Semasiology

1. Definition of a word
2. Definition of meaning. Meaning and concept. Different approaches to
study of meaning.
3. Types of word meaning: lexical, grammatical meaning
4. Lexical meaning of a word and its components
5. Polysemy. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word

1. Definition of a word

The word may be described as the basic unit of language. Uniting meaning and
form, it is composed of one or more morphemes, each consisting of one or more
spoken sounds or their written representation. Morphemes are also meaningful
units but they cannot be used independently, they are always parts of words
whereas words can be used as a complete utterance (e. g. Listen!). The
combinations of morphemes within words are subject to certain linking conditions.
When a derivational affix is added a new word is formed, thus, listen and listener
are different words. In fulfilling different grammatical functions words may take
functional affixes: listen and listened are different forms of the same word.
Different forms of the same word can be also built analytically with the help of
auxiliaries. E.g.: The world should listen then as I am listening now (Shelley).
When used in sentences together with other words they are syntactically
organised. Their freedom of entering into syntactic constructions is limited by
many factors, rules and constraints (e. g.: They told me this story but not *They
spoke me this story).
The definition of every basic notion is a very hard task: the definition of a word
is one of the most difficult in linguistics because the simplest word has many
different aspects. It has a sound form because it is a certain arrangement of
phonemes; it has its morphological structure, being also a certain arrangement of
morphemes; when used in actual speech, it may occur in different word forms,
different syntactic functions and signal various meanings. Being the central
element of any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of
phonology, lexicology, syntax, morphology and also for some other sciences that
have to deal with language and speech, such as philosophy and psychology, and
probably quite a few other branches of knowledge. All attempts to characterise the
word are necessarily specific for each domain of science and are therefore
considered one-sided by the representatives of all the other domains and criticised
for incompleteness
 Within the scope of linguistics the word has been defined syntactically,
semantically, phonologically and by combining various approaches.
It has been syntactically defined for instance as “the minimum sentence” by H.
Sweet and much later by L. Bloomfield as “a minimum free form”. This last
definition, although structural in orientation, may be said to be, to a certain degree,
equivalent to Sweet’s, as practically it amounts to the same thing: free forms are
later defined as “forms which occur as sentences”.
E. Sapir takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects when he
calls the word “one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated
‘meaning’, into which the sentence resolves itself”. Sapir also points out one
more, very important characteristic of the word, its indivisibility: “It cannot be cut
into without a disturbance of meaning, one or two other or both of the several
parts remaining as a helpless waif on our hands”. The essence of indivisibility will
be clear from a comparison of the article a and the prefix a- in a lion and alive. A
lion is a word-group because we can separate its elements and insert other words
between them: a living lion, a dead lion. Alive is a word: it is indivisible, i.e.
structurally impermeable: nothing can be inserted between its elements. The
morpheme a- is not free, is not a word.
When discussing the internal cohesion of the word the English linguist John
Lyons points out that it should be discussed in terms of two criteria “positional
mobility” and “uninterruptability”. To illustrate the first he segments into
morphemes the following sentence:
the - boy - s - walk - ed - slow - ly - up - the - hill
The sentence may be regarded as a sequence of ten morphemes, which occur in a
particular order relative to one another. There are several possible changes in this
order which yield an acceptable English sentence:
slow - ly - the - boy - s - walk - ed - up - the - hill up - the - hill -
slow - ly - walk - ed - the - boy - s
Yet under all the permutations certain groups of morphemes behave as ‘blocks’
– they occur always together, and in the same order relative to one another. There
is no possibility of the sequence s - the - boy, ly - slow, ed - walk. “One of the
characteristics of the word is that it tends to be internally stable (in terms of the
order of the component morphemes), but positionally mobile (permutable with
other words in the same sentence)”.
So, the word is the fundamental unit of language. It is a dialectical unity of
form and content. Its content or meaning is not identical to notion, but it may
reflect human notions, and in this sense may be considered as the form of their
existence. Concepts fixed in the meaning of words are formed as generalised and
approximately correct reflections of reality, therefore in signifying them words
reflect reality in their content.

2. Definition of meaning. Meaning and concept. Different approaches to

study of meaning.

There are broadly speaking two schools to Meaning of thought in present-day

linguistics representing the main lines of contemporary thinking on the problem:
the referential approach, which seeks to formulate the essence of meaning by
establishing the interdependence between words and the things or concepts they
denote, and the functional approach, which studies the functions of a word in
speech and is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works.

