4 Types of word meaning. Word meaning & motivation

Meaning – the reflection of an object, phenomenon, relations in a lg. According to the aspect relation of a word to the components of the situation where it is used:

Referential meaning - determined by the relation of linguistic sign to the referent in the material world

Significative meaning - determined by the relation of a linguistic sign to its user, the speaker’s intention

Differential (systematic) meaning - determined by the relation of the given linguistic sign to other signs in the language system of speech

Another typology is based on the conception of word meaning as specific structure:

Part-of-speech meaning (functional) 1Grammatical — may be defined as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (girl’s, boy’s, night’s, etc.) 2Lexical — may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word. 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.

Denotational (reference of a word or other lexical unit to individual object or concept) REVEALED IN THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION

CONNOTATIONAL (includes ideas or emotions)

vEmotional implications (personal, studied by pragmatics)

vEmotive charge (may be inherent in word meaning or created by prefixes and suffixes)

Stylistic reference (refers the word to a certain style register (neutral, colloquial, literary) Motivation – a direct connection between the structure of the word & its meaning. Morphological motivation implies a direct connection between the lexical meaning of the component morphemes, the pattern of their arrangement and the meaning of the word. The degree of morphological motivation may be different varying from the extreme of complete motivation to lack of motivation. Phonetical motivation implies a direct connection between the phonetic structure of the word and its meaning. Phonetical motivation is not universally recognised in modern linguistic science. It is argued that speech sounds may suggest spatial and visual dimensions, shape, size, etc. Experiments carried out by a group of linguists showed that back open vowels are suggestive of big size, heavy weight, dark colour, etc.

Semantic motivation implies a direct connection between the central and marginal meanings of the word. This connection may be regarded as a metaphoric extension of the central meaning based on the similarity of different classes of referents denoted by the word.

5 Change of meaning in English

Word-meaning is liable to change in the course of the historical development of language. Causes of Semantic Change

1. extra-linguistic — various changes in the life of the speech community, changes in economic and social structure, way of life and other spheres of human activities as reflected in word meanings

2. linguistic —. factors acting within the language system

· ellipsis In a phrase made up of two words one of these is omitted and its meaning is transferred to its partner.

· differentiation of synonyms The word land, e.g., in Old English (OE. land) meant both ’solid part of earth’s surface’ and ‘the territory of a nation’.

· linguistic analogy — if one of the members of a synonymic set acquires a new meaning other members of this set change their meanings too.

Nature of semantic change. There are two kinds of association involved as a rule in various semantic changes namely:

Similarity of meanings or metaphor — a semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other. (He is a fox. She is a Don Juan); Contiguity of meanings or metonymy — the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it.

Results of semantic change can be generally observed in the changes of the denotational meaning of the word (restriction and extension of meaning) or in the alteration of its connotational component (amelioration and deterioration of meaning).

Changes in the denotational meaning

1. restriction of the types or range of referents denoted by the word

1. specialisation of meaning — if the word with the new meaning comes to be used in the specialised vocabulary of some limited group within the speech community it is usual to speak of

2. extension of meaning—application of the word to a wider variety of referents.

generalisation of meaning — the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialised vocabulary into common use

1. pejorative development — acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge

ameliorative development — improvement of the connotational component of meaning..