COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS OF SEMASIOLOGICAL STUDY

National Technical University of Ukraine « Kiev Polytechnic Institute»

(37 Prospect Peremogy, Kiev 03056, Ukraine)

Zhanetta Romanyuk

The study of meaning is a permanent interest of scholars. The disciplines and techniques of linguistics are directed at investigating meaning [Firth, 1991: 70-71].

The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words is called semasiology (Greek sëmasia ‘signification’, sêma sign’, sèmantikos ‘significant’).

The main objects of semasiological study are semantic development of words, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e., synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems, etc. [Arnold, 1986: 112].

The two terms, semasiology and semantics, are sometimes used as synonyms referring to the science of meaning. According to Prof. J.R. Firth, the English word for the historical study of change of meaning was semasiology, until the new term semantics was introduced into linguistic studies.

As far back as the 1820s, German classicist C.Chr. Reisig set up semasiology as^- an independent division of linguistics, and suggested that it should investigate the conditions governing the development of meaning. French philologist Michel Bréal argued that, alongside of phonetics and morphology, there ought also to be a science of meaning, which he proposed to call la sémantique, from the Greek sëma ‘sign’. In 1897 he published his Essai de sémantique which was translated into English under the title Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning. This translation played a decisive role in the diffusion of the new science and its name.

The term semantics has become highly ambiguous. It is used to cover several different meanings. It is used to refer to the study of meaning in linguistics. It is also used to denote the meaning of a word, sign, sentence, etc. Semantics, also called significs, is a branch of semiotics dealing with the relations between signs and what they denote. General semantics is a philosophical approach to language exploring the relationship between the form of language and its use and attempting to improve the capacity to express ideas.

For some linguists the term semasiology is preferable for the science of word meaning because it is less ambiguous.

As semasiology deals with lexical meaning only, it may be regarded as a branch of linguistic semantics which deals with all kinds of linguistic meaning (i.e., meaning of all kinds of units - words, morphemes, grammatical forms, word combinations, sentences).

The fundamental term of semantics, meaning, is ambiguous and difficult to define. C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards devoted to this problem their famous book on semantics, The Meaning of Meaning, first published in 1923. Here they listed no less than 16 different definitions of the term - or 23 if each subdivision is counted separately [Ullmann, 1973: 5].

The definition of lexical meaning has been attempted more than once in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. The disciples of Ferdinand de Saussure consider meaning to be the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself [Arnold, 1986: 113]. This is known as analytical or referential- denotational concept of meaning which is schematically represented below[Ullmann,1973: 6].

In this diagram, the name denotes the phonetic and graphic form of the word; the sense is the information conveyed by the name (concept); the thing is the non-linguistic phenomenon to which the word refers (denotatum or referent). The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate relation between the word and the referent: it is established only through the concept.

Since the 'thing' is non-linguistic, it has no place in a purely linguistic analysis. Linguists can confine their attention to one side of the triangle: the line connecting the name with the sense. Between the two terms, there exists a reciprocal and reversible relationship: the name calls up the sense and vice versa, the sense makes us think of the name. It is this reciprocal relationship between name and sense - or between signifiant (‘the signifier’) and signfie ('the signified’), in Saussure's terminology - that linguists call the meaning of the word [Ullmann, 1973: 6-7].

Descriptive linguistics of the Bloomfieldian trend defines the meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered and the response which it calls forth in the hearer [Ullmann, 1973: 7].

Both ways of approach afford no possibility of a further investigation of semantic problems in strictly linguistic terms, and therefore, if taken as a basis for general linguistic theory, give no insight into the mechanism of meaning [Arnold, 1986: 113-114].

According to Stephen Ullmann [1973: 7], the heel of Achilles of the analysis of meaning is what has been called the ‘sense’ in the diagram. The trouble is that the sense is an abstract, intangible mental entity, accessible only through introspection and linguistics cannot be content to rely on a procedure of people looking into their minds, each into his own.

