7.

Semantic Organization
7.1. The Lexicon Lexicon assumptions The lexicon is a collection of all the words and lexical items, i.e. associations between sound and meaning that a language has (Hoffman, 1993: 26). Lehrer (1974:190) maintains that the lexicon is an unordered set of lexical entries and as such it can be arranged in a number of ways alphabetically, as a dictionary, by semantic fields, as a thesaurus. According to Lyons (1983) the information that is found in a lexical item is of three kinds: morphological, syntactic and semantic. In generative grammar, the lexicon has a special status and it refers to the component containing all the information about the structural properties of the lexical items in a language. Thus, a lexical entry includes phonological, semantic and syntactic information. Recent syntactic theories ascribe a more significant role to the lexicon, some claming that much of the syntax is projected from the lexicon (Bresnan, 1982; Chomsky, 1981). In other words, the semantic organization of the lexicon can predict and explain at least some regularities. According to Dirven (1985) the lexicon has an internally structured character and is only theoretically finite. It contains a number of rules for creating new lexical items or for extending the meaning of given lexical items. New lexical items are formed by the rules of compounding, derivation, borrowing, the creation of neologisms, acronyms. The meaning of given lexical items can be extended by processes such as the metaphor and the metonymy. Starting with 1990s there has been a surge of interest in the lexicon. The demand for a fuller and more adequate understanding of lexical meaning required by developments in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence and cognitive science has stimulated a refocused interest in linguistics, psychology and philosophy. The basic problem that distinguishes the different views of the lexicon relates to the nature of the information in the lexicon. Murphy () argues that knowledge about words (i.e. lexical knowledge) does not always overlap with knowledge about the things words denote (conceptual knowledge). The lexicon contains information that is necessary for linguistic competence, i.e. our capacity to produce grammatical and interpretable sentences. The fact that we can fail to make the association between things that we recognize and words that we know for those things indicates that our means of storing and/or accessing the name of that thing is the same of our means of storing and/or accessing other knowledge about the thing. The piece of evidence for this is tip-of-the tongue syndrome, i.e. the case when we have complete access to the concept, because we can picture it, reason about it and describe it, but we are not able to access its name. Other evidence for the separation of lexical and conceptual information is related to the lack of the one-to-one relationship between words and concepts proved by the existence of polysemy and synonymy in language. Words can be used to indicate more than a single concept, and the name that we attach to a thing may vary by context. In the first case, the word knife can refer to things like scalpels, daggers, butter knoves and letter openers; in the second, a single kind of furniture may be reffered to by a variety of terms like table, bedstand, and chest of drawers. Although they are two distinct types of knowledge, lexical knowledge and conceptual knowledge interact in the processes of language production and comprehension.

