Componential analysis, by definition, is referring to the analysis of a set of related linguistic items, such as word meanings, into combinations of features in terms of which each item may be compared with every other. For instance, man-male-mature-human, bull-male-mature-bovine, and so on, are such examples. Through identifying and analyzing features, it becomes feasible for linguistics researchers to find the meaning of a word or lexeme. However word or lexeme itself may present a very complex semantic structure. A lexeme, for instance, is built up of smaller components of meanings which could be used to construct other lexeme or words. In this sense, the meaning of a lexeme often presents a complicated structure where elements of meanings are interrelated. Simply speaking, it is possible for us to analyze lexical meanings through identifying the meaning of each semantic components. Lexical decomposition is the belief that word meanings can be built up compositionally from the meaning of simpler words. For instance, “Stallion” is a difficult word but when it is decomposed to be “horse” and “male”, the lexical meaning becomes much clearer. The objective of this research is to figure out how componential analysis is relevant and meaningful in comprehending lexical meanings.
Referential Theory and Semiotic Triangle
The idea of referential theory is that linguistic expressions or terms must have the meanings as they stand for things(Searle,p137). The meanings of these expressions are just what they stand for. As such, words are just labels which denote or refer to the real things or items in the world. The referential theory is more like denotations, which are used for concrete entities. For instance, “Adolf Hitler” is just denoting the person, “Hitler”. However, it is very undeniable that there are many potential problems when we are trying to apply this theory in the real world context. Firstly, not every word may denote an actual object. For instance, “Centaur” would not denote everything because there is no such a creature with the head, arms, and chest of a man but they body of a horse. Very similarly, “Pegasus” would also not denote anything because there is no winged horse existed in this world. Another problem is that according to the referential theory, it seems that a sentence is constructed based on a list of names. However, it is very obvious that a list of names may stand for nothing. For instance, “John Mike Philip Green” is just a list of name but it does not denote anything. In addition, another problem is that referents are not referring to the same meanings. In other words, two words might share the same referent but not the same meaning. For instance, “Jorge Mario Bergoglio” and “the Pope” are sharing the same referent but they do have different meanings.
It is indisputable that “words don’t mean but people mean”. According to the semiotic triangle, it is rather obvious that the symbol is the actual word or sign. The mental image of this symbol is closely related to people’s “sense”, which a thought or concept of the symbol. Referent, on the other hand, is a real world thing or phenomenon. In fact, the logic behind this model is that direct link between words and things are denied. The relationship between symbol and referent could only be made through people’s concept or sense. However, semantic model has long criticized for the difficulty to determine the “concepts” for some words. Another thing is that this semiotic triangle is more referring to abstract properties or entities based on “sense” or “concept”(Frawley, p7).
Principle of Compositionality
In semantics, the principle of compositionality is that the meaning of a complex expressions could be determined and interpreted by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules that are used to combine them(Frawley, p19). Literally speaking, the meaning of complex expression could be determined by three sources, namely the lexical meanings of its components, grammatical meanings and syntax. Therefore, according to this principle, the meaning of a sentence is governed by the meaning of words and the syntax influences. For instance, for instance, “John murdered Mike” is totally different from “Mike murdered John”. it is obvious that the grammars and syntax would certainly affect the meaning of a sentence.
Componential Analysis
Some words or vocabularies might share common semantic features. The advantage of a componential analysis would allow readers to discover the overlapping meanings of similar words and highlight distinctions between similar objects. Walk might share the overlapping semantic features with stroll. Both of them are actually referring to the action of moving on foot. However, strolling might be absolutely aimless. Walking just means that a person who moves his foot in a regula way. Sleep shares the semantic features with nag. Both of the two words referring to natural state that eyes are closed, body is inactive and minds does not think. However, nag is much shorter than sleep. Fly and hover have similar semantic features. However, hover means staying the air at the same position without moving forward or backward. Fly, on the other hand, is just referring to the action of moving into the air. Bite and chew might both refer to the action of cutting something into pieces by teeth in order to break it. However, “chew” is only serving for the purpose of eating but “bite” might not. “Drive” and “blow” share the same semantic meaning of giving a strong strike on something. However, it seems that people usually blow somebody or something with fist or weapon. People hardly “drive” others with these means. “Run” and “Jog” would have totally same semantic features. Both of them refer to the actions of moving faster than walking on foot. However,” Jog” would be much slower than “Run”.
According to the study of Nida (1975: p48), componential analysis could only be done within same semantic group. There are three necessary and essential steps to determine the features as follows,
Ø To determine the commonalities of each semantic components and line up all the relevant differences in related functions
Ø To investigate the relations of the features
Ø To formulate a set of diagnostic features and test for adequacy.
In addition, Nida (1975: p54) has also proposed a 6-step componential analysis method which is relevant and important to understand lexical meaning of each component.
First, it is necessary to figure out possible related functions of each lexical components which appeared to be interrelated. As such, the meaning of lexeme could be constituted into a well-defined domain. For instance, the commonality of father, mother, brother, cousin and sister is that they all have similar semantic components such as “human beings”. Besides, they are related by blood or kinship.
Secondly, referents in the above-mentioned domain should be listed accordingly. Father, for instance, is identified to have only one referent. Words such as father-in-law should be treated only as part of extended domain. It could be observed that this word is secondary in semantic structure.
Third, to determine semantic components which might be true for one lexeme but not applicable to the rest. For instance, mother, aunt, sister, cousin have the same semantic components of “female”. Father, uncle, brother and cousin have the same semantic component of “male” sex. But is obvious that “cousin” itself is indiscriminate to gender difference. Linguists have to proceed features by features in order to discover the distinctions such as sex, affinial relations, and so on.
Fourth, the diagnostic components applicable to each lexical meaning should be determined accordingly. For instance, “father” is direct descent, one ascending generation and male. “Brother” is the same generation of ego and male.
Fifth, cross-checking should be conducted with data obtained by the first procedure. Researcher should be able to apply the correct terms to the referents with the identified features.
Sixth, researcher should be able to provide a systematic description of diagnostic features. For instance, the diagnostic features of each lexeme could be visualized in a matrix form as follows,
Ascending Generation |
Father |
Mother |
Uncle |
Aunt |
Same generation |
Ego |
Brother |
Sister |
|
|
Descending Generation
|
son |
daughter |
Nephew |
Niece |
However, some words might be cultural-bound. It means that the meaning of a lexeme is relevant to one culture but might not make sense in other culture. For instance, all cultures have kinship system but they may be organized quite differently. It could be observed that it might not be likely the case that there are universal semantic components which could be used to compose the meanings of lexeme in English or other languages.
First, componential analysis may be limited in its applicability as it is hardly applicable to all areas of vocabularies. The meaning of a lexeme is not just determined by its semantic components but also some other factors such as sense relation, collocation and denotations. For instance, ice and cream have different semantic components and meaning. When they come together, it has an inseparable meaning of ice-cream.
Another problem is that componential analysis seems only focusing on referential meaning. However, as shown in the literature review section. Some words may not even have a referent at the first place. Hence, it is difficult to conduct a componential analysis to understand the meaning of a lexeme without referent.
Reference
Frawley, William. Linguistic semantics. Routledge, 2013.
Nida, Eugene A . Componential Analysis of Meaning. Belgium: Mouton.1975
Searle, John R. Expression and meaning: Studies in the theory of speech acts. Cambridge University Press, 1985.