Download Verbs of breaking in the Langalang language

Directions: Journal of Educational Studies Vol. 22 No. 2 Dec. 2000
Verbs of Breaking in the Langalanga language – Solomon
Islands
Claire Damutalau
Introduction
Descriptive semantic analysis is one way of explaining and describing
meaning in natural languages. More explicitly, its goals are “to explain
what underlies the use of the word means and related terms (sense,
nonsense, antonymy, synonymy etc) in English and other languages”
(Leech, 1969:5).
Aims
The aims of this exercise are to:
a) select words which are fairly closely related or of the same lexical
field
b) identify what relationships hold between the words
c) provide a descriptive semantic analysis of the words.
Focus of study
In this paper, the focus will be on the semantic area of the verbs of
breaking in the Langalanga language of Solomon Islands. These are
restricted to:
a) break as in the separation of a rigid body into pieces implying
either partial or total destruction of a whole
b) a temporary injury as to a bone; breaking a leg
c) getting free from some restraint or enclosure.
This does not include verbs of breaking using an instrument such as
cut, chop and slice.
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Definitions
The terms selected are listed below.
akari
the separation of a rigid body into pieces (break)
causing either partial or total destruction
fidi
(chip)
the breaking away of a tiny portion of a
rigid body e.g.: an aluminum cup with a bit chipped
off
kwekwe
the breaking away of a portion (bigger than
fidi) of a rigid body
magiri
(crack)
break partially but no with separation, e.g. glass
manisi
(shatter)
to break into tiny pieces, scattering them all
over the place, e.g. glass
meme
(crush)
to break into pieces but not scattering all
over the place, e.g. egg
akasu
(tear)
breaking of a non-rigid body, e.g. paper
gaga
(tear)
breaking of a non-rigid body, e.g. fabric
kwakwa
a breaking that is hole-like in nature whether
of a rigid or non-rigid body, e.g. copper roof and
fabric
mou
breaking of a cordlike structure, e.g. rope or
string
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toba
(split)
break a rigid body in half, e.g. wood
mooi
(fell)
breaking of a rigid body from a vertical
position eg tree felling
busu/foda
(burst)
breaking due to internal pressure, e.g.
balloon
As illustrated in the table, the verb kwakwa seems to be used for almost
all the objects except for ‘rope’. In addition, the verb mou only refers to
stringlike things. A basket can be said to be mou only when the handle is
broken.
Relationships
Hyponymy
As far as semantic relationship is concerned, all the words are related to
each other through having one superordinate term akari. Thus, all the
other terms are hyponyms of the superordinate term.
akari
mooi fidi kwekwe magiri manisi meme akasu gaga kwakwa mou toba busu/foda
Hyponymy is a relationship that licenses one-way entailments between
sentences in which everything remains constant except for substitutions
in one slot of the sentence. Thus, the sentence from which the entailment
proceeds is the one that contains the hyponym. The entailed sentence
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contains the superordinate term. Therefore, in this sense, the kind of
relationship akari has with some of its hyponyms is called hyponymy.
Examples:
a) Peleti e manisi
entails peleti e akari
(The plate shattered)
(The plate broke)
However,
Peleti e akari does not entail peleti e manisi
(The plate broke)
(The plate shattered)
This is because there are other types of akari that can be used like
fidi, kwekwe, magiri and kwakwa.
b) Sote lia e gaga
entails
sote lia e akari
(His shirt was torn)
(His shirt ‘broke’)
but
Sote lia e akari does not entail sote lia e gaga
(His shirt ‘broke’)
(His shirt was torn)
This is because there are other types of akari that can be used which
are relevant to this context like kwekwe, akasu and kwakwa.
