4.现代英语词汇学.ppt

1、现代英语词汇学（第四章）Semantic Features,The linguistic meaning of a word is the set of abstracted characteristics necessary to distinguish the category which the word names from all other categories. These abstracted characteristics are known as semantic features. Semantic features are used to describe semant

2、ic universals that may characterize all languages. All languages, for example, distinguish nouns that categorize abstract from concrete experience; animate from inanimate referents; human,from non-human; male from female. The word “man”, for example, has the following semantic features: Human, Adult

3、, Male, and Concrete. This kind of analysis is known as componential analysis. Semantic features are established on the basis of binary opposition (语义对分法). For example, we can factor out male-female as the binary opposition that holds between the noun pairs: man woman boy girl rooster hen bull cow,T

4、o capture this generalization, a binary feature Male can be established. With the same list we can factor out an opposition between human and non-human: man rooster woman hen boy bull girl cow and the opposition adult-young as in: man boy woman girl,We can thus set up three binary semantic features:

5、 Male, Adult, Human. Using these terms we can characterize man, woman, boy, girl, bull and cow semantically as, among other things: man +Male, +Adult, +Human woman Male, +Adult, +Human boy +Male, Adult, +Human girl Male, Adult, +Human bull +Male, +Adult, -Human cow Male, +Adult, Human ,Thus from the

6、 above six words six sense components or semantic features Male, Non-male, Adult, Non-adult, Human and Non-human are listed. In other words, the meaning of these six words are made up of combinations of some of the six sense components. “A particular characteristic of componential analysis is that i

7、t attempts as far as possible to treat components in terms of binary opposites, e.g. between Male and Female, Animate and Inanimate, Adult and Non-adult. Notionally (Seen from the symbols) there is an advantage in such binary terms in that we can choose only one as the label and,distinguish this in

8、terms of plusses and minuses. Thus Male and Female are written as Male and Male and so on. We can, moreover, refer to the lack of a sex distinction as plus or minus with the symbol Male.” ( Palmer 1981:111) The nouns listed above will be distinguished from others like book, chair, dictionary by the

9、feature Animate; we will also need a feature Vegetable to distinguish plants . The feature Male would not be relevant for many +Vegetable nouns, but Adult would be, as in tree/sapling (young tree). Nouns are further subcategorized according to whether they are Abstract.,Boy, table, book contrast wit

10、h hope, thought, problem in this feature. Nouns are also subcategorized according to the feature Count. This feature distinguishes countable nouns from so-called “mass” nouns / material nouns. A distinction relevant to verbs is whether they are primarily dynamic verbs or stative verbs. Verbs can als

11、o be subcategorized for completiveness versus duration. Other features for verbs produce other subcategorizations, such as causative verbs, non-causative verbs, volitive verbs (verbs relating will, desire etc), non-volitive verbs and many others.,Adjectives can also be distinguished from each other

12、by the feature Dynamic. Dynamic adjectives are honest, patient, etc.; stative adjectives are short, tipsy, etc. The differences between dynamic verbs and stative verbs on the one hand and stative verbs and adjectives on the other can be shown as follows: 1.Dynamic verbs and adjectives can appear in

13、imperative sentences but their counterparts cannot: Kick the ball! (dynamic v.) Persuade him to leave! (dynamic v.),Be honest! (dynamic adj.) Be patient! (dynamic adj.) * Own the house! (stative v.) * Be tipsy/drunk! (stative adj.) 2. Dynamic verbs and adjectives may take the so called progressive a

14、spect but their counterparts cannot: The girl is kicking the ball! (dynamic v.) He is being honest. ( dynamic v.) *The girl is resembling her father.( stative v.) *The men were being tipsy. (stative adj.),Dynamic verbs and adjectives can appear in a number of embedded sentences (内嵌句）in which non dyn

15、amic verbs and adjectives cannot: I told the girl to persuade him to leave. I told the girl to be patient. * I told the girl to own the house. * I told the girl to resemble her father. In actual usage, there are some verbs that are active in form but passive in meaning, as can be shown in the follow

16、ing sentences: The fields ploughs easily after the rain. Dried food stores easily in summer camp.,Using case grammar to analyze the above sentences semantically, we can find that plough functions in the role called “instrument” (plough= with the plough), though occurring in subject position field an

17、d food function in the role called “Patient” (the role of the being or thing that is affected by the action or event) though occurring as subjects. This analysis made on the basis of the deep structure of a sentence. Case grammar refers to an approach to grammatical analysis devised by the American

18、linguist Charles Fillmore in the late 1960s, within the general orientation of Generative Grammar.,It is primarily a reaction against the Standard Theory analysis if sentences, where notion such as subject, object, etc. are neglected in favor of analysis in terms of NP, VP, etc. By focusing on synta

19、ctic functions, however, it was felt that several important kinds of semantic relationship could be represented, which it would be impossible to capture. A set of sentences such as The key opened the door, The door was opened by/ with the key, The door opened, the man opened the door,with a key, etc

20、. illustrate several “stable” semantic roles, despite the varying surface grammatical structures. In each case the key is “instrumental”, the door is the entity affected by the action, and so on. ( from A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics by David Crystal ) A knowledge of the semantic fe

21、atures of words 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 as in “John forgave your rudeness”, but a tree or a door can not forgive unless,used metaphorically. Verbs like elapse take a cl