In order to express ourselves better, one of our concerns should be the proper use of words. And for this to be possible, we must be aware of the various relationships that they can establish: relationship by origin, by meaning, by sound, by thematic area, etc.
When we study these aspects, we come across the terms semantic field It is lexical field. Do you know what each one means? Before we define these elements, it is important to keep in mind that:
Lexicon: is the set of words used or belonging to a given language.
Semantics: is the study of the meaning of each word that exists in a language.
Bearing this in mind, we can see that, however close they are, there are differences when it comes to the semantic field and the lexical field.
O lexical field of a language is formed by words belonging to the same area of knowledge and by words formed by composition (a process that forms words from the combination of two or more radicals) and derivation (a process that forms a new word from another that already exists, called primitive). Example:
Working lexical field: work, worker, labor, employee, boss, salary, union, profession, function, work card, professional, team, worker etc.
already the semantic field works with the meanings that a single word presents when inserted in different contexts. It is, therefore, the set of different meanings that a single word can present.
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The same term, depending on how and when it is used and which words are related to it, can have different meanings. Examples:
Semantic field of starting: leave, go away, get away, disappear, die, break, shatter, etc.
Dying semantic field: pass away, black out, kick the bucket, move to a higher plane, black out, went to heaven, etc.
Joking semantic field: entertainment, distraction, joke, teasing, clowning, teasing, etc.
semantic field of manufacture: to construct, to assemble, to create, to design, to construct, to make, to make, to elaborate, etc.
Fatigue semantic field: weariness, fatigue, exhausted, sunken, slumped, prostrated, exhausted, etc.
It is possible to state, therefore, that the semantic field of a word or expression is the collection that we access in order to achieve the intended interaction with our interlocutor. From this set, we can enable the communicational situations of our day to day.
This definition is linked to what we understand as polysemy, but we cannot say that these two concepts are synonymous. The semantic field is the space in which polysemy operates, that is, the multiple and possible meanings that a given word has is its semantic field. Polysemy, in turn, consists of the various meanings that, in a given case/phrase/sentence, the word can assume. Example:
she left.
Semantic field of starting: leave, go away, get away, disappear, die, break, shatter, etc.
Occurrence of polysemy: she died or she left.
By Mariana Pacheco
Graduated in Letters