CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

feelings symbolized in order to convey meaning to others. Language is not

only the media to get knowledge but also determine the knowledge itself.

Languages will change and the development of the human mind in

communication. Lakoff ( 1987: 593), stated the main role of language as a

carrier entity of meaning that makes language and knowledge is the

inseparable unity. The development of a language is certainly inseparable

from the human mind. When human knowledge develops the language also

develops and vice versa.

Every individual's way of thinking and acting is always related to

metaphor. Images of reality and everyday experiences can be understood

easyly through metaphor because it is related to human cognition. Cognitive

linguists also argue that metaphor is a central feature of human language

( Evans & Green, 2006:59). The metaphor is the phenomenon where one

conceptual domain is systematically structured in terms of another. Lakoff

and Johnson's starting point is, - that metaphor is an ‘ordinary' part of the

language, not ‘extraordinary'. They state that “We have found […] that

metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought

and action” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980/2003:3) and “Our ordinary

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conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally

metaphorical in nature”(1980/2003:3).

Cognitive linguistics is considered as the appropriate approach to

discussing more in-depth research about polysemy as its characteristic which

observes language more broadly and comprehensive. Taylor (1989 in

Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, 2007: 140) stated “Even though classical

polysemy refers to first of all to lexis, Cognitive linguistics tools make it

possible to observe polysemous effects in phonology, morphology, and

syntax. The stages in which certain linguistic forms summarize a number of

meanings of knowledge are translated as polysemy. Lewandowska-

Tomaszewski (2007:139), stated: “One of the most fundamental phenomena

observed in language is the existence of a diversity of related meanings

expressed by the same word form”.

The fundamental characteristics of polysemy can explain the new

concepts that did not exist before ( Wijana, 2010: 164). Linguistic studies of

word meaning generally divide ambiguity into homonymy and polysemy. It is

exactly this systematicity that represents a challenge for lexical semantics.

While homonymy is assumed to be encoded in the lexicon for each lemma,

there is a substantial body of work on dealing with general polysemy patterns

(cf. Nunberg and Zaenen (1992); Copestake and Briscoe (1995); Pustejovsky

(1995); Nunberg (1995)). Unfortunately, the distinction between polysemy

and homonymy is still very much an unsolved question.

The discussion of polysemy has received the attention of researchers in

examining a number of words in the dictionary. Some of these words can

include a noun or verb class words. One polysemy study with the noun word

class object has been carried out by Wijaya (2011). He focused his research

on nouns related to a person's body part, namely "HEAD". Unlike Wijaya,

several researchers such as Gisborne (2010); Prayudha (2014); Rosiana

(2016); Bella (2017); Pasaribu (2011); Erdeljic (2013); and Zuercher (2013)

have conducted polysemy research with verb word class objects. Among the

eight researchers, it can be seen that they have similarities in terms of class

verb words that are related to the movement of a person's body parts. For

example, the verb SEE (Gisborne, 2010) and LOOK verbs (Prayuda, 2014)

are verbs that show a person's eye movements. From this, it can be concluded

that the verb word class as an object of research is interesting to study.

In English, the PUT verb means "put an entity at some location", while

the verb BRING refers to "continuous causation of accompanied motion" or a

causal relationship accompanied by movement (Levin, 1993: 112). On the

other hand, the Verb SEND means “to cause an entity to change location”

(Levin, 1993: 132-133). The verb BRING and TAKE have the same meaning,

namely “change of possession is brought about by a change of position”, but

this verb has a difference where the verb SEND is “the entity moves

unaccompanied by the agent” (compare the verbs bring and carry) and, as

Pinker ( 1989) writes, the motion is "mediated by a separation in time and

space, sometimes bridged by a particular means of transfer". These verbs are

related to an entity to change location. The entities of moves unaccompanied

by the agent. So that it will be interesting to analyze more depth while using

verb SEND.

