1. Semasiology as a science. Lexical and grammatical meaning.

The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents
is called semasiology. If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in
meaning which words undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not
of individual words but of semantic structures typical of the language studied, and of
its general semantic system. The main objects of semasiological study treated in this
book are as follows: semantic development of words, its causes and classification,
relevant distinctive features and types of lexical meaning, polysemy and semantic
structure of words, semantic grouping and connections in the vocabulary system, i.e.
synonyms, antonyms, terminological systems, etc. The present chapter does not offer
to cover all of this wide field. Attention will be centred upon semantic word structure
and semantic analysis.
The grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationships
between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur.
The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalized than the lexical
meaning, it unites words into big groups such as parts of speech or lexico-
grammatical classes. It is recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different
words. E. g. parents, books, intentions, whose common element is the grammatical
meaning of plurality. The lexiсo-grammatical meaning is the common denominator of
all the meanings of words belonging to a lexico-grammatical class of words, it is the
feature according to which they are grouped together. Words in which abstraction and
generalization are so great that they can be lexical representatives of lexico-
grammatical meanings and substitute any word of their class are called generic terms.
For example, the word matter is a generic term for material nouns, the word group —
for collective nouns, the word person — for personal nouns. Words belonging to one
lexico-grammatical class are characterized by a common system of forms in which
the grammatical categories inherent in them are expressed. They are also substituted
by the same prop-words and possess some characteristic formulas of semantic and
morphological structure and a characteristic set of derivational affixes. The meaning
of every word forms part of the semantic system of each particular language and thus
is always determined by the peculiarities of its vocabulary, namely the existence of
synonyms, or words near in meaning, by the typical usage, set expressions and also by
the words’ grammatical characteristics depending on the grammatical system of each
language.
P 52 EX 1
1. Crash-phonetical
2. Splash-phonetical
3. Mow-phonetical
4. Teacher-morphological
5. Nose of a plane-semantic
6. Heart of the country-semantic
7. Chatter-morphological
8. Eatable-morphological
9. Boyish-morphological
10. Bookshelf-morphological

2. Polysemy.
Polysemy is inherent in the very nature of words and concepts as every object and
every notion has many features and a concept reflected in a word always contains a
generalization of several traits of the object. Some of these traits or components of
meaning are common with other objects. Hence the possibility of using the same
name in secondary nomination for objects possessing common features which are
sometimes only implied in the original meaning. A word when acquiring new
meaning or meanings may also retain, and most often retains the previous meaning. E
g. birth — 1) the act or time of being born, 2) an origin or beginning, 3) descent,
family. The different variants of a polysemantic word form a semantic whole due to
the proximity of the referents they name and the notions they express. The formation
of new meanings is often based on the potential or implicational meaning. The
transitive verb drive, for instance, means ‘to force to move before one’ and hence,
more generally, ‘to cause an animal, a person or a thing work or move in some
direction’, and more specifically ‘to direct a course of a vehicle or the animal which
draws it, or a railway train, etc.’, hence ‘to convey in a vehicle’ and the intransitive
verb: ‘to go in a vehicle’. Polysemy is a phenomenon of language not of speech. The
sum total of many contexts in which the word is observed to occur permits the
lexicographers to record cases of identical meaning and cases that differ in meaning.
They are registered by lexicographers and found in dictionaries.
P 54 EX 4-A
1. [1] bar-a place where people come to spend time, eat and drink
[2] bar- a counter across which alcoholic drinks are served
 2. [1] air-the invisible gaseous substance
[2] air-synonym to “impression” or “manner”

3. Denotative and connotative meaning.

In most cases the denotative meaning is essentially cognitive: it conceptualizes and
classifies our experience and names for the listener some objects spoken about.
Fulfilling the significative and the communicative functions of the word it is present
in every word and may be regarded as the central factor in the functioning of
language.
Now, if the denotative meaning exists by virtue of what the word refers to,
connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives by virtue of
where, when, how, by whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it is or may be
used. Four main types of connotations are described below. They are stylistic,
emotional, evaluative and expressive or intensifying.
An emotional or affective connotation is acquired by the word as a result of its
frequent use in contexts corresponding to emotional situations or because the referent
conceptualized and named in the denotative meaning is associated with emotions. For
example, the verb beseech means “to ask eagerly and also anxiously”. E. g.: He
besought a favor of the judge (Longman).
Evaluative connotation expresses approval OF disapproval.
When associations at work concern the situation in which the word is uttered, the
social circumstances (formal, familiar, etc.), the social relationships between the
interlocutors (polite, rough), the type and purpose of communication (learned, poetic,
official, etc.), the connotation is stylistic.
4. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to the change of meaning
P 59 EX 6
1. Door
Middle English had both dure and dor, the form dore predominated by 16c., but
was supplanted later by door.
2. Honey
Middle English hony, from Old English hunig. The more common Indo-European
word is represented in Germanic by the Gothic word for “honey”.
3. Hand
Old English hond. The original Old English plural handa was superseded in
Middle English by handen, later hands.