The meaning of the word

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, SCIENCE, YOUTH AND SPORTS OF UKRAINE

IZMAIL STATE UNIVERSITY OF HUMANITIES

 

 

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION DEPARTMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

COURSE PROJECT

«The meaning of the word»

 

 

 

 

 

Course Project in English

Year IV

Group 431

Ann Nyagu

 

Research Supervisor:

L.P. Gulidova

 

 

 

Izmail, 2011

 

Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………3-4

1. CHAPTER 1. Theoretical part…………………………………………….5
2. The lexical meaning versus notion………………………………………7-11
3. Grammatical meaning…………………….……………………………11-13

.1.3.1. Meaning of singularity…………………………………………………13-14

.1.3.2. Meaning of plurarity……………………………………………………..14

4. Denotative and connotative meaning…………………………………..14-16

.1.4.1. Polysemy…………………………………………………………………16

.1.4.2. The «bias words» ………………………………………………………..20

.1.4.3. Polysemy like phenomenon……………………………………………22-23

5. Conclusion on Chapter 1…………………………………………………24

.2. CHAPTER 2. Practical part………………………………………………25

.2.1. Homonyms……………………………………………………………..25-27

.2.1.2. Classificaton of homonyms……………………………………………27-28

.2.1.3.Various types of classification for homonyms………………………...28-31

.2.2.Synonyms……………………………………………………………...31-33

.2.2.1.Classification of synonyms………………………………………………33

.2.3.The using of word meaning in morphemes……………………………33-35

.2.4.Conclusion on Chapter 2………………………………………………..36

.3.General conclusion………………………………………………………37

.4.Bibliography……………………………………………………………..38

.5. Appendix……………………………………………………………….39-40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

The theme of our course-paper is «The meaning of the word». In the first chapter of the work tells about  the branch of linguistic that concerned with the the meaning of words and word equivalents, about the different types of  meaning.

The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents is called semantics or semasiology. The name comes from the Greek sēmasiā ‘signification’ (from sēma ‘sign’ sēmantikos ‘significant’ and logos ‘learning’).

If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning which words undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not of individual words but of semantic structures typical of the language studied, and of its general semantic system.

The main objects of semasiological study treated in this book are as follows: semantic development of words, its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, its causes and classification, relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic structure of word, semantic groupings and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, etc.

The problem is not new. M. Bréal, for instance, devoted much attention to a semasiological treatment of grammar. A German philologist H. Hatzfeld held that semasiology should include syntax, and that many of its chapters need historical and cultural comments.

The problem has recently acquired a certain urgency and a revival of interest in semantic syntax is reflected in a large number of publications by Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev scholars.

An exact definition of any basic term is no easy task altogether. In the case of lexical meaning it becomes especially difficult due to the complexity of the process by which language and human mind serve to reflect outward reality and to adapt it to human needs.

The definition of lexical meaning has been attempted more than once in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. The disciples of F. de Saussure consider meaning to be the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself. Descriptive linguistics of the Bloomfieldian trend defines the meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered. Both ways of approach afford no possibility of a further investigation of semantic problems in strictly linguistic terms, and therefore, if taken as a basis for general linguistic theory, give no insight into the mechanism of meaning. Some of L. Bloomfield’s successors went so far as to exclude semasiology from linguistics on the ground that meaning could not be studied “objectively", and was not part of language but “an aspect of the use to which language is put”. This point of view was never generally accepted. The more general opinion is well revealed in R. Jakobson’s pun. He said: “Linguistics without meaning is meaningless."¹ This crisis of semasiology has been over for some twenty years now, and the problem of meaning has provided material for a great number of books, articles and dissertations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.1.1.CHAPTER 1. Theoretical part

The word combines in its semantic structure two meanings – lexical and grammatical.

In our country the definitions of meaning given by various authors, though different in detail, agree in the basic principle: they all point out that lexical meaning is the realisation of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system. The definition stresses that semantics studies only such meanings that can be expressed, that is concepts bound by signs.

