A semantic study on the comparative and contextual meaning of the verb run.

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xii ABSTRACT

Rianugraha, Yose. 2012. A Semantic Study on the Comparative and Contextual Meaning of the Verb RUN. Yogyakarta: English Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University.

This study belongs to a semantic study that attempts to examine the meaning of a word scientifically by conducting a comparative analysis. The analysis is carried out by comparing a word with other words which share the same semantic domain. The writer chose the verb run to be analyzed by comparing it with the other verbs in the same semantic domain, i.e. race, gallop, and sprint. The reason why the writer chose this verb is because it has a large number of meanings.

There are two problems to be solved. The first is what are the semantic properties of the conceptual meaning of the verb run when it is compared with the verbs race, gallop and sprint. The second is what semantic properties are related to the conceptual meaning of the verb run when the verb run is put beyond the conceptual meaning. The verb run used by the researcher in this study is run as a single verb and a phrasal verb.

To achieve the objectives, the research employed library or dictionary research for collecting data. The researcher used Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, third edition, published in 2001. First, the writer compared the verb run with other verbs, i.e. race, gallop, and sprint, in order to find the semantic properties between those verbs and assigned the values for each property by giving ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ sign. To determine the semantic features, the verbs are defined on the conceptual or denotative meaning from the dictionary. After that, the writer searched other meanings beyond the conceptual meaning of the verb run found in the dictionary to determine the context. When the contexts were found and put in sentences, the next step was to find the semantic properties that are related in the comparative analysis.

The results show that there are five semantic properties which appeared in the comparative analysis between the verb run and the verb race, gallop and sprint, namely manner, objective, agent or experiencer, distance, and tool. From the contextual analysis, the writer found nineteen contexts within twenty seven meanings of the verb run as a single verb and fifty-two contexts with nineteen prepositions used in phrasal verb. Both as a single and phrasal verb, the highest semantic properties related to the comparative analysis is agent or experiencer, followed by objective, manner, tool, and distance.


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xiii

ABSTRAK

Rianugraha, Yose. 2012. A Semantic Study on the Comparative and Contextual Meaning of the Verb RUN. Yogyakarta: English Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University.

Penelitian ini merupakan sebuah studi semantik yang bertujuan untuk menganalisa arti sebuah kata secara ilmiah dengan melakukan analisa perbandingan kata. Analisa dilakukan dengan membandingkan sebuah kata dengan kata-kata lain yang masih termasuk dalam satu domain semantik. Penulis memilih kata kerja RUN

untuk dianalisa dengan membandingkan dengan kata kerja lain yang memiliki domain semantik yang sama, yaitu RACE, GALLOP dan SPRINT. Alasan mengapa penulis memilih kata ini adalah karena kata kerja RUN memiliki arti yang sangat luas.

Ada dua rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini. Yang pertama, properti semantik apa saja yang muncul dalam makna konseptual kata kerja RUN, ketika kata kerja tersebut dibandingkan dengan kata kerja RACE, GALLOP dan SPRINT. Yang kedua, properti semantik apa saja yang terkait dengan makna konseptual dari kata kerja RUN ketika kata kerja RUN diterapkan diluar makna konseptual. Kata kerja

RUN yang dipakai oleh peneliti adalah sebagai kata kerja tunggal dan kata kerja frase. Dalam prosesnya, penelitian ini menggunakan kamus sebagai sumber utama dalam pengumpulan data. Kamus yang dipergunakan adalah Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English edisi ketiga yang diterbitkan tahun 2001. Pertama-tama, penulis membandingkan kata kerja RUN dengan kata kerja yang lain untuk menemukan properti semantik dan fitur-fitur pembeda diantara kata-kata kerja tersebut dan memberi nilai dari setiap fitur dengan tanda ‘plus’ dan ‘minus’. Dalam menentukan fitur-fitur tersebut, kata kerja RUN hanya didefinisikan sebagai makna konseptual atau denotatif menurut kamus. Selanjutnya, penulis mencari beberapa arti dari kata kerja RUN (diluar makna konseptual) dalam kamus untuk menentukan konteks. Ketika konteks tersebut telah ditemukan dan diterapkan dalam suatu kalimat, langkah berikutnya yaitu menemukan properti semantik dan fitur-fitur semantik yang muncul dan terkait dalam analisa pembandingan.

Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat lima properti semantik dalam analisa perbandingan antara kata kerja RUN dengan kata kerja RACE, GALLOP, dan

SPRINT. Adapun kelima properti semantik tersebut adalah manner, objective, agent,

distance dan tool. Pada analisa konteks, penulis menemukan 19 konteks dari 27 arti kata kerja RUN sebagai kata kerja tunggal dan 52 konteks dalam sembilan preposisi yang digunakan dalam kata kerja frase. Baik sebagai kata kerja tunggal maupun kata kerja frase, properti semantik yang terkait adalah agent, objective, manner, tool, dan


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A SEMANTIC STUDY ON THE COMPARATIVE AND CONTEXTUAL MEANING OF THE VERB RUN

A Thesis

Presented to The Graduate Program in English Language Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Magister Humaniara (M.Hum) in English Language Studies

by

YOSE RIANUGRAHA

Student Number: 086332005

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA 2012


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ii A THESIS

A SEMANTIC STUDY ON THE COMPARATIVE AND

CONTEXTUAL MEANING OF THE VERB RUN

by

Yose Rianugraha Student Number: 086332005

Approved by

Prof. Dr. Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo

_____________________________ _____________________________


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iii A THESIS

A SEMANTIC STUDY ON THE COMPARATIVE AND

CONTEXTUAL MEANING OF THE VERB RUN

Presented by

YOSE RIANUGRAHA Student Number: 086332005

Defended before the Board of Examiners

and was Declared Acceptable

BOARD OF EXAMINERS

Chairperson : ______________________

Secretary : ______________________

Member : ______________________

Member : ______________________

Yogyakarta, __________2012 The Graduate Program Director Sanata Dharma University


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iv

A PSALM OF DAVID

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters;

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley

of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil; for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

thou anointest my head with oil,

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life;

and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD

for ever…….


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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of the thesis writer, and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been properly acknowledged. The writer understands the full consequences, including degree cancellation if he took somebody else’s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper references.

Yogyakarta, 7 July 2012


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vi

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertandatangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Yose Rianugraha

Nomor mahasiswa : 086332005

demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

A SEMANTIC STUDY ON THE COMPARATIVE AND CONTEXTUAL MEANING OF THE VERB RUN

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpannya, mengalihkannya dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikannya secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta pada tanggal 7 Juli 2012

Yang menyatakan


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vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my greatest and deepest gratitude to the Lord, Jesus Christ and Mother Mary, who always stay beside me and have strengthened me to finish this thesis. It would be impossible for me to finish this thesis without Their help.

I would like to express my best gratitude to Prof. Dr. Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo, as my thesis advisor, who has given me guidance, suggestions, assistance, and support to finish my thesis. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A., for his help, suggestions and constructive criticisms to my thesis. His willingness to spend his precious time has been an invaluable contribution to the accomplishment of this thesis. Also, I would like to thank Drs. FX. Mukarto, M.S., Ph.D., Dr. Novita Dewi, M.S., M.A. (Hons), as well as Dr. B. B. Dwijatmoko, M.A., for giving me guidance as well as sufficiency of time to finish my thesis. I am absolutely sure that without their help and attention, I could not have completed this thesis.

My deepest gratitude also goes to my beloved parents, Imelda Linda Yuniati and YB. Lian Santoso, as well as my spiritual Father, Pater Martin Suhartono, S.J. I do really thank them for their affection, continuous prayers, patience and encouragement during the work on my thesis. Also, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my beloved uncle and aunts, Paul Kwa, Yap Liang Nio, Doddy Liem and Pitoyo families for their prayers, unfailing support, and endless love throughout the duration of my study.


