Lexical Meaning and Sound Form.

Lexical Meaning and Notion.

Terms Used to Denote Different Types of Meanings.

Список терминов и определений

1. Semasiology (Gr. 'semasia' – signification) studies the problems of meaning and its changes.

2. Lexical meaningthe word meaning is the interrelation of the sound-form, the notion and the referent and it is the function of distribution of the word (or another linguistic sign) in the language.

3. The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words (e.g. the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs (took, formed, bought) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (Pete's, nephew's)).

4. The denotative meaning is the component of the lexical meaning that makes the communication possible.

5. The connotative meaning is the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word.

6. The emotive implication of the word is subjective as it depends on the personal experience of the speaker.

7. The term 'standard literary colloquial' denotes the vocabulary used by educated people in the course of ordinary conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends, e.g.: chap, old chap, pal, to pal up with.

8. Barbarisms are unassimilated foreign words, for which there are corresponding English equivalents.

9. Slang words are words that are often regarded as a violation of the norms of Standard English.

10. Professionalisms are words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation.

11. Jargon wordsare words marked by their use within a particular social group and bearing a secret character.

12. Vulgarismsare coarse words that are not generally used in public.

13. Homonyms are different words having different meanings but the same sound form.

14. Notion is the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their relations.

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Lexical and Grammatical Components of Meaning

The word-meaning consists of two main meanings: the grammatical meaning and the lexical meaning.

The difference between the lexical and grammatical components of meaning is not to be sought in the difference of the concepts underlying the two types of meaning but in the way they are conveyed, e.g. the concept of 'possessive case' may be expressed by the lexical meaning of the term 'possessive case', and it may also be expressed in the forms of various words irrespective of their lexical meaning (master's, girl's, children's), i.e. here we deal with grammatical meaning of 'possessive case'. So, the difference is in the type of abstraction.

Both the lexical and the grammatical meanings make up the word-meaning as neither can exist without the other.

Lexical Meaning

It may be analyzed as including denotative and connotative components.

One of the functions of words is to denote things, concepts and etc. It is the denotative function (from 'to denote'). This function makes communication possible.

Words contain an element of emotive evaluation, i.e. emotive charge, as a part of the connotative meaning, e.g. 'a hovel' denotes 'a small house' (it is its denotative meaning) and additionally implies that it is a miserable dwelling place, dirty, in bad repair and in general unpleasant to live in (that is its emotive charge).

The emotive charge as a component of lexical meaning does not depend on the feeling of an individual speaker but is true for all speakers (e.g. 'tremendous' and 'large' – the emotive charge of 'tremendous' is heavier for all speakers of English).

The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and forms a part of the connotative component of meaning. It should not be confused with emotive implications that words may acquire in speech. The emotive implication of the word is subjective as it depends on the personal experience of the speaker, e.g. the word 'school' which is devoid of any emotive element may possess in the case of individual speakers subjective emotive implications (e.g. a pupil who does not like going to school and a pupil who likes it will feel different emotional attitude to the referent and this emotive attitude forms emotive implications when the word is used.) While emotive charge is a part of meaning, emotive implications are not a part of the semantic structure of the word.

Stylistic Reference

Words differ not only in their emotive charge but also in their stylistic reference. Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided into literary and non-literary layers.

Literary bookish words are divided into three groups:

1) terms or scientific words (e.g. ozone, pacifism);

2) poetic words and archaisms (e.g. array, billow, thee);

3) barbarisms (addio, affiche).

The non-literary words may be subdivided into the following groups:

1) slang (money – beans, brass, dibs, dough, chink);

2) professionalisms (buster);

3) jargon, (to rap, shiv);

4) vulgarisms (shut up, damn, bloody).

Stylistic reference and emotive charge of words are closely interconnected and to a certain degree interdependent. Mostly, stylistically coloured words, i.e. words belonging to all stylistic layers except the neutral style, are observed to possess a considerable emotive charge.

Lexical Meaning and Sound Form

Lexical meaning and sound form are not equal: one and the same meaning is reproduced by different sound forms in different languages. But even in the same language the same sound form can have different meanings, e.g. 'temple' may denote 'висок' and 'храм', the word 'school' – 'школа' and 'косяк рыбы', etc.

Both the meaning and the sound form can develop independently in the course of time. In English many words changed their sound form almost beyond recognition but retained their lexical meaning, e.g. OE 'lufian' became 'to love' in ME.

Lexical Meaning and Notion

The lexical meaning of a word is the realization of a notion by means of a definite language system. A word and a notion are not identical: a word is a language unit, while a notion is a unit of thinking.

The term 'notion' was introduced into lexicology from logic. Notions are mostly international, especially for nations with the same level of culture, the same cultural traditions whereas meanings can be nationally limited.

The number of notions does not correspond to the number of words, nor does the number of meanings. Their distribution in relation to words is peculiar in every language. Russian has two separate words for the notions: 'мужчина' and 'человек'. In English both notions are expressed by the word 'man', however, for the Russian 'Она хороший человек' we cannot use the word 'man', but instead 'She is a good person'.

Thus, the lexical meaning of a word may be defined as the realization or naming of a notion, emotion or object by means of a definite language system. The development of the lexical meaning is influenced by the whole network of ties and relations between the words in a given vocabulary and between the vocabulary and other aspects of the language.