Semantics

118 BASIC SEMANTICS
A set diagram can also be used to represent boy: human, male, nonadult:
h
m
a
as the intersection of sets m, h, and -a. Semantic components can be used
in lexical analysis to identify lexical relations such as hyponymy.
The notion of compositionality can also be studied in relation to the
mathematical concept of function. Not only does formal semantics use
this concept extensively but most models of linguistic representation that
attempt to capture semantic relations use this concept too.
5.2.1. Theories and models of lexical decomposition
We shall now see how all the words in a semantic field are definable
in terms of the structural relations that they contract with one another
(Lyons,1995) and now it is this emphasis on languages as relational
structures that constitutes the essence of structuralism in linguistics.
In relation with the view that semantic representation should involve
semantic components, there exists a group of authors that share the idea
that these components are primitive elements which combine to form
units at the level of grammar. It is the nature of combination that
distinguishes the views adopted by the different authors. Katz and Fodor
originally proposed a list of components. Jackendoff proposed a more
articulated representation where components are arranged as functions