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viii

My sincere thanks and appreciation go to some people around me. I would like to thank my undergraduate thesis advisor as well as the head of PBI Department, Caecilia Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd., who has supported me to finish my thesis. I am also deeply grateful to my colleagues at KPBB Atmajaya: Suryo Sudiro S.S., M.Hum., L. Bening Parwitasukci, M.Hum., Radjaban M.Hum., Paulina Chandra, M.Hum., and many others for always supporting me to finish my study and being such nice friends. The next appreciation goes to my colleagues at PPBA Duta Wacana Christian University: Paulus Widyatmoko, M.A., Andreas Winardi, M.A., Fransisca Endang Lestariningsih, M.Hum., Fransiskus Ransus, S.S., M.Hum., Bu Ambar, Bu Nia, and many others for their help and support.

May God always bless all those people abundantly for their kindness.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE ... i

APPROVAL PAGE ... ii

THESIS DEFENSE APPROVAL PAGE ... iii

DEDICATION PAGE ... iv

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ... v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN ... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... ix

LIST OF TABLES ... xi

ABSTRACT ... xii

ABSTRAK ... xiii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study ... 1

1.2 Research Questions ... 9

1.3 Purpose of the Study ... 10

1.4 Significance of the Study ... 11

CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical Descriptions ... 12

2.1.1 Theories of Meaning ... 12

2.1.2 Word Meaning ... 13

2.1.3 Types of Meaning ... 15

2.1.4 Semantic Domain ... 18

2.1.5 Semantic Features ... 19

2.1.6 Contrastive Meaning ... 27

2.1.7 Contextual Meaning ... 32

2.2 Review of Related Study ... 37

2.3 Theoretical Framework ... 44

CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Method ... 46

3.2 Data Source and Data Gathering ... 47

3.3 Data Processing ... 48

CHAPTER IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Comparative Analysis of the verb RUN ... 50

4.1.1 Manner ... 53

4.1.2 Objective ... 55

4.1.3 Agent ... 56

4.1.4 Distance ... 57

4.2 Semantic Properties Related to the verb RUN ... 58

4.2.1 Semantic Properties Related to the verb RUN as a single verb ... 59


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x

4.2.2 Semantic Properties Related to the verb RUN

as a phrasal verb ... 72

4.2.2.1 Phrasal Verb RUN ACROSS ... 72

4.2.2.2 Phrasal Verb RUN AFTER ... 72

4.2.2.3 Phrasal Verb RUN AROUND ... 76

4.2.2.4 Phrasal Verb RUN AWAY ... 77

4.2.2.5 Phrasal Verb RUN AWAY WITH ... 78

4.2.2.6 Phrasal Verb RUN DOWN ... 79

4.2.2.7 Phrasal Verb RUN IN ... 81

4.2.2.8 Phrasal Verb RUN INTO ... 82

4.2.2.9 Phrasal Verb RUN OFF ... 85

4.2.2.10 Phrasal Verb RUN OFF WITH ... 86

4.2.2.11 Phrasal Verb RUN ON ... 87

4.2.2.12 Phrasal Verb RUN OUT ... 88

4.2.2.13 Phrasal Verb RUN OVER ... 88

4.2.2.14 Phrasal Verb RUN THROUGH ... 90

4.2.2.15 Phrasal Verb RUN TO ... 92

4.2.2.16 Phrasal Verb RUN UP ... 92

4.2.2.17 Phrasal Verb RUN UP AGAINST ... 94

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION ... 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 99

APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: ContrastiveTable between RUN, RACE, GALLOP and SPRINT in conceptual meaning and beyond the conceptual meaning ... 102

APPENDIX 2: Raw Data Table: Semantic Properties Related to the Verb RUN as a Single Verb ... 103

APPENDIX 3: Raw Data Table: Semantic Properties Related to the Verb RUN as a Phrasal Verb ... 106


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xi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Semantic domain ... 20

Table 2.2 Semantic features ... 28

Table 2.3 Analysis on features related in semantics ... 29

Table 2.4 Contrastive analysis of seven terms involving three types of properties ... 31

Table 2.5 Contrastive analysis of verbs with extended semantic features ... 33

Table 2.6 Sentences with the verb run ... 38

Table 2.7 Groups of sentences within the same context ... 40

Table 3.1 Example of contrastive analysis ... 48

Table 3.2 Example of contextual analysis ... 49

Table 4.1 Comparative Analysis among RUN, RACE, GALLOP, SPRINT ... 52

Table 4.2 Semantic Properties Related to the verb RUN as a Single Verb ... 60

Table 4.3 Comparative Analysis among RUN, RACE, GALLOP, and SPRINT beyond the conceptual meaning ... 71

Table 4.4 Semantic Properties Related to the verb RUN as a Phrasal Verb ... 73


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xii ABSTRACT

Rianugraha, Yose. 2012. A Semantic Study on the Comparative and Contextual Meaning of the Verb RUN. Yogyakarta: English Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University.

This study belongs to a semantic study that attempts to examine the meaning of a word scientifically by conducting a comparative analysis. The analysis is carried out by comparing a word with other words which share the same semantic domain. The writer chose the verb run to be analyzed by comparing it with the other verbs in the same semantic domain, i.e. race, gallop, and sprint. The reason why the writer chose this verb is because it has a large number of meanings.

There are two problems to be solved. The first is what are the semantic properties of the conceptual meaning of the verb run when it is compared with the verbs race, gallop and sprint. The second is what semantic properties are related to the conceptual meaning of the verb run when the verb run is put beyond the conceptual meaning. The verb run used by the researcher in this study is run as a single verb and a phrasal verb.

To achieve the objectives, the research employed library or dictionary research for collecting data. The researcher used Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, third edition, published in 2001. First, the writer compared the verb run with other verbs, i.e. race, gallop, and sprint, in order to find the semantic properties between those verbs and assigned the values for each property by giving ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ sign. To determine the semantic features, the verbs are defined on the conceptual or denotative meaning from the dictionary. After that, the writer searched other meanings beyond the conceptual meaning of the verb run found in the dictionary to determine the context. When the contexts were found and put in sentences, the next step was to find the semantic properties that are related in the comparative analysis.

The results show that there are five semantic properties which appeared in the comparative analysis between the verb run and the verb race, gallop and sprint, namely manner, objective, agent or experiencer, distance, and tool. From the contextual analysis, the writer found nineteen contexts within twenty seven meanings of the verb run as a single verb and fifty-two contexts with nineteen prepositions used in phrasal verb. Both as a single and phrasal verb, the highest semantic properties related to the comparative analysis is agent or experiencer, followed by objective, manner, tool, and distance.


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xiii

ABSTRAK

Rianugraha, Yose. 2012. A Semantic Study on the Comparative and Contextual Meaning of the Verb RUN. Yogyakarta: English Language Studies. Graduate Program. Sanata Dharma University.

Penelitian ini merupakan sebuah studi semantik yang bertujuan untuk menganalisa arti sebuah kata secara ilmiah dengan melakukan analisa perbandingan kata. Analisa dilakukan dengan membandingkan sebuah kata dengan kata-kata lain yang masih termasuk dalam satu domain semantik. Penulis memilih kata kerja RUN

untuk dianalisa dengan membandingkan dengan kata kerja lain yang memiliki domain semantik yang sama, yaitu RACE, GALLOP dan SPRINT. Alasan mengapa penulis memilih kata ini adalah karena kata kerja RUN memiliki arti yang sangat luas.

Ada dua rumusan masalah dalam penelitian ini. Yang pertama, properti semantik apa saja yang muncul dalam makna konseptual kata kerja RUN, ketika kata kerja tersebut dibandingkan dengan kata kerja RACE, GALLOP dan SPRINT. Yang kedua, properti semantik apa saja yang terkait dengan makna konseptual dari kata kerja RUN ketika kata kerja RUN diterapkan diluar makna konseptual. Kata kerja

RUN yang dipakai oleh peneliti adalah sebagai kata kerja tunggal dan kata kerja frase. Dalam prosesnya, penelitian ini menggunakan kamus sebagai sumber utama dalam pengumpulan data. Kamus yang dipergunakan adalah Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English edisi ketiga yang diterbitkan tahun 2001. Pertama-tama, penulis membandingkan kata kerja RUN dengan kata kerja yang lain untuk menemukan properti semantik dan fitur-fitur pembeda diantara kata-kata kerja tersebut dan memberi nilai dari setiap fitur dengan tanda ‘plus’ dan ‘minus’. Dalam menentukan fitur-fitur tersebut, kata kerja RUN hanya didefinisikan sebagai makna konseptual atau denotatif menurut kamus. Selanjutnya, penulis mencari beberapa arti dari kata kerja RUN (diluar makna konseptual) dalam kamus untuk menentukan konteks. Ketika konteks tersebut telah ditemukan dan diterapkan dalam suatu kalimat, langkah berikutnya yaitu menemukan properti semantik dan fitur-fitur semantik yang muncul dan terkait dalam analisa pembandingan.

Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat lima properti semantik dalam analisa perbandingan antara kata kerja RUN dengan kata kerja RACE, GALLOP, dan

SPRINT. Adapun kelima properti semantik tersebut adalah manner, objective, agent,

distance dan tool. Pada analisa konteks, penulis menemukan 19 konteks dari 27 arti kata kerja RUN sebagai kata kerja tunggal dan 52 konteks dalam sembilan preposisi yang digunakan dalam kata kerja frase. Baik sebagai kata kerja tunggal maupun kata kerja frase, properti semantik yang terkait adalah agent, objective, manner, tool, dan


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1

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the writer will discuss the background of the study, the research questions, the purpose of the study, and the significance of the study.

1.1Background of the Study

Meaning is fundamental to every human society, and language is one of the primary ways of conveying meaning. However, meaning is not a simple phenomenon. There has been suggestion that meanings are there first, and that language comes later, as a straightforward representation of these prior meanings. Meaning is a kind of ‘invisible, unclothed being’, waiting for the clothes of language to allow it to be seen. This assumes that meaning and language are in a simple relationship where language reflects some ‘given’ reality.

Nida (1975:11) says that a word seems to have a central meaning from which a number of other meanings are derived. From that point, we then recognize or imagine some kind of connection between each of these meanings. For instance when we are given the word hand, the first idea that comes up in our mind is part of the body which includes the fingers and the thumb, used to hold things. However, the word hand now occurs in many kinds of contexts in which it creates diverse meanings, e.g. give a hand, lend a hand, on the other hand, in the hands of somebody, at first hand, and so on. While meaning is developed, the word hand no longer means part of the body. Thus, give/lend a hand does not mean to give one’s part of the body to someone else. It means to help someone with something as in the sentence Can you give me a hand to bring these cardboards? or My best friend is always willing to lend


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a hand. Several words may also be developed syntactically. In the same example, the word hand may also carry out verb part of speech. As in a sentence He handed the teacher a slip of paper, the word hand means to give something to someone else with our hand. Even it can mean something else which is not related to part of our body. In a sentence Stories handed down by word of mouth, the word hand means to give or leave something to people who will live after you.

In our everyday life, we often hear expression like “I seriously mean it.” It implies that sometimes we say things we do not, in fact, mean. Perhaps it is most often heard coming from frustrated parents who have made too many empty threats to their naughty children. One thing we can find is that speakers of English instinctively know that there is difference in many cases between what we say and what we mean.

In our daily conversation, we use ‘literal’ and ‘non-literal’ meaning to convey our intention. We use the word ‘literally’ to emphasize the honesty and direct objective of our statements. For example, a mother is talking to her naughty child, “If you kick Judith one more, I’ll take you straight home and you’ll miss the biscuits!” The mother finds that she has to emphasize her intention to carry out the message. To illustrate the inferential type of non-literal meaning, we can see from polite requests made at a dinner-table. If the salt is out of reach from the place we are sitting, we might say, “Is that the salt up your end, Cathy?” This expression occurs as a polite request and we already know its intended purpose, namely one is asking Cathy’s help to get the salt. Many of the things we say are intended to be understood by applying rules of interpretation which are agreed by a community.


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One feature of human language is the fact that it is an ‘arbitrary’ system of representation. Although not all aspects of meaning in English are completely arbitrary, it is generally true that there is very little ‘natural’ connection between the words we use and the things they refer to. Language is not the only symbolic system human beings use, although it is probably the most complex one and is used for a wide variety of purposes. In order to understand the properties of symbolic systems, it is useful for us to know non-linguistic system, such as color symbolism. For example, the color of green is used as a symbolic color to express ‘go’ in traffic lights, ‘environmentalism’ in the Green Party, or it can also be ‘an open country or parks’ when it refers on maps.

Fromkin (1996:151) states that to understand a language, we need to know the meaning of its words as well as the morphemes that compose them. We must also know how the meanings of words combine into phrase and sentence meanings. Finally, we must interpret the meaning of utterances in the context in which they are made. In linguistics, the study of meaning of words, phrases, and sentence is called semantics. Semantics has two subfields, i.e. lexical semantics which is concerned with the meanings of words and the meaning relationships among words and sentential semantics which is concerned with the meaning of syntactic unit larger than the word.

Learning a language includes learning the agreed-upon meanings of certain strings of sounds and learning how to combine these meaningful units into larger units that also convey meaning (Fromkin 1996:152). We are not free to change the meanings of these words at will, because if we did we would be unable to


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communicate with anyone. All speakers of a language share basic vocabulary, the sounds and meanings of morphemes and words. Every dictionary is filled with words and their meanings and so is the mind of every human being who speaks a language. Our knowledge of meanings permits us to use them to express our thoughts and to understand them when heard. The meaning of words is part of linguistic knowledge and is, therefore, a part of the grammar. Our mental storehouse of information about words and morphemes is what we have been calling lexicon.

As it is stated before that a word can carry many meanings. Hence, it is worthy to understand the development of words. Resmini (1996) in his article entitled Ambiguitas dan Perubahan Makna says that words might not change in meaning in short period of time but there is possibility that a word will change over the times. It happens for some lexicons of every language in the world because of several reasons. First, it happens owing to the development of technology. With the development and invention of advanced technology, there are some changes in meaning or even there are new words created. For instance, the word mouse used to refer only to a type of animal with a long tail that lives in people’s houses or in fields. Now, as the invention of a computer, the word mouse can refer to a small device which is connected to a computer, and we can use it by our hand to move cursor or give instruction to the computer. As the internet grows, we can find some new words, such as malware, phishing, bloggable, or qwerty as they are commonly used in internet nowadays.

The second factor is the development of social and culture. Historical records tell us that interaction between societies and other cultures is not a new phenomenon. Wardhaugh (1990) defines society is any group of people who are drawn together for


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a certain purpose of purposes and that language is what the members of a particular society speak. We can see that language in almost any society can take many very different forms and what forms we should choose to discuss when we attempt to describe the language of a society may prove to be a contentious matter.

Communication among societies is possible because we have knowledge about language which is shared with others, although how it is shared or even how it is acquired is not well understood. Chomsky (1965), in this case, distinguishes between what he has called competence and performance. The language we use in everyday living is remarkably varied and when we look closely at any language, we will discover time and time again that there is considerable internal variation, that speakers make constant use of the many different possibilities offered to them. No one speaks the same way all the time, and people constantly exploit the nuances of the languages they speak for a wide variety of purposes.

Wardhaugh (1986) highlighted there is a variety of possible relationships between language and society. One is that social structure may either influence or determine linguistic structure and behavior. Studies show that the varieties of language that speakers use reflect their regional, social or ethnic origin and possibly even their sex. Other studies show that particular ways of speaking, choices of words and even rules for conversing are determined by certain social requirements.

The relationship between language and culture has fascinated people from a wide variety of backgrounds. When we refer to what we mean by ‘culture’, it does not refer to the sense of ‘high culture’, i.e. the appreciation of music, literature, arts, and so on. Goodenough (1957:167) defined culture as a society’s culture which


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consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves. One long-standing claim concerning the relationship between language and culture is that the structure of a language determines the way in which speakers of that language view the world. Thus, the development of society concerning with social and cultural attitudes, will also provoke the changes in meaning in language.

The next factor that brings about changes is the development of the word usages. Every scientific field usually has vocabulary which is related to that field. For instance, in medical field, there are some particular words which we can only define using specific dictionaries. Given example the term ‘swine influenza’ did not exist before the nineteenth century. It appears during the outbreak in 2009 in which lots of people died as this viral epidemic spread rapidly. Some medical terms also take Latin words, as in the word febris, it does not exist in English and we cannot find it in English dictionaries. It comes from Latin which means fever, an abnormally high body temperature, usually accompanied by shivering, headache, and in severe instances, delirium (Oxford dictionary). It is described in Oxford that the word fever comes from fēfor (Old English) and from febris (Latin), reinforced in Middle English by Old French fievre, also from febris. Thus, with the invention and development of certain knowledge or fields, it will also bring about changes in lexicons and their meanings.