This type of contact or type of relationship between the subject and

object then plays an important role in influencing the behavior of verb syntax

and construction that shows the movement of a person's body parts. It can

also be predicted that polysemy, related to the verb word class especially

related to one's hand movements will be very rich. For this reason, this study

attempts to analyze the Verb SEND which are part of the action verb.

The researcher finds it interesting, to conduct research related to lexical

polysemy based on cognitive linguistic approach. The researcher decided to

use an English verb "SEND" as "SEND" is a motion verb which is typically

different from SEE and LOOK which are perception verb. Verb “SEND” is

also potential to have a lot of extension meaning which will make it

interesting to analyze the construction of each meaning of the English verb

“SEND”.

Thus, this Verb SEND shows that a word can have both literal meaning

and one or more transfer meaning - or prototype meaning (prototype

meaning) and extension meaning. The important step to be carried out in

dissecting the polysemy of verb SEND are by analyzing the meaning and

characteristics of the Semantic Features of the verb SEND. Semantic

Features related to the definition and dynamics of the Verb SEND.

The lexicon has become a major component of most contemporary

syntactic theories; it is no longer ‘an appendix of the grammar, a list of basic

irregularities’ (Bloomfield 1933:274). Grammatical generalizations may be

stated both in the syntax and in the lexicon, and therefore the system of

lexical representation that theory uses has a profound effect on the type and

nature of the generalizations.

Aspectual classes, which also came to be known as LEXICAL

ASPECT, and often used not only with reference to expressions at the lexical

V level, but also misleadingly at the levels of VPs and sentences. On one

proposal, the function of the perfective/imperfective morphology is to encode

aspectual classes (Mourelatos 1978/81:194-5), which is taken to justify a

single, possibly universal, semantic/conceptual dimension in terms of

which phenomena belonging to both the grammatical aspect and

aspectual/Aristotelian classes are analyzed. Underlying any system of lexical

representation for verbs and other predictors, implicitly or explicitly, is a

theory of verb classes.1 RRG starts from the Vendler (1967) Aktionsart-based

classification of verbs into states, achievements, accomplishments, and

activities, and utilizes a modified version of the representational scheme

proposed in Dowty (1979) to capture these distinctions.

The most important distinguishing feature within Aktionsart is telicity

(vs. atelicity). A telic verb denotes a situation which has a beginning, a

duration (of any length), and an end. It is therefore bounded in time (rather

like the way that countable nouns are bounded in space). Aspect can therefore
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also be applied to the semantic features of verbs – or, more specifically, of

verbs and their predicates. Why is it important to include the verb’s predicates

(direct object or complement)? Because the meaning of a verb changes when

used transitively or intransitively.

As Rothstein (2004) tells us: "... a classification [of situation types] into

states, activities, achievements, and accomplishments is very useful in terms

of predicting the linguistic behavior of verbal predicates". We can add

another category to this list: acts. Notice that there is a difference between

intransitive and transitive uses of the same verb because the inclusion of the

direct object both delimits the scope of the action and specifies its target or

purpose. In this case, Verb SEND is a transitive verb so that Rothstein

continues: “ lexical aspectual classes are not generalizations over verb

meanings, but sets of constraints on how the grammar allows us to

individuate events. Telicity and atelicity are properties of verb phrases, and

the status of the [verb phrase] with respect to telicity will depend on the

interaction of the meaning of the [verb] with other elements in the [verb

phrase].”

The direct object of the transitive verb can range from the vague to the

specific: compare

(1) “Have you sent a postcard to your mother yet?” with (2)“Her music

always sends me to sleep”. When the “something” is a bounded object like a

postcard, the act of sending it also has to be bounded (the action and its

predicate are inter-related). In this way, telic events can be considered as

types of THINGS (bounded, heterogeneous, countable) while, on the other

hand, atelic events are much more like STUFF (unbounded, homogeneous,

uncountable)

e.g. SEND [a postcard].

