International Islamic University, Islamabad

GROUP :

1

• HUMA HAFEEZ

• SUMAIRA BIBI

• KINZA GHAFOOR

• HUMA ASLAM

APPLICATION OF LEXICAL RELATION

ON ‘THE KITE’ (short story)

BRIEF INTRO TO STORY

What is semantics ???

Semantics concerns knowledge of the meaning of lexical items

how the meanings of grammatical combinations of lexical items, including sentences, depend upon the meanings of their structure and constituents.

Semantics thus concerns knowledge of expression types that competent speakers bring to particular contexts of language use.

Lexical relations

• Lexical relations are relations between pairs

of lexemes which are sufficiently common to

constitute a general pattern. In Lexical

Relations Words are not only the ‘containers’

or as fulfilling ‘roles’. They can also have

‘relationships’. It’s like the meanings of words

in terms of their relationships.

Lexical relations can also be defined as

characterizing the meaning of a word not in

terms of component features, but in terms of

relationship to other words.

• It is the study of systematic, meaning related structures of

words.

• Lexical field or semantic field is the organization of related

words and expressions in to a system, which shows their

relationship with one another.

• e.g. set angry, sad, happy, depressed, afraid. This set of

word is a lexical field all its words refer to emotional states.

The branch of semantics that deals with the word meaning …

lexical semantics.

Semantics

Lexical relations

Semantic

field theory

Truth conditional

semantics

Semantic field theory

sets

Componential

analysis

Kinship

SETS

PART WHOLE RELATIONSHIP

SEQUENTIAL SETS

PARADIGMS

“A set of lexemes which cover a certain

conceptual domain and which bear certain specifiable

relations to one another“ ……Adrienne Lehrer (1985)

Part whole relationship

BODY

FACE HEADS LEGS

SEQUENTIAL /CYCLICAL SETS

SUMMER

AUTUMN

WNTER

SPRING

AS SET IS …

• A set is comprised of different items which share common

features, and on the bases of these features, they are

differentiated from others. It can be thoroughly analyzed by

the meticulous description of physical appearance of Betty

Bevan in the kite. Writer has used diverse colors.

EXAMPLE 1

1) “She had the same sharp features and the same rather small beady eyes but her lips were scarlet with paint, her cheeks lightly rouged and her short black hair permanently waved. Mrs. Sunbury took in all this at a glance, and she reckoned to a penny how much her smart rayon dress had cost her, her extravagantly high heeled shoes and the saucy hat on her head. Her frock was very short and she shoed a good deal of flesh colored stocking.”

From the given statement a set of different

colours can be made, which contains scarlet,

rouged, black and flesh coloured. The analysis

of this statement demonstrates that scarlet,

flesh-coloured and rouged confines within the

set of red colour.

• The definition of set will be further elaborated by the following example.“He was neat in his dress; he went to work in quiet grey trousers, a black coat and a bowler hat.”The scrutiny of the statement illustrates that trouser, coat and bowler hat comes under the category of set.

EXAMLE 2

COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

• “COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS IS BASED ON THE

PRESUMPTION THAT THE MEANING OF A WORD IS

COMPOSED OF SEMANTIC COMPONENTS.

Components Man Boy Women Girl

Male + + - -

Human + + + +

Adult + _ + -

Female - - + +

APPLICATION OF COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

• The classification of the set on the basis of

distinctive features is called componential

analysis, and how various members of the

same group are different from each other.

EXAMPLE

• “on principle the Sunbury’s were total abstainers, but on Sundays, when to make up for the frugal lunch consisting of scone and butter with a glass of milk, which Samuel had during the week, Beatrice gave him a good dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, for his health’s sake she liked him to have a glass of beer”. “She poured out tea and asked Herbert to give a cup to his lady friend. ‘Ask Miss Bevan if she’ll have some bread and butter or scone, Samuel, my dear.’

Scone bread butter pudding roast beef milk beer tea

EXPLANATION

Kinship Kinship systems make an interesting area for componential analysis. Kinship is universal since all humans are related to other humans through blood ties through marriage, but kinship systems differ from society to society.

A RELATIONSHIP IS A KIND OF PREDICATE. SENTENCE SUCH AS

AKBAR IS ZIA’S FATHER AND RABIA IS AYESHA’S SISTER HAVE A

PROPOSITIONAL; CONTENT THAT WE REPRESENT THIS WAY:

Theme Predicate Associate

Samuel Father-of Herbert

Betty wife-of Herbert

Kinship:-W. Somerset Maugham’s ‘The kite’, comprises four major

characters Mr. Samuel Sunbury, Miss. Beatrice, Herbert and

Betty Bevan.

•Kinship system can be explained through four primitive

features, parent, offspring, sibling and spouse.

• Mr. Samuel Sunbury and Miss Beatrice are husband and

wife, Herbert is their son and Betty Bevan is their daughter in

law. Samuel is M parent, Beatrice is F parent, Herbert is M

offspring and Betty is M offspring spouse.

