TYPES OF MEANING

Lecture 3.
Word-meaning comprises several
components. They are:
grammatical meaning
denotational (denotative) lexical
meaning
connotational lexical components
emotive charge
 subjective emotive implications
 stylistic reference or colouring

Components of word meaning

1.Grammatical meaning is expressed:
by word-forms – as books, tables, girls
(plurality); thought, asked (tense)
by distribution – he speaks, writes (well,
today)
through the part of speech – table, sugar
(all forms of a Noun)
A certain grammatical meaning belongs to
all words of a certain class. It is abstract
and general.
2. Lexical meaning is individual and different for
each separate word. Lexical meaning is always
present in all the forms of the word: throw, threw,
thrown, has thrown, will throw. In these words we
have one and the same meaning, though the
grammatical forms are different.
In some cases the grammatical meaning prevails.
E.g. She turned (became, grew) pale. The verb
“turned” has lost its lexical meaning to a very great
degree. The lexical meaning usually is more
distinct. E.g. Turn your head!
3. Connotational lexical components
a) Emotive charge is the emotive
evaluation of things. In some words it’s
rather heavy. E.g. to adore (worship);
abhorrent – glorious; girlie;
tremendous.
This is for everybody an objective,
semantic feature. It does not depend
on the feeling of the individual speaker.
b) Subjective emotive implications depend
on the personal experience of the speaker. By
neutral word may acquire strong emotive
implication for a person: frog, hospital
c) Words also differ in their stylistic reference.
Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided
into 1) literary or formal; 2) neutral and 3)
colloquial (informal) layers. A certain amount of
English vocabulary are words of general use,
free of stylistic colouring.
Literary words are subdivided into:
terms of science (renaissance,
teletype, etc.)
poetic words (nay – no, etc.)
archaisms (ere – before, albeit –
although, etc.)
barbarisms & foreign words
(bouquet, beaux monde, etc.)
Colloquial words may be subdivided into:
 1.Common colloquial words (literary col.) – Daddy,
Mummy;
2. Slang, i.e. words which are often regarded as a
violation of the norms of standard English, e.g.
governor (father), missus (wife), gag(joke)

3.Professionalisms, i.e. words used in narrow groups

bound by the same occupation (lab, buster (bomb)
 
 4. Jargonisms, i.e. words marked by their use
within a particular social group and bearing a
secret character (sucker – a person who is
easily deceived)
5. Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not
generally used in public, e.g. bloody, hell,
damn.
6. Dialectal (folk) speech, lass, kirk,
7. Colloquial coinages, e.g. newspaperdom, etc.
 
1) The word-meaning is viewed as closely
connected but not identical with either the
sound form of the word or with its referent.
2) ) The 2 main types of word-meaning are:
the grammatical and the lexical
meanings found in all words. The
interrelation of these 2 types of meaning
may be different in different groups of
words.

Conclusion
3) Lexical meaning is viewed as
possessing denotational and
connotational components.
The denotational component is actually
what makes communication possible.
The connotational component
comprises the stylistic reference and the
emotive charge proper.
The subjective emotive implications
acquired by words in speech are outside.


Conclusion