LECTURE 5

SEMANTICS

Types of Meaning

The branch of lexicology which studies the meaning is called semantics. It

has 2 approaches to the study of meaning. Semasiology – preceeds from the sighn
of word to it’s meanings and focuses on polysemy, homonymy, paronymy.

Onomasiology – precceds from the meaning to signs of words the which can
express it and studies synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy

The 2 main types of meaning are the grammatical and the lexical meaning of
words and word-forms.
The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning recurrent in identical set
of individual forms of different words.

We may notice that word forms girls, toys, tables denote very different objects but
have smth in common. This is grammatical meaning of plurality.

The lexical meaning is the component of meaning which is recurrent in all the
forms of the word.

Go-goes-went – have different grammar but in each form there is the same
semantic component denoting movement.

Both the lexical and the grammatical meaning make up the word meaning
and neither can exist without the other. In some parts of speech (link verbs) the
grammatical meaning dominates. In some prepositions the lexical meaning
prevails:
Lexical meaning has 2 components – the referential meaning and the
connotative meaning.
The referential (denotative) component of lexical meaning makes the
communication possible because it denotes a notion which is common for all
speakers:
 The connotative component is emotive charge and stylistic value of the
word. The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features.

In synonyms big – large - tremendous

Like – love - worship the emotive charge is heavier in tremendous and
worship than in the others and it doesn’t depend on the feelings of the individual
speaker

The emotive charge is different in different word classes: in interjections it

dominates while in conjunctions it is absent.
Words which seem to be devoid of any emotional coloring may reflect
attitude of the speaker to the object denoted by the word. So words differ not only
in emotive coloring but also in their stylistic reference:
Stylistic reference and emotive charge are closely connected and to a certain
extent interdependent. As a rule, stylistically marked words have a considerable
emotive charge.

However neutral words may also differ in the degree of emotive charge.

Change of Meaning

Word meaning changes in the course of historical development: glad in Old

English meant bright, husband meant the master of the house. Causes of semantic
change may be linguistic and extralinguistic. Under extralinguistic causes we
mean various changes in the life of speaking community, in economic and social
structure, way of life:
Some changes are due to purely linguistic causes, that is factors which work
within the language system:
1. Ellipsis. –

2. Discrimination of synonyms.

3. Linguistic analogy.

Nature and Results of Semantic Change

 A necessary condition of any semantic change is some association between
the old meaning and the new one. There are 2 kinds of this association:
1. Similarity of meaning (metaphor) – semantic process of associating 2
objects one of which resembles the other
Стрілка годинника – hand – because of the similarity of function

The major types of metaphoric associations:

a) similarity of shape: - head of cabbige
b) similarity of function: - computer memory
c) similarity of sound: - the wind howls
d) similarity of behavior: - sly as a fox – he is fox
2. Contiguity of meaning (metonymy) – semantic process of associating 2
objects one of which makes part of the other or closely connected with it

3.author – author’s work – she spent the whole night reading Shakespeare.
The major types of metonymic associations:
a) container > content, e.g.
b) material > something made from this material, e.g.

c) author > author’s work, e.g.

d) part > whole and whole > part, e.g.

Today, metaphor and metonymy are considered to be mental rather than linguistic
phenomena. This view was initiated by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their
book “Metaphors we live by” (1980). They introduced the notion of conceptual
metaphor which is semantic mapping from one conceptual domain to another.
Conceptual metaphor contains 3 elements:
1) The conceptual referent (target domain) – the notion that is compared
2) The conceptual correlate (source domain) – the notion used for comparison
3) The ground of metaphor – parameter for comparison.

Polysemy
 Words as a rule are not units of single meaning. Monosemantic words are
very few in number. The bulk of English words are polysemantic. The number of
meanings of commonly used words ranges from 5 to 100. The more common is the
word the more meanings it has. We speak of polysemy when 1 word has several
interrelated meanings which are united by a common semantic core and have a
correlation with some initial meaning.

Diachronically polysemy implies that a word preserves its previous

meanings and receives new ones. From diachronic analysis of semantic structure of
the word table one can find out that its primary meaning is board. All other
meanings are secondary as they appeared later.

One of the meanings is called basic (or central). It is understood out of

context, in isolation. Sometimes primary meaning coincides with the basic, but not
always (table).
The main source of polysemy is change in the semantic structure of the
word. Polysemy may also arise from homonymy. When 2 words have the same
sound form their meanings are felt as making up one semantic structure:
Individual meanings may differ in stylistic affiliation:

Stylistically neutral meanings are more frequent.

Polysemy and Context

In polysemantic words some meanings are understood in isolation, while

others become apparent when used in certain contexts: adjective yellow used in
isolation is understood as a color, while its other meanings (sensational, cowardly)
are understood only in certain contexts: yellow press, yellow belly. Context is the
minimum stretch of speech determining each individual meaning of the word.
There are 2 types of linguistic context:
1. The lexical context in which lexical groups combined with the
polysemantic word are of primary importance:
Meanings determined by lexical contexts are called lexically bound meanings.
2. The grammatical context in which the grammatical structure of the context
determines individual meanings of a polysemantic word:
To make – to force
Only in grammatical structure to make smb do smth

Such meanings are called grammatically bound meanings.

Systems of meanings are different in different languages:

Only the central meaning is identical in different languages.

Homonymy

Words identical in form but different in meaning are called homonyms.