Contents and structure of the lexicon The lexicon contains both linguistic expressions that are greater than words and ones that are smaller that words. Phrasal expressions like throw up or paint that town red and morphemes such as ness and pre are also to be includes in the definition of lexical item or lexeme (Murphy, 199...: 14). A lexical item in the lexicon is an abstract representation that is instantiated as a lexical unit in language use, which has a particular form and a particular sense. For example, highest in the phrase the highest note in the song and high in I threw the ball high are both lexical units instantiating the lexical item high. The term lexical entry denotes the collection of information (phonological, morphological and semantic) about a lexeme that is includes in the lexicon. Most linguists agree that the lexicon is the repository of what is exceptional and idiosyncratic in language (the part that has to be learned), while grammar expresses the regularities of a language. Psychologically, the lexicon is a more tangible entity that grammar because speakers are aware that they know and use words, but they are hardly aware that they know and use rules of the grammar. (Cornilescu, 1995: 95). 5.2. Semantic fields Field theories A semantic field is an area of meaning containing words with related senses. Semantic field theory derives very largely from the work of German and Swiss scholars in the 1920s and 1930s. According to this theory, meanings of words cluster together to form fields of meaning, which is turn cluster into even larger fields until the entire language is encompassed. So, for example, we can identify a semantic field of madness containing words like insane, demented, batty, schizophrenic, paranoid, some of which are synonyms of mad, and others which are types of madness. This field belongs in turn within a larger one of mental states, which includes a wider selection of words. Similarly we can identify a field of running including words such as sprinting, running and jogging, which itself clusters into the field of human motion. Before Saussures Course of linguistique generale (1955) the study of semantics was predominantly diachronic and the concern was with the changes in the meaning of individual words. The concept of semantic field was introduced by Humboldt (1936), Trier (1931), Porzig (1950) and Weisgerber (1950) and more recently developed by Lyons (1963, 1977) Lehrer (1974), Kittay (1987) and Grandy (1987). Among the German linguists Trier was the most important and influential. The procedure followed by Trier in diachronic semantics was to compare the structure of a lexical field at time t1 with the structure of a lexical field at tme 2. He pointed out that the slightest change in the meaning of a term in a semantic field brings about changes in the neighbouring terms as well. Therefore, a word acquires its meaning by its opposition to its neighbouring words in the pattern. Trier distinguished between lexical and conceptual fields, whereby the lexical field divides the conceptual field into parts, like a mosaic. Lehrer (1974) believes that the study of linguistic field should prove to be a rich source about human conceptualization and that the correct or at least the best semantic analysis is one that describes a speakers conceptual structure. Although Trier opened a new phase in the histor of semantics (Ullmann, 1962:7) he has been criticised for a number of assumptions that are highly controversial.1 One of them is
1

Trier has been challenged for assuming that (1) lexical fields can be organized into neat rigid patterns based on oppositions and differences (2) there are no gaps or overlaps in a lexical field. Finally he has been criticized for

that he assumes that lexical fields are closed, well-defined sets. The disagreement is founded especially if one considers peripheral items in a field. For example, in the semantic field of cooking verbs, we have bake, boil, fry, but scald, caramelize (e.g. caramelize fruits), render (e.g, render fat) and clarify (e.g. clarified butter) are peripheral. According to Lehrer (1974: 8) a semantic field as a group of words closely related in meaning, often subsumed by a general term. For instance, the words in the field of colour in English fall under the general term COLOUR and include red, blue, green, white, scarlet and dozens other. In their study of colour terms (1970) Brent Berlin and Paul Kay2 found that speakers disagree among themselves as to where to draw the line between colours, e.g. red and orange. Moreover, the judgments of a single speaker differ at various times. The solution the two American scholars have proposed is that of focal points for colours, e.g. the most typical red or the best example of yellow. The prototype based model has to be more useful for the analysis of semantic fields because it allows for fuzzy borders among lexical items. The study by Berlin and Kay also shows that there are some parts of the colour spectrum are not happily covered by any term or at least by any basic term. Lehrer (1974) rightly states that a very interesting question to investigate is what speakers do when they want to express some concept not covered by any lexical item in the language. Lexical gaps The absence of a lexeme at a particular place in the structure of a lexical field is generally referred to as a lexical gap. For instance, in English there is a word corpse meaning roughly body of a dead human being and a word carcass meaning body of a dead animal, but no word which is applied to dead plants. In general, conceptual fields are heavily lexicalized. When part of a field is unlexicalized, it constitutes a lexical gap. For instance, it can be argued that there is a gap for a term superordinate to aunt and uncle and another for niece and nephew. Fundamental to field theory is the assumption that words can belong to more than one field. In addition to meaning insane, for example, mad can also mean angry, and as such belongs within the field of anger. Or, orange1 a colour belongs to the field of COLOURS, while orange2 a fruit belongs to the field of FOODS. A natural consequence of field theory is the idea that words, or more particularly the senses of words, define themselves against each other. So, for example, in the field of medical personnel, part of our understanding of doctor is not nurse/surgeon/matron or orderly. Therefore, the meanings of words must be understood, n part, in relation to other words that articulate a given content domain. The goal of the analysis of semantic fields is to collect all the words that belong to a field and show the relationship of each of them to one another and to the general term. Conceptual field, lexical field, semantic field Some of the concepts in a conceptual field become lexicalized to form a semantic field (Grandy, 1987; Kittay, 1987; Lehrer, 1974; Lyons, 1977; Miller and Johnson Laird, 1976). For example, in the field for cook, simmer lexicalizes field for animal, mare means horse-female-adult and puppy means dog-infant. Basic to field theory is the view that words occupy a certain amount of semantic space within the language, which is distributed among the specific lexical items available. So, for
his concentration upon paradigmatic relations of sense to the exclusion of sintagmatic relations. 2 Colour categories have been investigated by Brent Berlin and Paul Key (1969) two American cognitive anthropologists who contributed to the development of prototype theory.

