The Componential Method

It a logico-linguistic method of decomposing the semantic content of a word or a grammatical form into the smallest units of sense (semantic components, semantic markers, semes, or SCs).

A semantic component is the smallest indivisible unit of sense comparable to elementary particles in physics. The content of the word “bachelor” can be described in terms of such semantic components as a human being, a male, maturity, in a state of being unmarried. The content of the verb “to giggle” can be described in such semes as an action, a female, young, a concrete emotional reaction associated with young females.

The Componential analysis is not quite adequate by itself and should be superimposed upon other methods, Superimposing it upon the Transformational method and the contextual analysis we can distinguish the following semantic varieties of the genitive case:1. Possessive Genitive (Mary’s hat => (Mary has a hat); 2.Subjective Genitive (Napoleon’s victory => Napoleon is a victor); 3. Objective Genitive (Napoleon’s defeat => Somebody has won a victory over Napoleon; 4. Genitive of Destination (The women’s magazine => The magazine is for women; 5. Ambiguous Genitive (It can be interpreted as a Subjective or an Objective Genitive (A mother’s love), etc.