Word/Morpheme Meaning and

Motivation
Lexicology Lecture 2
February 10-th, 2025
Elena Shapa
Word Definitions 1
• Being a central element of any language system, the word is a
focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology, syntax,
morphology, stylistics and also for a number of other
language and speech sciences.

• Within the framework of Linguistics the word has acquired

definitions from the syntactic, semantic, phonological points
of view as well as a definition combining various approaches.
Word Definitions 2
• Thus, it has been syntactically defined as “the minimum
sentence” by H.Sweet and much later as “the minimum
independent unit of utterance” by L.Bloomfield.
• E. Sapir concentrates on the syntactic and semantic aspects
calling the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying
bits of isolated meaning, into which the sentence resolves
itself”.
• A purely semantic aspect is observed in S. Ullmann’s
explanation of words as meaningful segments that are
ultimately composed of meaningful units.
Word Definitions 3
• The prominent French linguist A. Meillet combines the
semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria: “A word is
defined by the association of a given meaning with a given group
of sounds susceptible of a given grammatical employment”.

• The French school of linguistics understands the word as a

dialectical double-facet unit of form and content, (from
Ferdinand de Saussure to Hjelmslev) reflecting human notions,
and in this sense being considered as a form of their existence.
Notions fixed in word meanings are formed as generalized and
approximately correct reflections of reality, thus, signifying
them words objectivize reality and conceptual worlds in their
content.
Word Characteristic Features - revision
The word is the smallest meaningful unit possessing the following
features:
1. isolatability, i.e. ability of a word to function in communication
alone, to make a sentence, e.g. ‘Help!’ This distinguishes a word from
another meaningful unit – a morpheme, which cannot be used in
isolation. It can function only as a part of a word.
2. indivisibility, i.e. a word cannot be further divided without breaking
its meaning. Cf. asleep – a (sound) sleep, alive – a (quiet) life.
3. positional mobility, i.e. a word can change its position in a sentence.
E.g. Suddenly they came up to a house. They came up to a house
suddenly. Up to a house they suddenly came.
Word and its Functions
• Lexical units/ vocabulary items comprise words, word-forming
morphemes (derivational affixes), free or fixed word groups (set
expressions), and phrases.
The word performs the following functions:
1.denotational function (names/denotes things, qualities, actions, etc);
2.generalizing function (giving a generic notion for a class or group of
equally ranked items) e.g. hypernym: tree, ship, animal;
3. specifying function (giving a specific notion)
e.g. hyponym: peach, oak, cruiser, steamer, bird, insect);
4.emotive function (expresses our feelings and emotions);
5.structural function (performs a certain syntactic function, is a part of
a sentence).
Word Meanings
• To sum it up, a word is the smallest naming unit of a language
with a more or less free distribution used for the purposes of
human communication, materially representing a group of
sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical
employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.
• Any language is a system of systems consisting of two
subsystems:
1) the system of words’ possible lexical meanings (the semantic
structure of the word);
2) the system of words’ grammatical forms, which is the word
paradigm latent to every part of speech (e.g. a noun has a 4
member paradigm, an adjective – a 3 member one, etc).
Types of Word Meaning
• The meaning is not homogeneous. It is a system of systems:

• The two main types of meaning are the grammatical and

lexical meanings of words and word-forms.
• We notice that word-forms such as girls, winters, joys, tables,
though denoting widely different objects have something in
common. This common element is the grammatical
meaning of plurality which is found in all of them.
Word Lexical and Grammatical Meaning
• I). Lexical meaning includes:
a) denotative (naming the referent) and b) connotative meanings
(refers to emotions, attitudes and style).
• Lexical meaning may be described as the component of meaning
proper to the word as a linguistic unit, that is recurrent in all the
forms of this word and in all the possible distributions of these
forms.
• Thus, the word-forms go, goes, went, going possess different
grammatical meaning of tense, person but in each of these
forms we find one and the same semantic component denoting
the process of movement, which is its lexical meaning.
Lexical Meaning 2
• 1a). Denotative meaning is conceptual (what a word denotes), it is divided
into semantic components called semes, e.g. Father is a male parent.
Denotative components be culturally predetermined (cf. winter in Siberia
and in Australia, it is a season between autumn and spring but all other
characteristics are different: duration, temperature, etc.).
• 1b). Connotative meanings express the emotive charge and the stylistic
value of the word, i.e. the speaker’s attitude to the subject of speech The
emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words
and it forms part of the connotational component of meaning (it should not
be confused with emotive implications that words acquire in speech).
• E.g. a hovel denotes “a simple small house or cottage” and besides implies
a miserable unpleasant dirty place, in bad repair, usually as a result of
poverty and neglect.
Connotative Word Meaning Types
• Connotative word meanings may be as follows:
1. emotive: cool, awesome, terrific;
2. stylistic: chap, fellow, associate; child, infant, kid;
3. expressive: to trudge, to march, to gobble;
4. evaluative: clever, silly, good, bad (rational evaluation),
scoundrel (emotional evaluation);
5. associative (a fir-tree – forest, New Year);
6. national and cultural (kilt – Scots);
7. pragmatic: Can you open the door? (a request)
Grammatical Word Meaning
• II. Thus grammatical meaning is the component of meaning
recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words.

