In componential analysis, the total meaning of a word is being analyzed into a number of distinct components of meaning (semantic features).

This kind of analysis can offer a theoretical framework for handling all the sense relations we have been discussed in our previous lectures.

As an example of componential analysis, we notice that in English (and also many other languages) there is a three-fold division with many words that refer to living creatures as in the following:

In the light of relationships such as these we can abstract the components (male) and (female), (adult) and (non-adult), plus (human), (bovine) and (ovine). Thus, “ewe” is (ovine), (female), (adult), “child” is (human), (non-adult) and so on.