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Componential Analysis
Componential analysis (feature analysis or contrast analysis) is the analysis of words through structured sets of semantic features, which are given as "present", "absent" or "indifferent with reference to feature". The method thus departs from the principle of compositionality. Componential analysis is a method typical of structural semantics which analyzes the components of a word's meaning. Thus, it reveals the culturally important features by which speakers of the language distinguish different words in a semantic field or domain (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 20). Examples ''man'' = MALE MATUREor ''woman'' = €“ MALE MATUREor ''boy'' = MALE €“ MATUREor ''girl'' = €“ MALE €“ MATUREor ''child'' = /– MALE €“ MATURE In other words, the word ''girl'' can have three basic factors (or semantic properties): human, young, and female. Another example, being edible is an important factor by which plants may be distinguished from one another (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 20). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantic Feature
A semantic feature is a component of the concept associated with a lexical item ('female' + 'performer' = 'actress'). More generally, it can also be a component of the concept associated with any grammatical unit, whether composed or not ('female' + 'performer' = 'the female performer' or 'the actress'). An individual semantic feature constitutes one component of a word's intention, which is the inherent sense or concept evoked. Linguistic meaning of a word is proposed to arise from contrasts and significant differences with other words. Semantic features enable linguistics to explain how words that share certain features may be members of the same semantic domain. Correspondingly, the contrast in meanings of words is explained by diverging semantic features. For example, ''father'' and ''son'' share the common components of "human", "kinship", "male" and are thus part of a semantic domain of male family relations. They differ in terms of "generation" and "adulthood", which is what ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague School
The Prague school or Prague linguistic circle is a language and literature society. It started in 1926 as a group of linguists, philologists and literary critics in Prague. Its proponents developed methods of structuralist literary analysis and a theory of the standard language and of language cultivation from 1928 to 1939. The linguistic circle was founded in the CafĂ© Derby in Prague, which is also where meetings took place during its first years. The Prague School has had a significant continuing influence on linguistics and semiotics. After the Czechoslovak coup d'Ă©tat of 1948, the circle was disbanded in 1952, but the Prague School continued as a major force in linguistic functionalism (distinct from the Copenhagen school or English Firthian – later Hallidean – linguistics). The American scholar Dell Hymes cites his 1962 paper, "The Ethnography of Speaking," as the formal introduction of Prague functionalism to American linguistic anthropology. The Prague ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Linguistics
Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system. It is derived from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's '' Course in General Linguistics'', published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. Saussure is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis, which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system. ''Structuralism'' as a term, however, was not used by Saussure, who called the approach ''semiology''. The term ''structuralism'' is derived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnoscience
Ethnoscience has been defined as an attempt "to reconstitute what serves as science for others, their practices of looking after themselves and their bodies, their botanical knowledge, but also their forms of classification, of making connections, etc." (Augé, 1999: 118). Origins Ethnoscience has not always focused on ideas distinct from those of " cognitive anthropology", "component analysis", or "the New Ethnography"; it is a specialization of indigenous knowledge-systems, such as ethno-botany, ethno-zoology, ethno-medicine, etc. (Atran, 1991: 595). According to Scott Atran, ethnoscience looks at culture with a scientific perspective (1991: 650), although most anthropologists abhor this definition. Ethnoscience helps to understand how people develop with different forms of knowledge and beliefs, and focuses on the ecological and historical contributions people have been given (Atran, 1991: 650). Tim Ingold describes ethnoscience as a cross-discipline (2000: 160). He writes that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prototype Theory
Prototype theory is a theory of categorization in cognitive science, particularly in psychology and cognitive linguistics, in which there is a graded degree of belonging to a conceptual category, and some members are more central than others. It emerged in 1971 with the work of psychologist Eleanor Rosch, and it has been described as a "Copernican revolution" in the theory of categorization for its departure from the traditional Aristotelian categories.Coșeriu (2000) It has been criticized by those that still endorse the traditional theory of categories, like linguist Eugenio Coseriu and other proponents of the structural semantics paradigm. In this prototype theory, any given concept in any given language has a real world example that best represents this concept. For example: when asked to give an example of the concept '' furniture'', a '' couch'' is more frequently cited than, say, a ''wardrobe''. Prototype theory has also been applied in linguistics, as part of the map ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transformational Grammar
