The Semantics of Dimensional Terms
In this section we consider the semantic relations linking words that designate a special set of spatial concepts in English. The words can be called the dimensional terms of English. They include the words large, long, narrow, small, big, short, little deep, thick, wide, shallow, narrow, thin. A preliminary analysis aimed at showing some conceptual hierarchies related to dimensional terms was given in Clark and Clark (1978). [other analyses: Bierwisch; Vogel for Swedish;]
Three implicit semantic properties
To analyze the concepts associated with these words, we first organize them in terms of the closest and most obvious semantic relations between subsets of words. It is clear that the words fall into two groups, those designating something "larger" or "positive", vs. those designating concepts including a meaning component of "smaller" or "negative" (to be discussed below). Further, the terms fall into pairs of antonyms, each of which describes a positive/negative contrast along a single dimension. We can thus arrange the terms as follows:
| big | little |
| large | small |
| long | short |
| wide | narrow |
| deep | shallow |
| thick | thin |
General semantic characteristics of dimensional terms
Examining any of these pairs of antonyms, we can see that they are gradable antonyms, and moreover, these antonyms designate ranges of values between two extremes. The extremes are values of the greatest possible and least possible extent of the qualities described by each of the pairs. So, although 'wideness' (or width) is not absolutely limited by some specific measures of wideness, nevertheless we can imagine two values that represent the 'widest possible' or the 'least wide possible' of whatever element we are describing the width of.
The ranges are 'greater than' and 'less than' values. Greater or less than what? A little thought shows an additional semantic element that is crucial for all of these terms. A large desk is a desk that is considered large for a desk. A shallow pool is shallow as compared with some usual imagined depth for a pool. Thus, to gauge what is 'large' or what is 'shallow', and similarly for the other words, we must make reference to an implicit norm against which objects of a particular type can be compared.
A key notion here is "objects of a particular type". Generally,
when we refer to a particular thing with an adjective-noun construction, for example,
it is a large [NOUN], the thing designated by the noun is large only in comparison with other things of its type. For example, a large rabbit is not large in relation to all things, but only to rabbits. A large rabbit, in our perceptual world, is certainly smaller than a small elephant. If we are speaking of the size of a whole category of things rather than one thing within a category, we can make reference to a comparison across categories: rabbits are small animals or just rabbits are small.
Of course, in our use of these terms we can use our categorization system to view things as larger or smaller (or any relational property concept) depending on how we choose to construe them. We can even change the norm referred to to one more in line with our own size rather than the norm for things of the type we are describing. For example, it is not unusual to hear statements like Do you think that little tiny cockroach is really going to hurt you? even in cases where the cockroach in question is quite large for a cockroach.
Since the dimensional terms are degree adjectives, there is an infinite number of values between the norm and the extremes on the implicit conceptual scales we have posited. The scales do not have to have explicitly named values; speakers can express degrees of width or length without saying or knowing exactly how wide or long something is. We will return below to a subcase of uses of the dimensional terms below, namely the case of explicitly quantified values.
In the physical world, dimensions must have positive values; for example, the length of something cannot be less than zero units. Nevertheless, we can think of the
the values ranging from the norm towards the maximum as lying on the "positive" side of the norm, since such values represent greater physical extent than the norm in each dimension. The values between the norm and the minimum value (for a given object type) can be called the "negative" side of the norm; they represent conceptualizations of values less than the norm along a particular dimension. The extremes on each side can also be called positive and negative, again with the understanding that these terms refer to values greater and less than the norm, respectively.
'Positive' and 'negative' are therefore, in this analysis, simply understood as relative quantificational terms. There is a use of these terms in ordinary English that connects with qualitative values such as 'good' and 'bad', where positive is connected with the good side of the qualitative scale, and negative, the bad values. We will return below to this relation of quantity with quality .
To sum up so far, to analyze the dimensional terms in their spatial senses, we need a number of scales with maximal and minimal values, and ranges of values between these extremes. Second, we also need an implicit conceptual norm for the mid-range or mid-point on each scale. And third, we also need to make reference, implicitly (via context) or explicitly, to a category of conceptualized things that we wish to delimit with these spatial relational concepts.
The dimensions
The two-way contrast between positive and negative sides of the scales is represented by the right/left division of the arrangement of the terms above. Cross-cutting this contrast is a six-way contrast in kinds of dimension which the terms refer to. The dimensions can be summed up as the row labels in the paradigm given in Table 1, which gives us a bit more information about the semantic contrasts than the simple arrangement above. For a full semantic analysis of the field, however,
each of these dimensions must be described in the analysis and contrasted with other dimensions. This will be done in the following subsections.
| positive | negative
| | overall size | big | little |
| overall size | large | small |
| height/tallness | tall | short |
| length | long | short |
| width | wide | narrow |
| depth | deep | shallow |
| thickness | thick | thin |
Overall size
English has two sets of antonyms referring to a complex dimension we can term 'overall size' : big/little, and large/small. [footnote The first two are native words; the second two are loanwords taken into Middle English from French and Scandinavian, respectively. ] This spatial dimension refers to extent along multiple dimensions simultaneously. Two dimensions are sufficient to make the use of the terms felicitous. We can say a large window or a large area of blue paint.
Because these are physical objects in real space, they must have a third dimension. However, this dimension is not really part of what is being judged as large. The rug could be thick or thin, and it would not matter for its size as a rug; if it extends in the other two dimensions more than we might expect for an average rug, it would still be a large rug. The paint swatch is likely to be very thin, but again, only its two dimensions on the painted surface are relevant to judging its size.
For objects that take up significant space in three dimensions, like human bodies, animals, artifacts, or natural objects, overall size refers to a larger than normal extension along multiple dimensions, which do not have to necessarily correspond to any of the named dimensions in Table 2. A large balloon that is round or pear-shaped, for example, might not be spoken of with any of the dimensional terms under analysis except the ones referring to overall size.
Block-shaped artifacts such as desks and buildings