Semantics

PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS I: A WORD VIEW 121
be explained and decomposed into more simple terms. The very fact that
any explanation can be given establishes that it is semantically
decomposable. In this vein, Lyons (1977: 12) also says that:
any formalism is parasitic upon ordinary everyday use of language, in that
it must be understood intuitively in the basis of ordinary language.
From this point of view, relying directly on ordinary natural language
simply makes virtue out of necessity. There is no natural syntax attached
to it because NSM is not attached to English words. Goddard also refers
to Lyons as an inheritor of Jespersen’s view that there are notional universals
in language which spring from the nature of extra-linguistic reality.
A tentative conclusion about componential analysis taking into account
its multiple drawbacks and criticisms is that, as Lyons says, it should not
be taken
as a technique for the representation of all of the sense (and nothing but
the sense) of lexemes, but as a way of formalizing that part of their prototypical,
nuclear or focal, sense which they share with other lexemes.
5.3. LEXICAL MEANING
Different types of meaning were introduced in lesson 1. We learned
then that there are two pairs of related distinctions: functional meaning
and content meaning, and grammatical meaning and lexical meaning.
The former emphasized the relational content of words such as and, or,
under, between etc., in contrast with the full semantic content of words
such as kill, cherries or essential. We also explained in that lesson that there
was a difference between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning. In
this lesson these differences will be studied in more detail.
We have also learned how the distinction between closed-set-items
and open-set-items is related to the fact that there is a functional meaning
and a content meaning. Functional meaning is restricted to a limited
number or words in each language whereas content meaning can be found
in a limitless number of words.
The distinction between closed-set items and open-set items refers to
the fact that there are usually a limited number of terms in every language
that are relevant precisely because of the role they play in such a language
in contrast with the unlimited number of terms that real life requires.
The main function of closed-set items is relational whereas the main
function of open-set items is usually referential or denotational. Both
closed and open set words carry meaning, but their different functions