All major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential
concepts of meaning. The essential feature of this approach is that it distinguishes
between the three components closely connected with meaning: the sound-form of
the linguistic sign, the concept underlying this sound-form, and the actual referent,
i.e. that part or that aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers. The best
known referential model of meaning is the so-called “basic triangle” which, with
some variations, underlies the semantic systems of all the adherents of this school
of thought. In a simplified form the triangle may be represented as shown below:

As can be seen from the diagram the sound-form of the linguistic sign, e.g.
[dAv], is connected with our concept of the bird which it denotes and through it
with the referent, i.e. the actual bird. The common feature of any referential
approach is the implication that meaning is in some form or other connected with
the referent.
Let us now examine the place of meaning in this model. It is easily observed
that the sound-form of the word is not identical with its meaning, e.g. [dAv] is the
sound-form used to denote a peal-grey bird. There is no inherent connection,
however, between this particular sound-cluster and the meaning of the word dove.
The connection is conventional and arbitrary. This can be easily proved by
comparing the sound-forms of different languages conveying one and the same
meaning, e.g. English [dAv], Russian [golub'], German [taube] and so on. It can
also be proved by comparing almost identical sound-forms that possess different
meaning in different languages. The sound-cluster [kot], e.g. in the English
language means ‘a small, usually swinging bed for a child’, but in the Russian
language essentially the same sound-cluster possesses the meaning ‘male cat’. -
When we examine a word we see that its meaning though closely connected
with the underlying concept or concepts is not identical with them. To begin with,
concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is the thought of the object that
singles out its essential features. Our concepts abstract and reflect the most
common and typical features of the different objects and phenomena of the world.
Being the result of abstraction and generalisation all “concepts are thus
intrinsically almost the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same period
of its historical development. The meanings of words however are different in
different languages. That is to say, words expressing identical concepts may have
different meanings and different semantic structures in different languages. The
concept of ‘a building for human habitation’ is expressed in English by the word
house, in Russian by the word дом, but the meaning of the English word is not
identical with that of the Russian as house does not possess the meaning of ‘fixed
residence of family or household’ which is one of the meanings of the Russian
word дом; it is expressed by another English polysemantic word, namely home
which possesses a number of other meanings not to be found in the Russian word
дом.
The difference between meaning and concept can also be observed by
comparing synonymous words and word-groups expressing essentially the same
concepts but possessing linguistic meaning which is felt as different in each of the
units under consideration, e.g. big, large; to, die, to pass away, to kick the bucket,
to join the majority; child, baby, babe, infant.

In recent years a new and entirely different approach to meaning known as

the functional approach has begun to take shape in linguistics and especially in
structural linguistics. The functional approach maintains that the meaning of a
linguistic unit may be studied only through its relation to other linguistic-units and
not through its relation to either concept or referent. In a very simplified form this
view may be illustrated by the following: we know, for instance, that the meaning
of the two words move and movement is different because they function in speech
differently. Comparing the contexts in which we find these words we cannot fail to
observe that they occupy different positions in relation to other words. (To) move,
e.g., can be followed by a noun (move the chair), preceded by a pronoun (we
move), etc. The position occupied by the word movement is different: it may be
followed by a preposition (movement of smth), preceded by an adjective (slow
movement), and so on. As the distribution of the two words is different, we are
entitled to the conclusion that not only do they belong to different classes of words,
but that their meanings are different too.
The same is true of the different meanings of one and the same word. Analysing
the function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we
conclude that; meanings are different (or the same) and this fact can be proved by
an objective investigation of linguistic data. For example we can observe the
difference of the meanings of the word take if we examine its functions in different
linguistic contexts, take the tram (the taxi, the cab, etc.) as opposed to ‘to take to
somebody’.
It follows that in the functional approach (1) semantic investigation is confined
to the analysis of the difference or sameness of meaning; (2) meaning is
understood essentially as the function of the use of linguistic units. As a matter of
fact, this line of semantic investigation is the primary concern, implied or
expressed, of all structural linguists.
When comparing the two approaches described above in terms of methods
of linguistic analysis we see that the functional approach should not be considered
an alternative, but rather a valuable complement to the referential theory. It is only
natural that linguistic investigation must start by collecting an adequate number of
samples of contexts. On examination the meaning or meanings of linguistic units
will emerge from the contexts themselves. Once this phase had been completed it
seems but logical to pass on to the referential phase and try to formulate the
meaning thus identified. There is absolutely no need to set the two approaches
against each other; each handles its own side of the problem and neither is
complete without the other

Three approaches to the definition of meaning:

1. the functional approach — the meaning of a word should be derived from the
word combinations that this word enters (to take a book, to take a taxi, to take
offence) — shows how to use the word but not what it means.

