LEXICAL SEMANTICS

WORD MEANING (1)

DEFINITION

• Meaning can be more or less seen as a component of the word through

which a concept (mental phenomena) is communicated thus, providing
the word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and
abstract notions, etc.
• Semantics is the study of meaning in language. The term did not come to
be widely used until the 20th century, but the subject it represents is very
old, reaching back to the writings of Plato and Aristotle (after Ogden and
Richards, 1952), and attracting special interest of philosophers, logicians,
and linguists. The linguistic approach aims to study the properties of
meaning in a systematic and objective way, with reference to as a wide
range of utterances and languages as possible.
WORDS AS MEANINGFUL UNITS

• Words are regarded as the smallest indivisible meaningful units of a

language which can operate independently.
• Words may be considered purely as forms, whether written or spoken,
or alternatively, as composite expressions, which combine forms and
meanings.
 3 CONCEPTIONS OF MEANING

WORDS→ THINGS WORDS→ CONCEPTS STIMULI→ WORDS →

→ THINGS RESPONSES
 1. Words → things
• A popular view is that words 'name' or 'refer to' things - a view that
can be found in the pages of Plato's Cratylus (from The Cambrige
Encyclopedia of Language).
• The majority of words seem unable to be related to things, in many
clear ways.

EIFFEL TOWER
2. Words → Concepts → things
• This view denies a direct link between words and things, arguing that
the relationship can be made only through the use of our minds. For
every word, there is an associated concept.
• The insuperable difficulty of identifying "concepts". The "concept"
underlying a word such as tradition is no easier to define than the
"thing" referred to by tradition. Some words do have the meanings
that are relatively easy to conceptualized, but we certainly do not have
neat visual images corresponding to every word we say. Nor is there
any guarantee that a concept which might come to mind is the same
with others’ mind?
 3. Stimuli → Words → Responses
• Leonard Bloomfield (1993) expounded a behaviorist view of meaning in
his book Language: meaning is something that can be deduced solely
from a study of the situation in which speech is used - the stimuli (S)
that led someone to speak (r), and the response (R) that resulted from
this speech (s).

Jill is hungry, Asks Jack to Jack gets the

sees an apple get it for her ……………………s
apple
SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF THE WORD

1. The first level: is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the semantic structure of
the noun "head" could be roughly presented by this scheme (only the most frequent
meanings are given):
 da nghia
• It is not in every polysemantic word that such a center can be found.
Some semantic structures are arranged on a different principle.
Ex: In the following list of meanings of the adjective "nice" one can hardly
hope to find a generalized meaning covering and holding together the rest
of the semantic structure.

ham y ve su de chiu
• There is something that all these seemingly miscellaneous meanings have in
common, and that is the implication of agreeableness, be it of workmanship
(m. I), personality (m. II), appearance (m. III), appreciation (m. IV), weather
(m. V), etc
→ The implication of agreeable quality, of something preferable, can be clearly
distinguished in each separate meaning.
• The centre holding together the complex semantic structure of this word is
not one of the meanings but a certain component that can be easily singled
out within each separate meaning.
2. The second level: each separate meaning is a subject to structural analysis in
which it may be represented as sets of semantic components.
→ The semantic structure of a word should be investigated at both these levels:
1) of different meanings,
2) of semantic components within each separate meaning.
For a monosemantic word (i.e., a word with one meaning) the first level is
naturally excluded.
TYPES OF SEMANTIC COMPONENTS

• A word consists of two types of semantic component in its semantic

structure. The leading or primary one, usually termed denotative component
or denotation, expresses the conceptual content of the word and the
secondary or additional one is the connotative component or connotation.
1. Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition".
Ex: if you look up the word “snake” in a dictionary: "any of numerous scaly,
legless, sometimes venomous reptiles, having a long, tapering, cylindrical body
and found in most tropical and temperate regions."
2. Connotation refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word
or the emotional suggestions or all the implications related to that word. The
connotative meanings of a word exist together with the denotative meanings.
Ex: the connotations for the word “snake” could include “evil” or “danger”.
 POLYSEMY

• Is the existence of several connected meanings within a word as the result of

the development or changes of the original meaning.
1. a. The bank raised its interest rates yesterday.
b. The store is next to the newly constructed bank.
c. The bank appeared first in Italy in the Renaissance.
2. a. John crawled through the window.
b. The window is closed.
c. The window is made of security glass.
3 a. The farm will fail unless the drought ends soon.
b. It is difficult to farm this land.
4 a. The store is open.
b. The thief tried to open the door.
HOW WORDS DEVELOP NEW MEANINGS

1. The first group of causes is traditionally termed historical or extra -

linguistic.
• Language is the means for humans to express their feelings, ideas,
perceptions and all the realities around them. Given the ceaseless changes
taking place in science, technology, environment and new awareness of the
social life, etc. the demand of words to name new objects, notions and
phenomena becomes urgent. One of the ways to satisfy it is to apply
existing words to new objects, new notions:
Ex: “mouse”- a kind of rodent animal → a device to control the movement of a
cursor on a computer screen
“drum” - a kind of musical instrument → a component in a VCR
“bubble” - air ball on the water surface → economics( bubble economy).
2. The second group of causes is linguistic factors.
• There is a never ending supply of new English words if prefixes, suffixes
and other words are added to existing words. But this is not the only
way that new requirements for a word can be met. Old words can be
utilized over and over again as if they were original creations. It may not
seem like a new word but it does serve the same purpose. The new use
of a word can even acquire a new pronunciation:
Ex: "Bow" began as the Old English “bogan”, “to bend”. This became a noun
with the meaning "a curved or bent thing". Much later it seemed fitting for
it to be used to describe a looped knot of string or ribbon. Meanwhile a
man who bent made a bow (instead of a curtsey) and the vowel sound
changed accordingly.
CONTEXT AND MEANING boi canh

• According to the Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language

(1999), context means "the parts of a sentence, paragraph, discourse, etc.,
immediately next to or surrounding a specified word or passage and determining
its exact meaning."
• It also refers to "the whole situation, background, or environment relevant to a
particular event, personality, creation, etc."
• In understanding the word meaning, context is very important because it helps
eliminate ambiguities, remove vagueness, indicate referents and supply
information omitted through ellipsis. When it comes to polysemy and homonymy,
context can serve as shields against misunderstanding

loai bo su mo ho va dinh nghia bang dau cham lung

• Booking clerk (at a small station): You have to change twice

before you get to York

• Woman (unused to traveling): Goodness me! I have only brought

the clothes I am wearing

• Meaning lives in context and the context sheds light on meaning
• Current research in meaning is largely based on the assumption that one of the
more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is
by studying the word's linear relationships with other words in typical
contexts, i.e. its combinability or collocability.
• Experts have agreed that the meaning of words characterized by common
occurrences (i.e. words regularly appearing in common contexts) are
correlated and, therefore, one of the words within such pair can be studied
through the other.

tuong quan
 Guess the meaning of words in bold

1. His aim is to become president.

The hunter is going to aim at the crocodile.
2. I'm felling blue today.
His new car light is blue.
3. He washed the dishes in the sink.
I think that the ship will sink soon.
4. That writer has written a new book.
Paula is going to book four seats for Friday's concert.
5. She is using a sharp knife.
Don't be so sharp with the kids.
6. What do you do in your spare time?
We tried to spare feelings.
7. She showed great character in dealing with the danger.
The main character is this book is well described.
8. Cut the meat into strips.
Let's strip and dive into water.
9. Try to swallow the pill.
That swallow is hurt.