It has also been repeatedly stated that the plane of content in speech reflects the whole of human consciousness, which comprises not only mental activity but emotions, volition, etc. as well. The mentalistic approach to meaning treating it only as a concept expressed by a word oversimplifies the problem because it takes into consideration only the referential function of words. Actually, however, all the pragmatic functions of language — communicative, emotive, evaluative, phatic, esthetic, etc., are also relevant and have to be accounted for in semasiology, because they show the attitude of the speaker to the thing spoken of, to his interlocutor and to the situation in which the act of communication takes place.

 

The complexity of the word meaning is manifold. The four most important types of semantic complexity may be roughly described as follows:

Note how this epigram makes use of the polysemy of the word meaning.

Firstly, every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings. E.g.: Father is a personal noun.

Secondly, many words not only refer to some object but have an aura of associations expressing the attitude of the speaker. They have not only denotative but connotative meaning as well.

E. g.: Daddy is a colloquial term of endearment.

Thirdly, the denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes.

E.g.: Father is a male parent.

Fourthly, a word may be polysemantic, that is it may have several meanings, all interconnected and forming its semantic structure.

E. g.: Father may mean: ‘male parent’, ‘an ancestor’, ‘a founder or leader’, ‘a priest’.

It will be useful to remind the reader that the grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationships between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalised than the lexical meaning, it unites words into big groups such as parts of speech or lexico-grammatical classes. It is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words. E. g. parents, books, intentions, whose common element is the grammatical meaning of plurality. The interrelation of lexics and grammar has already been touched upon in § 1.3. This being a book on lexicology and not on grammar, it is permissible not to go into more details though some words on lexico-grammatical meanings are necessary.

The lexiсo-grammatical meaning is the common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging to a lexico-grammatical class of words, it is the feature according to which they are grouped together. Words in which abstraction and generalisation are so great that they can be lexical representatives of lexico-grammatical meanings and substitute any word of their class are called generic terms. For example the word matter is a generic term for material nouns, the word group — for collective nouns, the word person — for personal nouns.

Words belonging to one lexico-grammatical class are characterised by a common system of forms in which the grammatical categories inherent in them are expressed. They are also substituted by the same prop-words and possess some characteristic formulas of semantic and morphological structure and a characteristic set of derivational affixes. See tables on word-formation in: R. Quirk et al., “A Grammar of Contemporary English”.

The degree and character of abstraction and generalisation in lexico-grammatical meanings and the generic terms that represent them are intermediate between those characteristic of grammatical categories and those observed on the lexical level — hence the term lexico-grammatical.

.1.2.The lexical meaning versus notion

The term notion (concept) is introduced into linguistics from logic and psychology. It denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations. Each notion is characterised by its scope and content. The scope of the notion is determined by all the objects it refers to. The content of the notion is made up of all the features that distinguish it from other notions. The distinction between the scope and the content of a notion lies at the basis of such terms as the identifying (demonstrative) and significative functions of the word that have been discussed above. The identifying function may be interpreted as denoting the objects covered by the scope of the notion expressed in the word, and the significative function is the function of expressing the content of the respective notion. The function of rendering an emotion or an attitude is termed the expressive function.

The relationship between the linguistic lexical meaning and the logical notion deserves special attention not only because they are apt to be confused but also because in comparing and contrasting them it is possible to achieve a better insight into the essence of both. In what follows this opposition will be treated in some detail.

I. The first essential point is that the relationship between notion and meaning varies. A word may have a notion for its referent. In the example A good laugh is sunshine in the house (Thackeray) every word evokes a general idea, a notion, without directly referring to any particular element of reality. The scope of the significative meaning and that of the notion coincide; on different levels they cover the same area. But a word may also have, and quite often has a particular individual object for its referent as in “Do you remember what the young lady did with the telegram?” (Christie)

The problem of proper names is particularly complicated. It has been often taken for granted that they do not convey any generalised notion at all, that they only name human beings, countries, cities, animals, rivers, stars, etc. And yet, names like Moscow, the Thames, Italy, Byron evoke notions. Moreover, the notions called forth are particularly rich. The clue, as St. Ullmann convincingly argues, lies in the specific function of proper names which is identification, and not signifying.¹

Pronouns possess the demonstrative function almost to a complete exclusion of the significative function, i.e. they only point out, they do not impart any information about the object pointed out except for its relation to the speaker.