2. the referential approach (theoretical) — Frege triangle (referent (an object in the
outer world) — sound-form (symbol) — idea (concept)).

3. the cognitive theory — the meaning is a lexicolized concept which enters the
semantic system of a language and gets additional meaningful components
(face+mug — the idea is the same; difference lies in the semantic system).
 3. Types of word meaning: lexical, grammatical meaning
It is more or less universally recognised that word-meaning is not
homogeneous but is made up of various components the combination and the
interrelation of which determine to a great extent the inner facet of the word.
These components are usually described as types of meaning. The two main types
of meaning that are readily observed are the grammatical and the lexical meanings
to be found in words and word-forms.
We notice, e.g., that word-forms, such as girls, winters, joys, tables, etc.
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, grammatical meaning 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.).
In a broad sense it may be argued that linguists who make a distinction between
lexical and grammatical meaning are, in fact, making a distinction between the
functional (linguistic) meaning which operates at various levels as the interrelation
of various linguistic units and referential (conceptual) meaning as the interrelation
of linguistic units and referents (or concepts).
In modern linguistic science it is commonly held that some elements of
grammatical meaning can be identified by the position of the linguistic unit in
relation to other linguistic units, i.e. by its distribution. Word-forms speaks, reads,
writes have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in
identical distribution, e.g. only after the pronouns he, she, it and before adverbs
like well, badly, to-day, etc. It follows that a certain component of the meaning of
a word is described when you identify it as a part of speech, since different parts
of speech are distributionally different (cf. my work and I work).

Comparing word-forms of one and the same word we observe that besides
grammatical meaning, there is another component of meaning to be found in them.
Unlike the grammatical meaning this component 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 proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of
this word.
 The difference between the lexical and the grammatical components of meaning
is not to be sought in the difference of the concepts underlying the two types of
meaning, but rather in the way they are conveyed. The concept of plurality, e.g.,
may be expressed by the lexical meaning of the world plurality; it may also be
expressed in the forms of various words irrespective of their lexical meaning, e.g.
boys, girls, joys, etc. The concept of relation may be expressed by the lexical
meaning of the word relation and also by any of the prepositions, e.g. in, on,
behind, etc. (cf. the book is in/on, behind the table). “
It follows that by lexical meaning we designate the meaning proper to the given
linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions, while by grammatical meaning we
designate the meaning proper to sets of word-forms common to all words of a
certain class. Both the lexical and the grammatical meaning make up the word-
meaning as neither can exist without the other.

