There is an assumption among semantic theorists, according to Lehrer (1974: 15) that the vocabulary has an underlying structure and that the words are divided up into sets, which are related to conceptual fields. Field Theories – general statements and presuppositions With this paper, I want to look at different theories concerning linguistic fields, the notion of gaps in recent research, and, finally, I want to apply this to describe a field I chose by myself. Nevertheless, there might be gaps in the fields, as already seen from the example at the beginning. All fields are needed to examine a language adequately. The vocabulary is divided into several kinds of fields, some words belong to more than one field but altogether all these fields constitute the vocabulary of a certain language. And this is also the case in linguistics. This supports the statement that this word is lexical ambiguous, it has more than one meaning depending on the context in which it is used.Ĭonsidering all these definitions, it is striking, that they all have one feature in common: all definitions of ‘field’ mean a separated area of something they are a part and contribute to a whole. ‘a subject that people study’, ‘the field all the people or companies that are competing against each other’ or ‘an area where there is a strong natural force’. There I also found the above-mentioned explanations and some others, e.g. In order to find a more precise kind of definition, I searched the “Wikipedia” ( (access:, 12:14 MEZ)) and found a very detailed description of the term ‘field’: it can represent an acre (differentiated land area to grow agricultural crop), in sports the field to play on or a certain group of pursuers, in military history the theater of war, in general a specific field, in physics a certain position, in computer science a data structure, in cutting the term for a single picture, and in a specific area of heraldry the term for the parts of a crest.īy looking up ‘field’ in the online dictionary ‘Wiktionary’ ( (access:, 20:22 MEZ)), I discovered nearly the same definition as in the “Wikipedia”, but there were two pieces of extra information about ‘field’: it may be a defined as an area on a sheet of paper, a board to play on, or a screen, but it can as well depict the world outside of a laboratory.Īs a last source of information I looked the word up in the “Longman Dictionary” (1998: 243). However, these notions are rather primary. A non-native speaker has to paraphrase this expression, e.g. ![]() This example shows that there is no one-to-one correspondence in English for ‘ins Feld ziehen’. cross-country, ‘ins Feld (in den Krieg) ziehen’ or field crop. There can also be found some word combinations with ‘field’, e.g. ![]() ![]() This shows that this word may be lexical ambiguous. I started with dictionaries and went on with encyclopedias.Īccording to the German dictionary “Duden” (Duden (2000: 370)) a field may be e.g. The starting point of my research paper on field theory and gaps is the question: what are the different interpretations of ‘field’ in our language nowadays. Attempt of a field analysis: semantic fields of ‘Basilikum’ and ‘basil’Ħ. The concept of gaps – general statementsĤ. Field Theories – general statements and presuppositionsģ.
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