• Modern English grammatical categories include the

following: number, definiteness, tense and aspect, case, person,
gender and mood.
• Modern linguistics sees some elements of grammatical meaning as
identified by the position of the linguistic unit in relation to other
linguistic units, i.e. by its distribution. Word-forms speaks, writes have
one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in (1)
identical distribution (only after pronouns he, she, it and before
adverbs well, badly…)

• Some prepositions lexical meaning may be comparatively distinct

(in, on, under the table).
Word Complementary/Contrastive Distribution, Free Variation
• Complementary distribution (2) often indicates that two elements are the same
linguistic unit (e.g. verb) but occur in mutually exclusive environments. E.g
indefinite article forms: a book / an apple.
• Contrastive distribution (3) is the relationship between two different elements in
which both elements are found in the same environment with a change in
meaning. In English, the expression of the Indicative and Subjunctive moods is
contrastive: E.g. (1) If I am a rich man, then I have a lot of money. (2) If only
I were a rich man, then I would have a lot of money.
• The change from non-past first-person singular indicative am to the
subjunctive were results in a grammatical mood change in the sentence.
• Free variation (4) is the phenomenon of two forms appearing in the same
environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect
by native speakers. E.g. Years from 2010 onwards can be expressed in English as
either, e.g., two thousand ten or twenty ten; unreal present conditional accepted
forms are I wish I was…/I wish I were...
Language Style Reference and Emotive Charge
• III. Words differ not only in their emotive charge and also in their
stylistic reference. Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided into
literary and non-literary/ bookish and colloquial layers. The greater
part of the literary layer of Modern English vocabulary are words of
general use, possessing no specific stylistic reference and known as
neutral words. Against the background of neutral words we can
distinguish two major subgroups: standard colloquial words and
literary/ bookish words.
• This may be best illustrated by comparing words almost identical in
their denotational meaning.
• e.g. parent – father – dad; deceive – lie – cheat; offspring - child - kid
• In comparison with the word father which is stylistically neutral, dad
stands out as colloquial and parent is felt as bookish.
Stylistic Reference and Emotive Charge 2
• Stylistic reference and emotive charge of words are closely
connected and to a certain extent interdependent. As a rule,
stylistically coloured words possess a considerable emotive
charge. That can be proved by comparing stylistically labelled
words with their neutral synonyms.

• Colloquial daddy, mommy are more emotional than the neutral

father, mother. The slang words mum, bob are more expressive
than their neutral counterparts silent, shilling.

• However, words of neutral style may also differ in the degree of

emotive charge (large, big, tremendous – stylistically neutral, but
not identical as far as their emotive charge is concerned).
Literary Words
• Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous.
Besides general –literary words (harmony, calamity), we may
single out various specific subgroups, namely:
• Terms: renaissance, teletype

• Poetic words and archaisms: whilome (formely), ere

(before), albeit (although), nay (no), aye (yes), fare (walk)