4. Lexical meaning of a word and its components

As was mentioned above one of the functions of words is to denote things,

concepts and so on. Users of a language cannot have any knowledge or thought of
the objects or phenomena of the real world around them unless this knowledge is
ultimately embodied in words which have essentially the same meaning for all
speakers of that language. This is the denotational meaning, i.e. that component
of the lexical meaning which makes communication possible. There is no doubt
that a physicist knows more about the atom than a singer does, or that an arctic
explorer possesses a much deeper knowledge of what arctic ice is like than a man
who has never been in the North. Nevertheless they use the words atom, Arctic,
etc. and understand each other.
The second component of the lexical meaning is the connotational
component, i.e. the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word.
Words contain an element of emotive evaluation as part of the connotational
meaning; e.g. a hovel denotes ‘a small house or cottage’ and besides implies that it
is a miserable dwelling place, dirty, in bad repair and in general unpleasant to live
in. When examining synonyms large, big, tremendous and like, love, worship or
words such as girl, girlie; dear, dearie we cannot fail to observe the difference in
the emotive charge of the members of these sets. The emotive charge of the words
tremendous, worship and girlie is heavier than that of the words large, like and girl.
This does not depend on the “feeling” of the individual speaker but is true for all
speakers of English. The emotive charge varies in different word-classes. In some
of them, in interjections, e.g., the emotive element prevails, whereas in
conjunctions the emotive charge is as a rule practically non-existent.
 The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as
linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of meaning. It
should not be confused with emotive implications that the words may acquire in
speech. The emotive implication of the word is to a great extent subjective as it
greatly depends of the personal experience of the speaker, the mental imagery the
word evokes in him. Words seemingly devoid of any emotional element may
possess in the case of individual speakers strong emotive implications as may be
illustrated, e.g. by the word hospital. What is thought and felt when the word
hospital is used will be different in the case of an architect who built it, the
invalid staying there after an operation, or the man living across the road.
Words differ not only in their emotive charge but also in their stylistic reference.
Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial
layers.
The greater part of the literаrу 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 or bookish words. This may be best
illustrated by comparing words almost identical in their denotational meaning, e.
g., ‘parent — father — dad’. In comparison with the word father which is
stylistically neutral, dad stands out as colloquial and parent is felt as bookish. The
stylistic reference of standard colloquial words is clearly observed when we
compare them with their neutral synonyms, e.g. chum — friend, rot — nonsense,
etc. This is also true of literary or bookish words, such as, e.g., to presume (cf. to
suppose), to anticipate (cf. to expect) and others.
Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous. Besides general-
literary (bookish) words, e.g. harmony, calamity, alacrity, etc., we may single out
various specific subgroups, namely: 1) terms or scientific words such as, e g.,
renaissance, genocide, teletype, etc.; 2) poetic words and archaisms such as, e.g.,
whilome — ‘formerly’, aught — ‘anything’, ere — ‘before’, albeit — ‘although’,
fare — ‘walk’, etc., tarry — ‘remain’, nay — ‘no’; 3) barbarisms and foreign
words, such as, e.g., bon mot — ‘a clever or witty saying’, apropos, faux pas,
bouquet, etc. The colloquial words may be subdivided into:
1) Common colloquial words.
2) Slang, i.e. words which are often regarded as a violation of the norms of
Standard English, e.g. governor for ‘father’, missus for ‘wife’, a gag for ‘a joke’,
dotty for ‘insane’.
3) Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups bound by the same
occupation, such as, e.g., lab for ‘laboratory’, hypo for ‘hypodermic syringe’, a
buster for ‘a bomb’, etc.
 4) Jargonisms, i.e. words marked by their use within a particular social group
and bearing a secret and cryptic character, e.g. a sucker — ‘a person who is easily
deceived’, a squiffer — ‘a concertina’.
5) Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in public, e.g.
bloody, hell, damn, shut up, etc.
6) Dialectical words, e.g. lass, kirk, etc.
7) Colloquial coinages, e.g. newspaperdom, allrightnik, etc.

5. Polysemy. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word

Polysemy (poly –many, seme - sigh) is characteristic of most words in many

languages, however different they may be. But it is more characteristic of the
English vocabulary as compared with Ukrainian and Russian, due to the
monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words. The
greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of variants that
constitute its semantic structure, i.e. the more polysemantic it is. This regularity is
of course a statistical, not a rigid one.
Polysemy means “plurality of meanings”. A word which has more than one
meaning is called polysemantic.
To be: to exist
To occur
To go to see (to visit)
To be situated
…
Are these meanings are related?
Can we single out common semantic component? – existence.
So one meaning is the main, basic or central, the rest are associated or
secondary. These meanings become evident in certain lexical and grammatical
context.
Separate meaning of a polysemantic words are usually called lexico-semantic
variants. Every meaning in language and every difference in meaning is signalled
either by the form of the word itself or by context, i.e. its syntagmatic relations
depending on the position in the spoken chain. The unity of the two facets of a
linguistic sign — its form and its content in the case of a polysemantic word — is
kept in its lexico-grammatical variant.
All the lexical and lexico-grammatical variants of a word taken together form
its semantic structure or semantic paradigm.
For example, TABLE
 1) a flat horizontal slab or board, usually supported by one or more legs, on
which objects may be placed Related
2) food as served in a particular household or restaurant a good table
3) such a piece of furniture specially designed for any of various purposes a
backgammon table bird table
4 a company of persons assembled for a meal, game, etc
5) any flat or level area, such as a plateau
6) architecture another name for cordon
7) music the sounding board of a violin, guitar, or similar stringed instrument
8) an arrangement of words, numbers, or signs, usually in parallel columns, to
display data or relations a table of contents