Semasiology

The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents is called semasiology. The name comes from the Greek sē masiā ‘signification’ (from sē ma ‘sign’ sē mantikos ‘significant’ and logos ‘learning’).

There are 3 main types of definition of meaning:

(a) Analytical or referential definition

(b) Functional or contextual approach

(c) Operational or informationally oriented definition of meaning

Referential approach

Within the referential approach linguists attempt at establishing interdependence between words and objects of phenomena they denote. The idea is illustrated by the so-called basic triangle

REFERENT................................................................................. SYMBOL

(concrete object) (in which this object is reflected)

THOUGHT OF REFERENT (or concept)

(sound or letter form in which this concept is reflected)

There is no direct connection between the referent " table" and the sound form " table". This connection is conventional.

The diagram illustrates the correlation between the sound form of a word, the concrete object it denotes and the underlying concept. The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate relation between sound form and referent + it testifies to the fact that this connection is conventional.

Relation can be established through the concept, which belongs to the human cognition, and the concept is the result of abstraction. The diagram fails to show what meaning really is. The concept, the referent, or the relations between the name and the concept.

Trying to solve this problem, Russian linguists precede from the assumption that the linguistic sign is the so-called two-facet union. They view meaning as a certain reflection in our mind of objects, phenomena or relations, which makes the inner facet of the word. And the sound form is its outer facet.

The merits of this approach are as follows: it links the notion of meaning to the process of name giving to objects, processes or concepts.

The drawbacks are:

1. Referential definition cannot be applied to sentences and additional meanings arising in communication.

2. It fails to account for polysemy and synonymy.

3. It operates with subjective and intangible mental processes, because neither reference nor objects belong to linguistic data.

Functional or contextual approach

The supporters of this approach define meaning as the use of word in a language. They assume that meaning should be studied through context. If the distribution of two words is different we can conclude that heir meanings are different too (Ex. He looked at me in surprise; He's been looking for it...)

However, it is hardly possible to collect all meanings of the word and in practice linguist is guided by his experience and intuition. On the whole, this approach may be considered complimentary to the referential definition and it is applied mainly in structural linguistics.

Operational approach

It studies words in action. It describes meaning as information conveyed from the speaker to the listener in the process of communication. But though it can be applied both to words and sentences, it fails to distinguish between the direct sense (or meaning proper) and implications (or additional information) (Ex John came at six o'clock. Depending on situation it may have some additional meanings: he was punctual as usual, or he came two hours later, he didn't keep his promise and so on).

In each case the implication would depend on concrete situation, and considering the importance of two layers of information thee were suggested two terms: MEANING for direct meaning and SENSE for implications.

The word " meaning" is not homogeneous. Its components are called " types of meaning". The two main types of meaning are grammatical and lexical meaning.

The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning, recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of words. The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning, recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of words (goes, loves, reads - 3rd person singular. Books, tables, apples - the recurrent meaning of plurality).

The lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the linguistic unit in all its forms and distribution. That's why " boy, boys" have different grammatical meaning. But in all of them we find the semantic component " male child".

The grammatical meaning and lexical meaning make up the word meaning and neither of them can exist without the other. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and generalized. In some word classes it is the lexical meaning that is rather vague (Ex. in prepositions / link verbs).

Third type of meaning is called lexical-grammatical meaning (or part-of-speech meaning). It is the common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging to a lexical-grammatical class (class of nouns, verbs etc.)

The meaning of thingness is characteristic of all nouns. This type of meaning is observed through a set of forms (Ex. all nouns have forms denoting number and case). Some parts of speech are observed through their distribution (Ex. prepositions).

The lexical meaning comprises two main components the denotational aspect of meaning and the connotational aspect of meaning. The term " denotational aspect of meaning " is derived from " to denote" and it is through this component of meaning that the main information is conveyed in the process of communication. Besides, it helps to insure8 references to things common to all the speakers of the given language (Ex. " chemistry" - I'm not an expert in it, but I know what it is about). Denotational meaning express notional content of the word.

The connotational aspect may be called " optional". It conveys additional information in the process of communication. And it may denote the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word. The emotive charge is the emotive evaluation inherent in the connotational component of the lexical meaning (Ex. " notorious" => [widely known] => for criminal acts, bad behaviour, bad traits of character; " famous" => [widely known] => for special achievement in science etc.).

" to love"

" to adore" - to love greatly => the emotive charge is higher than in " to love"

" to shake" - neutral.

" to shiver" - is stronger => higher emotive charge.

Mind that the emotive charge is not a speech characteristic of the word. It's a language phenomenon => it remains stable and it is repeatedly reproduced.

If associations with the lexical meaning concern the situation, the social circumstances (formal/informal), the social relations between the interlocutors (polite/rough), the type or purpose of communication (poetic/official) the connotation is stylistically coloured. It is termed as stylistic reference. The main stylistic layers of vocabulary are:

Literary " parent"

Neutral " father"

Colloquial " dad"

But the denotational meaning is the same!!!

The constituent elements of connotation are closely linked together and they can be looked at separately only for the sake of scientific analysis:

To pass into the next world (= to die)- bookish, poetic

To die - neutral, doesn't have emotive charge

To kick the bucket - highly emotive and stylistically it is colloquial

The lexical meaning of the word can also be segmented into semantic components, which are called semes. The procedure of componentional analysis may be illustrated by the semantic field of kinship:

Father = male + parent

Mother = female + parent

Son = male + in relation to parent

Daughter = female + in relation to parent

Semes are mostly determined with the help of dictionary definitions. To find semes one should consult an English-English dictionary.

A word may have several meanings, and these meanings are interconnected and form up its semantic structure. The words of the kind are called polysemantic. The greater the relative fe-quency of the word is, the more meanings it has within its semantic structure.

Monosemantic words are mostly scientific terms. In case of a polysemantic word the unity of its form and meaning is kept in its lexical-grammatical variant.

Ex. " Youth" has 3 lexical-grammatical variants

a) An abstract uncountable noun as in " a friend of one's youth".

b) A countable noun in the meaning of the young man.

c) A collective noun which implies men and women = > used only in plural.

Polysemy

Diachronically, polysemy is understood as the growth and development of the semantic structure of the word and historically we differentiate between the primary and secondary meanings of words.

The relation between these meanings isn't only the one of order of appearance but it is also the relation of dependence = > we can say that secondary meaning is always the derived meaning.

Synchronically it is possible to distinguish between major (basic, central) meaning of the word and its minor meanings. Sometimes it is hard to grade individual meaning of the word in order of their comparative value.

To get the letter- получить письмо.

To get to London - прибыть в Лондон (minor).

The only more or less objective criterion in this case is the frequency of occurence in speech. The semantic structure is never static and the primary meaning of a word may become synchronically one of the minor meanings and vice versa. Stylistic factors should always be taken into consideration.

Polysemy of words: " yellow" - sensational (Am., sl.)

The meaning which has the highest frequency is the one representative of the whole semantic structure of the word. The Russian equivalent of " a table" which first comes to your mind and when you hear this word is 'cтол" in the meaning " a piece of furniture". And words that correspond in their major meanings in two different languages are referred to as correlated words though their semantic structures may be different.

Primary meaning- historically first.

Major meaning - the most frequently used meaning of the word synchronically.