Lexical Contrastive Analysis:

Contrastive Lexical
Morphology & Semantics

CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS
TUTOR’S NAME: PROF. DR. MEHDI F.AL-GHZALLI
BY: ESSAM T.MUHAMMED
PHD STUDENT
2020-2021
 Outline
What is LCA?
•

• Divisions of Lexicology

•Lexical Morphology

•Morpheme

•Affixation

•Stem (Base Morpheme) and Root

•Contrastive Lexical Semantics

The Motivation (Internal Form) of Words

•Different Kinds of Motivation
A Contrastive Analysis of the Morphological Motivation of English,
•

German, and Chinese Words

•Sense
 Relationships
• Syntagmatic Semantic Relationship: Collocation

• Paradigmatic Semantic Relationships
• Lexical Fields and Lexical Gaps
• Semantic Features
• componential analysis
• Semantic Features &Lexical Gaps
• Active Areas of CA
• Conclusions
• References
 LEXICAL CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
 Lexical Contrastive Analysis is a very active area of research within the
field of Contrastive Analysis (CA) and, by extension, within the field of
Applied Linguistics. Lexical analysis belongs to the field of Lexicology, the
branch of linguistics concerned with the study, at a theoretical level, of the
lexical component of languages. The main focus of Contrastive Lexicology
is studying and comparing the lexical systems of two or more languages.  It
is commonly thought that the way languages might differ at the lexical level
is either formally (i.e. the way you write or pronounce words is different) or
semantically (i.e. the senses a word expresses do not correspond).
 Divisions of Lexicology
Broadly speaking, lexicology consists of two divisions:

(1) Lexical morphology ,which studies the form and changes in the form of the
lexemes of a language primarily from the point of view of word formation
(derivation and compounding).

(2) Lexical semantics ,which studies (a) the meanings and changes in the meanings of
lexemes through time and (b) the relations between the lexemes of a language.

Thus, Lexical CA may be conducted with reference to these two

divisions
 Lexical Morphology
Morphology is the study of the structural forms of a word, both from the point of view of
inflections and of word-formation. It is traditionally located between phonology (linguistic
study at the level of sounds) and syntax (linguistic study at the level of sentences). Lexical
morphology is also known as “derivational morphology . It is actually one of the two parts
of morphology the other part being inflectional morphology studies the way in which words
vary (or “inflect “in order to express grammatical contrasts in sentences, such as
singular/plural, perfect/imperfect, or past/present. Traditionally, Since inflectional
morphology falls within the scope of grammar, it will not be our concern in the present
presentation. we shall discuss in this presentation lexical morphology which studies the
principles governing the construction of new words, without reference to the specific
grammatical role a word might play in a sentence.
 Morpheme
A Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the meaning system of a language that is, it is the smallest meaningful
element into which words can be analyzed. If we take something away from or change something in a morpheme, we
shall definitely alter or destroy its meaning.

Morphemes can be classified into “free” and “bound” forms, i.e. “free” morphemes and
“bound” morphemes.

Free Morpheme
A free morphemes (or free form) can occur as a separate word, e.g. class, very, good,
yes.
Bound Morpheme

A bound morpheme (or bound form )e.g. un-, dis-, -ly, -tion, cannot occur on its own. It
must be used along with other morphemes and it functions in a word either as an affix or
as a combining form affix.
 Affixation
An affix is a bound morpheme which is added to a word and changes its meaning or function. The
function of an affix can be inflectional(inflectional affix )e.g. lexes (the plural form of lexis), or
derivative (derivative affix), e.g. lexical (the adjectival form of lexis), dislike (the derivative antonym of
like). The main classes of affixes are the prefixes (e.g. unkind) and suffixes (e.g. lovely), but infixes are
also possible.
An infix is an affix which is inserted within a stem (see in the following paragraph for the definition of
stem). In many languages, infixation is a normal morphological process.

Man /Men ‫ب طـالب‬

/‫طـلاــ‬ ‫ رـجاـل‬/‫رـجـل‬
Ox/Oxen
Woman/Women

A combining form is a bound morpheme that can form anew word by combining with another combining
form, a word, or sometimes an affix. The combining form geo-, for example, can form the word geology
with the combining form -(o)logy.
 Stem (Base Morpheme) and Root
Two concepts related to affix are “stem” and “root”.The stem (or “base form /base morpheme)
is that part of a word to which an inflectional affix is or can be added. For example, push in the word
pushed or desk in the word desks.