To sum up this first point: the logical notion is the referent of lexical meaning quite often but not always, because there may be other referents such as the real objects.

II. Secondly, notions are always emotionally neutral as they are a category of thought. Language, however, expresses all possible aspects of human consciousness . Therefore the meaning of many words not only conveys some reflection of objective reality but also connotations revealing the speaker’s state of mind and his attitude to what he is speaking about.

The content of the emotional component of meaning varies considerably. Emotionally charged words can cover the whole scale of both positive and negative emotions: admiration, respect, tenderness and other positive feelings, on the one hand, and scorn, irony, loathing, etc., on the other. Two or more words having the same denotative meaning may differ in emotional tone. In such oppositions as brat : : baby and kid : : child the denotative force of the right- and left-hand terms is the same but the left-hand terms are emotional whereas those on the right are neutral.

III. Thirdly, the absence not only of identity, but even of regular one-to-one correspondence between meaning and notion is clearly seen in words belonging to some specific stylistic level. The wording of the following example can serve to illustrate the point: “Well,” said Kanga, “Fancy that! Fancy my making a mistake like that.” (Milne) Fancy when used in exclamatory sentences not only expresses surprise but has a definite colloquial character and shows that the speaker and those who hear him are on familiar terms.

The stylistic colouring should not be mixed with emotional tone although here they coincide. A word may have a definite stylistic characteristic and be completely devoid of any emotional colouring (lifer ‘a person who has been sent to prison for life’); two words may belong to the same style and express diametrically opposed emotions (compare, for instance, the derogatory lousy and the laudatory smashing, both belonging to slang).

IV. The linguistic nature of lexical meaning has very important consequences. Expressing a notion, a word does so in a way determined by the peculiarities of the lexical and grammatical systems of each particular language and by the various structural ties of the word in speech. Every word may be said to have paradigmatic ties relating it to other words and forms, and giving it a differential quality. These are its relations to other elements of the same thematic group, to synonymous and antonymous words, phraseological restrictions on its use and the type of words which may be derived from it. On the other hand, each word has syntagmatic ties characterising the ordered linear arrangement of speech elements.

The lexical meaning of every word depends upon the part of speech to which the word belongs. Every word may be used in a limited set of syntactical functions, and with a definite valency. It has a definite set of grammatical meanings, and a definite set of forms.

The lexico-grammatical meaning may be also regarded as the feature according to which these words are grouped together. Many recent investigations are devoted to establishing word classes on the basis of similarity of distribution.

In the lexical meaning of every separate word the lexico-grammatical meaning common to all the words of the class to which this word belongs is enriched by additional features and becomes particularised.

The meaning of a specific property in such words as bright, clear, good, quick, steady, thin is a particular realisation of the lexico-grammatical meaning of qualitative adjectives. These adjectives always denote the properties of things capable of being compared and so have degrees of comparison. They refer to qualities that vary along a continuous scale and are called gradable.

The structure of every separate meaning depends on the linguistic syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships because meaning is an inherent component of language. The complexity of each word meaning is due to the fact that it combines lexical meaning with lexico-grammatical meaning and sometimes with emotional colouring, stylistic peculiarities and connotations born from previous usage.

V. The foregoing deals with separate meanings as realised in speech. If we turn to the meaning of words as they exist in language we shall observe that frequently used words are polysemantic.

In every language the combinatorial possibility of meanings in one word is specific. Thus, it is characteristic of English nouns to combine individual and collective, countable and uncountable variants in one phonetic complex. In verbs we observe different meanings based on the transitive and intransitive lexico-semantic variants of the same verb, as illustrated by the following examples: burn vt ‘destroy by fire’, vi ‘be in flames’; hold vt ‘contain, keep fast’, vi ‘be true’. See also different meanings of the verbs fire, fly, run, shake, turn, walk, warm, worry, etc.