Collocations
The use of these verbs depends on the type of object that each verb
is related to semantically and the type of situation in which the action
occurs. (See Table 1.) The objects identified include the common
ones. It can be seen that one object can collocate with different verbs,
according to the situation or the intensity of the situation. For example,
the common verbs used with egg are meme when it is crushed by a
heavy object and manisi when it falls from the table to the floor. Other
situations include:
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Glass
Chair
(plastic)
Plate
(stone
or clay)
Fabric
Paper
Tree
Rope
Leg
hand
Balloon
Egg
Wood
leg
Objects
Verbs
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b
bb
b
bb
b
b
b
b
b
bb
b
b
b
b
bb
kwa
kwa
bb
mou
bb
toba
bb
bb
mooi
Note: Two ticks means a common use and one tick means that it can be used but only
occasionally, depending on the situation or the intensity of the situation.
bb
b
bb
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
b
bb
b
b
bb
bb
b
b
b
bb
bb
magiri manisi meme akasu gaga
b
bb
b
bb
bb
kwe
kwe
b
b
b
b
b
bb
fidi
bb
b
akari
Table 1 The relationship between verbs of breaking and the objects ‘broken’
bb
b
bb
Busu/
foda
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Directions: Journal of Educational Studies Vol. 22 No. 2 Dec. 2000
v An egg falls and the shell breaks in half. If somebody picks
up one half; in the Langalanga language, he/she can refer to
this as:
Eke ba e kwekwe lo (the egg is broken – no specific word for
it in English)
v If an egg falls onto a soft surface causing only a bit of the
shell to break off, in the Langalanga context, it would be:
Eke ba e kwakwa lo (the egg broke - no specific English
term for kwakwa).
Incompatibility
This is a relationship that licenses entailments from an affirmative
sentence to a negative sentence that differs from the affirmative
sentence only in the words being compared. (Griffiths, 1998:
29). Also it does not license entailment from a negative sentence
to corresponding sentences with other co-hyponyms of the
same superordinate. It is different within a background of
similarity. Thus, hyponyms which have the same superordinate
are incompatibles.
Examples:
a) Me akarina fo ala peleti e magiri
(Literally:The breaking in that plate is cracked)
entails
Me akarina fo ala peleti iko ali manisi
(Literally:The breaking in that plate is not shattered)
b) Kwalo e mou
(The rope breaks)
entails
Kwalo iko ali meme
(The rope is not crushed)
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Synonymy
Words are said to be synonymous if they contain identical
semantic components and descriptions. They are the words that
license two-way entailment between pair of sentences
(paraphrases). The only difference is “the matter of which of the
words in question they contain in a particular slot are synonyms”
(Griffiths, 1998:28). With these selected verbs of breaking, only
two sets are found to be synonymous. They are busu and foda,
and akasu and gaga.
Examples:
a) Me lo ba I aaela e busu entails
(The boil on his leg bursts)
Me lo ba I aaela e foda entails
(The boil on his leg bursts)
Me lo ba I aaela e foda
(The boil on his leg bursts)
Me lo ba I aaela e busu
(The boil on his leg bursts)
b) Kolosu lia e gaga entails Kolosu lia e akasu
(Her skirt is torn)
(Her skirt is torn)
Kolosu lia e akasu entails Kolosu lia e gaga
(Her skin is torn)
(Her skirt is torn)
Ambiguity
There is only one case of possible ambiguity. That is the word
busu. As a verb, busu means a kind of breaking as discussed
here. As a noun, it means mountain. Hence, to understand what
a person is saying when using the word busu, one has to know
the context of the utterance.
Examples:
a) Busu e afula i abafo
(There are plenty of mountains on that side)
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b) Aaegu e busu lo
(My leg bursts)
This does not mean that someone’s legs are shaped like mountains
but that there is a boil on the person’s leg and it bursts.
Comparing English to the Langalanga terms
One of the things I found was that some of the terms used in the
Langalanga language have no English equivalent. For example,
kwekwe, kwakwa, and mou have, as far as I know, no equivalent in
English. However, there seems to be an equivalent term in Langalanga
for all the English verbs of breaking.
Also some verbs of the Langalanga language do not imply whether
its past or present tense like that of English. Hence, formulating
examples are hindered by this. Likewise, the common use of all the
verbs in the langalanga context favours intrusive than transitive. This
may not be the case for English because most sentences will make
no sense.
Conclusion
The focus of this project is to analyse the‘verbs of breaking in the
Langalanga language aiming to find semantic relations. The ones
found in this study are hyponymy, incompatibility, and synonymy.
These relationships are very important in semantics because they
help in constructing the meanings of other words in the same lexical
field.
Bibliography
Griffiths, P. (1998) LL 318 Lecture Notes
Leech, G.N. (1969) Towards a semantic description of English.
London. Longmans. Green & Co.
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