The stem of a word may be:

(1) a simple stem consisting of only one morpheme, e.g. build. In this case, the
stem is known as the “root”
(2) a root plus a derivational affix, e.g. build + -er = builder;
(3) two or more roots, e.g. build + up = build-up.
The way to form new words by adding derivative affixes to a base form is called derivation .We have
seen many examples of this in the above. The way to form new words by adding two base forms
together is known as compounding, e.g. black + bird = blackbird.
Contrastive Lexical Semantics
Cruse (2001) defines lexical semantics as” the branch of linguistics which
is concerned with the systematic study of word meanings”.

Lexical semantic contrasts are often conducted in three focal areas, that is,
motivation of words, sense relationships (related to collocation ,lexical
fields ,and lexical gaps, and semantic features .
The Motivation (Internal Form) of Words

By motivation ,we mean certain relationships that may be perceived to exist between
the form of a word and its meaning or between its primary meaning and its
associative meaning(s)
The motivation of a lexical item is also known as its internal form. Stephen Ullmann
(1914–1976), the Hungarian-born British linguist and one of
the founders of modern semantics ,classifies words into opaque ones and
transparent ones, claiming that every language contains conventional, opaque words
whose form and meaning are not related to each other in any way.
 Different Kinds of Motivation
Generally speaking, individual words may feature four kinds of
motivation:

1.Phonetic Motivation

2.Graphemic Motivation

3.Morphological Motivation

4.Semantic Motivation
1.Phonetic Motivation

Phonetic motivation is the relationship between the phonetic form of a word and its
referential meaning (the relationship between linguistic signs and the entities in the world
which they refer to or describe). What we call onomatopoeic words ,i.e. words that sound
like the noise or natural sounds they describe, are phonetically motivated words, e.g.
Buzz (a low, continuous humming or murmuring sound, made by or similar to that made
by an insect).
Tinkle (a light, clear, ringing metallic sound)
wooof wooof ‫عوـاء‬
mew mew ‫مـواء‬
In many languages, a particular kind of bird that lays its eggs in other birds’ nest
is onomatopoeically named after its characteristic two-note call. In Chinese its name is
bugu; in English, cuckoo; in French coucou; in German, Kuckuk; in Russian, kukushka;
and in Hungarian, kakuk.
Graphemic Motivation

Graphemic motivation is the relationship between the written form of a word and its
referential meaning .Typical examples of graphemically motivated words may be
found in ideographic languages such as Chinese. Most Chinese characters that
contain the radical 雨 “ rain,” for example, carry the meaning related to
meteorological phenomena involving precipitation, vapor, etc .
Consider the following Sumerian ideographic language symbols :
Morphological Motivation

Morphological motivation refers to the relationship between the

morphological make-up of a word and its referential meaning . A
combining form can add new referential meaning to another combining
form or a word and a derivative affix can add new referential meaning to a
stem (base form ). On that account both derivatives and compounds are
morphologically motivated words, e.g. musician, driver, classmate,
takeaway
 Semantic Motivation
Semantic motivation is the relationship between the primary meaning of a word and its
associative meanings (extended meaning ,figurative meaning ,etc.).

Ali is a lion. ‫عليأـسد‬

To be in hot water ‫يوـضعـ صـعب‬

‫كون فـــ‬
‫تــــ‬

Hot air ‫هراء‬

A Contrastive Analysis of the Morphological Motivation of English,
German, and Chinese Words

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), argues that German displays a greater amount of

morphological motivation than English while Chinese is the least morphologically
motivated language.
In fact ,de Saussure’s judgment that Chinese is the least morphologically motivated
language, is largely wrong because de Saussure was making a synchronic comparison of
several modern languages and yet the basis on which he drew his conclusions about the
Chinese language was apparently classical Chinese.
In classical Chinese, most words were indeed mono-syllabic and
mono-morphemic, hence normally not morphologically
motivated. Things are quite different with Modern Chinese,
because in Modern Chinese multi-morphemic words (most of
which are disyllabic) account for 80% of the total lexical items
and among these the majority must be compounds, since there
are almost no inflectional affixes and very few derivative affixes
in the Chinese language. Therefore Modern Chinese must have a
much greater chance of being morphologically motivated than
classical Chinese.
Sense Relationships
Sense is the place a word or phrase (lexeme ) holds in the system of relationships with
other words in the vocabulary of a language. Consider the following example:.
Bachelor and married / bachelor = never married
‫ طير‬/‫عصفور‬, ‫حمامة‬
‫هزيم الرعد‬,‫هدير الماء‬, ‫زئير أالسد‬
There are several kinds of sense relationship between lexemes .Some result from the way words or
phrases occur in sequences. These are known as syntagmatic or sequential semantic relations . A
Syntagm” is a linguistic unit consisting of a set of linguistic forms that are in a sequential
relationship to one another.) For example, if we hear the sentence (a very kind __wall__), we would
“know” that the omitted word will be one of a very small set (e.g. man, person, etc.). In this
sentence the words kind and man/person, etc. maintain a sort of syntagmatic semantic relationship.
Other sense relationships between lexemes result from the way in which words or phrases
can substitute for each other. These are known as paradigmatic or substitutional semantic
relations.

