Меаning in morphemes
In modern linguistics it is more or less universally recognized that the smallest two-facet language unit possessing both sound-form and meaning is the morpheme. Unlike words morphemes do not possess grammatical meaning. Lexical meaning with its denotational and connotational components may be found in morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixal morphemes but there is a certain semantic difference between these types of morphemes.
Morphemes also posses specific meanings of their own. It is suggested that at least three more components of meaning may be observed in morphemes and namely: the differential, the functional and the distributional meaning.
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 the constituent morphemes always has differential meaning: e.g. bookshelf, is different from bookcase, bookshop, and notebook from exercisebook, copybook.
Functional meaning is the semantic component that serves primarily to refer the word to a certain part of speech. Functional meaning can be found in derivational morphemes only and lies astride the borderline between the lexical and the grammatical types of meaning.e.g.the meaning of -ment in movement, establishment,
Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of morphemes making up the word, cf. singer and ersing, boyish and ishboy, movement and mentmove. It can be found in all words containing more than one morpheme,
Meaning and motivation
Motivation is understood as direct connection between the word structure and its meaning. If the connection between the structure and meaning is arbitrary and conventional, the words are described as non-motivated e.g. book, boy,cat, dog .
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, e.g. teacher, rethink, dishwasher. 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, e.g.hiss, cuckoo, purr, splash, pooh, fie. Phonetical motivation is not universally recognized in modern linguistic science
Semantic motivation is based on the co-existence of direct and figurative meaning e.g. mouth (as a part of human face) and mouth (of the river), leg ( of a dog) and leg (of a table), foot (of a man) and foot (of a hill). We should remember that direct meaning is non-motivated, only figurative (transferred) meaning is semantically motivated.
Meaning and polysemy
It is very important to distinguish between the lexical meaning of the word in speech and its semantic structure in language. If a word has only one meaning in language it is called monosemantic. If a word has more than one meaning in the language it is called polysemantic.
Monosemantic words are few in number, they are mainly scientific terms, e.g. hydrogen, molecule.Most of English words possess more than one meaning, and therefore are polysemantic.
The semantic structure of a polysemantic word may be defined as a structured set of interrelated meanings. Polysemy exists only in language, not in speech. Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in speech the meaning is contextual. Only one of all meanings of the word can be used while we are speaking, and we understand it through the context.
Context is the minimal stretch of speech necessary and sufficient to determine which of the possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used. In polysemantic words, however, we are faced not with the problem of analysis of individual meanings, but primarily with the problem of interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings in the semantic stricture of one and the same word.
This problem may be approached from two different angles. If polysemy is viewed diachronically, it is understood as the growth and development or, in general, a change in the semantic structure of the word. Semantic changes result as a rule in new meanings being added to the ones already existing in the semantic structure of the word. Some of the old meanings may become obsolete or even disappear, but the bulk of English words tend to increase in number of meanings.
Synchronically we understand polysemy as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language. In that case the problem of inter- relation and interdependence of individual meanings making up the semantic structure or the word must be investigated along different lines
It should be noted, however, that the actual arrangement of meanings in the semantic structure of any word, in any historical period is the result of the semantic development of this word within the system of the given language.
Taking into account that the semantic structure is never static; the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic evaluation of individual meanings may be different in different periods of the historical development language. This is perhaps best illustrated by the semantic analysis of the word revolution. In l600 when this word was registered in dictionaries the meaning “revolving motion’ was both primary (diachronically) and central (synchronically). In Modern English the arrangement of meanings in the semantic structure of the word revolution has considerably changed, the meaning 'a complete overthrow of the established government or regime" has become synchronically central and its most frequent meaning.