The meaning of the word, its componentsThe word is one of the fundamental unitsof language. It is a dialectal unity of form and content. Its content ormeaning is not identical to notion, but it may reflect human notion, but it mayreflect human notion and is considered as the form of their existence.So thedefinition of a word is one of the most difficult in linguistics, because thesimplest word has many different aspects a sound form, its morphologicalstructure, it may occur in different word-forms and have various meanings.It is universally recognized thatword meaning is not homogeneous, but it is made up of various components, whichare described as types of meaning.
There are 2 types of meaning to be found inwords and word forms 1 the grammatical meaning 2 the lexical meaning.Such word forms as girls , writers , tables , etc though denoting different objects of reality have smth incommon, namely the grammatical meaning of plurality, which can be found in allof them. Thus, the grammatical meaning is the component of meaning in the wordforms of verbs asked, thought, walked, etc. or the case meaning in the wordforms of various nouns girls, boys, nights .Word forms speaks , reads , writers have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found inidentical distributation, only after pronouns she , he , they and beforesuch adverbs and adverbal phrases as yesterday , last years , two hoursago , etc. The grammatical aspect of the partof speech meaning is conveyed as a rule by individual sets of word formsexpressing the grammatical meaning of singularity e.g. table plurality tables and so on.A verb is understood to possess setsof forms expressing, for instance, tense meaning works-worked , mood meaning work I work .The part of speech meaning of thewords that possess but one form, e.g. prepositions, some adverbs, etc isobserved only in their disrtibutations c.f. to come in here, there and in on, under the table .Lexical meaningBesides the grammatical meaning, thereis another component of meaning.
Unlike the grammatical meaning this componentis identical in all the forms of the word. Thus the word-forms go , goes , went , going possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person and soon, but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic componentdenoting the process of movement.
This is the lexical meaning of the word,which may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as alinguistic unit.Thus, by lexical meaning wedesignate 1 the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms anddisrtibutations, while by grammatical meaning we designate the meaning properto sets of word forms common to all words of a certain class.Both lexical and the grammaticalmeanings make up the word meaning as neither can exist without the other.The interrelation of the lexical andthe grammatical meaning and the role, played by each varies in different wordclasses and evening different groups of words within one and the same class.
Insome parts of speech the prevailing component is the grammatical type ofmeaning.
The lexical meaning of prepositions is, as a rule, relatively vague 2 cf. to think speak of smb independent of smb one of the friends, the roomof the house . The lexical meaning of some preposition, however, may becomparatively distinct cf. in on under the table . In verbs the lexicalmeaning usually comes to the fore 3 , although in someof them, the verb to be , e.g. the grammatical meaning of a linking elementprevails cf. he works as a teacher .Denotational meaningProceeding with the semantic analysis weobserve that lexical meaning may be analyzed as including denotational andconnotational components.
One of the functions of words is to denote things,concepts and so on. Users of a language cannot have only knowledge or thoughtof the object or phenomena of the real world around them, unless this knowledgeis ultimately embodied in words, which have essentially the same meaning forall speakers of the language.
This is the denotational meaning, i.e.that component of which the lexical meaning makes the communication possible.
Connotational meaningThe connotational meaning 4 is the secondcomponent of lexical meaning.This component or the connotation includes theemotive charge and the stylistic value of the word.Emotive charge is a part of the connotational meaning of a word e.g. a hovel 5 denotes a small house or cottage and besides implies 6 that it is a miserable dwelling place, duty in bad repair and, in general,unpleasant place to live in.When examing such groups of words as large , big , tremendous and like , love , worship and girl , girlie we observe the difference in the emotive charge of the words tremendous , worship and girlie is heavier than those of words large , like and girl . The emotive charge does not depend onthe feeling of the individual speaker, but is true for all speakers ofEnglish.
The emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features of wordas linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of meaning.But it should be confused with emotiveimplication that the words may acquire in speech.
The emotive implication ofthe word is to a great extent selective as it greatly depends on the personalexperience of the speaker, the mental imagery 7 the word envokes in him.Learning objection of the lecture The meaning of the word, itscomponents After you have studied the lecture, youshould be able 1. To explain the essence of thenotions a The meaning of the word, itsmain types b The grammatical meaning c The lexical meaning d Interrelation between them.2. To give the semantic analyze ofthe lexical meaning of a word a The denotational component,b The connotative component.3. To speak about stylisticreference of words. 1 обозначать 2 неясный, смутный 3 выходить, выдвигатьсявперед 4 Сопутствующее значение,то, что подразумевается 5 Лачуга, хибара 6 Подразумевать 7 Образ ы , образность.