Lexical configurations

1
Lexical configurations
creature
animal
bird
swallow

• Taxonomies and
• proportional series
• Cruse, ch. 5 (6)

2
Lexical organization
These are all well-known English words
sell
sofa
ankle
yellow
kick
stallion
tan
fry
dead
dog
brown
punch
shorten
long
cooker
chair
foot
orange
cook
alive
horse
animal
canine
pet
beast
bake
colour
lengthen
short
buy
Is this the way your mental lexicon is organized?
3
- Hardly. So what priciples of organization might
be at work?
alive
cook
orange
animal
pet
cooker
Organization by orthographical criteria
alphabetic list
dead
ankle
punch
bake
dog
sell
foot
short
beast
brown
fry
shorten
horse
sofa
buy
kick
stallion
canine
tan
chair
lengthen
colour
yellow
long
Is this the way your mental lexicon is organized?
4
- Again hardly. Any others?
Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
cook
beast
fry
shorten
ankle
Organization by grammatical / distributional cri
teria wordclasses
dead
kick
chair
sofa
orange
lengthen
horse
yellow
bake
punch
brown
punch
animal
orange
canine
cook
stallion
tan
buy
cooker
alive
sell
dog
long
colour
foot
short
pet
canine
Is this the way your mental lexicon is organized?
5
- Yes, thats one way. Others?
lengthen
orange
long
alive
shorten
yellow
short
animal
colour
kick
cook
ankle
tan
horse
cooker
canine
foot
brown
fry
dead
sell
beast
bake
dog
buy
pet
stallion
punch
punch
kick
chair
orange
cook
sofa
Is this the way your mental lexicon is organized?
6

• Yes, undoubtedly

The goupings above are loosely based on
similarity of meaning. For example
long and lengthen are different wordclass
formations of the same meaning
long and short are similar in meaning in that
they say something about dimension
buy and sell mean the same, only from opposite
viewpoints
brown and tan are similar in that they denote
colours
ankle and foot are similar in that they denote
different parts of a leg
But what would be wrong with these
long and horse are similar because long concerns
dimension, and horses have dimen- sions
horse and sofa are similar because both denote
physical objects you can sit on
- So what exactly are the organizational
principles?
7
The fundamental principle entailment
long and lengthen are semantically related
because Peter lengthened his stride entails and
is entailed by Peter made his stride long-er
long and short are semantically related because
Peter has a long stride entails and is entailed
by Peter does not have a short stride
buy and sell are semantically related because
Peter bought a horse from John entails and is
entailed by John sold a horse to Peter
brown and tan are semantically related because
That horse is tan entails, but is not entailed
by, That horse is brown
ankle and foot are semantically related because
Peter hurt his ankle entails Peter hurt his leg
AND because Peter hurt his foot entails Peter
hurt his leg
long and horse are not semantically related
because Tarok is long does not entail nor is
entailed by Tarok is a horse
horse and sofa are not semantically related
because John sat on his sofa does not entail
nor is entailed by John sat on his horse
- But as you can see entailment is used in
different ways here
8
- These different ways give rise to different
lexical configurations
Synonymy make something long-er lengthen
something
Contrariety long gtlt short (long not short )
Converseness A buys B from C ?? A sells B to
C (A buys B from C C sells B to A)

Hyponymy tan ? brown
Meronomy ankle ? leg foot ? leg
Those below the dotted line are of special
in- terest, for they form -
9
- Hierarchies
Dominance relation
Differentiation relation
Branching
Non-Branching
10
Types of hierarchies
Overlapping
Non-overlaping
11
English cooking terms (after A. Lehrer)

• an overlapping and fairly complex hierarchy,
• structuring a lexical field

bake1
cook1
cook2
steam
boil1
broil
fry
barbecue
grill
deep-fry
sauté
simmer
boil2
braise
stew
poach
12
Cruses (partial) taxonomy
Unique beginner
creature
Life form
animal
bird
fish
insect
dog
elephant
robin
eagle
cod
trout
ant
butterfly
Generic
Specific
alsatian
spaniel
Varietal
King Charles Spaniel
Springer Spaniel
13
dyr
edderkop
fisk
krybdyr
pattedyr
insekt
fugl
edderkop
hval
(antilope)
krokodille
gepard
myre
guldsmed
firben
ørn
struds
flue
delfin
elsdyr- antilope
gnu
Dansk har ikke noget der præcist svarer til eng.
creature
hvidhalet gnu
14
creature
animal
edderkop
fish
reptile
mammal
insect
bird
spider
flue
whale
(antelope)
crocodile
cheetah
ant
dragonfly
lizard
eagle
ostrich
fly
delfin
eland
wilde- beest
whitetailed gnu black wildebeest
15
dyr
rovdyr
planteæder
(ådselæder)
(insektædende)
(altædende)
spider
pard
my
guldsmed
krokodille
firben
ge
klovdyr
(hovdyr)
re
elsdyr- antilope
gnu
Not a well-formed taxonomy
16
creature
animal
herbivore
carnivore
(insectivore)
(scavenger)
(omnivore)
ungulate (hoofed animal)
tile)
(fissiped)
(rep
(insect)
spider
ant
dragonfly
crocodile
lizard
even-toed ungulate
cheetah
odd-toed ungulate
eland
wildebeest
Not a well-formed taxonomy
17
Proportional series
foot
leg
hand
arm
18
Proportional series
foot
hand
leg
arm
19
Proportional series
foot
hand
Endonyms
shoe
glove
Exonyms
20
Endonyms and exonyms
Possible situations described
s1 3 stallions
s2 2 stallions, 1 mare
John has three horses
s3 1 stallion, 2 mares
s4 3 mares
John has three mares
s5 3 mares, 1 stallion
s6 n-1 ..
sn 3 mares, n stallions
The more semantic information a lexical unit
contains, the more possible situations it
excludes (specificity)
21
Endonym
Exonym
contained in
22
Exonyms
Endonyms
foot
kick
hand
punch
A kickboxer is also semantically odd
23
long
lengthen
An important relationship behind the productive
process of derivation
short
shorten
strong
strengthen
24
Verbs
Nouns
sælge
sælger
spise
spiser
- even though spiser is not a usual Danish noun