In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language and involves the use of defined operations (called transformations) to produce new sentences from existing ones. The method is commonly associated with American linguist Noam Chomsky. Generative algebra was first introduced to general linguistics by the structural linguist Louis Hjelmslev although the method was described before him by Albert Sechehaye in 1908. Chomsky adopted the concept of transformations from his teacher Zellig Harris, who followed the American descriptivist separation of semantics from syntax. Hjelmslev's structuralist conception including semantics and pragmatics is incorporated into functional grammar. Historical context Transformational anal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexical Field Theory
Lexical field theory, or ''word-field theory'', was introduced on March 12, 1931 by the German linguist Jost Trier. He argued that words acquired their meaning through their relationships to other words within the same word-field. An extension of the sense of one word narrows the meaning of neighboring words, with the words in a field fitting neatly together like a mosaic. If a single word undergoes a semantic change, then the whole structure of the lexical field changes. The lexical field is often used in English to describe terms further with use of different words. Trier's theory assumes that lexical fields are easily definable closed sets, with no overlapping meanings or gaps. These assumptions have been questioned and the theory has been modified since its original formulation.Richard M. Hogg, Norman Francis Blake, R. W. Burchfield, Suzanne Romaine, Roger Lass, John Algeo, ''The Cambridge History of the English Language: The beginnings to 1066'', Cambridge University Press, 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generative Semantics
Generative semantics was a research program in theoretical linguistics which held that syntactic structures are computed on the basis of meanings rather than the other way around. Generative semantics developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid-1960s, but stood in opposition to it. The period in which the two research programs coexisted was marked by intense and often personal clashes now known as the linguistics wars. Its proponents included Haj Ross, Paul Postal, James McCawley, and George Lakoff, who dubbed themselves "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". Generative semantics is no longer practiced under that name, though many of its central ideas have blossomed in the cognitive linguistics tradition. It is also regarded as a key part of the intellectual heritage of head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG) and construction grammar, and some of its insights live on in mainstream generative grammar. Pieter Seuren has developed a semantic syntax wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Semantics
Structural semantics (also structuralist semantics) is a linguistic school and paradigm that emerged in Europe from the 1930s, inspired by the structuralist linguistic movement started by Ferdinand de Saussure's 1916 work "'' Cours De Linguistique Generale''" (A Course in General Linguistics).Geeraerts, D. (2009) Structuralist Semantics' in Geeraerts (2009) ''Theories of Lexical Semantics'' ch.2 Examples of approaches within structural semantics are Lexical field theory (1931-1960s), relational semantics (from the 1960s by John Lyons) and componential analysis (from the 1960s by Eugenio Coseriu, Bernard Pottier and Algirdas Greimas). From the 1960s these approaches were incorporated into generative linguistics. Other prominent developer of structural semantics have been Louis Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste, Klaus Heger, Kurt Baldinger and Horst Geckeler.Rastier, F. (1987) ''Sémantique interprétative'' (3rd edition 2009) Logical positivism asserts that structural se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Principle Of Compositionality
In semantics, mathematical logic and related disciplines, the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. This principle is also called Frege's principle, because Gottlob Frege is widely credited for the first modern formulation of it. The principle was never explicitly stated by Frege, and it was arguably already assumed by George Boole decades before Frege's work. The principle of compositionality is highly debated in linguistics, and among its most challenging problems there are the issues of contextuality, the non-compositionality of idiomatic expressions, and the non-compositionality of quotations. History Discussion of compositionality started to appear at the beginning of the 19th century, during which it was debated whether what was most fundamental in language was compositionality or contextuality, and compositionality was usuall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eating
Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter, and detritivores eat detritus. Fungi digest organic matter outside their bodies as opposed to animals that digest their food inside their bodies. For humans, eating is an activity of daily living. Some individuals may limit their amount of nutritional intake. This may be a result of a lifestyle choice, due to hunger or famine, as part of a diet or as religious fasting. Eating practices among humans Many homes have a large kitchen area devoted to preparation of meals and food, and may have a dining room, dining hall, or another designated area for eating. Most societies also have restaurants, food courts, and food vendors so that people may eat whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Female
Female ( symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and males are results of the anisogamous reproduction system, wherein gametes are of different sizes, unlike isogamy where they are the same size. The exact mechanism of female gamete evolution remains unknown. In species that have males and females, sex-determination may be based on either sex chromosomes, or environmental conditions. Most female mammals, including female humans, have two X chromosomes. Female characteristics vary between different species with some species having pronounced secondary female sex characteristics, such as the presence of pronounced mammary glands in mammals. In humans, the word ''female'' can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity. Etymology and usage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
