A Contrastive Lexico-semantic Study of Computer and Human Languages
General Material Designation
[Thesis]
First Statement of Responsibility
James, Oluwale Stephen
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
Zakariyah, Moshood
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2019
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
156 p.
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
M.A.
Body granting the degree
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
Text preceding or following the note
2019
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The Computer Scientists/Programming Language Developers have the intention of harmonising human/English language with computer language, this is to enable non computer experts to go into programming, but the hindrance they have is the electronic nature of computer's hardware which is binary (mathematics and logic) This made them to arrive at this current level of computer language known as High Level Computer Programming Language. This work therefore attempted to harmonise human language (English) with computer language by contrasting the lexes and semantics of the two languages from linguistic points of view, so that it becomes more accessible to the layman outside the field of computer. Therefore, the work is a Contrastive Lexico-semantic Study of Computer and Human Languages. In order to achieve this, lexico-semantic contrast, thirty (30) computer programming language statements were selected from BASIC and C computer languages. A model that contrasts human lexes with computer lexes and human meaning with computer meaning is developed for the data analysis. Also, data were subjected to linguistic tools, which involve morphological concepts and lexico-semantic features of Adegbija (1989) and Bamiro (1994). The analysis reveals that computer language lexes are the abbreviation, compression, or reduction of human language. This shortening of human language lexes in computer language is achieved through the use of both conventional morphological and psydomorphological processes. The lexico-semantic analysis further shows that the meanings of some computer language lexes and semantics are similar to human language; some demonstrate semantic extension/narrowing of human language; and some lexes have different meanings from that of human language entirely. This study has shown that computer language could be learnt or studied by contrasting it with human/English language; hence linguistic tools are viable means of studying and learning of computer language.