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but also in the analysis of the factors that account for their polysemy.
For example, if we compare two compound words
dogfight
and
dog-
cart,
we shall see that the distributional pattern of stems is identical and
may be represented as
n+n.
The meaning of these words broadly speaking
is also similar as the first of the stems modifies, describes, the second and
we understand these compounds as ‘a kind of fight’
and ‘
a kind of cart’
respectively. The semantic relationship between the stems, however, is dif-
ferent and hence the lexical meaning of the words is also different. This
can be shown by means of a transformational procedure which shows that
a dogfight
is semantically equivalent to ‘a fight between dogs’, whereas
a
dogcart
is not ‘a cart between dogs’ but ‘a cart drawn by dogs’.
Word-groups of identical distributional structure when re-patterned
also show that the semantic relationship between words and consequently
the meaning of word-groups may be different. For example,
in
the word-
groups consisting of a possessive pronoun followed by a noun, e.g.
his
car, his failure, his arrest, his goodness,
etc., the relationship between
his
and the following nouns is in each instant different which can be dem-
onstrated by means of transformational procedures.
his car
(pen, table, etc.) may be re-patterned into
he has a car
(a pen, a
table, etc.) or in a more generalised form may be represented as
A
possesses B.
his failure
(mistake, attempt, etc.) may be represented as
he failed
(was
mistaken, attempted) or
A performs В
which is impossible in
the case of
his car
(pen, table, etc.).
his arrest
(imprisonment, embarrassment, etc.) may be re-patterned into
he was arrested
(imprisoned and embarrassed, etc.) or
A is the
goal of the action B.
his goodness
(kindness, modesty, etc.) may be represented as
he is good
(kind, modest, etc.) or
В is the quality of A.
It can also be inferred from the above that two phrases which
are
transforms of each other (e.g.
his car
->
he has a car; his kindness -> he
is kind,
etc.
1
) are correlated in meaning as well as in form.
Regular correspondence and interdependence of different patterns is
viewed as a criterion of different or same meaning. When the direction of.
conversion was discussed it was pointed out that transformational proce-
dure may be used as one of the criteria enabling us to decide which of the
two words in a conversion pair is the derived member.
2
Transformational analysis may also be described as a kind of transla-
tion. If we understand by translation transference of a message by different
means, we may assume that there exist at least three types of translation:
3
1. i n t e r l i n g u a l translation or translation from
1
-> stands for ‘may be replaced by’
2
See ‘Word-Formation’, § 19, p. 133.
3
See
E. Nida.
Towards a scientific theory of translation. Netherlands, 1964;
Л. С.
Бархударов.
Язык и перевод. М., 1975.
252
one language into another which is what we traditionally call translation;
2. i n t e r s e m i o t i c translation or transference of a message from
one kind of semiotic system to another. For example, we know that a ver-
bal message may be transmitted into a flag message by hoisting up the
proper flags in the right sequence, and at last 3. i n t r a l i n g u a l trans-
lation which consists essentially in rewording a message within the same
language — a kind of paraphrasing. Thus, e.g., the same message may be
transmitted by the following
his work is excellent
->
his excellent work -
> the excellence of his work.
The rules of transformational analysis, however, are rather strict and
should not be identified with paraphrasing in the usual sense of the term.
There are many restrictions both on the syntactic and the lexical level. An
exhaustive discussion of these restrictions is unnecessary and impossible
within the framework of the present textbook. We shall confine our brief
survey to the transformational procedures commonly used in lexicological
investigation. These are as follows:
1. p e r m u t a tion — the re-patterning of the kernel transform on
condition that the basic subordinative relationships between words and the
word-stems of the lexical units are not changed. In the example discussed
above the basic relationships between lexical units and the stems of the
notional words are essentially the same: cf.
his work is excellent -> his
excellent work -> the excellence of his work -> he works excellently.
2.
r e p l a c e m e n t — the substitution of a component of the dis-
tributional structure by a member of a certain strictly defined set of lexical
units, e.g. replacement of a notional verb by an auxiliary or a link verb, etc.