Some of L. Bloomfield's successors went so far as to exclude semasiology from linguistics on the ground that meaning could not be studied objectively, and was not part of language but an aspect of the use to which language is put. This point of view was never generally accepted. The more general opinion is well revealed in R. Jakobson's pun Linguistics without meaning is meaningless.

The majority of linguists agree in one basic principle: they all point out that lexical meaning is the realization of the notion by means of a definite language system [Arnold, 1986:114].

The notional or conceptual.content of a word is expressed by its denotative meaning (also called referential) which may be of two types, according to whether the word's function is significative and evokes a general notion or demonstrative, i.e., identifying and denotes an actually existing individual thing.

The emotional content of the word is its capacity to evoke or directly express speaker’s feelings and attitude. It is rendered by the emotional or expressive counterpart of meaning, also called emotive charge, affective meaning, connotative meaning. The expressive counterpart of meaning is optional.

Within the affective connotations of a word researchers distinguish its capacity to evoke or directly express: a) emotion, e.g., daddy as compared to father; b) evaluation, e.g., clique as compared to group; c) intensity, e.g, adore as compared to love; d) stylistic colouring; e.g., slay as compared to kill [ Arnold, 1986: 115].

The complexity of word meaning is manifold. Apart from the lexical meaning including denotative and connotative meaning, it is always combined with the grammatical meaning defined as an expression in speech of relationship between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. Lexical meaning of every word is strongly dependent upon the grammatical meaning. To illustrate this, I.V. Arnold [1986: 115] considers the word adored in the following epigram by Oscar Wilde: Men can be analyzed, women - merely adored. Here adored has a lexical meaning and a grammatical meaning. The grammatical meaning is that of a participle II of a transitive verb. The denotational counterpart of the lexical meaning realizes the corresponding notion, and consists of several components, namely- feeling, attachment and respect.

Componential analysis is one of the modern methods of semantic research. It attempts to reduce meaning to its smallest components, hence the term componential analysis.

Componential approach to meaning has a long history in linguistics. The first researchers who suggested and developed the method of componential analysis were American anthropologists- linguists F.G.Lounsbury and W.H. Goodenough who studied the American Indian languages. Their particular interest lay in studying kinship terms of various Amerindian tribes.

In the 1950s-80s there appeared a sizable linguistic literature of articles and book-length monographs devoted to componential analysis. Many linguists were concerned with componential analysis: J. Fodor, J.Katz, E. Nida, Y.D. Apresyan, I.V. Arnold, R.S. Ginzburg, E.M.Mednikova, O.N. Seliverstova, I.A. Sternin.

Special procedures of componential analysis have been developed to determine the components of each meaning and represent this as a combination of elementary senses.

Such complexity of word meanings, however, is surely no sufficient reason for excluding the semantic side of language from the field of linguistics.

Whereas the phonological and even the grammatical resources of a language are closely organized and limited in number, the vocabulary is a loose assemblage of a vast multitude of elements. The numerical contrast is striking: there are forty-four or forty-five phonemes in English while on the other hand the Oxford Dictionary is said to contain over 400,000 words: a ratio of nearly 1 to 10,000. But there is an equally sharp contrast in cohesion and stability. New words are continuously formed or borrowed from outside sources to fill a genuine gap or to suit the whims of the speaker; new meanings are attached to old words [Ullmann, 1975: 11-12].

It is clear, then, that the vast, unstable and loosely organized congeries of words which we call vocabulary cannot be analyzed with the same scientific precision as the phonological and grammatical system of a language.

A number of attempts have been made to find efficient procedures for the analysis. An important step forward was taken in the 1950s with the development of componential analysis.

References

1. Arnold I.V. The English Word.-Moscow: Vyssaja Skola, 1986-P.112-115.

2. Firth J.R. Papers in Linguistics- M.: Vyssaja Skola, 1991. –P.70-71.

3. Ullmann S. Meaning and Style.- Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973.- P.5-20.