26 Word meaning. Different approaches to the study of meaning.

The definition of the word meaning presents no less difficulty than the definition of the word itself. The word meaning renders the emotion or the concept in the mind of the speaker which he wants to convey to the listener in the process of communication. By concept we understand any discrete unit of human cognition. The word being a unit of language enters a number of combinations with other units stands in functional relations to other linguistic signs. Thus the meaning of the word not only fixes concepts by way of generalizing and reflecting reality, but it is realized on contexts and combinations. The meaning of the word is not homogeneous. It is closely connected with the object it names and the concept it fixes. It is also connected with the sound form besides it is realized in different relations with other concepts. There are two main approaches to word meaning: 1. relative approach, according to which each linguistic sign (word) gets its meaning only in some semantic field or paradigmatic relations. 2. the referential or denotational approach, according to which the meaning of the word is autonomous, it’s an integral part of the word, though is realized in contexts and this approach is shown as a triangle (symbol – the word, concept – thought; referent – object, denoted by the word).

28 Word meaning and motivation.

The relationship between morphemic structure and meaning is termed morphological motivation. The main criteria in morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes. All one-morpheme words (look, eat) are non-motivated. Such words as writer, worker are described as motivated. Phonetic motivation is represented by such words as swish, boom, splash. Beside grammatical and lexical meanings some linguists also distinguish the co-called structural meaning, i.e. words in a sentence are joined together according to some specific rules (a diggled-boggle, a boggled diggle). Motivation is the relationship existing between the morpheme or phonemic composition and the structural pattern of the word, on the one hand, and its meaning on the other. The words are motivated: 1. Structurally (a shoe-maker), but sometimes due to the character of the lexical meaning of a morphological motivation becomes rather relevant or weak (flower-girl); 2. Phonetically (swish, boom); 3. Semantically (the dawn of life). Sometimes motivation of the words may be lost: a) one of the elements of compound words dropped out of usage (mermaid – русалка, mere – море); b) the loss of the primary meaning of the word (spoon – щепка).

34 Homonyms. Definition, formal classification. Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of these aspects, but different in their meaning.E. g. bank, n. —a shore,bank, n. —an institution for receiving, lending, exchanging, and safeguarding money. ball, n. —a sphere; any spherical body,ball, n. —a large dancing party. Homonyms which are the same in sound and spelling are traditionally termed homonyms proper. Bean, n. and been, Past Part, of to be are homophone- they are the same in sound but different in spelling. Homographs- words which are the same in spelling but different in sound(lead v – show smb the way, lead n – a heavy, rather soft metal). When analysing different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymous in all their forms, i.e. we observe full h. of the paradigms of two or more different words, e.g., in seal₁ —‘a sea animal’ and seal₂ —‘a design printed on paper by means of a stamp’. When only some of the word-forms(seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas others(sealed, sealing) are not, we can speak of partial h. - find, found, found, and found, founded, founded.

.lexico-grammatical classification of homonyms. Homonyms may be also classified by the type of meaning into lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonyms. In seal₁ n and seal₂ n, e.g., the part-of-speech meaning of the word and the grammatical meanings of all its forms are identical (seal [si:l] Common Case Singular, seal’s [si:lz] Possessive Case Singular for both seal₁ and seal₂). The difference is confined to the lexical meaning only: seal₁ denotes ‘a sea animal’,‘the fur of this animal’,etc., seal₂—‘a design printed on paper,the stamp by which the design is made’etc. So we can say that seal₂ and seal₁ are lexical homonyms because they differ in lexical meaning.If we compare seal₁—‘a sea animal’, and (to) seal₃—‘to close tightly, we shall observe not only a difference in the lexical meaning of their homonymous word-forms but a difference in their grammatical meanings as well. Identical sound-forms, i.e. seals[si:lz] (Common Case Plural of the noun) and (he) seals[si:lz] (third person Singular of the verb) possess each of them different grammatical meanings. As both grammatical and lexical meanings differ we describe these homonymous word-forms as lexico-grammatical. Modern English abounds in homonymic word-forms differing in grammatical meaning only. e.g. brother’s —brothers -the Possessive Case Singular and the Common Case Plural. It may be easily observed that grammatical homonymy is the homonymy of different word-forms of one and the same word.