Thus, in the two sentences having identical distributional structure
He will
make a bad mistake, He will make a good teacher,
the verb
to make
can be substituted for by
become
or
be
only in the second sentence
(he
will become, be a good teacher)
but not in the first
(*he will become a
bad mistake)
which is a formal proof of the intuitively felt difference in
the meaning of the verb
to make
in each of the sentences. In other words
the fact of the impossibility of identical transformations of distributionally
identical structures is a formal proof of the difference in their meaning.
3.
a d d i t i о n (or expansion) — may be illustrated by the application
of the procedure of addition to the classification of adjectives into two
groups — adjectives denoting inherent and non-inherent properties. For
example, if to the two sentences
John is happy
(popular, etc.) and
John is
tall
(clever, etc.) we add, say,
in Moscow,
we shall see that
*John is tall
(clever, etc.)
in Moscow
is utterly nonsensical, whereas
John is happy
(popular, etc.)
in Moscow
is a well-formed sentence. Evidently this may
be accounted for by the difference in the meaning of adjectives denoting
inherent
(tall, clever,
etc.) and non-inherent
(happy, popular,
etc.) prop-
erties.
4.
d e l e t i o n — a procedure which shows whether one of the words
is semantically subordinated to the other or others, i.e. whether the seman-
tic relations between words are identical. For example, the word- group
red flowers
may be deleted and transformed into
flowers
without
253
making the sentence nonsensical. Cf.:
I love red flowers, I love flowers,
whereas
I hate red tape
cannot be transformed into
I hate tape
or
I hate
red.
1
Transformational procedures may be of use in practical classroom
teaching as they bring to light the so-called s e n t e n c e p a r a -
d i g m or to be more exact different ways in which the same message
may be worded in modern English.
It is argued, e.g., that certain paired sentences, one containing
a
verb
and one containing an adjective, are understood in the same way, e.g. sen-
tence pairs where there is form similarity between the verb and the adjec-
tive.
Cf.:
I desire that. . . — I am desirous that . . .; John hopes that . . .
— John is hopeful that . . .; His stories amuse me . . . — are amusing
to me; Cigarettes harm people — are harmful to people.
Such sentence pairs occur regularly in modern English, are used inter-
changeably in many cases and should be taught as two equally possible
variants.
It is also argued that certain paired sentences, one containing
a
verb
and one a deverbal noun, are also a common occurrence in Modern Eng-
lish. Cf., e.g.,
I like jazz — >
my liking for jazz; John considers Mary’s
feelings -> John’s consideration of Mary’s feelings.
2
Learning a foreign language one must memorise as a rule several
commonly used structures with similar meaning. These structures make up
what can be described as a paradigm of the sentence just as a set of forms
(e.g.
go
—
went
—
gone,
etc.) makes up a word paradigm. Thus, the sen-
tence of the type
John likes his wife to eat well
makes up part of the sen-
tence paradigm which may be represented as follows
John likes his wife
to eat well — > John likes his wife eating well — > what John likes is
his wife eating well,
etc. as any sentence of this type may be re-patterned
in the same way.
Transformational procedures are also used as will be shown below in
componental analysis of lexical units.
In recent years problems of semasiology have
come to the fore in the research work of lin-
guists of different schools of thought and a number of attempts have been
made to find efficient procedures for the analysis and interpretation of
meaning.
3
An important step forward was taken in 1950’s with the devel-
opment of componental analysis. In this analysis linguists proceed from
the assumption that the smallest units of meaning are sememes (or semes)
and that sememes and lexemes (or lexical items) are usually not in one-to-
one but in one-to-many correspondence. For example, in the lexical item
woman
several components of meaning or sememes may be singled out
and namely ‘human’, ‘female’, ‘adult’. This one-to-many correspondence
may be represented as follows.
1
See ‘Word-Groups and Phraseological Units’, §3, p. 67.
2
This is usually referred to as nominalisation and is viewed as one of the permutation
procedures. See also ‘Word-Formation’, § 19, p. 133.
3
See, e. g.,
Л. С. Бархударов.
Язык и перевод. М., 1975, с. 50 — 73.
