POLTAVA NATIONAL PEDAGOGIC UNIVERSITY
of name of V. G. Korolenko
ABSTRACT
on the subject:
Lexical Meaning and Semantic Structure of English Words
FD-45
Salo Vitaliy
Poltava 2011
Semasiology (from Gr. semasia - "signification") deals not with every kind of linguistic meaning only. This does not mean that we need not pay attention to the grammatical meaning. On the contrary, grammatical meaning must be taken into consideration in so far as it bears a specific influence upon lexical meaning.
The main objects of semasiological study are as follows: semantic development of words,
its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of word, semantic groupings and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, etc.
Let us examine the interrelation between:
1-Meaning and sound form
The sound-form of the word is not identical with, its meaning namely [kot] is the sound form, used to denote a bed for a child There are inherent connections between this sound form, used to denote a bed for a child. There are inherent connections between this sound form and the meaning of the word "cot", but they are conventional and arbitrary. We may prove it by comparing the sound-forms of different languages, conveying one and the same meaning, cf. English [kot] and Russian [krovatka]. On the contrary, the sound-cluster [kot] in the English language is almost identical to the sound form in Russian language possessing the meaning "male-cat".
2-Meaning and concept
When we examine a word, we see that its meaning, though connected with the underlying concept is not identical with it. To begin with, concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is the thought of the object that singles out its essential features. Our concepts abstracts and reflect the most common andtypical features of the different objects and phenomena of the world. Being the result of abstraction the concepts are thus almost the same for the whole of humanity.
The difference between meaning and concept can also be observed by comparing synonymous words and word-groups expressing the same concepts, but possessing linguistic meaning, which is felt as different in each of the units under considerations:
Big - large;
To die - to pass away - kick the bucket - join the majority;
Child - baby-babe-infant;
Daddy - father - governor - etc.
3-Meaning and referent
To distinguish meaning from the referent, i.e. from the thing denoted by the linguistic sign is of the utmost importance. To begin with, meaning is a linguistic phenomenon whereas the denoted object or the referent is beyond the scope of language. We can denote one and the same object by more than one word of a different meaning. For example, an apple can be denoted by the words apple, fruit, smth, this, etc. So far as all these words have the same referent.
It follows that in the functional approach meaning may be viewed as the function of distribution: 1) semantic investigation is confined to the analysis of the different or sameness meaning; 2)meaning is understood essentially as the function or the use of linguistic signs.
Relation between the 2 approaches
When comparing the two approaches in terms of methods of linguistic analysis, we may see that the functional approach should not be considered an alternative, but rather a valuable complement to the referential theory. It is only natural that linguistic investigation must start by collecting an adequate number of samples of context. Once this phase had been completed, it seems but logical, to pass on to the referential phase and try to formulate the meaning thus identified. There is absolutely no need to set the two approaches against each other; each handles - its is side of the problem and neither is complete without the other.
The meaning of the word, its components
The word is one of the fundamental units of language. It is a dialectal unity of form and content. Its content or meaning is not identical to notion, but it may reflect human notion, but it may reflect human notion and is considered as the form of their existence. So the definition of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics, because the simplest word has many different aspects: a sound form, its morphological structure, it may occur in different word-forms and have various meanings.
It is universally recognized that word meaning is not homogeneous, but it is made up of various components, which are described as types of meaning. There are 2 types of meaning to be found in words and word forms:
1) the grammatical meaning;
2) the lexical meaning.
Such word forms as "girls", "writers", "tables", etc., though denoting different objects of reality have smth in common, namely the grammatical meaning of plurality, which can be found in all of them. Thus, the grammatical meaning is the component of meaning in the word forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning in the word forms of various nouns (girls, boys, nights).
Word forms "speaks", "reads", "writers" have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in identical distributation, only after pronouns "she", "he", "they" and before such adverbs and adverbal phrases as "yesterday", "last years", "two hours ago", etc.
The grammatical aspect of the part of speech meaning is conveyed as a rule by individual sets of word forms expressing the grammatical meaning of singularity (e.g. table) plurality (tables) and so on.
A verb is understood to possess sets of forms expressing, for instance, tense meaning (works-worked), mood meaning (work - I work).
The part of speech meaning of the words that possess but one form, e.g. prepositions, some adverbs, etc., is observed only in their disrtibutations (c.f. to come in (here, there) and in (on, under) the table).
Lexical meaning
Besides the grammatical meaning, there is another component of meaning. Unlike the grammatical meaning this component is identical in all the forms of the word. Thus the word-forms "go", "goes", "went", "going" possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person and so on, but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical meaning of the word, which may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit.
Thus, by lexical meaning we designate[1] the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and disrtibutations, while by grammatical meaning we designate the meaning proper to sets of word forms common to all words of a certain class.
Both lexical and the grammatical meanings make up the word meaning as neither can exist without the other.
The interrelation of the lexical and the grammatical meaning and the role, played by each varies in different word classes and evening different groups of words within one and the same class. In some parts of speech the prevailing component is the grammatical type of meaning. The lexical meaning of prepositions is, as a rule, relatively vague[2] (cf. to think/speak of smb., independent of smb., one of the friends, the room of the house). The lexical meaning of some preposition, however, may be comparatively distinct (cf. in/on/under the table). In verbs the lexical meaning usually comes to the fore[3], although in some of them, the verb "to be", e.g. the grammatical meaning of a linking element prevails (cf. "he works as a teacher").
The modern approach to semasiology is based on the assumption that the inner form (or facet) of the word (i.e. its meaning) presents a structure, which is called the semantic structure of the word.
We know that most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy
The word "polysemy" (from Greece "polus"-many and "sema"-meaning) means a plurality of meanings.
The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually, mostly over the, centuries. These complicated processes of polysemy development involve both the appearance of the new meanings and the loss of old ones. Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is to increase the total number of its meanings and to provide for a quantitieve and qualitative growth of the expressive resources of the language.
Thus, word counts show that the total number of meanings separately registered in the New English Dictionary (NED) for the 1st thousand of the most frequent English words is almost 25 000,i.e. the average number of meanings for each of these words is 25.
For example: the word "power" has 15 meanings:
1) Capacity of producing some effect (the power of heart burn)
2) Control over some people (the power of Government)
3) Delegated authority (the president exuded his power)
4) Physical Strength (all the power of his muscles)
5) Moral or intellectual force, energy
8) A person of influence (he is a power in the town)
11) An effective quality of style in writing (a writer of great power)
12) Personal influence (a man's power means the readiness of other; men to obey him)
The elements of the semantic structure.
There are no universally acsepfed criteria for differentiating these variants within one polysemantic word. The following terms may be found with different authors:
the meaning is direct or nominative when it nominates the object without the help of context,in insolation, i.e., in one,word sentences for example the "Rain" etc.
The meaning is figurative when the object is named and at the same time characterized. through its similarity, with - another object, while naming the object the word simultaneously describes it.
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