Exercise 6.4

Lexical Fields

Related to the concept of hyponymy, but more loosely defined, is the notion of a lexical field. A lexical field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words. The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property. Most often, fields are defined by subject matter, such as body parts, landforms, diseases, colors, foods, or kinship relations. Internally, these may be organized as a hierarchy (e.g., royalty, military ranks), as a meronymy (e.g., body parts), as a sequence (e.g., numbers), or or as a cycle (e.g., days of the week, months of the year), as well as with no discernible order. A thesaurus is generally organized according to substantive fields (although it also makes use of hyponymy and synonymy).

The words which are part of a lexical field enter into sense or meaning relationships with one another. Each word delimits the meaning of the next word in the field and is delimited by it; that is, it marks off an area or range within the semantic domain. However, there may be a fair amount of overlap in meaning between words in a domain, and it is often difficult to find mutually delimiting terms. Within a domain, some words are marked, while some are unmarked; the unmarked members are more frequent, more basic, broader in meaning, easier to learn and remember, not metaphorical, and typically one morpheme or single lexical item. The marked members often consist of more than one lexical item and may denote a subtype of the unmarked member.

Let's consider some examples of lexical fields. The field of “parts of the face” (see the table below, part a) is a substantive field of part to whole. Terms within the field are arranged spatially and quite clearly delimited, though there is some overlap between terms such as forehead and temple. Terms such as bridge of the nose or eyelids would constitute marked members of the field. The field of “stages of life” (see b) is arranged sequentially, though there is considerable overlap between terms (e.g., child, toddler) as well as some apparent gaps (e.g., there are no simple terms for the different stages of adulthood). Note that a term such a minor or juvenile belongs to a technical register, a term such as kid or tot to a colloquial register, and a term such as sexagenarian or octogenarian to a more formal register. The semantic field of “water” (see c) could be divided into a number of subfields; in addition, there would appear to be a great deal of overlap between terms such as sound/fjord or cove/harbor/bay. The semantic field of “clothing” (see d) is a particularly rich one, with many unmarked terms (such as dress or pants) as well as many marked terms (such as pedal-pushers or smoking jacket). The field of clothing might be organized in many different ways – by sex of wearer, by occasion of wearing, by body part covered, and so on. Finally, the field of “jewelry” (see e) would seem to include quite well-delimited terms, with a number of unmarked terms.

Examples of lexical fields: (a) Parts of the Face, (b) Stages of Life, (c) Water, (d) Clothing, and (e) Jewelry

Now try to list the possible members of the following semantic fields:

1. vocalization

2. types of roads

3. personality traits