ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY

6.3 Types of Meaning

 

Word-meaning is made up of various components, and their combination and the interrelation determine the inner facet of the word. These components represent types of meaning. The main types of meanings are grammatical, differential, distributional, and lexical meanings of words and word-forms.

 

6.3.1 Grammatical Meaning

Grammatical meaning may be defined as “the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words” (Ginzburg, Khidekel, Knyazeva, & Sankin, 1979, p. 18). The following words such as radios, babies, formulae, and studies have the grammatical meaning of plurality. The grammatical meaning of tense may be observed in verbs such as bought, traded, slept, delivered, and understood. The words newspaper’s (report), sons’ (letters), country’s (debt), and children’s (toys) share the grammatical meaning of case (possessive case).

 

6.3.2 Lexical Meaning

Lexical meaning has been defined by scholars in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. Ferdinand de Saussure believes meaning is the relation between the object, or notion named, and the name itself. Leonard Bloomfield defines the meaning of a word as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer (1935, p. 139). Arnold criticizes Bloomfield’s and Saussure’s approaches for incompleteness and proposes that “lexical meaning is the realisation of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system” (p. 38). This definition is broader because it takes into consideration not only uttered words but also human consciousness, which comprises not only mental activity but also emotions, volition, and pragmatic functions of language: communicative, emotive, evaluative, and aesthetic.

 

 

6.3.3 Denotative Meaning

The English lexicon is so vast and varied that clear categories of meaning are, at times, elusive. Words may have denotative and connotative meanings. Denotation is the “objective (dictionary) relationship between a lexeme and the reality to which it refers to” (Crystal, 2005, p. 170). The denotation of the lexeme spring corresponds to the season between winter and summer, regardless whether it is sunny, pleasant, or rainy. The denotation of the word cat corresponds to the set of felines. Further, we need to clarify the distinction between denotation and reference. Lyons defines the denotation of a lexeme as “the relationship that holds between that lexeme and persons, things, places, properties, processes and activities external to the language system” (1977, p.207). It is practically impossible to give the examples of denotation because denotation “holds independently of particular occasions of utterance” (p.208). If we say book, there is no particular reference to that book. It is something general. Reference is used to indicate the actual persons, things, places, properties, processes, and activities being referred to in a particular situation. By means of reference, a speaker or writer indicates which things, phenomena, and persons are being talked about. Reference depends on concrete utterances, not on abstract notions. It is a property only of expressions. It cannot relate single lexemes (book) to extra-linguistic objects since it is an utterance-dependent notion. Reference is not generally applicable to single word forms, and it is never applicable to single lexemes (p.197). As mentioned earlier, the expressions Mary’s book, great books, and on the book may be used to establish a relationship of reference with specific items as referents. In these examples, the reference of these expressions containing book is partly determined by the denotation of the lexeme book in the overall system of the English language. So, the difference between denotation and reference is that “reference is an utterance-bound relation and does not hold of lexemes as such, but of expressions in the context” (Lyons, 1977, p.208). Denotation, on the other hand, is “a relation that applies in the first instance to lexemes and holds independently of particular occasions of utterance” (p.208).

 

6.3.4 Connotative Meaning

Connotation refers to the personal aspect of lexical meaning, often emotional associations which a lexeme brings to mind” (Crystal, 2005, p. 170). Connotation creates a set of associations. These associations create the connotation of the lexeme, but they cannot be its meaning. Sometimes a lexeme is highly charged with connotations. We call such lexemes loaded, e.g., fascism, dogma, and others. Irina Arnold differentiates between connotation and denotation. She believes “The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its denotative meaning; however, connotative component is optional” (1986, p. 40). Some scholars, such as Stephen Ullmann (1962, p.74), find a binary distinction between connotation and denotation. The best explanation of the relationship between denotation and connotation is given by Leech (1981): “The connotations of a language expression are pragmatic effects that arise from encyclopaedic knowledge about its denotation and also from experiences, beliefs, and prejudices, about the contexts in which the expression is typically used” (as cited in Allan & Brown, 2009, p. 138). Connotations express points of view and personal attitudes; therefore, they may cause certain reaction, which will motivate semantic extension and creation of a new vocabulary.

As part of the connotative meaning, lexemes may contain an element of emotive evaluation. The words console, condole, solace, comfort, cheer up, and sympathize refer to the assuaging of unhappiness and grief, but the emotive charge of the words console, condole, solace are heavier than in comfort, cheer up, and sympathize. Condole and solace are formal, and condole sounds fusty and pompous, whereas condole may sound more precious. Console may suggest the attempt to make up for a loss offering something in its place. “The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotative component of meaning” (Ginzburg, Khidekel, Knyazeva, & Sankin, 1979, p. 21).

 

Stylistic Reference

Words differ in their emotive charge and in their stylistic reference. There is a relation between stylistic reference and emotive charge of words, and they are interdependent. Stylistic reference is discussed in more detail in 3.1 (Synchronic Approach to the Structure of the English Vocabulary). Stylistically, words can be identified as literary, neutral, and colloquial layers. With the exception of the neutral layer, all other layers are emotively charged, i.e., they have some connotational meaning. If we compare the following words such as pain, ache, pang, stitch, throe, and twinge, they all mean some state of physical, emotional, or mental lack of well-being. Among them, pain is neutral, and it is not emotively charged. When we use the word ache, the connotation of ‘long-lasting’ is added to the meaning of pain. On the contrary, pang is pain but is sudden and sharp and is like to recur. A twinge is pretty much like a pang but milder in intensity. A throe is a violent and convulsive pain, and a stitch is a sudden, sharp, and piercing pain.

Also, these words except stitch have figurative application to mental and spiritual suffering: the pain of separation, the ache of loneliness, a pang of remorse, the throes of indecision, and a twinge of regret. “The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of meaning” (Ibid, p.21).

 

6.3.5 Differential Meaning

When the semantic component serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes, then that semantic component contains differential meaning. Differential meaning can be illustrated in the following examples: in the compound words barman, boatman, cabman, and caveman, the components bar, boat, cab, and cave serve to distinguish these words from one another; therefore, they have differential meaning.

 

6.3.6 Distributional Meaning

Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of morphemes composing the word. Lyons (1968) states the idea that the attachments between elements within a word are firmer than are the attachments between words themselves (as cited in Saeed, p. 57). Some examples may illustrate this approach. The order of the morphemes is fixed in the following lexemes: reader, disappointment, and actually. The order of the morphemes cannot be changed without disturbance of its meaning. The following formations, er+read, or ment+appoint+dis do not make any sense, therefore proving the arrangement of morphemes is fixed, and these morphemes cannot be rearranged arbitrarily. Distributional meaning may be observed not only in lexemes but in collocations as well; for example, in collocations kick the bucket, in a stew of something and someone, and get one’s wires crossed, the arrangement of words is fixed, and any attempt to make changes in the structure will disturb the meaning. Summing up, distributional meaning is the meaning of the pattern of the arrangement of the morphemes composing the word and the arrangement of lexemes creating a collocation. Distributional meaning is found in all words composed of more than one morpheme (builder, not erbuild) and in trite metaphors: a flight of fancy, a heart of gold, and a shadow of a smile.