[START] You send a postcard based on the address

[DURATION] You send a postcard from your place to other places. This may

be an uninterrupted process or involve starts and stops

[END] Eventually your postcard has been delivered to your destination, at

which point you are forced to stop reading.

Examples of English verbs from each of the Aktionsart classes :

a. States: be sick, be tall, be dead, love, know, believe

b. Achievements: pop, explode, shatter (the intransitive versions)

c. Accomplishments: melt, freeze, dry (the intransitive versions); learn

d. Activities: march, walk, roll (the intransitive versions); swim, think, snow,

write, drink

There are a few verbs in English that are lexical active accomplishments, e.g.

devour and go; that is, they do not alternate with an activity counterpart like

the verbs in. So that Verb SEND is the lexical active accomplishment.

There is a derivational relation between two classes which is very

important cross-linguistically, namely that between activities and what are

called active accomplishments, the telic use of action verbs. This general

pattern relates activity verbs of motion (e.g. run), consumption (e.g. eat) and
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creation (e.g. paint) to the corresponding active accomplishment verbs so that

SEND is an activity verb of motion.

These classes can be characterized in terms of four features, [static],

[dynamic], [telic] and [punctual]. Verb SEND could not be the static term,

because it is taking place. For the example, (3) John knows Bill well is a

[+static] verb. Hence know is a [+static] verb. By this criterion activities,

achievements, semelfactives, accomplishments and active accomplishments

are [−static] and active accomplishments are [− static]. States, however, are

[+ static].

There are a number of syntactic and semantic tests for determining the

class of a verb. Thus, the researcher decided to conduct a study with the title

A SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH VERB "SEND": A

COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC STUDY.

1.2 Identification of the Problem

From those descriptions of polysemy of Verb SEND in the background

of the study above, the researcher will deliberate the problem to discuss

further. Analyze the Semantic Features of verb SEND. Semantic Features are

related to the meaning and nature of semantic verbs SEND lexically which

are related to the dynamics (Aktionsart) of a verb. This discussion is

important to conduct further investigations regarding the polysemy of verb

SEND. This is because the lexical semantic features of a number of

extensions to the meaning of the verb SEND will influence the argument.
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1.3 Limitation of the Problem

Based on the identification of the problem in semantic features of verb

SEND above, the researcher will focus on the analyze the semantic features

of verb SEND lexically and analyze semantic features of verb SEND in the

construction of phrasal verb. The data from the Oxford Dictionary

(International Student’s Edition) and BNC. Andrea and Vyvyan ( 2003:2)

stated that the lexicon represents a pivotal interface between syntax,

semantics, and pragmatics; the representation of the semantic component of

lexical items has crucial implications not only for a theory of word meaning

but also for a theory of sentence-level meaning construction.

1.4 Formulation of Problem

Based on the background of the limitation above, the problem can be

formulated as follows:

1. What are the semantic features of the verb SEND as a single verb?

2. What are the semantic features of the verb SEND in a phrasal verb?

1.5 Objectives of The Study

Based on the formulation of the problem above, the objectives of this

research are :

1. To find the Semantic Features of verb SEND as a single verb

2. To find the Semantic Features of verb SEND in a phrasal verb

1.6 Significance of The Study

This research is expected to produce research products that are useful

both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the results of this study are

expected to be able to color linguistic scientific studies, especially in

Indonesia. It is expected that the theories presented in this study can be used

as a platform for researchers to begin linguistic studies in Indonesia from a

cognitive linguistic perspective.

Regarding polysemy, the results of this study are also expected to

encourage polysemic-related studies to be more in-depth. On a practical level,

cognitive linguistic studies have legitimized a number of studies on language

acquisition and teaching. This is because of linguistics views language as

something that is not autonomous and puts language skills together with

knowledge about the language itself.

Therefore, the findings in this study can provide a frame of mind in

language teaching, especially English. Regarding polysemy, the meaning is

taxonomic. This will greatly help language learners to comprehensively

understand vocabulary and grammar.