Sources of homonyms. The two main sources of h. are:1.diverging meaning development of a polysemantic word. This process can be observed when different meanings of the same word move so far away from each other that they come to be regarded as two separate units. Ex.: flower and flour originally were one wordmeaning ‘the flower’ and ‘the finest part of wheat’.2.convergent sound development of two or more different words. Ex, OE. ic and OE. еаzе have become identical in pronunciation(ME. I and eye). A number of lexico-grammatical homonyms appeared as a result of convergent sound development of the verb and the noun (MnE.love — (to) love and OE. lufu — lufian). Words borrowed from other languages may through phonetic convergence become homonymous. ONorse. ras and Fr. race are homonymous in Modern English (race₁ [reis] — ‘running’ and race₂ [reis] — ‘a distinct ethnical stock’).

35 Types of Synonyms. The role of synonyms it the development of the vocabulary.The only existing classification system for synonyms was established by Academician Vinogradov, the famous Russian scholar. In his classification system there are three types of synonyms: ideographic (which he defined as words conveying the same concept but differing in shades of meaning), stylistic (differing in stylistic characteristics) and absolute (coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics) A more modern and a more effective approach to the classification of synonyms may be based on the definition describing synonyms as words differing in connotations.

36 The themantic groups and semantic fields. Classification of vocabulary items into thematic groups is based on the co-occurrence of words in certain repeatedly used contexts. In linguistic contexts co-occurrence maу be observed on different levels. On the level of word-groups the word question, for instance, is often found in collocation with the verbs raise, put forward, discuss, etc., with the adjectives urgent, vital, disputable and so on. The verb accept occurs in numerous contexts together with the nouns proposal, invitation, plan and others.As a rule, thematic groups deal with contexts on the level of the sentence. Words in thematic groups are joined together by common contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and reflect the interlinking of things or events. Common contextual association of the words, e.g. tree—grow—green;journey—train—taxi—bags—ticket or sunshine—brightly—blue—sky, is due to the regular co-occurrence of these words in a number of sentences. Words making up a thematic group belong to different parts of speech and do not possess any common denominator of meaning. Contextual associations formed by the speaker of a language are usually conditioned by the context of situation which necessitates the use of certain words. When watching a play, for example, we naturally speak of the actors who act the main parts, of good (or bad) staging of the play, of the wonderful scenery and so on. When we go shopping it is usual to speak of the prices, of the goods we buy, of the shops. Words may be classified according to the concepts underlying their meaning. This classification is closely connected with the theory of conceptual or semantic fields. By the term “semantic fields” we understand closely knit sectors of vocabulary each characterised by a common concept. For example, the words blue, red, yellow, black, etc. may be described as making up the semantic field of colours, thewords mother, father, brother, cousin, etc. — as members of the semantic field.In practical lang. learning thematic groups are often listed under various headings, e. g. “At the Theatre”, “At School”, “Shopping”, and are often found in textbooks and courses of conversational English.The members of the semantic fields are not synonyms but all of them are joined together by some common semantic component — the concept of colours or the concept of kinship, etc. It is argued that we cannot possibly know the exact meaning of the word if we do not know the structure of the SF to which the word belongs, the number of the members and the concepts covered by them.It should also be pointed out that different meanings of polysemantic words make it possible to refer the same word to different lexico-semantic groups. Thus, e.g. make in the meaning of ‘construct’ is naturally a member of the same lexico-semantic group as the verbs produce, manufacture, etc , whereas in the meaning of compel it is regarded as a member of a different lexico-semantic group made up by the verbs force, induce.

37 Semantic contrasts and antonymy. General problems(contrast, contradiction)The term antonyms indicate words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings. And nearly identical in distribution associated and used together so that their implication aspects render contrary or contradictory notion:love-hate, early-late. The opposition here is obvious, each component means the opposite of the other. Almost every word can have synonyms comparatativly, few have antonyms. Antonyms apposition is characterized of a)qualitative adj-s:new-old, big-little. b)word derived from word qualitative adj-s:gladly-sadly, sadness-gladness. c)words concern with feeling or state and their derivatives:triumph-disaster, hope-dispair. d)words denoting directions and position in space: up-down, far-near. Polysemantic words may have antonyms in some of their meanings and none in the others. E.g.a shot/long story, a short/tall man. Not so many years ago antonymy was not universally accepted as a linguistic problem, and the opposition within antonymic pairs was regarded as purely logical and finding no reflection in the semantic structures of these words. The contrast between heat and cold or big and small, said most scholars, is the contrast of things opposed by their very nature. Nowadays most scholars agree that in the semantic structures of all words, which regularly occur in antonymic pairs, a special antonymic connotation can be singled out. We are so used to coming across hot and cold together, in the same contexts, that even when we find hot alone, we cannot help subconsciously registering it as not cold, that is, contrast it to its missing antonym. Contradictions represent the type of semnantic relantions that exist between pairs like dead and alive) single and married.