A paradigm is a set or list of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices
in particular syntactic roles.

A book/his book A his book *

He is a kind man /an evil man He is a kind evil man

‫مهمل‬/‫هو طالب مجتهد‬

‫مهملة‬/‫هي طالبة مجتهدة‬
Syntagmatic Semantic Relationship: Collocation

Collocation is related to the co-occurrence of words and phrases. The object of the study of
collocation is the co-occurrence relationships between lexical items. “You shall know a
word by the company it keeps,” said the British linguist J. R. Firth (1890–1960). In fact,
syntagmatic tendency of lexemes to work together (“collocate”) is predictable on the part
of language user.

Blond hair/flock of sheep/neigh or whinny of a horse/

‫ هديـل لاــحمام‬/‫بزـقزقة لاــعصـافير‬
/ ‫عـوـاء الـذئـ‬
Quite often a word in different collocations may mean differently, as is shown by the
following examples:

‫ي الـدنـيا‬
‫راـغب فـــ‬
‫راغب عن الدنيا‬
‫راغب الى الله‬
Collocations differ greatly between languages, and provide a major difficulty in
commanding foreign languages.

Let us consider the following example :

‫بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم‬

‫اب‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫ْع‬

‫ل‬ ‫ا‬ ‫وا‬‫ق‬ ‫و‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫م‬‫ك‬ ِ‫وه ُهم أَ َك َفرتُم ب ْع َد إِيمان‬ ‫ج‬‫و‬ ‫َّت‬
‫د‬ ‫و‬‫اس‬ ‫ين‬ ِ َّ‫ض وجوهٌ وتَسو ُّد وجوهٌ ۚ فَأ ََّما ال‬
‫ذ‬
َ ََ ُ ُ َ ُ
ْ َ َ ْ ْ ُ ُ ُ َْ َ ْ ُ ُ َ ْ َ ُ ُ ُّ َ‫َي ْوَم َت ْبي‬
)106( ‫بِ َما ُكنتُ ْم تَ ْك ُف ُرو َن‬
On the day when faces become black(Ilyas:p.55)

This collocation gives a different meaning in both languages

despite the fact that such color collocation exists in Arabic and English .Black face in
Arabic means disgrace while in English it signifies fury.
Paradigmatic Semantic Relationships
David Crystal (1987, p. 105) distinguishes several familiar types of
paradigmatic semantic relations :

1.Synonymy
2.Antonymy
3.Hyponymy
Synonymy
Synonymy denotes the relationship of “sameness” of meaning, e.g.

•mix‫اب َ ق ْوـل‬ ِ , ‫َح ِدي‬

, ‫ـثخ َط‬
blend
merge
mingle
fuse

Words rarely (if ever) have exactly the same meaning. There usually exist
stylistic, regional, expressive, or other subtle differences between their meanings, e.g.
hide and conceal are regarded as a pair of synonyms, but conceal is more formal than
hide. Context must also be taken into account when there are several synonymous
words to choose from. Two lexemes might be synonymous in one sentence but
different in another.
Range and selection are synonyms in

What a nice ____ of furnishings

The hotel offers a wide ____ of facilities.

but not in

Its mountain __selection_s, winding rivers, lush farmland and

native bush sparkle beneath cloud-filled skies.
 Differences between Synonyms
Synonyms may differ from each other in different ways(Kharma&Hajjaj:p.64).

a. They may be regional variations, e.g.