Meanings also change due to the perception of our senses. Given the example the word snow, generally it means soft white pieces of frozen water that fall from the sky in cold weather and cover the ground (Longman dictionary). Yet, there are many


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different kinds of snow we can define based on our senses. They are flurry, which refers to a small amount of snow that is blown by the wind, flake, which is a feathery ice crystal, typically displaying delicate sixfold symmetry, graupel, which is small particles of snow with a fragile crust of ice or soft hail, or blizzard, which refers to a severe snowstorm with high winds. We can also define snow based on the shapes of what we see, i.e. columns to refer to a class of snowflakes that is shaped like a six sided column or one of the 4 classes of snowflakes, dendrites to refer to a class of snowflakes that has 6 points, making it somewhat star shaped and is the classic snowflake shape, needles to refer to a class of snowflakes that are acicular in shape (their length is much longer than their diameter, like a needle). Based on what we see or what we feel, new words can be created and improved gradually.

The factor which also brings about changes in meaning of a word is the association of word. It is an association between a form of speech with something else that is related to that form of speech. For instance, the word drug literally means a medicine or another substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body as in the sentence A new drug aimed at sufferers from Parkinson’s disease. However, when we hear the word drug, sometimes we associate it with an illegal substance such as marijuana or cocaine, which some people take in order to feel happy, relaxed, or excited.

Ogden and Richards (1985:10-12) maintain that the word, what they called the ‘symbol’, and the actual object, the ‘referent’, are linked only indirectly, by way of our mental perception of that object, the thought or reference. More recently Ullman (1962:57) suggests that we might use more common terms: ‘name’ to denote the


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sequence of sounds that is the physical form of the utterance, ‘thing’ to denote the object or event that is being referred to, and ‘sense’ to denote the information that the name conveys to the hearer.

As mentioned before that learning a language includes learning the agreed-upon meanings of certain strings of sounds and learning how to combine these meaningful units into larger units that also convey meaning, the writer here would like to conduct a semantic study on the verb run. In our mind, when we hear the word run, we might refer to an activity of running, i.e. to move our legs more quickly than when we walk. It is true that run is a kind of activity and thus refers to verb in part of speech. However, in many dictionaries the word run belongs to many different parts of speech, i.e. noun, verb, adjective and adverb. In addition, every part of speech carries lots of different meaning for the same word. Given the example when the word run belongs to noun, it has a lot of meanings depending on the context. First, it means ‘a period of time spent running or a distance that you run’, as in the sentence She usually goes for a run before breakfast. It can mean ‘later in the future or not immediately’, as in the phrase in the long run or in the short run, ‘in the near future’, as in the sentence Sufficient supply, in the short run, will be a problem, ‘a series of successes or failures’ as in the phrase run of good/bad luck, a run of victories, ‘an amount of a product produced at one time’ as in the phrase a limited run of 200 copies, and so on.

We seldom notice that run may also be an adjective. By adding the suffix – ing, the word run may function as an adjective, as in the phrase the sound of running water, running commentary, running total, running joke, running sore, in running


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order, the running order or take a running jump. Likewise, the suffix –ing also makes the word run change into adverb. Given the example of a sentence She won the prize for the fourth year running, the word run functions as an adjective which means for four years, she won the prize constantly.

Nida (1975) says that to determine the linguistic meaning of any form contrasts must be found, for there is no meaning apart from significant differences. Besides, he also highlights that in endeavoring to determine the meaning of any lexical unit, from the level of a morpheme to the level of an entire discourse, it is essential to establish the basis of contrast. Thus, the writer here will make a contrastive meaning of the verb run by contrasting with the verbs race, gallop, and sprint.

To some extent, one word can carry lots of meaning. We can take the example from the word red which has several meanings, i.e. color or pigment which resembles the hue of blood, emotionally charged terms used to refer to extreme radicals or revolutionaries, the amount by which the cost of a business exceeds its revenue or a socialist who advocates communism. In order to differ the meaning of a word between one another, we have to put the word into its context. Therefore, the writer will also conduct the contextual meaning analysis on his study.

1.2Research Questions

Based on the above, the writer would like to conduct a study on the meaning of a word, i.e. the verb run by answering the following two questions:


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1. What are the semantic properties of the conceptual meaning of the verb run when it is compared with the verb race, gallop, and sprint?

2. What semantic properties are related to the conceptual meaning of the verb run when it is put beyond the conceptual meaning?

1.3Purpose of the Study

This study is intended to answer two questions. First, it is to examine the meaning of the verb run by comparing it with other verbs in the same semantic domains, i.e. race, gallop, and sprint. By comparing the verb run with the other verbs, we will find the semantic properties, i.e. properties that appear to provide the comparison and contrast between those verbs, along with the semantic features. After conducting the comparative analysis, it is important that we should also know the meaning of the verb run beyond the conceptual meaning. By looking up certain meanings from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English published by Longman in 2001, we can identify the context of the verb run. From the use of the verb run in certain contexts, there are some properties that appear and are related to the conceptual meaning. Thus, the second purpose of this study is to find the semantic properties that are related to the conceptual meaning when the verb run is put beyond the conceptual meaning. So far as what the writer has found, Nida (1975) has provided the contextual meanings of the verb run. Yet, he has not made the relationship between the semantic properties appeared in contextual analysis and the comparative meaning. In the results and discussion, the writer will present the semantic properties that appear and are related to the conceptual meaning when the verb run is put beyond the conceptual meaning.


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1.4Significance of the Study

It is stated that the meaning of a word becomes clear when it is compared with the other words in the same semantic domain. By comparing the word run with the other verbs in the same semantic domain, we are able to see its difference from semantic features. This study is beneficial as it provides the relationship between the contextual meaning and comparative meaning by analyzing the semantic properties and features that appear and are related.


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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents review of the related literature. First, it will discuss the theoretical descriptions, i.e. some descriptions of theories related to this study. After that, it will present the theoretical framework, i.e. the theories discussed in the descriptions used by the writer in this study.

2.1Theoretical Descriptions

In the theoretical descriptions, the writer would like to review some theories related to his study, i.e. theories of meaning, word meaning, types of meaning, semantic domain, semantic features, contrastive meaning, and contextual meaning.

2.1.1. Theories of Meaning

Meaning is a central and fundamental concept to the whole study of language. However, as Ullmann (1964: 54) points out, it is also “one of the most ambiguous and most controversial terms in the theory of language.” Kempson (1977: 11) agrees with this statement when asserting that the problem of what we mean when we refer to the meaning of a word or a sentence “is the classical problem of semantics, the problem indeed on which semantics has traditionally foundered.” She also mentions three main ways in which linguists and philosophers have attempted to construct explanations of meaning in natural language (1977: 11), i.e. by defining the nature of word meaning, defining the nature of sentence meaning, and explaining the process of communication.

For over decades, linguists have spent a large amount of time finding out the „meanings of meaning‟ as a preliminary to the study of their subject. Ogden and


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Richards (1923) has found twenty-two definitions of meaning. Some of the definitions of meaning are: an intrinsic property; the other words annexed to a word in the dictionary; the connotation of a word; an essence; that to which is actually related to a sign by a chosen relation; that to which the user of a symbol actually refers, etc. They show how confusion and misunderstanding arise because of lack of agreement on such a basic term (1946: 186-187).

Bloomfield (1933) has had a slightly different emphasis on meaning. It was not the scientific study of mental phenomena, i.e. thought and symbolization, but the scientific definition of everything to which language may refer.

We can define the meaning of a speech-form accurately when this meaning has to do with some matter of which we possess scientific knowledge. We can define the names of minerals, for example, in terms of chemistry and mineralogy, as when we say that the ordinary meaning of the English word salt is ‘sodium chloride’ (NaCl), and we can define the names of plants or animals by means of the technical terms of botany or zoology, but we have no precise way of defining words like love or hate, which concern situations that have not been accurately classified – and these latter are in the great majority. (Language, p. 139)

Finally, Bloomfield has come to a conclusion that the definition of meaning progresses by a continuing process of revision and clarification, leading to greater clarity and depth of understanding.