• Barbarisms and foreign words: pas, bouquet, apropos, bon

mot (a clever or witty saying)
Non-Literary Words
• Non-literary words may be subdivided into:
• Slang, i.e. words which are often regarded as a violation of the norms
of standard English: governor (father), dotty (insane), missus (wife), a
gag (joke)
• Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups bound by the
same occupation: lab (laboratory), a buster (bomb)
• Jargon, i.e. words marked by their use within a particular social group
and bearing a secret and cryptic character: a sucker (a person who is
easily deceived), squiffer (a concertina)
• Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in public:
bloody, hell, damn, shut up
Polysemantic Words
IV. A word may be polysemantic, i.e. it may have several interrelated
denotative meanings:
• One of the meanings is called primary, this is the meaning in which
the word made its first appearance in the language, all the other
meanings which developed later are called secondary, e.g. chair as a
piece of furniture (primary), chair as the head of some meeting,
conference or chair as a department (secondary meanings).
• One of the meanings is central, others are peripheral. As a rule,
primary and central meanings coincide but it is not necessarily so. In
the course of language development a secondary meaning may
become the central one ousting the primary meaning to the periphery,
e.g. revolution: primary meaning is that of rotary movement,
revolving, secondary – social change (now central).
• Meaning can be direct and indirect (figurative, transferred), e.g. white
collar, blue collar, smoke screen, etc.
Word-Meaning and Motivation
The word is a two-facet unit combining meaning and form.

• We can observe a direct connection between the form/structural

pattern of the word and its meaning. This relationship between
structure/form and meaning is termed motivation.
• From this point of view all words can be classified into
motivated and non-motivated.
• The word is considered motivated if the connection between the
meaning of a word and its form is clear and the form helps us to
understand the meaning.
• If the connection is conventional, the word is said to be non-
motivated at the present stage of language development.
Word-Meaning and Motivation
Linguists also speak about partial and faded motivation.
• The word is considered partially motivated if only one morph of a
word is clear in its form and meaning.
• E.g. In English, for example, many toponyms end in a ‘town suffix’ like -ton, -
ford or -by (as in Hamilton, Hereford, Grimsby), while the root is not in itself a
word. Still, these endings make the word recognizable as a geographical name.
• If the connection between form and meaning is clear only for a limited
group of people, the word is said to have faded motivation at the
present stage of language development.
• E.g. the verb earn does not suggest any connection with agriculture at
present (in Modern English), it is purely conventional. Etymological
analysis however shows that it is derived from Old English ( e-) earnian ‘to
harvest’.
Word Motivation Types - revision
There are three types of word motivation:
• 1)Phonetic, the sound form of the word helps us to
understand its meaning, e.g. bang, bump, hiss, cuckoo, etc.

• 2)Morphological, the morphemic composition of a word

helps to understand its meaning, e.g. ex+ noun = former …;
re+ verb = do again; verb+er = agent, doer of the action.

• 3)Semantic, figurative meaning of a word becomes clear

through its direct meaning, e.g. the leg of the table, the foot of
the mountain, the eye of the needle.
Word Motivation Degrees
There are three types of word motivation degrees:

• 1)independence degree: free or bound

• 2) frequency degree: recurrent or unique

• 3) language activity degree: productive or non-productive

Independence Degree
• According to the degree of their independence morphemes are
classified into free and bound.
• Free morphemes may occur alone and coincide with word-forms
or immutable words: at, by, water- (water, watery, waterfall).
• Bound morphemes occur only in combination with other
morphemes: dis- (dislike), -y (watery). Most roots are free but
some are bound: cran- (cranberry); goose-(gooseberry). Affixes
are always bound. Some morphemes occupy an intermediate
position between free and bound:
• semi-affixes: - man (postman, manhood), half- (half-eaten);
• combining forms: tele- (television, telepathy), graph (autograph);
Frequency Degree
• According to their frequency morphemes are classified
into recurrent and unique.

• Recurrent morphemes are found in a number of

words: sing-ing = sing- (singer, sing-song) + -ing
(walking, drawing).

• Unique morphemes are found only in a given word:

pock- (pocket).
Language Activity Degree - Affixes
• According to their activity in the language affixes are
subduvided into productive and non-productive.

• Productive affixes are used to build new words: -ism

(escapism), -ize (nationalize).