Classification of antonyms. Depending on the type of polarity ant-s are usually classified into absolute and derivational. Absolute ant-s are words regularly contrasted as homogeneous members connected by copulative, disjunctive and adversative conjunctions or parallel constructions: good or bad, right or wrong. Derivational a. are formed with the help of affixes dis, un, less, ful:selfish-unselfish, useless-useful. The contradiction is expressed morphologically and symantically too. Absolute ant-s can be arranged into a series according to increasing difference in one of the qualities:young-middle aged-old; love-resentment-hate. A-s mostly form pairs not groups.

38 Connotations of synonyms.I.The connotation of degree or intensity can be traced in such groups of synonyms as to surprise - to astonish - to amaze - to astound; to shout - to yell - to bellow - to roar. IIconnotation of duration: to stare - to glare - to gaze - to glance - to peep - to peer. all the synonyms except to glance denote a lasting act of looking at smb or smth, whereas to glance describes a brief, passing look. IIIThe synonyms to stare - to glare - to gaze are differentiated from the other words of the group by emotive connotations, and from each other by the nature of the emotion they imply. In the group alone - single - lonely - solitary, the adjective lonely also has an emotive connotation. IV. The evaluative connotation conveys the speaker's attitude towards the referent, labelling it as good or bad. So in the group well-known - famous - notorious - celebrated, the adjective notorious bears a negative evaluative connotation and celebrated a positive one. V.The causativeconnotation can be illustrated by the examples to sparkle and to glitter given above: one's eyes sparkle with positive emotions and glitter with negative emotions. VI.The connotation of manner can be singled out in some groups of verbal synonyms. The verbs to stroll - to stride - to trot - to pace - to swagger - to stagger - to stumble all denote different ways and types of walking,. VII.The verbs to peep and to peer is the connotation of attendant circumstances. VIII.The synonyms pretty, handsome, beautiful have been mentioned as the ones which are more or less interchangeable. Yet, each of them describes a special type of human beauty: beautiful is mostly associated with classical features and a perfect figure, handsome with a tall stature, a certain robustness and fine pro portions, pretty with small delicate features and a fresh complexion. This connotation may be defined as the connotation of attendant features. IX.Stylistic connotations. Examples :Meal. Snack, bite (coll.), snap (dial.), repast, refreshment, feast (formal).

39 Sources of synonyms. Euphemisms. 1)borrowings: to ask(eng)-to question(fr)-interrogate(lat); to gather(eng)-assemble(fr)-collect(lat) 2)dialects or variations(amer)radio-(british)wireless; (irish)lass-(eng)girl; 3)new formations with a post positive: to postphone-to put off, to return-to come back, to betray-to give a way; 4)word-building by means of :a)synonymas, affixes:changeable-changefull; b) composition and affixation:trader-tradesman; c)affixation and conversion:saying-say; 5) by means of shortening:microfone-mike, doctor-doc; 6) a special groups of synonymas is comprised by the Euphemisms. There are words in every language which people instinctively avoid because they are considered indecent, indelicate, rude, too direct or impolite. As the "offensive" referents, for which these words stand, must still be alluded to, they are often described in a round-about way, by using substitutes called euphemisms. The word lavatory has produced many euphemisms:powder room,washroom,restroom,retiring room,(public) comfort station, ladies' (room),gentlemen's (room),water-closet,w.c., public conveniences and even Windsor. Pregnancy: in an interesting condition,in a delicate condition,in the family way,with a baby coming,(big) with child,expecting. Drunk: intoxicated (form.),under the influence (form.),tipsy,mellow, fresh, high, merry, flustered, overcome, full (coll.), drunk as a lord (coll.), drunk as an owl (coll.), boiled (sl.), fried (sl.), tanked (sl.), tight (sl.), stiff (sl.), pickled (sl.), soaked (sl.), three sheets to the wind (sl.), high as a kite (sl.), half-seas-over (sl.), etc. All the euphemisms that have been described so far are used to avoid the so-called social taboos. Their use is inspired by social convention. Euphemisms may be:a) based on some social or ethical standard of behavior not to hurt other people’s feelinfs: poor-underprivilaged disaipled-invalid; 2) the requinment of style:to die-to join the majority, to pass away, to go west; 3)religious taboo:the name of God-good heavens.