2.1.2. Word Meaning

The definition of word meaning is as elusive as the definition of the term meaning. Ogden and Richards (1946: 10) claim that the words mean nothing by themselves and it is only when a thinker makes use of them that they stand for anything, or, in one sense, have „meaning‟. It is a consequence of their theory of meaning presented by the semiotic triangle where the relationship between symbol and referent is indirect. As Hanks (2007: 7) explains, the words stand for objects only


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indirectly, through the thoughts of people who use them and therefore the meaning of a word may vary slightly in the conceptual schemata of individual speakers, and the way in which the world is conceived may also vary from speaker to speaker.

Crystal (1985: 236) adds that the assumption that words carry the meaning in a language is wrong as the meaning is carried by sentences. In order to understand what is meant, we have to put the word in a context, which usually means to put it into a sentence (e.g. the word „table‟ which can mean either a piece of furniture or a part of a printed page).

Taylor (2003:87) explicitly says that we can only understand the meaning of a linguistic form in context of other cognitive structures and he stresses the fact that word meanings are always characterized against a particular context, e.g. the word Monday in the context of the concept „week‟. Cruse (1986: 16) also insists on the importance of context when claiming that the meaning of a word is constituted by its contextual relations. Hofmann then avoids the idea that a word has a fixed meaning that you can look up in the dictionary (1993: 9) and claims that word meanings cannot be true or false until applied to something (1993: 15).

The meaning of a word cannot be possibly defined because it can vary in the minds of different speakers; in addition, the meaning always depends on the context. Hence, the meaning of the words always depends on their relation to other words as well as on the whole context. This is even more true about the evaluative words such as the selected adjectives pretty and handsome. The meaning of the adjectives depends on the object they collocate with (e.g. living or non-living beings) as well as on the perception of the speaker.


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2.1.3. Types of Meaning

Leech (1981) acknowledges three main points about the study of meaning. The first is that it is mistaken to try to define meaning by reducing it to the terms of sciences other than the science of language, e.g. to the terms of psychology or chemistry. The second is that meaning can best be studied as a linguistic phenomenon in its own right, not as something „outside language‟. This means we investigate what it is to „know a language‟ semantically, e.g. to know what is involved in recognizing relations of meaning between sentences, and in recognizing which sentences are meaningful and which are not. The last is that he points the distinction between „knowledge of language‟ and „knowledge of the real world‟.

Leech (1981) presents seven Types of Meaning, i.e. conceptual meaning, which deals with semantic competence; connotative meaning; social meaning; affective meaning; reflected meaning; collocative meaning; and thematic meaning.

Conceptual meaning is sometimes also called denotative or cognitive meaning and is widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic communication. There are two structural principles that seem to lie at the basis of all linguistic patterning, i.e. the principle of contrastiveness and the principle of structure. In contrastive features, the conceptual meanings of a language can be studied by assigning the positive sign [+] to the feature it possesses and also by assigning the negative sign [-] to the feature it does not possess. For example, the meaning of the word woman can be specified as [+ human], [- male], and [+ adult]. The second principle, that of structure, is the principle by which larger linguistic units are built up out of smaller units, by which we are able to analyze a sentence syntactically into its constituent parts, moving from


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its immediate constituents through a hierarchy of sub-division to its ultimate constituents or smallest syntactic elements. For example, a sentence No man is an island can be represented by bracketing: {(No)(man)}{[(is)][(an)(island)]}. The two principles of contrastiveness and constituent structure represent the way language is organized respectively on what linguists have termed the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes of linguistic structure.

Connotative meaning is the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content. To some extent, the notion of „reference‟ overlaps with conceptual meaning. In conceptual meaning, the word woman is defined as [+ human], [- male], and [+ adult]. But, there is non-criterial properties that we can learn to expect a referent of woman to possess. They include not only physical characteristics, e.g. biped, having a womb, but also psychological and social properties, e.g. gregarious, subject to maternal instinct, and may extend to features which are merely typical rather than invariable concomitants of woman-hood, e.g. capable of speech, experienced in cookery, skirt-or-dress-wearing.

Social meaning refers to a piece of language that conveys the social circumstances of its use. We recognize some words as being dialectical, i.e. telling us something of the geographical or social origin of the speaker. Other features of language tell us something of the social relationship between the speaker and hearer. In a more local sense, social meaning can include what has been called the „illocutionary force‟ of an utterance, e.g. whether it is to be interpreted as a request, an assertion, an apology, a threat, and so on. The sentence I haven’t got a knife, for


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example, has the form and meaning of an assertion, and in social reality (e.g. if it is said to the waiter in a restaurant) it can readily take on the force of a request such as Please bring me a knife.

Affective meaning is often explicitly conveyed through the conceptual or connotative content of the words used. It is largely a parasitic category in the sense that to express our emotions we rely upon the mediation of other categories of meaning – conceptual, connotative, or stylistic. Emotional expression through style comes about, e.g. when we adopt an impolite tone to express displeasure when we ask someone to be quiet (such as Will you belt up!) or when we adopt a formal tone to express politeness (such as I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you would be so kind as to lower your voices a little). Thus, factors such as intonation and tone of voice are also important here. On the other hand, there are elements of language, e.g. interjections like Aha!, that the primary function is to express emotion. When we use these, we communicate feelings and attitudes without the mediation of any other kind of semantic function.

Reflected meaning is the meaning which arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, i.e. when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense. For example, in a church service the synonymous expressions The Comforter and The Holy Spirit, both referring to the Third Person of the Trinity. The Comforter sounds warm and „comforting‟, while The Holy Spirit sounds awesome.

Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment. For example, the word pretty and handsome share common property in the meaning „good-looking‟,


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but may be distinguished by the range of nouns with which they are likely to co-occur or collocate. We usually use the word pretty followed by girl or woman and we use the word handsome followed by boy or man.

Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis. For example, it is often felt that an active sentence such as Mr. Brown donated the first prize has a different meaning from its passive equivalent The first prize was donated by Mr. Brown, although in conceptual content they seem to be the same. These two sentences have different communicative values in that they suggest different contexts: the active sentence seems to answer an implicit question What did Mr. Brown donate? While the passive sentence seems to answer an implicit question Who was the first prize donated by? or Who donated the first prize?.

2.1.4. Semantic Domain

According to Nida (1975), distinctions in meaning are best described in terms of the semantic domains to which they belong. It is essential that an extensive analysis and description of domains be provided, in order that their nature and function may be understood. A semantic domain consists essentially of a group of meanings which share certain semantic components. The features of domains can be best described in terms of size, hierarchical levels, multiple memberships, archilexemes, or boundaries.

Nida has found that the largest single domain in any language consists of four items. The first is entities or objects, which can be classified into countable, e.g. man, tree, dog, house, gun, stone, etc., or mass, e.g. sand, water, air, ice, salt, sugar,


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etc. The second is events, which can be classified into actions and processes, e.g. rain, come, run, go, hit, speak, grow, enlarge, widen, diminish, etc. The third is abstracts, which consist of qualities, e.g. good, bad, beautiful, ugly, etc., quantities, e.g. much, few, many, little, etc., and degrees, e.g. very, too, so, etc. The fourth is relationals, which primarily mark the relations between objects, events, and abstracts, are a somewhat smaller class, e.g. in, beside, through, around, with, and, or, but, when, although, nevertheless, etc.

Nida has found an interesting aspect of these four principal semantic domains, that is they appear to be universals and that these sets of meanings are tied in all languages to corresponding grammatical classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives-adverbs, and preposition-conjunctions. For the semantic domain which consists of four items, Nida referred to a Greek dictionary to present all of them. The table of semantic domain can be shown in table 2.1.

2.1.5. Semantic Features

Another approach to the description of word meanings is semantic features. The concept of features was firstly developed by the Prague School of linguistic around 1940 for phonology within a so-called functional approach (Lipka, 2012: 124). Later on, Chomsky (1965) took over the concept of features from phonology and introduced complex symbols as sets of „syntactic features‟ (Lipka, 1986: 87). Hjelmslev, one of the founders of structural semantics, found out that there parallels between phonological and semantic levels of languages. Then, the concepts of features were transferred to the study of semantics by generative grammarians because of this obvious parallelism.


