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1 - Reference is the relationship between language and the world.
2 - Meaning and concept are closely connected but not identical. They are both related directly to referents and are notions of the words but belong to different categories.
Concept, which is beyond language, is the result of human cognition, reflecting the objective world in the human mind. It is universal to all men alike regardless of culture, race, language and so on whereas meaning belongs to language, so is restricted to language use.
Therefore, a concept can have as many referring expressions as there are languages in the world. Even in the same language, the same concept can be expressed in different words.
3 - Generally speaking, the meaning of ‘meaning’ is perhaps what is termed ‘sense’. Unlike reference, ‘sense’ denotes the relationships inside the language. Every word that-has meaning has sense (not every word has reference)
4 - Motivation accounts for the connection between the linguistic symbol and its meaning.
Onomatopoeic Motivation:I n modern English one may find some words whose sounds suggest their meanings, for these words were created by imitating the natural sounds or noises.Knowing the sounds of the words
means understanding the meaning.
Morphological Motivation: Compounds and derived Words are multi-morphemic words and the meanings of many are the sum total of the morphemes combined. Quite often, if one knows the meaning of each morpheme, namely affix or stem, one can figure out the meaning of the word.
Semantic Motivation: Semantic motivation refers to the mental associations suggested by the conceptual meaning of a word. It explains the connection between the literal sense and figurative sense of the word.
Etymological Motivation: The meanings of many words often relate directly to their origins. In other words the history of the word explains the meaning of the word.
5 - Word-meaning is not monogeneous but a composite consisting of different parts. These are known in familiar terms as different types of meaning.
6 - Grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such as part of speech of words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), singular and plural meaning of nouns, tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms. On the other hand, the same word may have different grammatical meanings. Lexical meaning itself has two components: conceptual meaning and associative meaning.
7 - Conceptual meaning (also known as denotative meaning) is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word-meaning.
Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It differs from the conceptual meaning in that it is open-ended and indeterminate. It is liable to the influence of such factors as culture, experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education, etc. Associative meaning comprises four types: connotative, stylistic, affective, and collocative.
Connotative meaning. In contrast to denotative meaning, connotative meaning refers to the overtones or associations suggested by the conceptual meaning, traditionally known as connotations. It is not an essential part of the word-meaning, but associations that might occur in the mind of a particular user of the language.
Stylistic meaning. Apart from their conceptual meanings, many words have stylistic features, which make them appropriate for different contexts. ‘ frozen’, ‘formal’, ‘consultative’, ‘casual’ and ‘intimate’. People generally do not go that far. They normally classify styles into ‘formal’, ‘neutral’ and ‘informal’.
Affective meaning indicates the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing in question. Words that have emotive values may fall into two categories: appreciative or pejorative.
Collocative meaning. This meaning consists of the associations a word acquires in its collocation. In other words, it is that part of the word-meaning suggested by the words before or after the word in discussion.
Chapter 6
1 - A word which is related to other words is related to them in sense, hence sense relations.
2 - When a word is first coined, it is always monosemic.
3 - The problem of interrelation of the various meanings of the same word can be dealt with from two different angles: diachronic approach and synchronic approach.
Diachronic approach. From the diachronic point of view, polysemy is assumed to be the result of growth and development of the semantic structure of one and same word. At the time when the word was created, it was endowed with only one meaning. This first meaning is the primary meaning. With the advance of time and the development of language, it took on more and more meanings. These later meanings are called derived meanings as they are all derived from the primary meaning.
Synchronic approach. Synchronically, polysemy is viewed as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word in a certain historical period of time, say. Modern English. In this way, the basic meaning of a word is the core of word-meaning called the central meaning.
4 - The development of word-meaning from monosemy to polysemy follows two courses, traditionally known as radiation and concatenation.
Radiation is a semantic process in which the primary meaning stands at the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it in every direction like rayes. Concatenation, meaning ‘linking together’, is the semantic process in which the meaning of a word moves gradually away from its first sense by successive shifts until.
Unlike radiation where each of the derived meanings is directly connected to the primary meaning, concatenation describes a process where each of the later meaning is related only to the preceding one like chains. Generally, radiation precedes concatenation. In many cases, the two processes work together, complementing each other.
5 - Homonyms are generally defined as words different in meaning but either identical both in sound and spelling or identical only in sound or spelling.
6 - Based on the degree of similarity, homonyms fall into three classes: perfect homonyms, homographs and homophones.
Perfect homonyms are words identical both in sound and spelling, but different in meaning. Homographs are words identical only in spelling but different in sound and meaning. Homophones are words identical only in sound but different in spelling and meaning. Of the three types, homophones constitute the largest number and are most common.
