A Basic Course in Anthropological Linguistics (Studies in Linguistic ...

or
[-canine] - [+canine]
dog (male) - pup (female)
[+adult] - [-adult]
and
[+male] - [+female]
MEANINGS 105
As in the case of phonetic distinctive features, there are also some predictable
processes in the assignment of semantic features. Here are two of them:
(1) If an item possesses the feature [+human], then it also possesses
[+animate], and vice versa.
(2) If an item possesses the feature [+male], then it possesses of course
the feature [-female], and vice versa, if it possesses the feature
[+female] it also possesses the feature [-male].
Although this is a useful way of establishing the meaning of lexical items
in relative terms, it can produce anomalous results. The opposition above
between heifer and dog @male) can be given as either [+bovine] - [-bovine]
or [-canine] - [+canine]. There really is no way to establish which one is,
conceptually, the actual trigger in the opposition. Moreover, when certain words
are defined in terms of features, it becomes obvious that to keep them distinct
one will need quite a vast array of semantic features. The whole exercise
would thus become artificial and convoluted. One might need as many features
as words! Notice, as well, that not all distinctions are given word status.
Although the term bitch does exist in English to refer denotatively to a female
dog, it is rarely if ever used any longer because of the connotations it has taken
on in the human domain. This simple example shows that denotative meaning
can hardly ever, in the abstract, be determined without reference to connotation
and other processes.
It is also to be noted that in studying languages of different cultures,
different semantic feature arrays may have to be drawn up, since distinctions
as to what is meaningful will vary. Nevertheless, as in phonological analysis,
the technique of semantic distinctive feature analysis can be used simply as an
organizing grid to understand the data collected at “face value.” It is a starting
point in fieldwork analysis. Obviously, the larger “meaning picture” will
subsequently become dominant in refining the overall analysis of meaning.
One way to avoid the problem of deciding which features are relevant is
to group words that share one or more features together into what are known