COMPONENTS OF THE

WORD MEANING.
COMPONENTIAL
ANALYSIS
Lecture 3
The semantic structure of the word
◦ The meaning is a system of components (semes), constituting a structure (sememe)
◦ Father – [human], [male parent]
[human], [founder] (George Washington is considered a father of the United States)

◦ The levels of the analysis of the word

◦ Semic (on the level of semes – separate components of meaning)
◦ Sememic (on the level of the sememe – a separate meaning of a polysemantic word)

• The basic or minimal unit of meaning, not further subdividable, is the seme, and . . . two or more semes existing together in a more
complex unit of meaning comprise a sememe.
• The term seme as a microcomponent of meaning was introduced by V. Scalicka. The seme reflects specific signs of the
phenomenon, named by the word.
• A sememe is the totality of semes that are actualized by a term within a given context.
• The children had to run to keep up with their father. [action] [human] [movement] [fast]
• He's been running a restaurant since he left school. [action] [human] [control]

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 Macrocomponents of meaning

The denotative meaning The connotative meaning

◦the notional information, associated with the reflection of extralingual reality, be it ◦expresses the attitude of the speaker to the object of
objective or subjective
◦also called referential or extensional
nomination in the form of emotions and evaluation
◦To denote is to serve as linguistic expression for a notion or as a name for an of denotate
actually existing object referred to by a word
◦also called emotive charge or intentional
◦Denotatum (Lat. denotatum – означуване) is a notional nucleus of meaning, i.e.
“objective” (“nominative”, “cognitive”, “representative”, “factual”) component of connotations
meaning abstracted from stylistic, pragmatic, modal, emotional, subjective,
communicative and other shades.
◦Connotation (Lat. connoto – маю додаткове
◦needle – “thin, sharp, steel instrument …” значення) is an emotional, evaluative or stylistic
◦lonely – “alone, without company”
component of meaning of a linguistic unit of regular
or occasional character.
◦needle – “painful”
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx0nra6R-eE
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoDJ769R7I ◦lonely - ‘melancholy, sad’

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Connotation
◦ The emotive charge: ◦ Task 1.
Identify the denotative and connotative meaning aspects of lexical meaning
◦ daddy :: father of the given words. Analyze the similarity and difference between the
components of connotative aspect of meaning
◦ Evaluation:
◦ банда :: група (людей)
◦ Intensity (expressiveness):
◦ to adore :: to love
◦ Imagery (figurative):
◦ to wade (eg. go through mud with
difficulty) :: to wade through a book

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Types of connotation
by which synonyms differ (G. Antrushyna et al., 2000)

◦ The connotation of degree or intensity: to surprise — to astonish — to amaze — to astound; to shout — to yell — to bellow — to roar; to
like — to admire — to love — to adore — to worship.
◦ The connotation of duration: to flash (brief) — to blaze (lasting); to shudder (brief) — to shiver. (lasting); to say (brief) — to speak, to
talk (lasting).
◦ The emotive connotations: alone — single — lonely — solitary.
◦ The evaluative connotation: well-known — famous — notorious — celebrated.
◦ A. His eyes sparkled with amusement, merriment, good humour, high spirits, happiness, etc. (positive emotions).
◦ B. His eyes glittered with anger, rage, hatred, malice, etc. (negative emotions).

◦ The causative connotation: to shiver with cold, from a chill, because of the frost; to shudder with fear, horror, etc.; to blush from modesty,
shame or embarrassment, to redden from anger or indignation.
◦ The connotation of manner: to stroll — to stride — to trot — to pace — to swagger — to stagger — to stumble
◦ The connotation of attendant circumstances: to peep - to peer .
◦ The connotation of attendant features: pretty, handsome, beautiful .
◦ Stylistic connotation (colloquial, slang, dialect, poetic, archaic, terminological, etc) – girl, girlie (coll.), lass, lassie (dial.), bird, skirt (sl.),
maiden (poet.), damsel (arch)
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Connotation and connotative
◦ social and expressive meaning (Lyons,1977)
◦ a subclass of additional associative aspect of meaning, inherent property of
lexeme (Leech,1981)

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Markedness
Markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent in
comparison to a regular or more common form.
Semantic marking (Lyons,1977)
Connotatively marked lexemes (Lipka, 1986)

◦ A semantically marked lexeme is more ◦ stylistically marked,

specific than an unmarked one
◦ lioness as opposed to lion
◦ Is that lion a lion or a lioness?
◦ affectively or emotionally marked,
◦ regional or dialectal,
◦ archaic or neologistic,
◦ sociolinguistic variation

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Classes of connotations (by Hansen, 1985)

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 Componential analysis
or semantic decomposition
◦ Componential analysis of meaning – linguistic analysis of the semantic structure of a word (a monosemantic word or a lexico-semantic
variant of a polysemantic unit) as constituted by a set of minimal elements of sense – semes.
◦ Componential analysis provides a descriptive model for semantic content, based on the assumption that meanings can be described on
the basis of a restricted set of conceptual building blocks—the semantic ‘components’ or ‘features’.
◦ The American branch emerged from linguistic anthropology, in studies like Kroeber (1952), Conklin (1955), Goodenough (1956),
Lounsbury (1956), E. Nida [1975].
◦ In Europe, the first step in the work of Louis Hjelmslev (1953), the full development in the early 1960s, in the work of Bernard Pottier
(1964, 1965), Eugenio Coseriu (1962, 1964, 1967), and Algirdas Greimas (1966).
◦ Louis Hjelmslev
◦ the meaning side of the linguistic sign should show the same structuring principles as the sound side;
◦ The meaning of mare can be separated into components according to the following sequence: [HORSE] and [FEMALE] and if the second element is
changed into [MALE] the resulting element in the plane of expression is then stallion.

