rather than an instance of synonymy.
Some speakers of English know only one of these
terms, but which term it is depends on where the
speaker lives, or where the speaker grew up. Some
speakers know both lexemes but use one more than the
other or use one exclusively but recognize the other.

33. Continue ...
33
 Other synonyms that are dialectally different are lift
and elevator, firefly and lightning bug, skillet and
frying pan. Here too we are dealing with a difference
in pragmatic value. If you use one of the lexemes in
any of these pairs almost exclusively, you may well
associate the other one with some particular
person(s) or situation(s)— the term may elicit in you
a reaction that is more than just a matter
of reference or predication. (Kreidler,1998:98)

34. 34
Synonymy is an instance of mutual entailment,
and synonyms are instances of mutual hyponymy.
For example, large is a hyponym of big, and big is a
hyponym of large.
If we join two of these sentences with and,
 The rock is large and (it is) big.
we create a tautology.
If we combine two of them but have them
differ in polarity,
The train traveled fast but (it did) not (travel)
rapidly.
the result is a contradiction.

35. 35
a. Mr Jenkins is our postman.
b.Mr Jenkins is the person who delivers our mail. paraphrase
synonym
Synonyms are typically single lexemes of the same
weight.
Dictionaries typically provide a number of
synonyms for at least some of the lexemes they
define, and in fact there are whole dictionaries of
synonyms.
Synonymy is not a simple matter, for two
lexemes never have the same range of syntactic
occurrences, and even where they share
occurrences and make predications about the same
class of referring expressions, they are likely to differ

36. In summary, the chart will show you the
relationship of entailment, paraphrase,
hyponymy, and synonymy .
36
Relation
between pairs of
sentences
Relation
between pairs of
words
Not necessary symmetric
(i.e. can be ‘one way)
Symmetric
(i.e. “both ways”)
ENTAILMENT
PARAPHRASE
HYPONYMY
SYNONYMY
(Huford and Heasley, 1983: 109)
The relationship between entailment and
paraphrase is parallel to the relationship
between hyponymy and synonymy. Synonymy is
to paraphrase as hyponymy is to entailment.

37. Summary
37
 Lexemes are related to other lexemes on various
semantic criteria.
 Field theory tries to discover sets of lexemes such
that members of a set share some semantic
feature(s) and are differentiated from one another
by other systematically distributed features.

38. Summary
38
 All societies have kinship systems, which can be analyzed in
terms of a few semantic features that co-occur. The features
parent, offspring, sibling and spouse are universal. Older and
younger siblings are named differently in some cultures.
Gender figures differently in different systems, so that
relations on the mother’s side may have different names than
those on the father’s side, and similarly for the bride’s family
as distinct from the bridegroom’s family.
 Logical entailments, paraphrases, and contradictions derive
from conjunctions, negative ‘not,’ and quantifier pronouns like
‘no one’ and ‘someone.’ Meaning relations of this sort are
used to make inferences.
 Truth conditional semantics investigates the relations among
lexemes that can be predicates for the same referring
expression. Two such predicates may be related to each other
as synonyms, as hyponym and superordinate.

39. 39
THANK YOU

40. Evaluation from Mr. Arief
40
1. Di contoh Semantic Field Theory sudah
menunjukan contoh Hyponym. Pada point wasp,
hornet, bee itu sendiri sebenernya juga punya ciri
pembedanya juga.
2. Semantic Field theory bertujuan untuk menentukan
:
1. Distinctive feature
2. Non-distinctive feature
3. Cakupan lexical relationship:
sentences words
Entailment
Paraphrase
Contradiction
Kinship
Synonymy
Hyponymy
Antonym

41. 41
4. Lexical Field  componential analysis ------- using [bracket]
distinctive feature non distinctive feature
[+] [-]
Cth: stool [+back]
5. Kinship system di negara itu minimal ada 4 point utama:
a. Parent
b. Offspring
c. Sibling
d. Spouse
6. Hyponymy
denotation : all set of something
contoh: all set of cihuahua must be a hyponym of dog.
but all sets of dog doesn’t include in chihuaha.
Hyponym  supordinate
Hyponym superordinate