LECTURE 4. Semasiology. Lexical meaning and semantic structure of a word

1.Lexical meaning. 2.Types of semantic components. 3.Semantic structure of words. Two levels of semantic components.

1.  The  branch  of  Lexicology  concerned  with  the  meaning  of  words  is  called SEMASIOLOGY.  Diachronically  Semasiology  studies  the  change  in  meaning which words  undergo.  Synchronically  Semasiology  studies  semantic  structures typical of language and its general semantic system. Every  word  combines  lexical  and grammatical  meanings.  By  lexical meaning  we  understand  the  meaning  proper  to  the given  linguistic  unit  in  all  its forms  and  distributions.  By  grammatical  meaning  we understand  the  meaning proper  to  a  set  of  words  which  is  forms  to  all  class  of words.  Lexical  and grammatical meanings can not exist without each other. E.g.:  go-goes-going-went-gone.  This  class  of  words  possesses  different grammatical meaning but the same lexical. 

2. Lexical  meaning  is  not  homogeneous  and  it  includes  denotative  and connotative components.  One  of  the  functions  of  words  is  to  name  things.  Usage of  language can  not  have  any  knowledge  of  the  objects  or  phenomena  of  the  real world  around them  unless  this  knowledge  is  embodied  in  words  which  have  the same  meaning for  all  speakers.  This  is  denotative  component.  It  makes communication  possible. E.g.  to  glance,  to  look.  The  word  “look”  possesses  the denotative  component.  “To glance”  has  also  the  connotative  component  (It  has meaning  “to  look  but passingly”). It  is  added  to  the  word’s  main  meaning  and serves  to  express  all  sorts  of emotional,  expressive  overtones.  In  other  words  the connotative component is stylistic value of the word.  Due to it the vocabulary is subdivided into two levels: 

LITERARY: Neutral colloquial standard bookish 

NON-LITERARY: slang jargon professionalism vulgarism 

3.  It  is  typical  for  English  words  to  have  more  than  one  meaning. A word  having  more  than  one  meaning  is  called  polysemantic  and  the  ability  of words  to  have  more  than  one  meaning  is  called polysemy.  The  process  of  polysemy development  includes  the  appearance  of  new  meaning  and  loss  of  old  ones.  The general  tendency  with  English  vocabulary  now  is  to  increase  the  number  of  its meanings  to  provide  qualitative  and  quantitative  growth  of  the  language’s resources.  It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  two  levels  of  the  semantic  structure’s analysis: 1) A system of meanings: 1) Fire: a. Flame b. The shoot of gun (e.g. to open fire) c. Substance of destructive burning (e.g. the forest fire) d. Burning material in a stove, a fireplace, a camp fire e. Strong feeling, passion. It’s  clear  that  meaning  one  dominates  of  the  other  meanings.  It  discovers  the concept  in  the  most  general  way.  Meaning  two  up  to  fire  are  associated  with special  circumstances,  aspects  or  instances  of  the  fame  phenomenon.  Meaning  one is  the  main  meaning.  It  is  the  centre  of  the  semantic  structure  of  the  word.  It  is  not in  every  polysemantic  words  that  such  a  centre  may  be  found.  Some  semantic structures are arranged on a different principle. 2)Dull: a. Uninteresting, boring (e.g. a dull book) b. Not sharp (e.g. a dull knife) c. Not loud or distinct (e.g. a dull sound) d. Stupid (e.g. a dull student) e. Seen badly (e.g. dull eyes) f. Hearing badly (e.g. dull ears) g. Not active h. Not clear or bright (e.g. dull weather, dull colour). The  meanings  are  different  but  there  is  one  thing  that  they  have  in  common: it is something lacking. a. Lack of interest b. Lack of sharp c. Lack of sound d. Lack of light e. Lack of eyesight f. Lack of earsight g. Lack of activity The  transformed  scheme  of  the  semantic  structure  of  ”dull”  shows  that  the centre  holding  together  the  complex  semantic  structure  of  this  word  is  not  one  of the  meaning  but  certain  component  that  can  be  single  out  within  each  separate meaning.  Each  separate  meaning  seems  to  be  subject  to  structural  analysis  in  which it  may  be  represented  as  sets  of  the  semantic  component.  This  analysis  shows  that the  word  “dull”  has  not  only  a  system  of  meanings  but  it  has  an  inner  structure  of its  own.  So,  the  semantic  structure  of  the  word  should  be  investigated  at  both levels:  a)  a  different  meanings;  b)  of  semantic  components  within  each  separate meaning.  For  a  monosemantic  word  it  is  a  word  with  one  meaning.  The  first  level is excluded.