Modern English is especially rich in homonyms which can be explained
diachronically. in English unstressed endings were very often lost, so there are
many monosyllabic words. The shorter are the words the more probable is the
coincidence in form. So the abundance of homonyms in modern English is
explained by the monosyllabic structure of the commonly used words.
Some words are homonymous in all their forms (full homonymy): seal
(тюлень, печатка). Sometimes we observe partial, or morphological,
homonymy, when some grammatical forms of different words coincide: found
(past tense of find) and found (засновувати), boys – boy’s – boys’. As a rule, full
homonymy is found in the same part of speech and partial in different. But
sometimes we observe partial homonymy within the same part of speech:

According to their meaning homonyms are divided into:

1. Lexical homonyms
2. Grammatical homonyms

3. Lexical-grammatical homonyms

According to their form homonyms are classified into:

1. Homophones
2. Homographs

3. Perfect homonyms

There are 4 sources of homonymy:

1. Diverging of meaning development of a polysemantic word (split polysemy)
when different meanings of the same word move so far away from each other
that they are considered 2 separate words:

2. Converging of sound development of 2 different words:

3. Borrowing:
4. Conversion:

Differentiation of Homonymy and Polysemy

One of the most debatable problems of semasiology is the borderline

between homonymy and polysemy, that is between different meanings of one word
and the meanings of 2 different homonymous words.
If we adopt diachronic (etymological) approach then all the cases of sound
convergence are regarded as homonyms:

Moreover, homonyms which differ in graphic form are easily understood as

different words:

But the cases of semantic divergence are doubtful. Two criteria are applied in such
cases.
Synchronically the difference between polysemy and homonymy is based on
the semantic criterion that is on differentiation between related and unrelated
meanings. It was observed that meanings of one word have stable relationship
which are absent between the meanings of 2 homonyms. Such cases indicate
merefaric and metanimic meanings of a polysementic word.

But this criterion cannot be applied to lexical-grammatical homonyms as they

include words created by conversion and thus having related meanings

In cases of lexical-grammatical and grammatical homonymy the criterion of

context (distribution) is helpful as words of different parts of speech differ not
only in their semantic structure but also in their syntactic functions with perfect
lexica homonyms the context helps to differentiate the meaning but it doesn’t help
differentiate polysemy from homonym.
 Paronymy

Paronyms are words with identical roots but different affixes which conditions
difference of their meanings.

Hyponymy

Hypernyms and hyponyms are words whose meanings demonstrate hierarchical

(type – kind) relations. These relations are typically represented in a form of a tree.
THE WORDS WITH THE GENERAL MEANING + SPECIFIC MEANING

At the top of it are hypernyms

At the bottom – hyponyms

The middle-layer words (dog) serve as hyponyms for the upper levels and
hypernyms for the lower levels.
The words that are situated on the same level equonym

Semantic Similarity/Polarity of Words

Semantic similarity/polarity of words may be observed in the

similarity/polarity of their referential or connotative meaning. Similarity or polarity
of the referential component of lexical meaning is found in synonyms and
antonyms. Similarity or polarity of the connotative component serves as the basis
for stylistic stratification of vocabulary. Synonymy and antonymy may overlap in a
number of cases:
 Antonymy

Antonyms are traditionally defined as words of the same part of speech that
have polar meanings. The term “polarity” is rather unclear.
If we compare the meanings of the words KIND AND CRUEL we see that they
opposite notions but if we compare KIND AND UNKIND there is no polarity
because UNKIND is no necessary CRUEL . Incomplete, impossible belong to the
group of words with semantic similarity of derivation morphine, all their prefixes
has the similar meaning.

According to their form antonyms are divided into

According to their meaning antonyms are classified into:

1. Contrastive denoting polar notions between which there is at least one
intermediate. They can’t exist simultaneously: warm-cold + big-small
2. Complementary existing simultaneously and supplementing each other to form
a whole. There can be no intermediate between them:

3. One-word (auto) antonyms when one word has 2 polar meanings: to dust- to
removed dust + to springle

Antonyms share many features typical of synonyms. Like synonyms, perfect

antonyms are very rare. Usually antonymous polarity is restricted to certain
contexts: thin-thick (book) BUT thin- fat (man)

Synonymy

The most debatable problem is the definition of synonyms. Traditionally

they are defined as words different in form and identical or similar in meaning.
But this definition has been criticized on 2 points:
1. It seems impossible to speak of identical meaning of words as such because we
cannot apply this part of definition to polysemantic words: to look at – to look pale
– to look for – to look after – to look threw
2. It seems impossible to speak of identity or similarity of lexical meaning as a
whole because only the referential components may be described as identical or
similar: father-parent-daddy have similar referential component, but different
stylistic affiliation.

So a more correct definition of synonyms should be: words different in form

but similar in their referential meaning.
Defining synonyms one should take into consideration the criterion of
context. But to say that synonyms are the words that can replace each other in any
context without any change of the referential or connotative meaning would be
incorrect:

So a more acceptable definition of synonyms is:

Several synonyms form a set of synonyms:

The main word of the set is called a dominant

Synonyms are classified into:

1. Absolute (perfect)

2. Ideographic

3. Stylistic (functional)
4. Emotional evaluating

The English word-stock is extremely rich in synonyms, which is explained

by abundant borrowing (mostly from French and Latin). The native word is usually
colloquial while the borrowed one is bookish:

Objects prominent in the interest of the community attract a large number of

synonyms: in Beowulf there are 37 synonyms for hero or prince.
In modern American English there are about 20 words denoting money:

This is called the law of synonymic attraction.