Componential analysis, also called feature analysis or contrast analysis, refers to the description of the meaning of words through structured sets of semantic

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

 features, which are given as “present”, “absent” or “indifferent with reference to feature”. The method thus departs from the principle of compositionality

Principle of compositionality

In mathematics, semantics, and philosophy of language, the Principle of Compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. This principle is also called Frege's Principle,...

. Componential analysis is a method typical of structural semantics

Structural semantics

Logical positivism asserts that structural semantics is the study of relationships between the meanings of terms within a sentence, and how meaning can be composed from smaller elements...

 which analyzes the structure of a word's meaning. Thus, it reveals the culturally important features by which speakers of the language distinguish different words in the domain (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 20). This is a highly valuable approach to learning another language and understanding a specific semantic domain of an Ethnography

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

.

Examples

man = [+ male], [+ mature] or woman = [– male], [+ mature] or boy = [+ male], [– mature] or girl [– male] [– mature] or child [+/– male] [– mature]. In other words, the word girl can have three basic factors (or semantic properties): human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

, young, and female

Female

Female is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...

. Another example, being edible is an important factor by which plants may be distinguished from one another (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 20). To summarize, one word can have basic underlying meanings that are well established depending on the cultural context. It is crucial to understand these underlying meanings in order to fully understand any language and culture.

Historical background

Structural semantics and the componential analysis were patterned on the phonological methods of the Prague School, which described sounds by determining the absence and presence of features. On one hand, componential analysis gave birth to various models in generative semantics

Generative semantics

Generative semantics is the name of a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of various early students of Noam Chomsky: John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later James McCawley...

, lexical field theory

Lexical field theory

Lexical field theory, or word-field theory, was introduced on March 12, 1931 by the German linguist Jost Trier. Trier argued that words acquired their meaning through their relationships to other words within the same word-field. An extension of the sense of one word narrows the meaning of...

 and transformational grammar

Transformational grammar

In linguistics, a transformational grammar or transformational-generative grammar is a generative grammar, especially of a natural language, that has been developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars...

. On the other hand, its shortcoming were also visible:

• The discovery procedures for semantic features are not clearly objectifiable.
• Only part of the vocabulary can be described through more or less structured sets of features.
• Metalinguistic features are expressed through language again.
• Features used may not have clear definitions.
• Limited in focus and mechanical in style.

As a consequence, entirely different ways to describe meaning were developed, such as prototype semantics

Prototype Theory

Prototype theory is a mode of graded categorization in cognitive science, where some members of a category are more central than others. For example, when asked to give an example of the concept furniture, chair is more frequently...

.