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1.1Inanimate 1.1.1Natural Geographical

Celestial-atmospheric: sky, cloud, smoke, air, rainbow, sun, moon, etc. Supernatural: heaven, paradise, hell, hades, abyss, etc.

Relating to the earth

Generic: world, place, location, region, country, etc.

Features of the land: surface, valley, ravine, slope, mountain, hill, desert, etc. Sea and nearby land: sea, deep, lake, reef, island, beach, shore, bay, gulf, etc. Cultivated areas: field, farm, grainfield, etc.

Politically defined areas: kingdom, domain, province, empire, etc. Natural Substances

Generic: elements

Metals: iron, silver, copper, brass, etc. Gems: crystal, topaz, beryl, emerald, etc.

Stone-to-dust: stone, pebble, rock, marble, sand, mud, soil, dirt, dust, etc. Fire: fire, flame

Water (in various forms): water, rain, moisture, hail, ice, snow, foam

Flora and Plant Product

Trees: tree, forest, olive tree, palm, fig, mulberry, etc.

Bushes and herbs: vegetation, crop, weed, grass, hay, barley, grapevine, thornbush, briar, wormwood, mustard, dill, etc.

Wood products: charcoal, ashes, wood, stick, splinter, speck, etc. Fruit parts: fruit, olive, carob pod, grain, seed, etc.

Non-fruit parts: branch, leaf, blade, shoot, reed, blossom, thorn, chaff, straw, root, etc.

1.1.2Manufactured or constructed entities Artifacts (non constructions)

Generic: object, thing, goods Vehicles: chariot ,carriage

Tools: axe, nail, needle, millstone, plow, trap, fishhook, yoke, etc. Armor

Offensive: weapon, club, sword, arrow, bow, spear, etc. Defensive: helmet, shield, breastplate, etc.

Clothing: clothes, garments, coat, robe, tunic, shirt, apron, veil, belt, sandal, etc. Decoration: crown, garland, diadem, ring, jewelry, elaborate hairstyle, etc. Cloth and flat artifacts made of cloth: face cloth, linen, silk, sackcloth, towel, curtain, etc.


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Lighting and lampstands: lantern, torch, lamp, lampstand, etc.

Containers: vessel, dish, water jar, jug, pitcher, purse, wineskin, manger, feeding trough, winepress, sponge, etc.

Coins: money, copper coin, gold coin, assarion, denarius, talent, etc. Idols and images: statue, idol, image, cherubim, etc.

Musical instruments: gong, cymbal, harp, flute, trumpet, etc.

Objects involved in written communication: paper, parchment, tablet, scroll, pen, ink, seal, etc.

Objects involved in binding: rope, chain, stocks, bonds, etc. Objects involved in execution: cross

Processed substances

Generic: food, meal, nourishment, drink, scraps, crumbs, etc.

Vegetable products: bread, fruit, grain, flour, olive oil, fig, grapes, wine, yeast, manna, etc.

Animal products: meat, milk, fish, egg, honey, etc. Condiments: salt, cinnamon, spice, etc.

Poisons: deadly poison, magic potion, poison Medicine: eye salve, ointment

Perfumes: oil of nard, aloes, incense, perfume, frankincense, myrrh, etc.

Constructions

Large non-dwellings: building, temple, sanctuary, tabernacle, synagogue, palace, camp, fortress, tower, barn, jail, prison, etc.

Dwellings: inn, tavern, house, home, tent, etc.

Open constructions: fold, market, theatre, stadium, court, etc.

Parts of buildings: room, bedroom, banquet hall, stable, gate, door, porch, wall, flight of steps, window, etc.

Small non-dwellings: grave, tomb, oven, furnace, mill, fence, etc. Building materials: keystone, board, plank, beam, pillar, tile, etc. Excavations: cellar, pool, well, pit, ditch, etc.

Places of business: bank, tax office, judicial bench, etc.

Ships and parts of ships: vessel, sailing vessel, ship, boat, stern, bow, sail, tackle, anchor, rudder, etc.

1.2Animate

1.2.1Animals, birds, insects

Generic: living thing, animal, beast, four-footed animal

Birds: bird, sparrow, crow, raven, eagle, vulture, dove, pigeon, etc. Insects: locust, grasshopper, moth, gnat, mosquito, etc.

Animals

Wild: beast, bear, wolf, fox, lion, leopard, dragon, etc.


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hog, swine, sow, calf, ox, bull, colt, donkey, goat, lamb, horse, camel, dog, flocks, herds, team, yoke, etc.

Animal body parts and products: wing, tail, wool, horn, etc. 1.2.2Human beings

Generic and distinctions by age and sex

Generic: man, human nature, mankind, people, person, etc. Males: man, old man, young man, girl, etc.

Females: woman, old woman, young woman, girl, etc. Children: baby, infant, child, etc.

Kinship

Generic: generation, relatives, family, genealogy, tribe, race, etc.

Offspring: descendants, posterity, son, daughter, firstborn, grandchild, orphan, etc. Parents and forefathers: patriarch, fore-father, ancestor, parent, father, mother, grandmother, etc.

Affinals: husband, wife, father-in-law, bridegroom, bride, etc. Collaterals: foster brother, brother, sister, cousin, etc.

Groups

Socioreligious: congregation, church, outsiders, brotherhood, Gentile, pagan, party, sect, proselyte, synagogue, etc.

Sociopolitical: assembly, state, nation, citizen, alien, foreigner, exile, etc. Religiopolitical: body of elders, Sanhedrin, local council, etc.

Social: household, companion, friend, comrade, neighbor, etc.

Body, body parts, and body products

Generic: body, corpse

Parts: member, head, skull, forehead, eye, ear, nose, mouth, tongue, tooth, neck, breast, womb, stomach, leg. knee, thigh, etc.

Body products: vomit, clot of blood, saliva, gall, tear, sweat, etc.

1.2.3Supernatural powers or beings

Powers of personifications: heavenly being, stars (army) of heaven, spirit of divination, elemental spirits, Justice, Aeon, etc.

Personal beings: god, goddess, demon, evil spirit, angel, archangel, ghost, apparition, etc.

2Events

2.1Physical

2.1.1atmospheric: wind, storm, rain 2.1.2involving liquids: flood, overflow 2.1.3sounds: noise, roar

2.1.4burning: burn, smoke, extinguish, smoulder, etc. 2.2Physiological

2.2.1eating: nurse, devour, dine

2.2.2reproduction: copulate, become pregnant, give birth, miscarriage 2.2.3sleep-wake: fall asleep, sleep, rouse


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2.2.4die: die, lay down one's life, be at death's door, drown 2.3Sensory

2.3.1hearing: hear, listen to, overhear 2.3.2touch: touch, feel, tap

2.3.3see: see, regain one's sight, observe, watch closely, be an eyewitness 2.3.4taste: taste

2.3.5smell: smell 2.4Emotive

2.4.1desire for: love, desire, passion

2.4.2opposition to: hate, despise, be jealous of 2.4.3fear-anxiety: fear, be anxious about, worry 2.4.4sadness: mourn, sorrow, sad

2.5Intellectual

2.5.1thinking: reason, plan, calculate, imagine 2.5.2memory: remember, forget, recall

2.5.3decision: judge, decide, select, compare

2.5.4perceiving and learning: recognize, discover, learn 2.6Communication

2.6.1non-verbal: signal, make a sign, wail, laugh 2.6.2speaking: speak, talk, shout

2.6.3writing-reading: write, sign, read 2.6.4religious: pray, prophesy, oath

2.6.5instruction: teach, explain, admonish, persuade, instruct 2.6.6dialogue: argue, converse, debate

2.6.7command: order, command, demand 2.7Association

2.7.1coming together: associate, unite, meet, join 2.7.2opposition to: rebel, fight, war, oppose 2.7.3marriage: betroth, marry, divorce

2.7.4hospitality: visit, receive as guest, wash the feet of

2.7.5appropriate interpersonal: make a covenant with, be loyal to, be merciful to, respect, honor

