18. The word Semantic Structure. Types of Lexical Meaning.

Semasiology is the brunch of lexicology which is concerned with meaning.

Sema – sign – the minimum indivisible meaningful unit of a word, a unit of componential analysis.

There is no universally accepted definition of the term meaning (lexical). Language is a tool for meaning transportation, we can’t study the language without referring to the meaning.

The 2 main approaches to the study of word-meaning are the referential app. Which treats the meaning (lexical) of a word as a relationship btw words and the things (the notions they refer or signify)

It’s important to distinguish meaning from the referent i.e. from the thing denoted by the linguistic sign (word). We can denote one and the same object by more than one word of a different meaning. (an apple can be denoted by the w-s: apple, fruit, sth, this and so on).

The functional approach which treats meaning as the relationship of one linguistic sign (w.) to another i.e. meaning can be studied only through context (paradigm and syntactic studies of meaning).

Every lexical meaning consists of two components: denotative and conotative m-s.

The first comp. is the denotative meaning which makes comunication possible – it serves as a linguistic expression for a concept or a name for an individual object. It can be significative (the referent is concept) and demonstrative (individ. obj.).

The second is connotative meaning i.e. the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word.

Meaning can be more or less described as a component of a w. through which a concept (идея, понятие) is communicated. In this way it gives the w. the ability of denoting real obj-s, qualities, actions and abstract notions.

The complex rell-s btw referent (obj. denoted by the w.), concept and the w. are traditionally represented by the semantic triangle. The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate rellation btw the w. and referent. It is established only through the concept.

We could talk here about lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical meanings.

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

Grammatical m-g: an expression in speech of relationships btw words based on contrasive features in which they occur. It is more abstract and more generalized than the lex. m., it unites words into big groups such as parts of speech. (e.g. gram. Meaning of plurality).

The lex-gram. meaning: is the comon denominator of all the men-s of words belonging to a lexico-gram. class of words, it’s a feature according to which they are grouped together. W-s in which generalization is so great that they can be lexical representatives of lex-gram meanings and substitute any word of their class are called generic terms (e.g. a w. group is a gen.term for collective nouns, person – for pers.n-s, etc).

We distinguish btw lexical meaning of a w. in speech and its semantic structure in the language. The meaning in speech is contextual. Any actually usd w. has only one meaning (it is monosemantic in context), but the bulk of english w-s is polysemantic, i.e. they posess more than one meaning. The commoner the w., the more meanings it has. Polysemy exists only in the language, not in speech. The meaning of a w. form its semantic structure.

By the semantic structure of the w. we mean the interdependance and interconnection of all the meanings that the w. has.

Talking about types of lex. meaning it should be noted that no general or complete scheme of types of lex. meaning as elements of a word’s semantic structure has so far been accepted by linguists. The following terms may be found with different authors:

The meaning is direct (fire-screen) when it names the referent without the help of a context, in isolation. The m. is figurative (smoke screen) when the w. while naming simultaniously describes the object.

Main/primary m. presents the centre of the semantic structure of the w. holding it together, it possesses the highest frequency. Secondary (screen – киноэкран) – the meanings that can be associated with one another through primary meaning.

The meaning can be abstract (screen actor, screen star) in comparison with the first mean. which is concrete.

If the variants are classified not only by comparing them inside the semantic structure of the word but according to the style and sphere of lang. in which they may occur, if they have stylistic connotations, the classification is stylistical. All the w-s are classified into stylistically neutral and stylistically coloured (bookish (general, pioetical, scientific or learned) and colloquial (literary colloquial, familiar colloquial, slang))