This essay studies the semantic structure of the noun dog with the help of qualia structure and adjectives that collocate with the noun. It also evaluates the idea of qualia structure and how well it works in studying the semantic structure of nouns. More specifically, the aim of this paper is to see how the information contained by the noun dog could be structured in terms of qualia structure. On a more general level the aim is also to evaluate, and add to, the idea of qualia structure as such. In order to accomplish this aim the top 100 adjectives that collocate with the noun dog were searched for in the COCA corpus (Corpus of Contemporary American English). The results were that with the help of qualia structure and some adjectives that collocate with the noun, it was possible to posit some substructures for the noun dog and create a tree that gave an overview of the semantic structure of the noun. However, some problems arose during the process making it clear where qualia structure needs improvement. This led to the discussion of the evolution of qualia structure and where the idea could be, and perhaps should be headed in the near future.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-10078 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Palma, Giacomo |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk och litteratur, SOL |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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