Semantic fields

Every language cuts up the world in different ways. It is not simply that one language sometimes has more subdivisions than another in certain areas (for example, Arabic has numerous words for different types of camel, where English has a variety of words for different

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types of dog). The situation is far more complicated. The set of words covering a certain area in one language is unlikely to correspond to those in any other language, even when the speakers share similar cultures. This is often illustrated by the field of colour terminology. For example, Welsh and English speakers have in the past led fairly similar lives, yet Welsh glas traditionally covers not only the area that English speakers would call blue, but also part of green and grey as well (Figure 44). Frequently nowadays the traditional colour bound­aries tend to be confused with the English ones.

Yet even colour terms reflect a spuriously simple situation, since the spectrum has well-defined boundaries. More usually, we are faced with a much messier state of affairs. For example, it is impossible to translate the sentence, 'lite cat sat on the mat accurately into French without fur­ther information about the state of affairs described. We would have to decide arbitrarily whether the cat was sitting on a doormat (paillassori), a small rug (tapis), or a bedside mat (descente de lit). None of the French words corresponds exactly to our word 'mat' or 'rug' or 'carpet': tapis is often used to translate English 'carpet' as well as 'rug'.

These examples show us that for linguists, it is important to deal with the lexical structure of a language rather than with isolated words. The word green in English only becomes meaningful in rela­tion to its neighbours in the set of colour terms: it denotes the colour between blue and yellow. Purple denotes the colour between red and blue. In semantics, as in phonology and syntax, language is not an accidental junk-heap consisting of a haphazard collection of different items. Instead, it is more like a jigsaw puzzle, where each piece fits into those which surround it, and where an isolated piece simply does not make sense if it is moved from its place in the overall pattern. We have a situation where,

'every word is at home

Taking its place to support the others'.

(T. S. ELIOT)

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In such a situation, it is useful to look at groups of lexical items which seem to belong together. Each item in a group or set can be defined by its place in relation to the other members of the set (Figure 45). Adolescent denotes someone who is no longer a child, but not yet an adult. Cool is the temperature between cold and warm. For many peo­ple, copse refers to an entity between a tree and a wood.

Fig. 45

Such a study can give a useful picture of the way in which a particular semantic area is divided up. It would be wrong, however, to assume that lexical items cover an entire field like a smooth mosaic. In fact, there are plenty of gaps and overlaps. In English a gap is sometimes claimed to exist in Uie field of dead objects. We have a word corpse meaning 'body of dead human being' and carcase meaning 'body of dead animal', but no comparable word for a dead plant. But overlapping is perhaps the great­est problem. For example, cow, princess and tigress overlap in that they are all female. Calf, puppy and baby overlap in that they are all young and immature. Murder, assassinate and execute all involve the notion of killing. Let us consider how to deal with this type of problem.