Semantics:

“A language can be compared with a sheet of paper, thoughts is one side of the sheet and
sound, the reverse side. Just as it is impossible to take a pair of scissors and the cut one side of
the without the other, so it is impossible in a language to isolate sound from thoughts and
thoughts from sound.”
-Ferdinand de sassure.

Types of meanings: Leech expresses that, in order to comprehend or generate a linguistic

utterance, at least three levels of language need to be present. These are: A) the level of
phonology (a phonological representation), B) the level of syntax (a syntactic presentation) and
C) the level of semantics. According to Leech, the importance of conceptual meaning is
connected with “two principles of all linguistic patterning” (1981, 9), i.e. the principle of
contrastiveness and the principle of structure. (1981, 9) Leech asserts that contrastiveness is
based on the classification of sounds in phonology, namely the binary opposition of
characteristics of sounds – positive (present) and negative (absent) features. The principle of
structure, on the other hand, is in this case simply described as “the principle by which larger
linguistic units are built up out of smaller units”. (Leech 1981, 10)

1. Conceptual meaning: It refers to the meaning that explains the concept. It is the basic
dictionary meaning. It is the literal meaning of the word indicating the idea or concept to
which it refers. Concept is the minimal unit of meaning called “sememe”. Conceptual
meaning is the base for all other types of meanings that aims to provide the thorough and
appropriate representation of the sentence. A meaning that denotes something,
designates, describes and gives the logical meaning is conceptual meaning. It is an
important type in regards of functioning in a language. Its importance is on the basis of
structure and organization that are comparable and cross related with phonological,
syntactic organization and structure. Structure plays a vital role as any word can be
broken into its semantic constituents as in the word woman the constituents can be a
human, an adult, and a female. Contractiveness is the choice of linguistic structure or
simply the paradigmatic element. It also explains the psychological feature which is the
central part of communication. It is the basis for all other types of meanings.
2. Connotative meaning: It is the type of meaning which is dependent on real world
interpretations, on the basis of history, culture, and experiences of the individual. It is
indeterminate and open ended because it depends on the knowledge and beliefs of the
speaker who speaks about the certain characteristic of the referent whether it be real or
imaginary as the individual identifies it. Connotative meaning is concerned with the real
world experiences which we use to associate with linguistic expressions. For example: A
woman refers to a female wearing skirts/jeans in western culture and if someone talks
about a woman in eastern culture the speaker and listener will both have an image of
completely covered, caring and full of emotions female. Similarly a vehicle in previous
times was a referent referring to as something driven by animals but in modern times it
refers to a machine with wheels and engine. Connotative meaning is peripheral as
 compared to conceptual meaning, as it is not referring to the literal meaning expressing
all its features. It is the communicative value an expression has, by virtue of what it refers
to over and above purely conceptual content. It uses only one or two such basic criterion
that is in knowledge of individual, common of the society, and time period. So it is the
unstable and associated category of meaning.
3. Social meaning: Aspect of communication derived from the situation or the environment
in which the utterance is produced. Social meaning is such information that is reflected
from the use of the language, that reflection is about a certain social aspect or condition
such as the pronunciation, specific style, time period, purpose, form, category and status.
Some words tell us about the social origin of the speaker. Only part of the social meaning
of a conversation is carried by words.  It is understood through the level of style and
many other dimensions in the same language. Often there are some words that otherwise
have similar meaning but do have a difference in linguistic structure. For example: Steed,
Horse and Nag refer to an animal with four legs which is the conceptual meaning but the
use of synonyms is for different context as steed is used in poetry, horse in general and
Nag is a slang word. It is the functioning meaning of the sentence that can differ from
conceptual meaning due to the illocutionary driving force as a sentence can be formal,
informal, general, slang and colloquial.
Example: He died, he expired, he left for heavenly abroad again imply different styles
and tell us about the different moods of the speaker.

4. Affective meaning: It is the type of meaning that expresses the speaker’s emotions,
personal feelings and attitude towards the listener. Also it can be a reaction feeling to
what the listener talked about. Each individual will have a different affective meaning of
the word as the affect is specific for each individual. It often utilizes conceptual,
connotative and stylistic content to be expressed clearly. In addition it is expressed
contrastively through different amount of intonation, pitch, and gestures used while
talking. It can be reflected directly or indirectly depending on the context. For example:
a. You are a horrible person and I hate you. (Direct message)
b. Boyfriend: “What’s wrong?”
Girlfriend (in a clearly rude tone): “Nothing.” (Indirect message)

Words like darling and sweetheart have inherent emotive quality and they can be used
neutrally.

5. Reflected meaning: It is the meaning that arises because of multiple conceptual meanings
of the words called as polysemous. It arises due to the interconnection of words on lexical
level. It refers to terms which have more than one meaning surfaces at the same time, so
it creates a sort of ambiguity. Sometimes, such coincidental, 'unwanted' meanings cause
us to change a lexical item for another. It is the overlapping of one sense over the other
such as in the trinity the Holy Ghost, the word ghost otherwise implies concept of
religious less ness. In the poem the daffodils there is a line: A poet could not but be gay.
 In the time of William Wordsworth the conceptual meaning was that of to be cheerful,
merry, and high-spirited while in present times it represents homosexuality. It is also
found in Taboo words such as intercourse drives a sense of sex in one’s mind while the
other sense of the word is communication.
6. Collocative meaning: It is a meaning which a word acquires in the company of certain
other words. Some words have this association only with specific words, for example we
can have a phrase big business not large or great business. It refers to the associations a
word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its
environment. In Collocative meaning, a particular word goes with another particular
word.
For example: The color red collocates with roses, Handsome collocates with boy, Pretty
collocates with girl. This can be better understood by analyzing the associations of the
words tremble and quiver, where tremble collocates with fear and quiver with excitement
and not vice versa.
7. Thematic meaning:
It is the meaning that tells “what was communicated by the way in which a speaker or
writer organize the message, in terms of ordering, focus, and emphasis”. In that it stands
as a syntactic semantic part. It is a matter of choice between alternative grammatical
structures. For instance: a sentence can be changed from active to passive and vice versa
to change the source of importance in a sentence, as the way we order our message also
tells that what is important and what is not.
The Thematic meaning can also be expressed by means of stress and intonation to
highlight information in one part of a sentence. Example: John caught the ball; the
sentence implies that it was john who caught nothing else but a ball. While in the
sentence: The ball was caught by John, here importance is implied for the catcher who is
no one else but john.