The semantic structure of the word. Types of lexical meaning.

Semasiology as a branch of Lexicology studying the meaning of the word and its development. The main approaches to the study of word meaning: referential, or denotational, functional, or contextual

Each word is a two-facet unit, which consists of: outer facet (sound form) & inner facet (meaning). Semasiology is a part of lexicology which studies the meaning & the development of meaning. The subject matter of semasiology is the semantic structure of a word & the changes in it.

The main approaches to the study of word-meaning are: the referential, or denotational approach; the cognitive, or conceptual approach; the functional, or contextual approach.

1) Acc. to referential approach the essence of meaning lies in the interconnection b/w the word, the referent & the concept. This idea is expressed in the referential model of meaning which is called the basic triangle:

 

concept/ notion

word/ sound form referent/thing

 

Acc. to this model, each word refers to some particular thing, which is connected with concept of this thing. E.g. table (word itself – is a sound form; представление об этом предмете – concept)

The meaning acc. to this model is correlated b/w the points of this triangle which are the concept, the word & the referent. So, the question is ‘In what way does the meaning correlate with each element of the triangle?’

1. So, the first 2 things we will compare are the meaning & the sound form – the connection is conventional here because one & the same meaning is expressed with the help of different words in different languages. That means that there is no inherent connection. But some words are phonetically motivated, which inmate sounds produced by animals, birds, people, etc. E.g. sp – with water (spill, spray)/ kl – with some metal things (tinkle)/ sl – with mud (slush, slit)

2. The connection b/w the meaning & the referent (belong to different spheres). One & same thing has different names.

3. The connection b/w the meaning & the concept:

-concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is some idea about this or that object, it is a mental phenomenon & and is studied in logic, whereas ‘meaning’ belong to the sphere of the language (it is linguistic phenomenon).

-concepts are universal & international. Meanings are nationally determined. E.g. the concept of a structure of human habitation: дом – house, but он дома – he’s at home

-concepts are emotionally stylistically neutral, while meaning emotionally & stylistically colored. E.g. child, baby, kid, infant

So, acc. to referential approach the meaning of the word is the expression of the concept of thing fixed in sounds.

2) Acc. to cognitive, or conceptual approach, concept is the main unit of human cognition & the principle unit of storing information. Concept (or notion) is the reflection in our mind of real objects & phenomena in their essential features & relations. Acc. to this approach the idea of the interconnection b/w the sound form, the referent & the concept has further development. New models of the basic triangle has acquired some new shapes: trapezium & rectangle. Nowadays the following words are used in modern semasiology:

-the referent is the object or thing which the speaker means in some particular situation

-the denotatum is a number of objects or things, or qualities, etc. that can be named by this word. E.g. the denotatum of the cat is any cat as far as it can be called cat.

3) Acc. to the functional approach, the meaning of the word may be studied only through its relations to other words, or in context. The term context is defined as the minimum stretch of speech which is necessary to determine in which of its individual meanings the word is used. E.g. get = receive, but it changes when we change the context: get on, get used to

So, these 3 approaches shouldn’t be set against each other, each of them handles its own side of the problem & neither is complete without the other.

 

Types of word meaning: grammatical, lexico-grammatical, lexical. The main components of lexical meaning. The denotational/denotative meaning. The connotational/connotative meaning. Main types of connotations: stylistic, emotional, evaluative, intensifying (emphatic or expressive)

Word meaning is represented by following types: grammatical meaning; lexical meaning (denotational, connotational, pragmatic components); lexico-gr. meaning.