• Herbert has consanguineal relation with Mr. and Mrs.

Sunbury. The relation of Miss Beatrice and Mr. Samuel;

Herbert and Betty is called affinities.

EXAMPL

E

Hyponyms

Antonyms

Synonyms

Converse antonym

s

Binary & non

binary antonym

s

Truth conditional semantics

Truth conditional semantics

Truth conditional semantics studies lexical relations by comparing

predications that can be made about the same referring expression.

It task is to account for the meaning relations between different

expressions

in a language.

ENTAILMENT

PARAPHRASE

CONTRADICTIONS

THREE SUCH RELATIONS ARE ……

HYPONYMYS

A hierarchical SENSE RELATION which exists between two terms in

which the SENSE of one is included in the other …

Example 1

“He was neat in his dress; he went to work in quiet grey

trousers, a black coat and a bowler hat”.

DRESS

COAT TROUSER HAT

Example 2

“She gave him back three half-crowns for his lunch and ten

shillings for pocket money”.

CURRENCY

DOLLAR POUNDS

HALF CROWNS

SHILLINGS

RUPEES

Synonymy

Two or more words with very closely related meanings are called synonymy. They can often, though not always, be substituted for each other in sentence in appropriate circumstances …

Example 1

1a) He just stood there for a while looking on and then strolled away.

2b) He’d told Betty he was just going for a walk to stretch his legs.

5) There was a fresh breeze blowing and a number of kites small and large were sailing through the air.

3) She was a little woman, but strong, active and wiry, with a sallow skin; sharp, regular features and small beady eyes.

4) it was not without satisfaction that Mrs. Sunbury perceived that Betty was offended. 4b) ‘She said she’d never been so insulted in her life. I had a rare job pacifying her.

2) The kite, the new, expensive kite, was in fragments. It had been savagely attacked with the hatchet, the woodwork was all in pieces, and the reel was hacked to bits.

EXPLANATION

The underline words have the same sense in the given context, they are the instances of synonymy and they are synonymous to each other. Synonyms share the same meaning but they never have the same range of syntactic occurrences. It can be noticed from the sentences given above that W. Somerset Maugham has expeditiously used synonyms in his literary piece, ‘The kite’.

• strolled and walk,• fragments and pieces,• offended and insulted, • breeze and air

ANTONYMYS

Two forms with opposite meanings are called

antonyms. It is defined as ‘Two sentences that differ

in polarity or mutually contradictory are antonyms’.

Some common examples are the pairs: alive/dead,

big/small, fast/slow, happy/sad, married/single,

rich/poor, true/false.

EXAMPLE 1

1a) ‘Perhaps the acquaintance is a bit short for that,’ said Mrs. Sunbury with a gracious smile.1b) ‘I hope so.’ said Mrs. Sunbury with an acid smile, ‘I Wouldn’t dream of letting you eat a piece of cake that’s been on the floor.

In the above sentences gracious smile and acid smile

are mutually contradictory words.

These have the same subject and have predicates

which are antonymous and contradictory.

Both of the sentences were uttered by Mrs. Sunbury,

but the act of smiling is opposite in each sentence.

2) He was a stubborn boy and he wasn’t going to be beaten. Something was wrong and it was up to him to put it right.

3) She hesitated. Mr. Sunbury fidgeted, he didn’t know whether to stay or go.

4) Mrs. Sunbury was anxious because she had never let him play with the children in the street. Evil communication

corrupts good manners. 5) They weren’t flying the big kite which he was used to, but a new one, a box kite, a small one on the model for which he

had made the designs for himself.

EXAMPLES

In the sentences mentioned above….

•gracious and acid; •wrong and right; •stay and go;• evil and good;• big and small Are antonyms of each other. They differ in polarity and are mutually contradictory. They are antonymous and are instances of antonyms.

Binary antonyms

• Non- binary antonyms

Binary antonyms are those in which only two options

are valid I.e rather door is open or close ….

Non-binary antonyms are those in which middle option is there …like OLD AND young ….it can be how old or how

young …..

Example

• 2) It was an accident like she

was sitting next me and she

dropped her bag and I picked it

up.In the above quoted sentence

dropped and picked are binary

antonyms.

1a) ‘I’m not going to let you, so that’s

that she shut the door and stood in front

of it’

1b) She said, I’ll see her. She opened the

door. Betty was standing on threshold.

Open and shut are binary antonyms

because the door is either open or shut

and there is no middle ground.

Example :

Non binary antonyms: • 1) They were contemptuous of smaller kites than

theirs and envious of bigger ones.Small and big are non binary antonyms and they are having various intermediate terms. Non binary antonyms are easily modified, like very big, quiet big, rather big, extremely small, very small, etc.

2) “Just the right height, said his mother ‘Not too tall and not too short.”In the above statement tall and short are binary antonyms.

CONCLUSIO

N …..

•ANY QUESTIONSSS?????