Componential Analysis as a Procedure for Determining the Intralingual and Interlingual Similitude between Verbs

Abstract

The article offers an answer to the question whether the German verbs beleidigen, kränken and verletzen are synonymous with and also whether they arc equivalent to the Croatian verbs vrijeđati, vrijeđati se (recip.), vrijeđati se (red.), izvrijeđati, izvrijeđati se, povrijedili, uvrijediti and uvrijediti se. The author uses the combined approach of componentinl analysis and the theory ol deep cases to determine the degree of intralingual and interlingual semantic similarities between these verbs. The investigation shows that there are no real synonyms or real equivalents between the cited verbs; what can be established are only different degrees of semantic eongruity. In this sense, the most closely intralingually related verbs in German are beleidigen und kränken and povrijediti and uvrijediti in Croatian, Inlerlingually the most similar verbs arc the German beleidigen and the Croatian verb vrijeđati.