Understanding Lexicology: Lexical and Semantic Fields
Understanding Lexicology
The lexicon is the set of words that form a language. Lexicology is the discipline that studies the structure, formation, and organization of words. Specifically, it looks at:
- The inventory of lexical units (words), which contains lexemes, morphemes, and derivative formant cults. This list is extendable in certain categories and closed in others.
- The set of rules that allow the formation of new words.
- The set of rules and restrictions governing the combination of lexical units according to the basic meaning. For example, the verb requires an animated breathing agent (dog sick or adjective …); kindly be referred to a mortal being considered, such person.
- Lexical fields.
The Lexical Field
A lexical field is a set of lexemes in the same speech about the meaning and organized according to semantic relations that can be established between the units that form part.
- Semantic inclusion
Semantic inclusion relations are properly ordered so that the units of the lexical field are more general to more particular and vice versa. Between the lexical field of citrus fruit, orange, or tangerine, different relationships are established:
- Hyperonymy. A hyperonym is a word of another, or a series of words when the meaning is more generic than that of words which includes in its capacity designation. Fruit is a hyperonym of orange and tangerine. Community portal dictionaries use the definitions to head.
- Hyponymy. A word is a hyponym of another when its meaning is more specific. Citrus, for example, is a hyponym of fruit, and mandarin orange and so are their hyperonym citric.
- Cohyponymy. Two words are cohyponyms when sharing a hyperonym, opposed to a semantic feature, but similar to most features. Orange and mandarin are cohyponyms.
- Semantic similarity
Semantic similarity exists within fields between lexical units with a similar or identical meaning. These relationships are also called synonymy. There are three types:
- Totals are synonymous words and interchangeable in all contexts that mean the same thing. Ass / donkey
- Synonyms are words that geographical or geosinonyms mean exactly the same in one or another geographical variety. Exit (Catalan general) / exit (including Valencia)
- Partial synonyms are words with similar meanings, but with some distinctive feature that makes them interchangeable in some contexts but not in all. Talk / chat
- Semantic opposition
Semantic opposition exists within the camps between lexical units with an opposed meaning. Called antonymy, it is found in three different situations:
- Two words are complementary antonyms when the assertion of one involves the negation of the other, so both together cover all possible meanings. Unmarried / Married
- Two words are gradual antonyms when the polar opposition is gradual and there is an intermediate between that means and what one expresses the other. Between large and small, medium exists.
- Two words are relational antonyms when a sense and gives reason for another. Teachers / students
The Semantic Field
A semantic field is a set of lexemes of different grammatical categories and related to the meaning or scope or social activity in which they usually appear. A semantic field usually contains various lexical fields.
Dictionaries and Lexicography
Lexicography is the applied branch of lexicology that handles the preparation of dictionaries. In addition to collecting the lexicon of languages, dictionaries are tools that aim to meet certain requirements for consultation, which respond with different types of dictionaries.
- The macrostructure of a dictionary is the list of entries and contains everything that has to do with it, such as the choice that justifies these inputs and their management.
- The microstructure of a dictionary is the organization of the information collected about each word according to the purpose of the dictionary: grammatical information, semantic information, usage examples, and syntagmatic compounds that have the word as a core element.