Lexicology. Word meaning

Lecture (December, the 4th)

WORD MEANING

Introduction

There exist various theories of word meaning - in philosophy, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, since research on word meaning is highly interdisciplinary. There have been too many attempts to define lexical meaning, we’ll consider the shortest one: lexica meaning is the realization of a concept (a fragment of knowledge) by means of a definite language system.

Why is it difficult to define lexical meaning?

1. Every word combines lexical and grammatical meaning: books. 
2. The lexical meaning very often includes denotational and connotational meanings: skinny vs thin.
3. The denotational meaning is not homogenous, it encompasses semantic components (semes): book  -“a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually onsheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers”.
4. Most words are polysemantic (poly′semous).

Types of meaning

The grammatical meaning is more abstract and generalized. It characterizes all individual forms of different words: cats, books, children, etc. the grammatical meaning of plurality); asked, did, translated, etc. the grammatical meaning Past Simple.

The lexical meaning is concrete and individual. It characterizes all grammatical word-forms: cracks, cracked, cracking, has cracked, etc. – these grammatical forms have the same lexical meaning.

Aspects of meaning

The lexical meaning is characterized by three aspects – semantic, syntactic and pragmatic.

In the semantic aspect two sides are singled out – ′deno′tative and sig′nificative.

Deno′tatum involves all the objects of reality named by this word.  Significant is the reflection of the properties of the denoted object in the human mind.

The pragmatic meaning  encompasses different connotations.

Stylistic connotations (social connotations) refer to the social situation (social circumstances) characterizing communication: bog – toilet – restroom.

Emotional connotations in a word point to some emotion accompanying the denotative component: glare – to look in anger.

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