Lexical and Terminological Sets, Lexico-Semantic Groups and Semantic fields.

Words denoting different things correlated on extralinguistic grounds form lexical sets.(тематические или предметные группы)

Ex: “lion, tiger, leopard, puma, cat” refer to the lexical set of “the animals of the cat family”.

Depending on the type of the notional area lexical sets may acquire a more specialized character - terminological sets (терминологические группы).

Ex: “parts of the car mechanism”: “radiator, motor, handbrake, wheels”.

Words describing different sides of one and the same general notion are united in a lexico-semantic group if:

1) the underlying notion is not too generalized and all-embracing like the notions of “time”, “life’, “process”, etc.;

2) the reference to the underlying notion is not just an implication in the meaning of the lexical unit but forms an essential part in its semantics.

Ex: the lexico-semantic group of names of “colours”: pink, black, red, green, white;

the lexico-semantic group of verbs denoting “physical movement” – to go, to turn, to run; or “destruction” – to ruin, to destroy, to explode, to kill.

If the underlying notion is broad enough to include almost all-embracing sections of vocabulary we deal with semantic fields (or conceptual fields).

Ex: cosmonaut (n.), spacious (adj.), to orbit (v.) – belong to the semantic field of “space”.

The members of the semantic fields are joined together by some common semantic component (the component common to all the members of the semantic field), which is sometimes described as the common denominator of meaning.

 

a semantic field

 

a lexical/terminological

 

 

a lexico- semantic group