Morphological derivation also plays a very important part in determining possible meaning combinations. Thus, for instance, nouns derived from verbs very often name not only the action itself but its result as well, e. g. show n ‘the act of showing’, ‘an exhibition’.

VI. Last but not least, the difference between notion and meaning is based upon the fact that notions are mostly international, especially for nations with the same level of cultural development, whereas meaning may be nationally determined and limited. The grouping of meanings in the semantic structure of a word is determined by the whole system of every language, by its grammar and vocabulary, by the peculiar history both of the language in question and the people who speak it. These factors influence not only the mere presence and absence of this or that meaning in the semantic system of words that may be considered equivalent in different languages, but also their respective place and importance. Equivalent words may be defined as words of two different languages, the main lexical variants of which express or name the same notion, emotion or object.

The meaning of every word forms part of the semantic system of each particular language and thus is always determined by the peculiarities of its vocabulary, namely the existence of synonyms, or words near in meaning, by the typical usage, set expressions and also by the words’ grammatical characteristics depending on the grammatical system of each language.

A good illustration is given by the verb go. Its Russian equivalent is идти. The main meaning ‘move or pass from place to place’ is common to both languages, as well as the meaning ‘extend’ (e. g.: This road goes to London —Эта дорога идет в Лондон); and so is the meaning ‘work’ (Is your watch going? — Идут ли ваши часы?). There is, however, quite a considerable number of meanings that do not coincide. This is partly due to the existence in the English vocabulary of the words come and walk that point out the direction and character of the movement. Сf. Вот, он идет! — Here he comes.

 

.1.3. Grammatical meaning

Grammatical meaning is very abstractive generalized meaning, which is linguistically expressed. ex: Peter’s head -the grammatical meaning of the category of case showing the relations between part and a whole.

Grammatical meaning is always expressed either explicitly or implicitly. The implicit grammatical meaning is not expressed formally (e.g. the word table does not contain any hints in its form as to it being inanimate). The explicit grammatical meaning is always marked morphologically – it has its marker. In the word cats the grammatical meaning of plurality is shown in the form of the noun; cat’s – here the grammatical meaning of possessiveness is shown by the form ‘s; is asked – shows the explicit grammatical meaning of passiveness.

For instance: The book reads well -  here the grammatical meaning of passivity is expressed implicitly (see appendix).

The implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and dependent. The general grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part of speech (e.g. nouns – the general grammatical meaning of thingness). The dependent grammatical meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same part of speech. For instance, any verb possesses the dependent grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity, terminativeness/non-terminativeness, stativeness/non-stativeness; nouns have the dependent grammatical meaning of contableness/uncountableness and animateness/inanimateness. The most important thing about the dependent grammatical meaning is that it influences the realization of grammatical categories restricting them to a subclass. Thus the dependent grammatical meaning of countableness/uncountableness influences the realization of the grammatical category of number as the number category is realized only within the subclass of countable nouns, the grammatical meaning of animateness/inanimateness influences the realization of the grammatical category of case, teminativeness/non-terminativeness - the category of tense, transitivity/intransitivity – the category of voice.

Grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole class or a subclass. For example, the class of nouns has the grammatical meaning ofthingness. If we take a noun (table) we may say that it possesses its individual lexical meaning (it corresponds to a definite piece of furniture) and the grammatical meaning of thingness (this is the meaning of the whole class). Besides, the noun ‘table’ has the grammatical meaning of a subclass –countableness. Any verb combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote actions or states. An adjective combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical meaning of the whole class of adjectives – qualitativeness – the ability to denote qualities. Adverbs possess the grammatical meaning of adverbiality – the ability to denote quality of qualities. 

Grammatical meaning is a system of expressing the grammatical meaning through the paradigmatic correlation of grammatical forms-expressed by grammatical opposition, which can be of different types:

1. Private
2. Gradual-large-larger-largest
3. Equipollent-am is are