1) Grammatical meaning is the component of meaning, recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. E.g. (1) books, girls, boys > plurality; (2) asked, looked, worked > tense meaning

2) Lexical meaning is the meaning proper of the word. It is component of meaning which is recurrent in all the forms of the word. E.g. girl, girl’s, girls (gr. meaning is different, but lexical remains the same)

The main components of lexical meaning are:

1. The denotational component (it is the same for all the speakers; it makes communication possible because it reflects the essential characteristics of the object). The denotational component is the realization of the concept by means of a given language. E.g. notebook (a small book of paper for writing notes); girl (a female child)

2. The connotational component conveys the speaker’s attitude to what he is speaking about. There are 4 types of such connotation:

-emotional (it expresses human emotions & feelings which are more or less the same for all the speakers). E.g. gorgeous, ugly, lonely

-evaluative (it expresses approval or disapproval, it expresses some evaluation, this evaluation can be positive, negative or neutral). E.g. famous, celebrated

-intensifying (it adds emphases to the word meaning). E.g. to cry-to sob/ to like-to adore

-stylistic (it determines the functional style characteristic of the word usage). E.g. dad-father-parent

All the connotational components are optional & may occur in a word in different combinations.

3. The pragmatic component conveys information about the situation of communication, its participants of a given language community & relations b/w them, the register of the communication, etc. E.g. ‘After casting a stone at the police, they abscond with the money’ – ‘We chucked a stone at the cops & then did bunk with the loot’.

3) Lexico-gr. meaning is the common denominator of all the meaning of the words belonging to a certain lexico-gr. class of words. It may be called the part of speech meaning.

 

Polysemy in English and its causes. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word

Polysemy is the ability of a word to have more than one meaning. And acc. to this ability there are 2 types of words: monosemantic & polysemantic.

Monosemantic words are words which have only one meaning. E.g. squirrel, salmon, allomorph.

The majority of English words are words which have more than one meaning. Most frequently used words can have more than a hundred meanings. E.g. get, keep

Polysemy exists only in language, not in speech. In speech each time we use the word in one of its meanings. A word in one of its meanings in which it is used in speech is called a ‘lexico-semantic variant’ of a word (LSV).

E.g. dull (polysemantic word) – LSV(1)- a dull book (boring); LSV(2)- dull weather (gloomy); LSV(3) - a dull ache (continuous); LSV(4)- a dull student (not very clever).

All the meanings of a polysemantic word form its semantic structure. The semantic structure is the inner-form of the word or of its meaning. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word represents a set of interrelated & interdependent LSVs.

LSVs are interconnected due to the common semantic compound in their semantic structure. LSVs may be:

-basic (major)/ minor

-central/ marginal

-direct/ figurative

-historically primary/ secondary

E.g. hand – (1) part of human body beyond the wrist; (2) keeping possession, responsibility

 

The semantic analysis of the word: lexico-semantic, componential, contextual

The analysis of the semantic structure of the word is called the lexico-semantic analysis. It may be carried out at different levels & employ various methods & procedures of the semantic research. There are 2 levels of the lexico-semantic analysis of a word. On the 1^st level lexico-semantic analysis is aimed at establishing the number & types of LSVs & relations b/w them. To reach this aim linguists use different methods & procedures of semantic research, such as:

-analysis of dictionary definitions

-contextual analysis

-componential analysis

-transformational analysis

1) Componential analysis is the method which proceeds from the assumption that word-meaning or each LSV can be decomposed into elementary semantic components or semantic features which are called semes.

The seme is the smallest further indivisible unit of meaning. The analysis of the meaning of these components, or semes is called the componential analysis. One of the well-known procedures of the componential analysis is segmenting the word meaning into semantic markers & semantic distinguishers.

A semantic marker is a seme, which is common to other LSVs/ words.

A semantic distinguisher is a seme which differentiates the words/ LSVs from other words/ LSVs.

E.g. the componential analysis of the word man gives us the following semes: noun, countable, human, adult, male

2) Contextual analysis is based on the assumption that difference in meaning of words is always indicated by a difference in their environment. There may be 2 types of environment: linguistic (which is called context) & extra-linguistic.

The term context is used to denote the minimal stretch of speech which determines each individual meaning of the word & there are 3 types of linguistic context: lexical, grammatical, mixed context.

1. In lexical context the meaning of the word is determined by the lexical meaning of the words in the given word combines. E.g. the word black denotes color in combination with nouns denoting some thing: black bag, black velvet. But in combination with nouns denoting feelings or thoughts the meaning of black is bad.

2. In grammatical conext the meaning of the word is determined by the grammatical structure in which the word is used.

3. Mixed context is the combination of lexical & grammatical contexts.