Word-meaning in the English Language

Lexical meaning – the specific kind of 'content' produced (or engendered) by the reverberation of objective reality in the human consciousness which constitutes the inner (semantic) structure of linguistic units with respect to which their material form is the outer (or phonetic) structure (O.Akhmanova); the material meaning of a word, i.e. the meaning of the main material part of the word (as distinct from its formal, or grammatical part), which reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic properties of the thing (phenomenon, property, state, etc.) the word denotes.

Grammatical meaning – the meaning of the formal membership of a word expressed by the word's form, i.e. the meaning of relationship manifested not in the word itself but in the dependent element which is supplementary to its material part (inflexion, outer formative, functional affix – q.v.).

The denotation of a word or phrase is its explicit or direct meaning. Another way to think of it is as the associations that a word usually elicits for most speakers of a language, as distinguished from those elicited for any individual speaker because of personal experience.

The connotation of a word or phrase is the associated or secondary meaning; it can be something suggested or implied by a word or thing, rather than being explicitly named or described.

For example, the words home and house have similar denotations or primary meanings: a home is “a shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household,” and a house is “a building in which people live.” However, for many, these terms carry different associations or secondary meanings, also known as connotations. Many people would agree that home connotes a sense of belonging and comfort, whereas house conveys little more than a structure.

The connotation of a word depends on cultural context and personal associations, but the denotation of a word is its standardized meaning within the English language. One way to remember the difference between the terms is to take a hint from the prefixes: con - comes from Latin and means “together; with,” reminding us that the connotation of a word works with or alongside its more explicit meaning or denotation.

6. Change of word-meaning. The results of the change of word-meaning.

Causes of Semantic Change. The factors accounting for semantic changes may be roughly subdivided into groups: a) extra-linguistic; b) linguistic.

By extra-linguistic causes various changes in the life of the speech community are meant, i.e. changes in economic and social structure, changes in scientific concepts.

Some changes of meaning occur due to purely linguistic causes, i.e. factors acting within the language system. The commonest form which this influence takes is the so-called ellipsis. In a phrase made up of two words one of these is omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner. For example, the verb to starve in Old English (OE) meant “to die” and was habitually used in collocation with the word hunger. In the 16-th century the verb to starve itself acquired the meaning “to die of hunger”.

Another linguistic cause is discrimination/differentiation of synonyms which can be illustrated by the semantic development of a number of words. In OE the word land meant both “solid part of earth’s surface” and “the territory of a nation”. In the Middle English period the word country was borrowed as its synonym. The meaning of the word land was somewhat altered and “the territory of a nation” came to be denoted by the borrowed word country.

Fixed context may be regarded as another linguistic factor in semantic change. For example, the word token, when brought into competition with loan word sign, became restricted in use to a number of set expressions, such as love token, token of respect and also became specialized in meaning.

Nature of Semantic Change. A necessary condition of any semantic change is some connection, some association between the old meaning and the new one. There are two kinds of association involved in various semantic changes:

a) similarity of meanings;

b) contiguity of meanings.

Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described as the semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other. The word hand, for instance, acquired in the 16-th century the meaning of “a pointer of a clock or a watch” because of the similarity of one of the functions performed by the hand (“to point to smth.”) and the function of the clock-pointer (hands of the clock [ watch ]).

Contiguity of meanings or metonomy may be described as the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it. This can be illustrated by the use of the word tongue – “the organ of speech” in the meaning of “language” (as in mother tongue).

1) SEMANTIC EXPANSION Here a word increases its range of meaning over time. For instance in Middle English bridde was a term for ‘small bird’, later the term bird came to be used in a general sense and the word fowl.

2) SEMANTIC RESTRICTION This is the opposite to expansion. Already to be seen with fowl but also with many other words, such as meat which derives from Middle English mete with the general meaning of ‘food’ and now restricted to processed animal flesh. In turn the word flesh was narrowed in its range to ‘human flesh’ (see above).

3) SEMANTIC DETERIORATION A disaзprovement in the meaning of a word. Villain developed from ‘inhabitant of a village’ to ‘scoundrel’. The word peasant is used now for someone who shows bad behaviour as the word farmer has become the normal term. In official contexts, however, the term ‘peasant’ is found for small and/or poor farmers.

4) SEMANTIC AMELIORATION An improvement in the meaning of a word. The term nice derives from Latin nescius ‘ignorant’ and came at the time of its borrowing from Old French to mean ‘silly, simple’ then ‘foolish, stupid’, later developing a more positive meaning as ‘pleasing, agreeable’.

5) SHIFT IN MARKEDNESS The marked element becomes unmarked and vice versa. Originally a jet was a special type of aeroplane (a marked item in the semantic sense), now it is the norm (semantically unmarked) and the propeller machine is regarded as the special kind.