• Non-productive affixes do not build new words any

longer: -th (growth), -ous (monotonous).
Morpheme
• Morphemes are the smallest indivisible two-facet units, e.g.
teach-er, kill-joy. A morpheme is found in speech only as a
constituent part of a word. It may have different phonetic
variants (allomorphs): decision- attention; inactive – illegal. Its
meaning varies too: childish-reddish; encircle – enrich.
• Morphemes form an autonomous subsystem of language units.
Each morpheme has its norm of combinability with certain other
morphemes, cf.: break-age, develop-ment – not: break-ment,
develop-age.
• Morphemes can be homonymous (motherly - quickly),
synonymous (inactive – unhappy - negative connotation),
antonymous (useful - useless).
Affixes Position in the Word
• According to their position in the word affixes are subdivided
into prefixes and suffixes.
• A prefix stands before the root and modifies its lexical
meaning: kind –unkind. In some cases, it changes the word‘s
grammatical or lexico-grammatical meaning: sleep (noun) –
asleep (state).
• A suffix follows the root, modifying its lexical meaning and
changing the word‘s grammatical or lexico-grammatical
meaning: appear (verb) – appearance (noun). The suffix
renders a very general meaning and is often fused with the
root semantically.
Affixal Morphemes
• Affixal morphemes carry lexical and grammatical meaning.

• Functional affixes belong to grammar, they build word-

forms: ask-ed, long-er.

• Derivational affixes mainly build words: boy-hood, boy-ish,

boy-like.
• Lexical morphology deals with two different problems: word-
structure (segmentation of words into morphemes) and word-
formation (making new words with the help of morphemes).
Affixes Lexical and Grammatical Meaning
• All suffixes and some prefixes possess grammatical (part-of-speech)
meaning: -ness (emptiness) carries the nominal meaning of thingness.

• Grammatical and lexical meaning in suffixes are blended:

Ex: -er (in teacher) carries the lexical meaning of the doer of the action
and grammatical meaning of the thingness (noun).

• Root-morphemes are regarded as possessing only lexical type of

meaning, they do not possess any grammatical meaning: in the root-
morpheme man- (manly) there is no grammatical meaning of case and
number which are observed in the word man (singular/nominative case).
Lexical Meanings in Morphemes
• Lexical meaning of morphemes may be analysed into
denotational and connotational components. The denotational
meaning in affixes is more generalized than in root-morphemes,
e.g. –er carries the meaning the doer of the action: reader,
teacher, singer,
• e.g. while suffix – less suggests the lack of something: powerless,
effortless, careless.

• All endearing and diminutive suffixes bear a heavy emotive

charge and are considered to be connotational components: -ie
(girlie, dearie); -ette (kitchenette).
• Many stylistically marked affixes are bookish or scientific: a-
(amoral); -oid (rhomboid).
Morpheme Lexical Meaning 2
• Many English words consist of a single root-morpheme, that
is root-morphemes are homonymous with words. We can
easily observe that the lexical meaning of the word boy in
boyhood, boyish is very much the same. However, there is a
certain semantic difference between the root and affixal
morphemes.
• The lexical meaning of the affixal morphemes is, as a rule,
of a more generalizing character.
• e.g. the suffix –er carries the meaning “the doer of the action”
• the suffix –less denotes lack or absence of something
Morpheme Meaning 3
• In derivational morphemes the lexical and grammatical (the
part-of-speech) meaning may be blended as to be almost
inseparable. Eg. In –er and –less the lexical meaning is
perceived as clearly as their part-of-speech meaning: that of
the noun and that of the adjective.
• However, in some morphemes (-ment, -ous as in movement,
famous) the grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning prevails,
the lexical meaning is but vaguely felt.
• Just as in words lexical meaning in morphemes may be
analyzed into connotational and denotational components.
Morpheme Derivational & Connotational Meaning
• The connotational meaning can be found not only in root-
morphemes but in affixational morphemes as well. Endearing and
diminutive suffixes, e.g. –ette, -ie, -let, -ling (kitchenette, girlie, flatlet,
duckling) bear a heavy emotive charge.
• In derivational morphemes with the same denotational meaning
sometimes connotation differs. The morphemes –ly, -like, -ish have
the same denotational meaning of similarity in the words womanly,
womanlike, womanish but the connotational component differs and
ranges from the positive evaluation in –ly to the derogatory in –ish.
• Stylistic reference may also be found in morphemes of different types.
The stylistic value of such derivational morphemes as in –ine
(chlorine), -oid (rhomboid), -escence (luminescence) is clearly
bookish or scientific.
Morpheme Differential Meaning
• Morphemes can possess specific meaning of their own. They are:
the differential, the functional and the distributional ones.
In all polymorphemic words their constituent morphemes possess two
types of meaning: differential and distributional.
• 1. Differential meaning is the semantic component that serves to
distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes.
In words consisting of two or more morphemes one of constituent
morphemes always has differential meaning. In such words as, e.g.
bookshelf, the morpheme –shelf serves to distinguish the word from
other words containing the morpheme book (bookcase, bookkeeper,
bookcounter). In “notebook” the morpheme -note possesses the
differential meaning which distinguishes notebook from copybook,
exercisebook.
Morpheme Denotational vs Differential Meaning
• Denotational and differential meanings do not exclude each other.
Naturally the morpheme –shelf in bookshelf possesses denotational
meaning which is the dominant component of meaning. However,
there are cases when it is difficult or impossible to assign any
denotational meaning to the morpheme, e.g. cran – in cranberry. Yet it
clearly bears relationship to the meaning of the word as a whole
through the differential component (cranberry and blackberry,
gooseberry) which here comes to the fore.
• One of the disputable points of morphological analysis is whether
such words as deceive, receive, perceive consist of two morphemes.
However, if we assume that the morpheme –ceive can be singled out,
it follows that the meaning of the morphemes re-, de-, pe- is
exclusively differential, as, at least synchronically, there is no
denotational meaning proper to them.
Morpheme Functional Meaning
• 2. Functional meaning of morphemes can be found only in derivational
morphemes. It is observed that the denotational component of meaning in
some affixational morphemes may be more abstract than in others and
closer to the part-of-speech meaning. The denotational meaning of such
derivational morphemes as –ment, -ty (plurality, novelty) is rather vague and
abstract. In such morphemes the lexical meaning and the part-of-speech
meaning seem to blend.