254
§ 6. Componental Analysis
The analysis of the word
girl
would also yield the sememes ‘human’
and ‘female’, but instead of the sememe ‘adult’ we shall find the sememe
‘young’ distinguishing the meaning of the word
woman
from that of
girl.
The comparison of the results of the componental analysis of the words
boy
and
girl
would also show the difference just in one component, i..e.
the sememe denoting ‘male’ and ‘female’ respectively.
It should be pointed out that componental analysis deals with individ-
ual meanings. Different meanings of polysemantic words have different
componental structure. For example, the comparison of two meanings of
the noun
boy
(1. a male child up to the age of 17 or 18 and 2. a male ser-
vant (any age) esp. in African and Asian countries) reveals that though
both of them contain the semantic components ‘human’ and ‘male’ the
component ‘young’ which is part of one meaning is not to be found in the
other. As a rule when we discuss the analysis of word-meaning we imply
the basic meaning of the word under consideration.
In its classical form componental analysis was applied to the so-called
c l o s e d subsystems of vocabulary, mostly only to kinship and colour
terms. The analysis as a rule was formalised only as far as the symbolic
representation of meaning components is concerned. Thus, e.g. in the
analysis of kinship terms, the component denoting sex may be represented
by A — male, A — female, В may stand for one generation above ego, В
— for the generation below ego, С — for direct lineality, С — for indirect
lineality, etc. Accordingly the clusters of symbols ABC and ABC repre-
sent the semantic components of the word
mother,
and
father
respec-
tively.
In its more elaborate form componental analysis also proceeds from
the assumption that word-meaning is not an unanalysable whole but can
be decomposed into elementary semantic components. It is assumed,
however, that these basic semantic elements which might be called seman-
tic features can be classified into several subtypes thus ultimately consti-
tuting a highly structured system. In other words it is assumed that any
item can be described in terms of categories arranged in a hierarchical
way; that is a subsequent category is a subcategory of the previous cate-
gory.
The most inclusive categories are parts of speech — the major word
classes are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. All members of a major class
share a distinguishing semantic feature and involve a certain type of se-
mantic information. More revealing names for such features might be
“thingness” or “substantiality” for nouns, “quality” for adjectives, and so
on.
All other semantic features may be classified into semantic m a r k -
e r s — semantic features which are present also in the lexical meaning of
other words and d i s t i n g u i s h e r s — semantic features which are
individual, i.e. which do not recur in the lexical meaning of other
255
words. Thus, the distinction between markers and distinguishers is that
markers refer to features which the item has in common with other items,
distinguishers refer to what differentiates an item from other items. The
componental analysis of the word, e.g., spinster runs: noun, count-noun,
human, adult, female, who has never married.
Noun
of course is the part of
speech, meaning the most inclusive category;
count-noun
is a marker, it
represents a subclass within nouns and refers to the semantic feature which
the word spinster has in common with all other countable nouns (boy, ta-
ble, flower, idea, etc.) but which distinguishes it from all uncountable
nouns, e.g. salt, bread, water, etc;
human
is also a marker which refers the
word spinster to a subcategory of countable nouns, i.e. to nouns denoting
human beings;
adult
is another marker pointing at a specific subdivision of
human beings into adults & young or not grown up. The word spinster pos-
sesses still another marker —
female
— which it shares with such words as
woman, widow, mother, etc., and which represents a subclass of adult fe-
males. At last comes the distinguisher
who has never married
which dif-
ferentiates the meaning of the word from other words which have all other
common semantic features. Thus, the componental analysis may be repre-
sented as a hierarchical structure with several subcategories each of which
stands in relation of subordination to the preceding subclass of semantic
features.
This may be represented in the graphic form as
Componental analysis with the help of markers and distinguishers may
be used in the analysis of hyponymic groups.
1
In the semantic analysis of
such groups we find that they constitute a series with an increasingly lar-
ger range of inclusion. For example, bear, mammal, animal represent three
successive markers in which bear is subordinated to mammal and mammal
to animal. As one ascends the hierarchical structure the terms generally
become fewer and the domains — larger, i.e. the shift is from greater
specificity to greater generic character. Words
1
See ‘Semasiology’, § 49, p. 58. 256