2.8Control

2.8.1put under control: conquer, overcome, seize, arrest, catch 2.8.2rule over: rule, direct, keep watch over, govern, make obey 2.8.3resistance to control: disobedience, disobey, refuse, escape 2.8.4punishment: correct, punish, discipline

2.9Movement

2.9.1general: move, travel, roam, wander

2.9.2directionally oriented movement: come, go, encircle, arrive, leave, return, enter

2.9.3means of movement: walk, run, jump, leap 2.9.4medium of movement: fly, swim

2.9.5association: lead, bring, follow, accompany 2.10Impact


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2.10.2crush-smash: crush, shatter, smash into pieces 2.10.3cut-stab: cut, hew, shear, wound, pierce, sting 2.10.4beat: beat, strike, hit, slap, knock down 2.10.5kill: kill, murder, slay, stone, choke, behead

2.10.6ruin-destroy: ruin, destroy, abolish, demolish, lay waste 2.10.7harm-injure: harm, injure, inflict, wound

2.11Transfer

2.11.1distribution: distribute, give, divide among, waste 2.11.2receiving: take, receive, accept, acquire, gain 2.11.3transfer of assets: deposit with, invest, entrust to 2.11.4transfer by force: plunder, steal, rob

2.11.5commercial transactions, often reciprocal: buy/sell, borrow/lend, pledge/redeem, exchange

2.12Complex activities

2.12.1agricultural: sow, plow, harvest

2.12.2involving domesticated animals: herd, care for, shear 2.12.3food processing: cook, prepare a meal

2.12.4involving cloth: spinning, weaving, sewing 2.12.5involving constructions: build, erect, tear down

2.12.6religious rites: sacrifice, worship, circumcision, celebrating the Passover 3Abstracts

3.1Time: today, tomorrow, future, year

3.2Distance: Sabbath day's journey, stadion, cubit 3.3Volume: ephah, kor

3.4Velocity: slow, fast, quickly

3.5Temperature: hot, cold, lukewarm 3.6Color: black, purple, scarlet, white 3.7Number: one, two, three

3.8Status: rich, poor, slave, free

3.9Religious character: holy, profane, clean, unclean, godless, devout 3.10Attractiveness: attractive, beautiful, ugly

3.11Age: old, young, ancient, new

3.12Truth-falsehood: true, false, honest, deceitful

3.13Good-bad: good, bad, right, wrong, righteous, unrighteous 3.14Capacity: able, unable, capable, incapable, strong, weak 3.15State of health: well, sick, strong, weak

4Relationals

4.1Spatial: up, down, around, before, behind, through 4.2Temporal: when, while, during, since

4.3Deictic: this, that, former, latter, the, a

4.4Logical: since, because, in order that, whereas, although, moreover, therefore, however, but, and


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Jackson (1988) defines semantic features as a subclass of semantic components, which serve to identify a semantic domain and then help to distinguish lexemes from each other within this domain. Many linguists, such as Leech, use the terms semantic features and semantic components interchangeably as synonyms. Lipka (1980) did not distinguish these two terms either, but in his recent book he begins using the term „feature‟ for a subclass of components (Lipka, 2002: 126).

Lipka also argues that semantic features as metalinguistic elements can be derived in two ways. The first is by purely language-immanent procedures from the opposition of lexical items, or the second is from properties or attributes of the extralinguistic referent or denotatum in a referential approach semantics. He then classifies semantic features into seven different types.

The first semantic feature is „denotative features‟. According to Lipka (2002), denotative features are based on cognitive features, properties, or attributes of the extralinguistic denotatum and may be derived by purely language immanent procedures on the basis of acceptable paraphrases. Based on this argument, he states that denotative features are the most important and central features of a lexeme. The reason of this is that denotative features are inherent, i.e. always obligatory present or absent. An example of a denotative feature is [± HUMAN] in girl vs. filly. HUMAN here is a property of the referent of the word girl. Lipka‟s denotative features correspond to Leech‟s conceptual or denotative meaning and Lyons‟s descriptive meaning.

The second type is „connotative features‟. Lipka (2002) formulates the connotative features indirectly by giving examples such as feature [± ARCHAIC]


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needed to capture differences between the words steed and horse or to smile and to strike. English dictionaries use labels such as „archaic, literary, humorous‟ for connotative features (Lipka, 2002: 127). Lipka claims that connotative features are inherent components of a lexeme and do not concern properties of the denotatum. In other words, connotative features are properties of a lexeme. Krisnawati (2003) formulates connotative features as additional features that the speaker or hearer catches when he hears or reads a pair of lexemes in terms of lexemes themselves.

The third type is „relational features‟. Some lexemes that involve relations, for example, father and son, according to Lipka, cannot be explained with the help of properties or binary contrast. Such lexemes require different explanations. He proposes relational features as a way to analyze converses or relational lexemes. Thus, the relational father of is symbolized by [→ PARENT] and son of by the feature notation [← PARENT] (Lipka, 2002: 128). In writing this feature, Lipka adopted the notational convention of arrows from Leech.

The fourth type is „transfer features‟. Transfer features are fundamentally syntagmatic in nature (Lipka, 2002: 18). Taking Weinrich‟s example, Lipka explains the representation of the sentence He was drinking carrot with transfer features: [+SOLID] → < − SOLID>. The feature < − SOLID> is transferred from the verb drink to its grammatical objects carrots. There it replaces the contradictory inherent feature [+ SOLID]. As a result of the transfer process, carrots will be interpreted as carrot juice. The angular bracket, < >, used in this feature are adopted by Lipka from Weinrich. He further notes that transfer features are also needed for explaining metaphorical process.


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The fifth type is „deictic features‟. Lipka notes that deictic features are used to explain certain locative, temporal relations and direction. For example the feature [± PROXIMATE] symbolizes proximity to the speaker for lexemes now vs. then, or come vs. go.

The sixth type is „inferential features‟. According to Lipka, inferential features (IFs) do not occur in traditional semantics. From a synchronic point of view, as he sees it, only variable IFs can explain fuzziness in meaning, polysemy, regional, stylistic, and other variations. On the diachronic scale, they capture semantic restriction, extension, shift and other changes in meaning. According to Lipka, IFs may be used for formalizing the properties of a referent or denotatum and may occur in paraphrases, e.g. feature {STICK} to explain the word to beat and feature {TO GET ATTENTION} to the word to nudge. The braces used in this notation of IFs are taken from Lehrer (Lipka, 2002: 126).

The seventh type is „distinctive features‟. Distinctive features are a super-class of features discussed in points 1-5 above. Lipka defines distinctive feature as all semantic features that serve to distinguish a pair of lexemes that are otherwise identical in meaning. Thus for example cat and kitten are only distinguished by denotative feature [± ADULT], or steed and horse by the connotative feature [+ARCHAIC].

2.1.6. Contrastive Meaning

Lexicon is the part of the grammar that contains the knowledge speakers have about individual words and morphemes, including semantic properties. Fromkin et al. (1996:154) says that words that share a semantic property are said to be in a semantic


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class, e.g. the semantic class of „female‟ words. Semantic classes may intersect, such as the class of words with the properties „female‟ and „young‟. In some cases, however, the presence of one semantic property can be inferred from the presence or absence of another. For example, words with the property „human‟ also have the property „animate‟, and lack the property „equine‟.

One way of representing semantic properties is through the use of semantic features. Semantic features are a formal or notational device for expressing the presence or absence of semantic properties by pluses and minuses. For example, the lexical entries for words such as woman, father, girl, mare, and stalk would appear in the table as follows:

Table 2.2: semantic features (Fromkin et al., 1996: 155)

woman father girl mare stalk

+ female + male + female + female + motion + human + human + human – human + slow

– young + parent + young – young + purposeful In order to analyze any referential meaning, whether of a root word, such as dog, of an idiom, such as dog in the manger, we must identify those necessary and sufficient features that distinguish the meaning of any one form from every other from which might compete for a place within the same semantic territory. It is necessary also to find out what the relations are between the components, since that also is crucial for the understanding of meaning.