example, the field of residences is divided up into castle, maisonette, home, bungalow and flat, to name just a few. These terms constitute the lexical set, or lexical field which realise the semantic field. The meaning of any one of them is affected by the other terms to which it is related. As a consequence, fields are constantly expanding and contracting. If the term maisonette was removed from the set, then one of the others, possibly house, or flat, would expand to occupy the space. Field theory is very useful in the contrastive analysis of different languages. Languages differ quite widely even in apparently basic lexical divisions, and fields such as temperature, kinship, colour, parts of the body, and animal and vegetable worlds, divide the semantic space differently with respect to them. For instance, some languages like English use eleven colour terms which name the following colour categories: BLACK, WHITE, RED, YELLOW, BLUE, BROWN, PURPLE, PINK, ORANGE, and GREY. Other languages use only two basic colour terms (black and white), three basic colour terms (black, white and red) etc. Actually, when there are fewer than eleven basic colour terms 3 in a language, one basic term names a union of basic colour categories; for example, BLUE + GREEN. According to the cognitive linguistic view the words of a language reflect conceptual distinctions made by a particular culture. Dirven and Radden (1997:4) illustrate how the Anglo culture and the German culture carve up the conceptual continuum atmospheric conditions for which the German culture provides two categories: Anglo culture German culture Fog Nebel mist Dunst Haze

Figure 1 As a result, speakers place their experience of visibility and air moisture under one of the categories provided by their culture. The cognitive approach claims that meanings do not exist independently of human perception and cognition but are created by the way in which humans experience and think of the phenomena that surround them. The cognitive view could account for the flexibility of word meaning and explain why definitions of words are often too difficult to make precise. It concentrates on how language is shaped by human experience and cognitive processes. Cognitive linguists argue that categories are conceptual in nature and that many, if not all of our conceptual categories are laid down in language as linguistic categories. An illustration: the semantic field of cooking terms Lehrer (1974) illustrates the theory of semantic fields with words from two lexical fields: cooking and sounds. One of her arguments for this choice is that the sets seem to contain many of the subtleties, asymmetries and indeterminacies which are characteristic of other lexical fields. The basic words in the field of COOKING are cook, bake, boil, roast, fry and broil (or grill for British English) and for some speakers, steam. Grill and toast denote the same action or process from the point of view of the agent, but different patients are involved. Grilling is a method of cooking, whereas toasting is not; things that get toasted are normally already
3

For a colour term to be basic it must meet the following requirements (Lakoff, 1987: 25): - it must consist of one morpheme, like blue, rather than one, as in dark-blue. - te colour denoted by the term must not be contained in another colour. Scarlet, is, for example, contained within red. - it must not be restricted to a small number of objects; for example blond. - Iit must be common and generally known, like yellow as opposed to saffron.

