the analysis of a set of related linguistic items, especially word meanings, into combinations of features in terms of which each item may be compared with every other, as in the analysis of man into the semantic features “male,” “mature,” and “human,” woman into “female,” “mature,” and “human,” girl into “female,” “immature,” and “human,” and bull into “male,” “mature,” and “bovine.”.
Origin
1945-50
Contemporary definitions for componential analysis
noun
the analysis of the meaning of an expression by looking at its semantic components
Usage Note
grammar
noun
in linguistics, the analysis of aspects of language into contrastive components or distinctive features