To determine the meaning of any lexical unit, from the level of a morpheme to the level of an entire discourse, it is essential to establish the basis of contrast. To do so effectively, those units most closely related semantically must be identified, that is to say those units which share the greatest number of common components and differ


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from one another in the smallest number of diagnostic components. Such meanings should be on the same hierarchical level, since on this basis they are likely to share the greatest number of common components, while differing most clearly with respect to crucial contrasts. The analysis is then called a contrastive meaning analysis. One simple example to illustrate the analysis is the set of words chair, stool, bench, and hassock. Four of them obviously share a number of common components: First, artifacts (in contrast with stone ledges on which one might sit); second, pieces of furniture (in contrast with other constructions, e.g. banks or sawhorses which can serve for sitting); and third, for sitting (in contrast with beds or dressers on which one may sit, but which are not designed for sitting). In order to determine the diagnostic feature of the meanings of these four units, we can then establish three basic types of features evidently to provide the contrasts: First, the number of persons for which the piece of furniture is designed; second, the occurrence or lack of a back; and third, the occurrence or lack of legs. These related features may be clearly indicated in the table below:

Table 2.3: Analysis on features related in semantics (Nida, 1975: 71)

Number of

persons Existence of back Existence of legs

One > One With back

Without back

With legs

Without legs

CHAIR – + + – + –

BENCH + – + + + –

STOOL – + – + + –

HASSOCK – + – + – +

Nida (1975) also highlights that for the purpose of understanding the possible variety of components and the relations of sets of meanings to one another, one of the most useful series consists of meanings involving physical movement through space. He begins with a related set of meanings represented by the terms run,

Words

Semantic Features


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walk, hop, skip, jump, crawl, and dance. It is important as to insure not being confronted at first with a number of variables, e.g. the hopping of toads, the dancing of trained bears, and the crawling of cars through traffic.

Although we already know that what appears to be an obvious contrast between run and walk is relative speed, the important diagnostic feature is the nature of the contact between the feet and the supporting surface. In run, hop, skip, jump, and some uses of dance, there are moments when neither foot is touching the ground. Whereas crawl, walk, and other uses of dance, at least one foot is always in contact with the ground. Another contrast in this set of meanings is the distinction between crawl, which needs four limbs to perform, and the other meanings, which need only two. Yet, the most specific set of contrasts involves the order of movement of the feet. For walk and run the order of contact with the ground is alternating 1–2–1–2–1– 2; for hop the order is 1–1–1–1 or 2–2–2–2; for skip the order is 1–1–2–2–1–1–2–2; and crawl the order is usually 1–3–2–4–1–3–2–4, if the limbs are numbered clockwise, but there are several different possible orders. Number one represents the right leg, number two represents the left leg, number three represents the left arm, and number four represents the right arm. For dance the order of contact with the ground varies greatly, but one distinguishing feature is that it is rhythmic, while for jump the order of contact at the beginning or end of the jump is irrelevant. What counts is the relatively greater distance involved in which there is no contact with the surface.

Nida found that the contrasts in meaning of these seven terms involve only three major types of features, namely the type of contact with the surface, the order of contact and the number of limbs. He showed the contrasts in the following table:


(1)

108 14. crime run away

with …

to steal something

They found that the treasurer had

run away with the proceeds.

agent, objective

15. accident run down to drive into a person or animal and kill or injure them

Their

daughter was

run down by a car just before their house.

experiencer, objective, manner, tool

16. criticism or disparage-ment

run down to say things that are rude,

unpleasant, or unfair about someone or something

Paula is so jealous of you that she keeps

running you

down.

agent, objective, manner

17. power run down to have no power and stop working

I came late because I did not realize that my clock had run down.

objective, manner

18. company or organization

run down to let a company, organization etc gradually become smaller or stop working

The fashion company nearby my town is now

running down

due to fewer demands.

experiencer, objective, tool, manner

19. rare occasion

run down to find someone or something after searching for a long time

I finally ran

him down at his new office downtown.

agent, objective, manner 20. crimes run in to catch or arrest

criminals

The police

ran him in

last night.

agent, objective, manner


(2)

109 21. vehicle or

transport-tation

run in to drive slowly (especially a new car) and carefully at first

She ran the car in for a thousand miles.

agent, objective, manner, tool, distance 22. accident run into to hit someone or

something with a car or other vehicle

His car skidded and

ran into a lamp-post.

agent, objective, manner, tool 23. incidental

meeting

run into to meet someone by chance

I ran into

Agnes

Monica at the shopping center last weekend.

experiencer, objective

24. difficulties or problems or debt

run into to start to experience difficulties

After a promising start, the company ran into lots of trouble.

experiencer, objective, manner, tool

25. number run into to reach an amount of several hundred, several thousand, etc.

The company had debts

running into

thousands of pounds.

experiencer, manner, objective, tool 26. word run into to join or mix so

that it is difficult to separate them

Due to fatigue, her words ran into each other in the last minutes of her presentation.

agent, objective, manner

27. tools or equipment

run into to use something so much that you destroy it

We ran that Chevrolet right into the ground.

agent, objective, manner, tool 28. escape run off to leave a place

or person in a

Amy’s husband had

agent, objective,


(3)

110 way that people disapprove of

run off and left her with two children to bring up.

manner

29. document run off to quickly print several copies of something

Should I run off some more of those documents for you on the photocopier?

agent, objective, tool, manner

30. piece of literary work

run off to write a speech, poem, piece of music etc quickly and easily

He is so professional that could run off a comedy monologue in half an hour.

agent, objective, manner

31. weight run off to get rid of weight by exercising

I’m trying to

run off some of my excess fat!

agent, objective, manner 32. love affair run off with to go away

somewhere with someone, because you are having a sexual relationship that people do not approve of

Liz shocked us all by

running off with a

married man.

agent, objective, manner, distance

33. stealing run off with to take something without permission

I found that he had run off with all my savings.

agent, objective

34. activity run on to continue happening for longer than expected or planned

The professor

ran on the lecture until 11 o’clock, an hour later than

expected.

agent, objective, manner


(4)

111 35. stock or

supply

run out (of) to use all of something and not have any of it left

The truck has

run out of gas again.

experiencer, objective, tool 36. document

or official agreement

run out to reach the end of the period when it is

officially allowed to continue

My contract

runs out in September.

agent, objective, tool

37. love affair run out (on) to leave

someone, when you should not

He ran out on

his second wife two years ago.

agent, objective, manner 38. accident run over to hit someone or

something with a car or other vehicle, and drive over them

He was run over by a bus and killed.

agent, objective, manner, tool 39. lesson run over to explain or

practice

something again

Could we just

run over the section on phrasal verbs again?

agent, objective, manner

40. thoughts or feeling

run over to think about a series of events, possibilities, etc.

I used to run over the options in my mind almost every night.

agent, objective, manner, tool 41. activity run over to continue past

the arranged time

The meeting

ran over, and I was late for lunch.

agent, objective, manner 42. substance,

esp. liquid

run over to overflow (if a container runs over, there is so much liquid inside that some flows out)

He forgot to turn off the water pump so that the water ran over the floor.

agent, objective, manner


(5)

112 43. lesson or

material

run through to repeat

something so that one can

remember it or get better at it

Let’s run through the first scene again.

agent, objective, manner

44. lesson or material

run through to read, look at, or explain something quickly

The teacher just ran through the previous lessons with the absentees.

agent, objective, manner

45. art work; society issue

run through to be present in many parts of something or continue through it

The theme of love runs through the whole books he writes.

agent, manner

46. crime or murder

run through to push a sword completely through someone

The musketeer

ran his enemy

through with a sword and killed him.

agent, objective, manner, tool

47. amount or quantity

run to to reach a

particular amount The

document ran to almost 100 pages.

agent, objective, manner 48. money run to to be enough

money to pay for something, or have enough money for it

My wages won’t run to

a new car.

agent, objective, manner

49. bill or expenses or debts

run up to use a lot of something or borrow a lot of money, so that one will have to pay a lot of money

She ran up an enormous phone bill.

agent, objective, manner


(6)

113 50. clothes run up to make

something very quickly

I ran this dress up in a single evening.

agent, objective, manner, tool 51. flag run up to raise a flag They ran up

the Union Jack soon after reaching the top of the mountain.

agent, objective, manner, tool

52. problems run up against

to have to deal with unexpected problems or a difficult opponent

We ran up against some unexpected opposition.

experiencer, objective, manner