- What is a semantic field?
- Semantic field types
- Examples of semantic fields
- Semantic field and lexical family
We explain what a semantic field is in linguistics, its types and examples. Also, differences with a lexical family.
What is a semantic field?
In linguistics, a semantic field (also called a lexical network or cohesive chain) is a group of words that share an essential core of their respective meanings, and therefore have links and common characteristics.
Semantic fields are also a way of mentally representing the closeness between the meanings of words, as if it were a constellation or a cloud of semantically linked words.
The concept of semantic field (originally called wortfeld, "field of words") was proposed by the linguists Gunther Ipsen and especially Jost Trier , from the incorporation of the structural theories of the Swiss Ferdinand de Saussure to the study of the meaning of words. Its acceptance in formal linguistics began in 1957 at the VII International Congress of Linguists.
As Saussure proposed, words derive their own value from their relationship (and position) with each other. So, for example, the word tree It immediately refers us to other terms that share its lexical root, that is, its minimum piece endowed with meaning, such as “grove”, “bush”, “arboreal” or “arborescent” (lexical field).
On the other hand, the same word also refers us to others with which it strictly shares a trait of meaning, such as “plant”, “vegetable” or “vegetation” (semantic field). The set of these words thus make up the lexical-semantic field of the word tree.
However, the semantic fields, that is, the associative constellations of a word, are only the words that share a grammatical category and also have common features of meaning. In this they differ from lexical fields, which can be made up of words of different grammatical categories but linked by their lexical root.
It is important to understand that this is not a set of synonyms, but from the cluster of words they share be more, that is, basic features of identifiable meaning. That is why a large part of them are determined by extralinguistic factors, historical, cultural, contextual, etc.
Semantic field types
There are different ways of studying and classifying semantic fields, as is the case below:
- Closed semantic field, when it is difficult to add more terms to the set, since their associative capacities are "closed". In reality, these types of fields cannot exist at all, given that language is a creative entity and is always proposing new meanings and associations.
- Open semantic field, when it is possible to add new elements and relationships, especially when dealing with semantic fields linked to continuous themes innovationlike that of technology.
Examples of semantic fields
Here are some examples of semantic fields:
- Semantic field of the word wood: tree, trunk, firewood, lumberjack, carpenter, linoleum, etc.
- Semantic field of the word hen: rooster, bird, chicken coop, egg, farm, beak, feathers, etc.
- Semantic field of the word fruit: pear, salad, apple, seed, plant, harvest, etc.
- Semantic field of the word book: reading, writer, bookstore, novel, library, encyclopedia, etc.
- Semantic field of the word water: sea, lake, river, rain, ice, pool, puddle, thirst, etc.
- Semantic field of the word fire: fire, campfire, flame, torch, candle, lighter, etc.
Semantic field and lexical family
From a specific semantic field, it is possible to choose words that, in addition to their basic features of meaning, also share a lexical root, that is, that are the result of derivative processes from a common word (an ancestral word). This set of words with the same derivational origin is known as lexical family or word family.
Thus, for example, the word "sea" serves as a common lexical root to the family that they compose: maritime, sailor, marine, tidal wave, tide, dizzy, tidal wave, etc. It is important to note that they all have the same root and the same base meaning trait, but they vary in their final meaning to the same extent that they acquire derivative particles, such as suffixes.
Other examples of lexical families are:
- Lexical family of the word fish: fish, fish, fishmonger, fishing, fisherman, fishbowl, little fish, etc.
- Lexical family of the word field: peasant, campera, campestre, camping, camp, campiña, etc.
- Lexical family of the word green: verdor, verdeo, vegetable, reverdecer, verdoso, etc.