Componential analysis and semantic features

What is componential analysis? Componential analysis is a process of breaking down the sense of a word into its minimal components. And these minimal

components are known as semantic features. Semantic features can help us index the meaning of word, separate the various meanings of individual word and analyze relationship between words. Besides, when we do componential analysis, we must do it on the basis of semantic contrast.

In this table, the four words man, woman, boy and girl all refer to human. Then we can abstract the components male from man and boy, female from woman and girl. And we can also find that man and woman both refer to adult, boy and girl both refer to non-adult. Therefore, we call these words human, male, female, adult and non-adult semantic features. As a result, the meanings of word in the table can be made up of the combination of the five semantic features. e.g. Man:[+Human+Adult+Male]

When we do componential analysis, there are two key points we must pay attention to. First, we must abstract the distinguishing features. It means the semantic feature of a word or word group can distinguish itself from another word or word group. That means we must abstract the features which are not only minimal, but also can reflect the essence of the words. Just as the words showed in the table, we can also use “animate” to be their features. But we use “human”, because human can distinguish the words in the table from others and can’t be continually analyzed.

The second point is very particular too. We always try to treat the components in terms of binary opposites, Such as man and woman, male and female. There is an advantage in such binary terms in that we can choose one only as the label and distinguish this in terms of pluses or minuses. E.g. [male] is written as [+male], [female] is written as [-male].we can also refer to the lack of a sex distinction as “plus

adult Non-adult Human male Man boy Human female woman girl or minus” with the symbol [±male]. Therefore, plus or minus can indicate the presence or absence of all the semantic features that define the word. And the brackets stand for the semantic feature that a language unit has.

Moreover, just one semantic feature to define a word is not enough. Hence, the meaning of the words can be defined in terms of semantic formula. e.g Man:[+Human+Adult+Male] Woman:[+Human+Adult+Female] Boy:[+Human+Non-Adult+male] Girl:[+Human+Non-Adult+Female]

There formulas are called the componential definitions. They can be regarded as formalized dictionary definitions. Thus, when we define a word in formula, there are two ways. The first way is that we can use a big bracket with several semantic features in it, and we use Plus+ or minus to indicate the presence or absence of all the semantic features. The second way is that we can use several brackets with semantic features in it. Besides, these formulas can show us the relations between words. Between man and woman, two of their semantic features are different, only the last feature male is opposite to female. So we get the conclusion that man is the antonym of woman.

And componential analysis has advantages and disadvantages.

There are three main advantages of componential analysis, including denote the conceptual meaning of words, denote and analyze the relationship among the lexemes, and judge the appropriateness of lexeme match.

Componential analysis is a precise and effective method to infer the meaning of lexemes. For example, we can analyze bachelor and spinster by using componential analysis: bachelor = [+human+adult+male-married], while spinster =

[+human+adult-male-married]. After the analysis, we can conclude that bachelor is a male adult unmarried human while spinster is a non-male adult unmarried human and the core meaning of each lexeme is obvious.

Componential analysis can reveal and analyze the symmetric relations among lexemes. Because the semantic features [+male] and [-male] are symmetric, the pairs

of lexemes such as spinster and bachelor, boy and girl, father and mother, uncle and aunt are symmetric. It can be discovered that the symmetric relation of the pairs of lexemes results from symmetric relation of a semantic feature. Let’s see some examples.

Synonymy can be realized by using componential analysis. For example, father and male parent contain the same components [+human+adult+male+married], so they are synonym for each other. So do bachelor and unmarried man.

Moreover, componential analysis provides a clear explanation of polysemy. For example, Andy is a handsome man and be a man, in every sentence, “man” can be respectively analyzed as: man = [+human+adult+male] ; man =

[+human+adult+male+strong+brave]. According to the analysis, the meaning of “man” is accordingly dissimilar to each other, so they are polysemy for each other. Furthermore, componential analysis precisely determines antonyms. For example, what is the antonym of woman? As a matter of fact, both man and girl can be the antonym of woman. In order to account for this, componential analysis is necessary here: woman = [+human+adult-male]; man=[+human+adult+male];

girl=[+human-adult-male]. Because one feature of man opposites to the feature of woman and a feature of girl reverses to the feature of woman, both girl and man are antonyms of woman .

In addition, componential analysis can reveal hyponymy. If the components of lexeme B are included in the features of lexeme A, they create the relationship of hyponym; lexeme A is the hyponym of lexeme B while lexeme B is the

super-ordinate of lexeme A. To elaborate this, I would like to cite another example, that is, child and boy can be respectively analyzed as: child=[+human-adult] and boy=[+human-adult+male]. As the components of child are contained in the components of boy, boy is the hyponym of child while child is the super-ordinate of boy.

Last but not least, componential analysis discriminates homoionym accurately. Between two lexemes, if the majority of semantic features are the same, one is regarded as a homoionym of the other. For example, kill and murder, they can be

analyzed as the following: kill=[+intend+cause+die]; murder=[+intend+cause+die]. On the one hand, kill refers to cause somebody or something to die either intentionally or unintentionally, on the other hand, murder refers to cause

intentionally. The differences of one feature contributes to the distinction of the two words, while the other two features, [+cause+die], are shared by both of the lexemes. As the similarities overweigh their dissimilarities, they are homonym for each other. Finally, componential analysis helps us to choose the right word or collocation. Some verbs require a human subject while some do not. For example, verbs of perception and cognition usually take a human subject. Verbs like elapse take a class of nouns referring to time as its objects.

However, componential analysis also has its disadvantages. First, it is impossible to make a list of the infinite number of semantic features. There are more than tens of thousands of words in the world, and most of them both have very general features and their unique senses. Second, the analysis of word meaning into its sense components is not enough. Third, componential analysis does not always work, because many words are often used figuratively without observing the normal”usage rules”. For example, threaten requires an animate object, for one can only threaten something animate. So ”to threaten one’ s enemy” is semantically correct. But “ to threaten someone’ s security” is also acceptable.