cooked, whereas items for grilling are raw. The set also includes simmer, stew, poach, braise, saute. French fry, deep fry, barbeque and charcoal. The most general are cook and bake; words such as deep-fry saute, parboil, plank, shirr, scallop, flamber, rissoler or compounds like steam-bake, pot-roast, oven-poach, pan-broil, pan-fry and oven-fry are considered peripheral. The first three basic cooking terms, i.e. cook, bake and boil have both general and specific senses. It is interesting to note that only basic words show this characteristic. Cooking words can be placed in a chart like in the figure below: cook1 cook2 steam boil1 simmer poach stew braise As can be noticed, words are synonyms if they appear in the same square; incompatible terms are separated by a vertical bar, and hyponyms appear directly under the superordinate one. Thus, steam, boil fry, broil, roast and bake2 are hyponyms of cook2. French fry and deep fry are synonyms, etc.; cook1 and bake1 differ from the rest in that they refer to human activities in one case the preparation of food for meals and in the other the preparation of a number of items commonly called bakery products bread, pastry, cookies, etc. Only cook1 and bake1 freely occur intransitively with human subjects. I cook and He bakes are more acceptable than *John simmered yesterday or Helen is frying. Cook 2 and all the words under it are process words which can be analysed grammatically as causatives. Boil1 and its subordinates differ from others in the semantic field in that water or some waterbased liquid must be used (wine, stock, milk) while the absence of water is necessary for fry, broil, roast, and bake. Simmer differ from boil2 by specifying that the liquid is just below the boiling point, without the rolling bubbles that characterise boil2. The hyponyms of simmer bring in highly specific aspects of meaning. Poach specifiesthat the food is slowly cooked in water carefully so that the shape is preserved. Stew is applied when the food is to be cooked slowly for a long time usually until it is soft. Braise is even more complex the food is first browned (quickly fried on the outside) and then allowed to cook slowly in a tightly covered pot with a small amount of water. In general, the more specific the meaning of the word, the fewer collocational possibilities there are: boiled meat, boiled eggs, boiled vegetables are linguistically acceptable, but poached vegetables and stewed eggs are less so (Lehrer, 1974: 33). Steam and boil are closer in meaning than to any other basic term. Steam constrast with boil in that the food, which must be a solid, is not submerged; it is cooked by the rising vapour. Fry and its hyponyms contrast with other in the field by requiring the presence of fat or oil in the cooking process although the fat can be in the food itself. Like bacon. Deep-fry and its synonym French-fry require a large amount of oil or fat enough to cover the item being cooked. Saute, on the other hand, refers to quickly cooking something in a frying pan with a small amount of fat. Fry is used when food is cooked in a frying pan whether or not fat is added (in the latter case there is some fat in the food cooked, e.g. steack, or a non-stick frying pan is used). Broil and its hypnyms refer to cooking something directly under a heating unit or over or under an open fire. Grill has a range of meaning that overlaps with fry slightly, sincer grilled cheese sandwiches are fried, not broiled. Grill also applies to cooking food on an open grill, but sometimes it is used synonymously with broil. Barbeque, is one of its senses synonymous to charcoal, and both refer to cooking food over hot coals. Bake2 is applied to 5 fry boil2 bake1

broil roast bake2 saute deep-fry grill grill barbeque French-fry charcoal

cooking food in an oven, such that the heat is indirect, rather than direct as in broiling. Roast and broil are close in meaning. The semantic field of cooking verbs can finally be set up to look like a series of +/features as in the table below, where 0 means that the feature does not apply distinctly one way or the other. For example, frying as a kind of cooking that involves the use of fat in contact with a flame and is not ussualy gentle. Cook Boil Simmer Fry Roast Toast Bake water 0 + + fat 0 + oven 0 + + flame 0 + + + + gentle 0 + 0 0 0 0

Metaphorical extension Most of the terms in the field of COOKING may have metaphorical extensions in other semantic fields. They may be used for states of emotions (boil, burn, simmer, steam, stew) or temperature: e.g. ts roasting / steaming in this room. 7.3 Study questions and exercises 1. List as many verbs as you can think of in English for the notion of LAUGH (e.g. giggle, chuckle ).Does your native language offer more or fewer words for the overall field, and to what extent are there one-to-one correspondences? For further practice do the same with these semantic notions: - ways of WALKING - words in the TALK domain -words indicating the SPEED of an action. 2. Some of the verbs in the WALK domain can be used figuratively to refer to TALKING (e.g. ramble, stumble, plod ). Make up sentences to illustrate their figurative meanings.