Lecture 2 word structure and word meaning

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1. Lexical units. The word as a fundamental unit of the language.

2. Components of the word meaning.

3. Word-Meaning and Motivation.

4. Types of Meaning.

1. Lexical units. The word as a fundamental unit of the language

The word is the basic unit of language system (a linguistic unit), the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word is a unity of meaning and form.

The theory of the word was created by V.V.Vinogradov, A.I. Smirnitsky.

The branch of lexicology dealing with the study of meaning of the word is called Semantics. The term semantics is originated from Greek word “semantikos” meaning “significant”.

The morpheme is the smallest indivisible meaningful language unit. It’s different from the word as it can’t function in a sentence alone. It’s always a part of the word, where it combines with other morphemes. Let’s compare the examples: 1) heart – heartless (новое слово); 2) hearty – heartier – heartiest (формы степени сравнения прилагательного). In the first example a new word is formed. In the second – new forms the word are formed. These morphemes, which make up new words, are called lexical morphemes. In the second example the morphemes are grammatical. They are not studying in the lexicology. The lexical morphemes may be roots and affixation (affixes morphemes). Root morphemes are the semantic centre of the word. As for affixes, they can be prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes stand in front of the root. Suffixes follow the root. Morphemes can be free and bound. Root morphemes are free. They coincide with independent words, and can function in the sentence by themselves, e.g. boyish (boy можно употреблять отдельно). Affixes are bound morphemes. They can’t function in the sentence alone. But there are semi-suffixes: -like,-able. They can be both suffices and independent words (e.g. eat, eatable- съедобный; marble-like - мраморовидный).

Firstly, the word is a unit of speech which serves the purposes of human communication. Thus, the word can be defined as a unit of communication.

Secondly, the word can be defined as the total of the sounds which comprise it.

Thirdly, the word has several characteristics. The internal and external structures of the word can be distinguished. The internal structure of the word is its meaning. The external structure of the word is its morphological structure. For example, in the word post-impressionists the following morphemes (post-, im-) are the prefixes; the root – press; the noun-forming suffixes are -ion, -ist and the grammatical suffix of plurality –s. All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-impressionists.

2. Components of the word meaning

The word is one of the fundamental units of language. It is a unity of form and content (or meaning). 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. Instead of the term “word” some linguists prefer the terms “lexical unit”, “lexical item” or “lexeme”.

There are 2 types of word meaning in words: a) the grammatical meaning; b) the lexical meaning. Such word forms as “girls”, “tables”, “students” though denoting widely different objects of reality have something in common. This common element is 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.

There is another component of meaning which is identical in all the forms of the word. Thus, e.g. the word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone 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. Both lexical and grammatical meanings make up the word meaning. The two main types of word-meaning are the grammatical and the lexical meanings found in all words. The interrelation of these two types of meaning may be different in different groups of words. Among the word’s various characteristics, meaning is the most important.