Paradigmatic relations in vocabulary

I. Logical approach

Within the frame of the logical approach lexical system was comprehended as a set of lexical units no matter what intralinguistic connections existed between the words. The lexical continuum used to be divided on the logical basis. This approach is to be found in ideographic dictionaries (from Greek ideo – ‘concept, image’). The first dictionary of this kind was compiled by Peter Roget in 1852, it was named “Roget’s International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases”. The Latin word thesaurus means ‘treasury’. P. Roget was a doctor and collected words. How did P. Roget classify the words? He refused the alphabetic principle and grouped the words according to notions they express. Roget’s thesaurus divides the English lexicon into six larger categories: abstract relation, space, matter, intellect, volition, affections. Then further subdivisions come. The whole classification is based on logical crirerion. For example, the word form enters systemic relations with other words, as Diagram 9 shows.

Diagram 9.

Space: dimension, form

The 20^th century also sees lexical system as a set of conceptual fields corresponding to lexical fields, but provides the analysis for notion and meaning correlation. The term ‘semantic field’ was introduced to denote the correlation. The starting point of the theory of semantic fields was J. Trier’s work (a German linguist; the beginning of the 20^th century) on intellectual terms in Old and Middle High German. The disadvantage of his theory is that he equals notion and meaning which agrees with the logical approach. For the most part, however, there is no one-to-one correlation between notions and words, and the classification of notions, even if it were feasible, is a very poor help for classification of meanings and their systematic presentation.

II. Semantic approach

The term ‘field’ turned out to be highly productive in linguistics. Semantic field is the extensive organization of related words and expressions of different parts of speech into a system which shows their relations to one another. Here the significance of each unit is determined by its neighbours. The semantic areas of the units limit one another and cover up the whole sphere. For instance, the semantic field “Human mind” consists of the following groups, including the words of different parts of speech:

nouns – mind, reason, cognition, idea, concept, judgement, analysis, conclusion, etc.;

verbs – think, conclude, consider, reflect, meditate, reminisce, contemplate, etc.;

adjectives – intelligent, wise, smart, knowledgeable, witless, dim-witted, etc.

The criterion for joining words together into semantic fields is the identity of one of the components of their meaning found in all the lexical units making up these lexical groups. Differential component discriminates between the meanings. For example, the semantic feature “moving in space” is common for the verbs to go, to run, to fly, to float, and “speed”, “manner” and “environment” are their differential features.

Semantic field has its hierarchical structure – the nucleus and periphery. The center is made up by the words the given semantic feature enters the main (primary, central) meaning, for example in the semanticfield of emotions fear and anger have semantic feature ‘feeling’ in their primary meaning, but fire and bile have it in transferred meanings and, thus, make the periphery of the field. Think of the center and periphery for the semantic field of colours(blue, red, yellow, black, purple,etc.), the semantic field of kinship terms (mother, father, brother, cousin, mother-in-law,etc.).

Semantic fields have density. Some Northern peoples have more than 40 words to name snow, Southern peoples – of about 600 words to name camel. Judicial sphere of communication is considered semantically dense, the proof of the fact are the words like hijacking, bulling, harassment, which make semantic lacunas in Russian. Terms of kinship in Russian and Chinese are more numerous than in English, though the transfer to nuclear family leads to their obsolescence, for example, there are words деверь, золовка, свояченица, but few people can explain what they mean.

There can be certain lexical gaps in semantic fields. Lexical gap is the absence of a word in a particular place in a semantic field of a language. Compare the following semantic sets of Table 5.

Table 5.

Lexico-semantic group is singled out on purely linguistic principles: words of the same part of speech are united if they have one or many semantic components in common (which is the basis of opposition) but differ in some other semantic components constituting their semantic structures. For example, the word saleswoman may be analysed into the semantic components ‘human’, ‘female’, ‘professional’. Consequently the word saleswoman may be included into a lexico-semantic group under the heading of “human”together with the words man, woman, boy, girl,etc. and under the heading “female”with the words girl, wife, woman and also together with the words teacher, pilot, butcher,etc., as “professionals”. This way one can make denotative maps.

Lexico-semantic groups are also structured hierarchically, that relations within such groups are paradigmatic. Study the hierachical structure of the lexico-sematic group “plant” (Diagram 10).

Diagram 10.

Hypernym (hyperonym, superordinate)is a generic term, a member of the upper level with a more general meaning.

Hyponym is a specific term, a member of the lower level with a more specific meaning.

Co-hyponyms (equonyms) are several specific names which are at the same level in a classification system.

For example, the word plant is a hypernym for the word tree, since the meaning of ‘tree’ is “included” into the meaning of plant. In other words, tree with its more specific name is a hyponym of plant. At the same time tree is a hypernym for other words with more specific and narrow meanings: pine, oak, ash, maple. In respect to tree these words are hyponyms, but in respect to each other they are co-hyponyms.