• In some cases, the functional meaning predominates. The morpheme –ice

in the word justice (noun) serves to transfer the part-of-speech meaning
of the morpheme just- (adjective) into another class justice (noun). Thus,
some morphemes possess only the functional meaning, i.e. they are the
carriers of part-of-speech meaning.
Morpheme Distributional Meaning
• 3.Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement
of morphemes making up the word. It is found in all words containing
more than one morpheme. The word singer is composed of two morphemes
(sing-, -er) both possess the denotational meaning (1 – to make musical
sound, 2 – the doer of the action).
• But there is one more thing, namely, the pattern of arrangement of the
component morphemes that enables us to understand the word. A different
arrangement of the same morphemes would make the word meaningless.
• Distributional meaning may be regarded as the prevailing semantic
component in such words as ladder, matter in which the component
morphemes ladd-, matt-, -er are practically deprived of lexical meaning. In
such cases it is only the pattern of arrangement of the morphemes that
enables us to understand the words.
• A different arrangement of the same morphemes will change the meaning of
the word as in finger-ring/ ring-finger ; carefull/ fullcare
or make the word meaningless: as in er-singer, ship-friend.
Morpheme Morphological Motivation
• Morphological motivation. The main criterion in morphological
motivation is the relationship between the morphemes.
• Thus, all one-morpheme words (sing, eat, tell) are non-motivated.
• In multi-morpheme words the carrier of the word meaning is the
combined meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning
of the structural pattern of the word. We can see it from words
composed of phonetically identical morphemes with identical lexical
meaning. E.g. words finger-ring and ring-finger. The difference in
their meaning can be accounted for by the difference in the
arrangement of the component morphemes. If we can observe a direct
connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning,
we say that this word is motivated.
• e.g. the word “leader” is motivated as its morphological structure
suggests the idea of “leading” plus “the doer of the action” (rewrite,
eatable – motivated words)
Motivation Degree
• The degree of motivation can be different. Between complete
motivation and lack of motivation there exist various grades of
partial motivation.
• e.g. the word “endless” is completely motivated
• the word “cranberry” is but partially motivated
• Such place names as Newtowns, Wildwoods, Norfolk are
lexically and structurally motivated, may be easily analyzed into
component morphemes.
• Other place names, such as Essex, Sutton are non-motivated.
Thank you for your attention
• H/task: 1. Lecture 2 pages 1-8 file 2_Lexicology 13 Resumes
read and learn;

• 2. Read for Discussion Units 4 and 5 Word Meaning Types and

Word/ Morpheme Semantic Structure pages 30-39 and pages 40-
47; file 2A (Ciobanu);

Make notes of term definitions and examples from Unit 4 and 5 in

your notebook to use for discussions at Lecture 2 and Seminar 2.