词汇学Chapter 5 Word Meaning and Componential Analysis.ppt

Componential analysis as a theory of word meaning is a useful and revealing technique for grasping conceptual meaning. Componential analysis can help demonstrate relations of meanings between words, especially their similarity in meaning. Componential analysis of words enables us to tell better whether a certain collocation or syntactic structure is acceptable or not. (1)* He has left this neighborhood for ten years. The verb “leave”, by componential analysis , contains a semantic feature, [+MOMENTARY], that is to say, it is not supposed to co-occur with “for +a period of time”. Thus, the syntactic structure is not acceptable. *A hammer broke into the bank. Hammer has the semantic feature [-ANIMATE], incapable of the agent of the action of “breaking into the bank”. So the collocation of “a hammer” and “break” in this sentence is unacceptable. In-class practice How can you use componential analysis to analyse the grammaticity of the sentences below: *Please hear carefully. *He rose his voice and put forward a different idea clearly. * Homework 1. 作业 2. 在第十二周上课前完成阅读 Chapter 5Word Meaning and Componential Analysis Session 6 Major Sections 1. Homework checking 2. Chapter 5 Word Meaning and Componential Analysis 1) meanings of “meaning” 2) motivation of meaning 3) types of meaning 4) componential analysis Generally, we agree that “ ‘Meaning” is what the form stands for. (p99)” Defining three important terms Reference and Denotation concept Sense Reference: The relation that holds between linguistic expressions and what they stand for in the world on particular occasions of utterance. (Lyons, 2000: 293) That is, “with the help of context, a word can refer to something definite.” Denotation: The relation between the linguistic form and the whole set of entities that it signifies. That is, “a word…refers to a whole set of [entities] of the same [class] without the distinction of size, co