6) RISE OF METAPHORICAL USAGE A very common semantic development is for literal expressions to acquire figurative usages, for instance the phrase ahead of someone means literally ‘in front of someone’ but now has the meaning of ‘more advanced, in a better position’ as in She's ahead of her sister now.

7) REANALYSIS The Latin morpheme min- ‘little’ is seen in minor and minus but the words minimum and miniature led to the analysis of mini- as the morpheme meaning ‘small’ which has become general in English (and German) as a borrowed morpheme, cf. minibar, minicomputer, miniskirt.

8) TRUNCATION An element is deleted without substitution. Developments in word formation often show this with some elements understood but not expressed: mini in the sense of miniskirt. qualifiers documentary and feature which are used on their own. Truncation may also involve an expansion in meaning. For instance, in American English the term Cologne, from Eau de Cologne, is often used in the broader sense of ‘perfume for men’.

9) MEANING LOSS THROUGH HOMOPHONY Old English had two verbs lætan ‘allow’ and lettan ‘obstruct, hinder’. These became homophonous and only the meaning ‘allow’ survived. However, in the expression without let or hindrance the original meaning survives.

7. Synonyms and antonyms.

Synonyms – two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some contexts. Their distinctive features can be connotations, stylistic features, distributional or depending on valency. The difference between some synonyms can be marked for register subject-field, mode, and style (tenor) or their combinations.

Typology of synonyms:

• - cognitive synonyms – s. which differ in respect of the varieties of discourse in which they appear; the distinction between such items lies not so much in their inner lexical meaning, but in the sphere of their actual application or usage, as besides the referential basis (referential meaning – q.v.) the actual meanings of the words as found in utterances reflect relations which hold between lexical items within the communicative space, i.e. the functional differentiation of discourse.
• - contextual/context-dependent synonyms – similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions, when the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralized: e.g. buy and get;
• - dialectal synonyms – pertaining to different variant of language from dialectal stratification point of view;
• - functional synonyms – the term is not lexicological proper as it refers to different syntactic units capable of performing one and the same syntactic function (e.g. Subordinate Object Clause and Complex Object constructions are functional synonyms;
• - ideographic synonyms – differ in shades of meaning, i.e. between which a semantic different is statable;
• - stylistic synonyms – are distinguished stylistically, i.e. in all kinds of emotional, expressive and evaluative overtones without explicitly displaying semantic difference;
• - referential synonyms – a vague term, concerns coreferential expressions, when one denotatum can be defined differently from different points of view and in different aspects: e.g. names Walter Scott and the author of 'Ivanhoe' are coreferential because they refer to one and the same denotatum – Sir Walter Scott;
• - terminological synonyms – two existing terms for one denotatum: e.g. borrowing and loan-word; concept and notion (the difference between them is not discriminated by some linguists);
• - total synonyms -can replace each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional meaning and connotations (e.g. noun and substantive, functional affix, flection and inflection); is a rare occasion.

Antonymy (semantic opposition).
Antonyms are words which express opposite or contrasting meanings.
Antonyms are subdivided into:
1. Gradable — represent the extremes of the quality. There are often adjectives that can be placed on the scale between them (hot-cold).
2. Contradictory-complimentary — cannot exist without each other (dead-alive; leave-stay)
3. Conversive — describe opposite attributes of the same situation (to buy-to sell — when one buys another sells)

8. Polysemy and homonymy.

Polysemy – is the ability of a word to possess several meanings or lexico-semantic variants (LSV), for instance, bright means ‘shining’ and ‘intelligent’.

A word having only one meaning is called monosemantic, for example, hydrogen, molecule. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic. Such words are the bulk of the English vocabulary.

The problem of polysemy was greatly developed by Academician V.V. Vinogradov, who differentiated the meaning from the usage (a contextual variant). Meanings are fixed and common to all people, who know the language system. The usage is only possible application of one of the meanings of a polysemantic word, sometimes very individual, more or less familiar. Meaning is not identical with usage.

Polysemy exists only in language, not in speech. Polysemy belongs to paradigmatic description. The meaning of the word in speech is contextual. Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of a language because in every particular case the situation or context, i.e. environment of the word, cancels all unnecessary meanings and makes speech unambiguous.

Professor A.I. Smirnitsky claimed that all the meanings of the word form identity supported by the form of the word. His term ‘a lexico-semantic variant’ is a two-facet unit. The formal facet of it is a sound-form of a word, while the content facet is one of the meanings of a given word, i.e. the designation of a certain class of objects. Words with one meaning are represented in the language system by one LSV, polysemantic words – by a number of LSVs. All LSVs of a word form a homogeneous semantic structure ensuring semantic unity of the given word. They are united together by a certain meaning – the semantic centre of the word, i.e. the part of meaning which remains constant in all the LSVs of the word.