◦ A. Wierzbicka [1980-1996] tried to work out a radical decomposition of all words into a number of primitives (Natural Semantic
Metalanguage). Semantic primitives are the elements which can be used to define the meaning of words (or any other meanings) cannot be
defined themselves;
◦ Mentalist Postulate by R. Jackendoff [1983-1996]. Describing meaning involves describing mental representations. Semantic structure is
conceptual structure. 04/05/2021
How does the theory of meaning components work?

binary feature specification and redundancy rules

HUMAN> ANIMATE
ADULT > ANIMATE
ANIMATE > CONCRETE
MARRIED> ADULT
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Types of components
◦ E. Nida in “Componential Analysis of Meaning” (1975)

◦ “If all the universe were blue, there would be no blueness, since
there would be nothing to contrast with blue. The same is true for
the meanings of words. They have meaning only in terms of
systematic contrasts with other words which share certain features
with them but contrast with them in respect to other features”.

◦ Common component. This is the central component which is

shared by all the lexemes in the same semantic domain or lexical
field.
◦ Diagnostic or distinctive components. They serve to distinguish
the meaning from others from the same domain.
◦ The meanings of the individual items can then be expressed by
Man +[human] +[adult] +[male] combinations of these features
Woman +[human] +[adult] -[male]
Boy +[human] -[adult] +[male]
Girl +[human] -[adult] -[male]

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The matrix of kinship terms (Jackson, 1996)

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Procedural Steps in the Componential Analysis
of Meaning
◦ Componential analysis (CA) can only be done within the same semantic domain. There are three basic
steps in the procedure for determining the diagnostic features (Nida, 1975: 48), they are:
◦ a. determining the common features and line up all the apparently relevant differences in form and
possibly related functions;
◦ b. studying the relations of the features to one another, in order to determine the redundancies and
dependencies;
◦ c. formulating a set of diagnostic features and testing such a set for adequacy.

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Componential analysis is used in
◦ classifications of lexical units
◦ the investigation of the lexico-semantic fields: go, walk, run, slide, fly, crawl [move]
◦ the analysis of hyponymic groups: bear, mammal, animal
◦ the investigation of the semantic structure of synonyms: stare, glare, gaze, peep, peer
◦ a characterization of antonyms by a difference of the value plus or minus a feature
◦ combined with contrastive analysis shows the lack of one-to-one correspondence not only between the semantic structure of
correlated words (the number and types of meaning) but also the difference in the seemingly identical and correlated meanings
of contrasted words: товстий vs. thick, stout, buxom
◦ componential analysis is combined with the semantic analysis through collocability or co-occurrence :
◦ if one learns that a puffin flies, one can assume that a puffin is animate and is probably a bird or an insect.
◦ The cows — through the fields vs The boys — through the fields

stray, wander, ran, lumber, walk, hurry, stroll

◦ The baby drank his bottle vs The baby drank her bottle

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Reasons that justify identifying semantic
components in componential analysis
◦ economic characterization of lexical relations
◦ describe a range of syntactic and morphological processes
◦ semantic primitives form part of our psychological architecture as they provide us with a
unique view of conceptual structure, as pointed out by Jackendoff (1983)

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Lexical vs grammatical meaning
 Lexical meaning
meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions: go,
goes, went, going, gone [‘the process of movement’];
 Grammatical meaning
expression in speech of relationship between words: asked, thought, walked [‘tense
meaning’];
 Part-of-speech meaning
Word-classes (major WC: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; minor WC: articles,
prepositions, conjunctions, etc).

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The pragmatic aspect of lexical meaning
◦ Conveys information on the situation of communication
◦ Time and space relationship of the participants (come :: go);
◦ Participants and language community
1) They chucked a stone at the cops, and then did a bunk with the loot.
2) After casting a stone at the police, they absconded with the money.
◦ Tenor of discourse;
◦ There are three basic factors within tenor:
◦ agentive role, or the institutional (or not) roles of the participants, such as doctor/patient, teacher/student, etc.;
◦ social role, or the power relationship between them which may be hierarchic or nonhierarchic and includes expert/novice and also conferred
social status and gender, etc.;
◦ social distance, or the amount or nature of contact the participants may have, which ranges from minimal (close friends) to maximal (formal
settings).
◦ Register of communication
◦ Formal: cordial, fraternal, anticipate;
◦ Informal: to be kidding, hi, stuff.

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The complexity of the word meaning
is manifold
◦ Many words not only refer to some object but trigger some associations expressing the attitude of the speaker. They
have not only denotative but connotative meaning as well.
◦ E. g.: Daddy is a colloquial term of endearment.

◦ The denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes.

◦ E.g.: Father is a male parent.

◦ A word may be polysemantic, that is it may have several meanings, all interconnected and forming its semantic
structure.
◦ E. g.: Father may mean: ‘male parent’, ‘an ancestor’, ‘a founder or leader’, ‘a priest’.

◦ Every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings. E.g.: Father is a personal noun.
◦ Words convey information on the situation of communication (pragmatic aspect)
◦ Will you read me a story, Daddy?

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