Semantics chapter 2 PG-WORD MEANING

WORD MEANING A word is a dialectical unity of form and content, an independent unit of language to form a sentence by itself. book, bookish: words -ish: not word +Unity of form (formal unity): Formal unity separates the word from word groups whose components possess a certain structural freedom

CHAPTER 2

WORD MEANING

Word Definition

A word is a dialectical unity of form and content, an independent unit of language to form a sentence by itself

book, bookish: words

-ish: not word

+ Unity of form (formal unity):

Formal unity separates the word from word groups whose components possess a certain structural freedom,

e.g book, table, chair, eat, nice, tall, short: words

bright light, to take for granted: word groups

+ Unity of meaning: a word conveys only one concept.

e.g a blackbird

(a type of bird – chim hét)

A word group: Each word in the group conveys separate concepts

e.g a black bird

Forms and Expressions

Eg: There is no way of telling what it is.

There are 9 forms but only 8 expressions

 Words and word forms are distinguished from each other in terms of lexical and grammatical meanings

 I have a book.

 I do not like what you do everyday.

Forms and Expressions

 Forms of one and the same word have the same lexical meaning.

 Different words have different lexical meanings.

Lexical and Grammatical meaning revisited

- Different forms of the word will have the same lexical meaning, but different grammatical meanings.

eg: lovely, lovelier, loveliest

- Different words may have the same grammatical meaning but different lexical meanings.

eg: love, hate, eat, drink

Polysemy vs Homonymy

• Homonymy

Homonyms (Gr homes (similar) + onoma (name): words identical

in pronunciation and/or spelling, but different in meaning They are not connected semantically (They have no semantic relation) They are quite different words

• He ran fast (quickly)

• They stand fast (firmly)

• Who feasts till he is sick, must fast till he is well (go without food)

(proverb)

• A clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast (proverb)

- Absolute homonymy should satisfy the following

three conditions:

1 They will be unrelated in meaning

2 All their forms will be identical

3 The identical forms will be grammatically equivalent

Eg: bank, sole (a fish, and bottom of the foot or shoe)

- Partial homonymy: Find (v) and found (v) share

found (past tense form of find), and the base found.

+ Depending on the sameness of forms, including

pronunciation and spelling, homonymy may be classified into: Full homonymy, homophones, homographs

- Full homonymy: identical in both

Bark (outer covering of a tree / noise made by a dog)

- Homophones: identical in pronunciation only: sun vs son

- Homograhps, identical in spelling only: wind (n, a current

of air) and wind (v, to empower a clock)

• The sons raise meat.

• The sun’s rays meet.

• Depend / deep end

• The playwright on my right thinks it right that some conventional rite should symbolize the right of every man to write as he pleases.

– Get your hands off me!

– Does anyone have a watch with a second hand?

– Could you give/lend me a hand with the table, please?

– How many extra hands will we need to help with the harvest?

– The police have the situation in hand (= under control)

– object on top of your body

– top of a glass of beer

– person at the top of a company/department

• Synonyms are words (two or more) of the same part of speech, similar in their denotational meaning, but different in their phonetic and graphic forms, connotational meaning and combinability.

to help, to aid, to assist, to succour

main, chief, principal

Father and dad differ in terms of connotation rather

than denotation

Absolute synonymy: Two or more expressions are absolute synonyms if and only if, they satisfy the following three conditions:

1 All their meanings are identical

2 They are synonymous in all contexts

3 They are semantically equivalent on all

dimensions of meanings and descriptive and non-descriptive

Eg: Semantics and semasiology

- Partial synonyms: big/large

- Near synonyms: mist/ fog; stream/ brook (they

differ in terms of denotation)

There are about 8000 synonymic groups in English A synonymic group is a group of all synonyms

Eg: principal, main, important

Synonyms are classified into 7 kinds

1 Absolute synonyms: They are extremely

rare in English, and probably in any other languages

2 Semantic synonyms: differ in terms of their

denotation.

Eg: glance and look

3 Stylistic synonyms: differ in terms of their connotation

Policeman – bobby-cop Before – ere

Father – dad Fellow – chap – lad

4 Semantic-stylistic synonyms: differ both in

denotational and connotational meaning

Eg: house - shack, slum, pad (sl.)

6 Territorial synonyms: employed in different

regions like Britain, Australia or the United States.

Eg: sidewalk - pavement

7 Euphemisms, which literally means “speak well”.

Eg: Die vs be no more/be gone

2 The change of meaning:

Eg: “hand” acquired the meaning “worker” and became

synonymous to this word

3 Word building

- Use/ creation of phrasal verbs: to rise – to get up

- Conversion: to laugh  a laugh – laughter

- Shortening: popular - pop

- Means of derivation and composition:

Deceptive – deceitful

Trader – tradesman

Lexical variants and paranyms

- Lexical variants for one word are just

examples of free variation language, in so far

as they are not conditioned by the contextual environment but are optional with speakers.

Eg: Northward vs northwards

Lexical variants and paronyms

form and meaning but different semantically and in usage:

Ingenious: clever

Ingenuous: frank, artless

Affect: influence

Effect: produce

There are four kinds of antonyms:

1 Antonyms proper: represents contrary notions

Grading is based on the operation of gradation.

big / small hot / cold

2 Complementary antonyms (binary antonyms): involve two

items and presuppose that the assertion of one is the negation of the other:

alive - dead awake - asleep

3 Conversives or relational opposites: denote

one and the same situation as viewed from different points of view, with a reversal of the order of participants and their roles:

give - receive left - right

4 Directional antonyms: the difference

between them is based on an opposition between motion toward or away from a place:

come - go

up - down

Full and Empty words

- Full words: express a notion or concept (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs)

study, tree, table

- Empty words: do not have lexical meaning (articles, conjunctions, certain pronouns, prepositions)

the, in, on, because, off, of

THE END