7 - There are varioussources of homonyms: change in sound and spelling, borrowing, etc.
Change in sound and spelling. Some homonyms are native by origin, derived from different earlier forms in Old English. The change in sound and spelling gradually made them identical in modern English.
Borrowing. As a result of heavy borrowing from other languages, many words of foreign origin coincide in sound and/or spelling with those of native origin or with those of other foreign origin.
Shortening. Many shortened forms of words happen to be identical with other words in spelling or sound.
8 - The fundamental difference between homonyms and polysemants lies in the fact that the former refers to different words which happen to share the same form and the latter is the one and same word which has several distinguishable meanings.
One important criterion is to see their etymology. homonyms are from different sources whereas a polysemant is from the same source which has acquired different meanings in the course of development.
The second principal consideration is semantic relatedness. The various meanings of a polysemant are correlated and connected to one central meaning to a greater or lesser degree, On the other hand, meanings of different homonyms have nothing to do with one another.
In dictionaries, a polysemant has its meanings all listed under one headword whereas homonyms are listed as separate entries.
9 - Synonymy is one of the characteristic features of the vocabulary of natural languages. Synonyms can be defined as word different in sound and spelling but most nearly alike or exactly the same in meaning. Synonyms might be defined as ‘one of two or more words in the English language which have the same or very nearly the same essential meaning. In other words, synonyms share a likeness in denotation as well as in part of speech.
10 - Synonyms can be classified into two major groups: absolute synonyms and relative synonyms.
Absolute synonyms also known as complete synonyms are words which are identical in meaning in all its aspects. both in grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, including conceptual and associative meanings. It is observed that absolute synonyms are rare in natural languages and some people even hold that such synonyms are non-existent. Absolute synonyms are restricted to highly specialized vocabulary.
Relative synonyms also called near-synonyms are similar or nearly the same in denotation, but embrace different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality.
11 - Sources of Synonyms:
Borrowing. Modern English is extremely rich in synonyms, which come from different sources. Dialects and regional English, Figurative and euphemistic use of words, Coincidence with idiomatic expressions
12 - The differences between synonyms boil down to three areas: denotation, connotation, and application.
Difference in denotation. Synonyms may differ in the range and intensity of meaning. Some words have a wider range of meaning than others.
Difference in connotation. By connotation we mean the stylistic and emotive colouring of words. Some words share the same denotation but differ in their stylistic appropriateness.
Difference in application. Many words are synonymous in meaning but different in usage in simple terms. They form different collocations and fit into different sentence patterns.
13 - Antonymy is concerned with semantic opposition. Antonyms can be defined as words which are opposite in meaning.
Contradictory terms. These Antonyms truly represent oppositeness of meaning. They are so opposed to each other that they are mutually exclusive and admit no possibility between them. The assertion of one is the denial of the other. In other words, if one of the pair is true, then the other cannot be.
Contrary terms. Antonyms of this type are best viewed in terms of a scale running between two poles or extremes. The two opposites are gradable and one exists in comparison with the other.
Relative terms. This third type consists of relational opposites. The pairs of words indicate such a reciprocal social relationship that one of them cannot be used without suggesting the other. This type also includes reverse terms, which comprise adjectives and adverbs signifying a quality, or verbs and nouns signifying an act or state that reverse the quality, action or state of the other.
14 - Some of the Characteristics of Antonyms
Antonyms are classified on the basis of semantic opposition. A word which has more than one meaning can have more than one antonym. Antonyms differ in semantic inclusion. Contrary terms are gradable antonyms, differing in degree of intensity, so each has its own corresponding opposite. Some words can have two different types of antonyms at the same time, one being the negative and the other opposite.
15 - The Use of Antonyms
Antonyms have various practical uses and have long proved helpful and valuable in defining the meanings of words. Antonyms are useful in enabling us to express economically the opposite of a particular thought, often for the sake of contrast. Many idioms are formed with antonyms. They look neat and pleasant, and sound rhythmic. Antonyms are often used to form antithesis to achieve emphasis by putting contrasting ideas together.
16 - Hyponymy deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion. That is, the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word. These specific words are known as hyponyms. superordinate, subordinate
17 - Hyponymy can be described in terms of tree-like graphs, with higher-order superordiates above the lower subordinates. But their status either as superordinate or subordinate is relative to other terms.
Knowing the semantic features of the hyponyms and their superordinates can help us achieve vividness, exactness, and concreteness.
18 - The massive word store of a language like English can be conceived of as composedaround a number of meaning areas, some large, such as ‘philosophy’ or ‘ emotions’, others smaller, such as ‘kinship’ or ‘colour’. Viewing the total meaning in this way is the basis of field theory.