Introducing English Linguistics

Table 6.2. Most frequent words in sample paragraph
Word
Number of occurrences
the
10
a
7
of
6
word(s)
6
as
5
from
3
on
3
which
3
Total
43

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context can be easily examined. Although only sentence fragments in
which chair occurs can be seen, often only a limited context is needed to
determine the meaning of a word. If a larger context is desired, most con-
cordancing programs allow for the entire sentence or surrounding sen-
tences to be viewed.
While lexicographers will need to examine many uses of a word to
determine its meaning(s), the twenty-four instances of chair in Figure 6.2
begin to reveal its meaning. Three of the examples point to a chair as a
place to sit:
... in his gown, sitting in a chair ...
Enter the friar, sitting in a chair ...
The back of the chair on which Gennaio is sitting ...
One example actually provides a definition of a chair:
A chair consists of four legs, a seat, ...
Another contains a few words, “carved wooden chair,” specifying what
a chair is made of.
Other examples indicate that chair  is  polysemous; that is, that it has
more than one meaning. A chair is not simply a concrete object used for
sitting, but an abstract noun designating someone who is the head of
something, or who holds some highly esteemed position at a university:
... Gordon Stewart, chair of the Department of History, ...
... B. Watson left his academic chair at The Johns Hopkins University ...
English words: Structure and meaning
163
FIGURE
6.2
Concordance view of the word chair.

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Of course, more examples beyond those in Figure 6.2 would be needed to
verify this meaning of chair. But as lexicographers begin isolating multi-
ple meanings of words, they can search for other examples to determine
how widespread the meanings are.
Deciding whether a given word has one or more meanings is often dif-
ficult to determine. For instance, the last example in Figure 6.2 associates
the notion of movement with a chair. In this example, it is not clear
whether the child referred to is rocking in a regular chair, or sitting in a
rocking chair. A “rocking chair” differs from other chairs because it does
not have four legs but two curved legs that are shaped in a way that per-
mits the chair to move forwards and backwards. A “computer chair” also
moves but typically has four legs with wheels. A “beanbag chair” has no
legs or arms but a flexible area for sitting.
All of these types of chairs are little more than variations on the tradi-
tional notion of “chair.” For this reason, no lexicographer is likely to list
them in a dictionary in a separate entry. Other cases, however, are less
straightforward. In his now classic study of the meaning of the word cup,
Labov (1973) found considerable variation in the types of objects that peo-
ple judge as “cups” rather than some other drinking vessel, such as a
“mug.” To elicit judgments of the meaning of cup, Labov (1973: 354) pre-
sented people with pictures of various objects. Each of the objects con-
tained a handle, but varied in width, depth, and shape. Figure 6.3 presents
four objects that varied in width but not depth, ranging from a
width/depth ratio of 1.2 (object 1) up to a ratio of 1.9 to 1 (object 4). Other
objects (not included in the figure) had differing width/depth ratios and
also differing shapes.
Labov (1973: 355) asked subjects to name the objects in four different
contexts. For instance, one context was labeled “neutral”: subjects were
simply asked to supply a name for the object; another context was
labeled “food” because subjects were asked what they would call the
object if it contained mashed potatoes and was placed on a dinner table.
Labov (1973: 356) found that size was a greater influence in the food con-
text than the neutral context. For instance, in the neutral context, all
subjects called object 1 a cup. However, in the food context, roughly 75
percent of the subjects called the object a cup, and 25 percent a bowl. In
the neutral context, 25 percent named object 4 a cup, with 75 percent
calling it a bowl. In the food context, all subjects called object 4 a bowl.
Labov (1973: 357) found similar influences in the other contexts he tested,
leading him to conclude that “the consistency profiles for any given term
are radically shifted as the subjects conceive of the objects in different
functional settings.”
164
INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
FIGURE
6.3
Cups and the notion
of width (adapted
from Labov 1973:
354).

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Lexicographers handle such variability in meaning, Labov (1973: 350)
notes, by including in their definitions “qualifying words like chiefly, com-
monly, or the like, etc.” (italics represent underlining in original). For
instance, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edn.) uses the qualify-
ing word usually to define a cup: “an open usually bowl-shaped drinking
vessel.” While such impressionistic language might be objectionable to
semanticists, Labov (1973: 351) argues that such language quite effec-
tively captures the “scalar” nature of meaning: the idea that the differ-
ence in meaning between words is not absolute, but on a scale, with one
meaning grading into another. Such language is also desirable for lexi-
cographers because it enables them to present word definitions to their
readership more concisely – one of many considerations, as the next sec-
tion will demonstrate, that guide lexicographers in the wording of their
definitions.