Autumn(British English)
Fall(American English)
b. They may be appropriate to different styles or registers of use, e.g.
Die(neutral)
Pass away (euphemistic)
Pop off (informal)
c. They may differ in emotive meaning ,e.g.
Economical(approving)
Mean(disapproving)
Stingy(very disapproving)
d. They may have different collocational restrictions, e.g.
Rancid butter/bacon
Addled eggs
Antonymy
Antonymy is the relationship of “oppositeness of meaning.” Antonyms are
in fact very different from synonyms. There may be no true synonyms, but there are
several kinds of real antonyms, including:

(1) gradable antonyms , such as big/small, good/bad, which permit the expression of degrees, e.g. very
big, quite small, etc. (between extremes there often existing gradations or degrees of change, e.g.
between light and pitch black there are: dim, dark, darkened, etc.);

(2) nongradable antonyms (also called complementary terms , which do not permit degrees of
contrast, such as single/married, male/ female; it is not possible to talk of very male, quite married,
etc., except in jest.

(3) converse terms , which present two-way contrasts that are interdependent on each other, such as
buy/sell or parent/child; one member presupposes the other.
Hyponymy
Hyponymy refers to the notion of “inclusion,” whereby we can say that “an X is a kind
of Y.” For example, rose is a hyponym of flower, car of vehicle. Therefore we may say
“A rose is a kind of flower” and “A car is a kind of vehicle.” Several lexemes can be
“cohyponyms” of the same superordinate (general term), e.g. rose, pansy, tulip, etc. are
the cohyponyms of flower.

‫ حشـرـة‬/‫نــملة‬
‫حشرات‬/‫بعوضة‬-‫ذبابة‬-‫نملة‬
Translators should be sensitive to tsuch erms that are used in different levels of inclusion in different contexts.
‫كالفاكهة‬/‫وجنتاها كالتفاح‬
incompatibility
incompatibility refers to the relationship of mutual exclusiveness between sets
of words that are members of the same superordinate category .For example, red, green,
etc. are incompatible lexemes within the category color: it would not be possible to say “I
am thinking of a single color, and it is green and red.” On the other hand, red is not
incompatible with such words as round or dirty (something can be at once “red and
round,” e.g. a balloon).

‫ سوف أغادر ألعراق يوم أالحد السبت المقبل‬....

Lexical Fields and Lexical Gaps
Closely linked to hyponymy is the notion of lexical field . The concept of lexical field was introduced
into linguistics by German scholars, chiefly J. Trier (1934), for the purpose of delimiting the lexicon into
cohesive subsystems Lexical field is also known as “word field ” or “semantic field ”. It refers to a group
of related words or phrases (i.e. lexemes ) organized into a system within which each item interrelates
with and sort of defines the other items. The lexical field of COLOR in English, e.g. includes eleven
basic items: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, and gray. The items in
the field define each other: we cannot really understand the meaning of a specific item, say, orange,
without knowing its relationship with the other items in the same field, say, red and yellow. (When one
mixes red and yellow, one will get orange.)
With reference to other languages, every language has lexical gaps in its semantic fields . This very fact
explains why bilinguals and translators alike find it easier to describe or talk about something in one
language than in another. For example, in Arabic we have different expressions to signify rainfall and
each expression has a different meaning .Consider the following examples:
 ‫الغيث‪:‬اذا جاء المطر عند الحاجة إليه‪.‬‬
‫الوابل ‪:‬إذا كان ضخم القطر شديد الوقع بطلق عليه الوابل ‪.‬‬
‫الجود‪ :‬المطر الغزير الذي يروي كل شىء يطلق عليه الجود ‪.‬‬
‫الودق‪ :‬إذا كان المطر مستمرا ً يسمى الودق ‪.‬‬

‫‪But in English, all these might have only one name plus pre-modifying elements.‬‬

‫‪Kinship & food terminology is another tricky area.‬‬

‫خال ‪/‬عم‪ /‬خالة‪ /‬عمة‪ /‬ابن العم ‪/‬ابن العمة‪ /‬ابن الخال‪ /‬ابن الخالة‬

‫شيخ محشي‪,‬باجة‬
Semantic Features
Semantic features or semantic components are the smallest elements of meaning in a
word. The meaning of words may be described as a combination of semantic features.
Consider the following sets of words in English:

man woman child

bull cow calf

These two groups of words represent a common pattern vertically, so

that we could set up a proportion like:
man : woman : child = bull : cow : calf
Both “man” and “bull” are (+ male), “woman” and “cow” (+ female), and “child” and “calf” (+
immature). Horizontally, we see further contrasts: all words in the first set are (+ human), all words in the
second set (+ bovine). The entire set of semantic features which distinguish these items from each other
can then be summarized in the following table :
 + male + female + immature

human man woman child

bovine bull cow calf
Semantic features distinguishing related items from each other
 componential analysis
•Componential analysis is a method that analyzes the components of a
word's meaning. Thus, it reveals the culturally important features by which
speakers of the language distinguish different words in a semantic field or
domain (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 20).Consequently, those L1 and L2 lexemes or
senses receiving the same features are by definition translation equivalents.
Consider the following example:

‫حج‬
Pilgrimage
 Semantic Features &Lexical Gaps
In fact the decomposition of SL semantic features makes it possible for second language users (including
translators) to describe or refer to any unlexicalized entities in the target language ,in other words, any
lexical gap in a word field of the target language can
in principle be filled in by an analytic expression which incorporates the essential semantic features of a
concept or notion the speaker intends to communicate. This is highly significant for the solution of the long-
standing debate over the issue of translatability or untranslatability among translation theorists. Consider the
following example:

One string wooden musical instrument used by Arabian nomads ‫رـبابة‬

Here interlingual paraphrasing or explanation is very important to guarantee the
translation of the referential meaning.
 Active Areas of CA
There are a number of areas where lexical CA has been actively carried out, notably:

• Anthropology (Edward Sapir ,1884–1939) & (Benjamin Lee Whorf ,1897–1941)

• Translation
• Bilingual lexicography
Anthropology (Edward Sapir ,1884–1939) & (Benjamin Lee Whorf ,1897–1941)

Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and his pupil Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941), taking up the
tradition of placing great value on the diversity of the world’s languages and cultures
.They concerned themselves with the problem of the relationship between language and
the way to see the world. The results of their studies came to be known as the “Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis.

linguistic determinism: language determines the way we think.

linguistic relativity :the distinctions encoded in one language are not
found in any other language.

Whorf illustrated his view by taking examples from several languages, and in
particular from Hopi , an Amerindian language. In Hopi, there is one word
(masa’ytaka) for everything that flies except birds—which would include insects,
airplanes and pilots. This seems alien to someone used to thinking in English.
Translation& Contrastive Lexicology
A second area where contrastive lexicology has been playing an active role in is that
of translation. Here again cultural barriers to effective translation have been in the
forefront, notably among Bible translators (Nida, 1964 and after; Wonderly, 1968)

One of the cultural barriers to translation is the differences between source and target languages in the degree of
lexicalization of their culture-specific concepts and notions. Kinship terms between Arabic and English is an
interesting example.

‫ ابن الخالة‬/‫ ابن الخال‬/‫ابن العمة‬/ ‫ ابن العم‬/‫ عمة‬/‫ خالة‬/‫عم‬/ ‫خال‬
Bilingual Lexicography & Contrastive Lexicology
Bilingual lexicography is the third area in which a practical concern for contrastive
lexicology has been maintained.

A question raised here is what an ideal bilingual dictionary should offer its users.
Apparently an ideal bilingual dictionary should be based on a solid
CA of the lexical systems of the two languages concerned and incorporate measures to
forestall lexical mistakes that learners and users may commit in the other language.

For instance, a “ 领导” in Chinese should be defined in a Chinese-English dictionary as an official in

charge, a leading official, a director/manager/superintendent, or even a boss instead of simply a leader,
because a “ 领导” in Chinese is rarely, if ever, equivalent to a leader in English.

‫قاـئـمقاـم‬
‫مختار‬
 Conclusion
Lexical contrastive analysis allows us to reveal the differences
between native and foreign languages and it also enables to draw a
special attention to these diversities in the process of foreign language
acquisition and translation. In case of translation, lexical contrastive
analysis is a method in which the translators should pay attention to
the differences between foreign and native languages on the semantic
level, which, to a large extent, helps them to overcome the
incongruities between SL&TL. 
 References
Cruse,A.(1986)Lexical Semantics.Cambride University Press

Ke,P.(2019).Contrastive Linguistics.Vol.1.Peking University Press

Kharma,N.&Hajjaj,A.(1989).Errors in English Among Arabic Speakers: Analysis and

Remedy.Longman Grroup.

Illyas,A(1989)Theories of Translation.MUP.

Nida, E. A. (1964). Towards a science of translating. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill.

Ottenheimer, H. J. (2006). The Anthropology of Language. Belmont, CA: Thomson

Wadsworth.

Wonderly, W. L. (1968). Bible translations for popular use. London, UK: United Bible Societies.