Lecture 4 – Study of

Meaning
Mgr. Martin Mačura
 Ferdinand De Saussure
► Word discussed as a linguistic sign
► De Saussure 1857-1913: Linguistic sign is a
mental unit consisting of two faces which cannot be
separated: a concept and acoustic image. A Sign
can be applied to sentences, phrases, even
morphemes, not only words.
 concept is the "signifié" or the thing meant
 acoustic image is "signifiant"
► Alteration in the acoustic image causes difference
in concept and vice versa (This does not apply to
homonyms). Form and meaning of a linguistic
sign.
► Word is a linguistic sign, the discussion about
the word meaning focuses at the relationship
between the two sides of the sign.
► Arbitrariness - there is no natural reason why a
particular sign should be attached to a particular
concept
 Ivor Richards - The Semantic
Triangle
► Ivor Richards - Meaning relations are
best understood with the semantic
triangle. Referring items and referents.
Most content words have a referent.
► Referent is an object, entity, action or
state in the outside world to which a
particular lexical item refers. Chair is an
object. The link is not always
unambiguous or simple, e.g. with the,
because, and homophones.
 Term - designee
Inner reality
concepts, definitions

Direct meaning Direct cognitive

relation
relation

Indirect
denotative
Word - designator relation Thing - referrent
Formal Outer reality objects
representation
 Types of meaning
► 1. Referential meaning (pragmaticke pouzitie
vyrazov)
► Expression and what it stands for in
particular occasions of its
utterance/context. It depends on concrete
utterances, not on abstract sentences. It is an
utterance-dependent notion. Never applicable to
single lexemes.
► the car, Peter's car, the five new cars introduced
to the market.
► Phrases containing car used to establish the
relationship of reference.
 Types of meaning
► 2. Sense meaning (vazba medzi jednotlivymi slovami, nie
medzi slovom a lexemou/terminom)
► Lyons defines sense as a relationship between the
words or expressions of a single language
independently of the relationship which holds between
these words and their referents. Sense covers both
individual lexemes and even phrases. Words may have no
specific denotation and still have sense.
► There is no such animal as a unicorn. (The referent does
not exist but it has sense).
► There is no such book as a unicorn. (This does not give
sense). So animal and unicorn are related in sense.
 Types of meaning
► 3. Lexical meaning - Denotative meaning
► Denotative meaning is the relation between the
linguistic sign and its referent irrespective to
context, the situation. It is the basic nucleus of
meaning, the basic dictionary meaning.
Explicit, direct meaning without associations.
Referring directly to extralingual reality. The
concept of a lexeme is necessary here. Denotation
happens between a lexeme and a set of
extralingual objects, persons, things, places
external to the language system.
 Types of meaning
► 4. Lexical meaning - Connotative
meaning
► Connotative meaning covers additional
properties of lexemes, emotive charge and
stylistic coloring, poetic, slang, baby,
biblical, casual, colloquial, formal,
humorous, legal, literary, rhetorical. Both
are important to determine the meaning.
 Types of meaning
► 5. Grammatical meaning
► Expressed by inflectional endings, individual
forms or some other grammatical devices, e.g.
word order. The words "boys, houses, pens",
etc., though denoting different objects have
something in common. This common element of
the words (expressed by the ending -s) is the
grammatical meaning of plurality. Examples of
words with grammatical meaning of: tense:
hoped, worked, spoke; case: girl's, boy's;
number: boys, tables, girls, children.
 How many meanings?

1. Monosemy
► Some words have just one single meaning
(terminology, scientific words, grammatical
words etc.). However, they are limited in
number and focus.
 How many meanings?
2. Polysemy
► One and the same word may have two or more meanings
(poly many semeion signs) E.g. board. Close or related
meanings. (set, line, window). The scale of meaning.
► Problems with polysemy: problems with metaphors,
words may have their literal and transferred meanings.
Hands and face of a clock, the foot of a mountain, leg of a
chair, tongue of a shoe. that blanket is warm - is warm,
keeps you warm
► Advantages of polysemy: it is an essential condition for
language efficiency. If we couldn't attach several meanings
to one word, it would be crushing on our memory to
possess separate terms for every conceivable object.
 How many meanings?
3. Homonymy (Unrelated meanings on the scale)
► Only one of the meanings fits into certain context. But
sentences like Look at that bat under the tree may mean
both things.
 1. Homonyms – Words with the same phonetic and
orthographic form but different meaning. (race, bank,
file, bat)
 2. Homophones – Words with the same phonetic form
but different meaning (by/buy, rode/rowed, tail/tale)
 3. Homographs – Words with the same orthographic
form but different meaning and pronunciation (wind is
blowing, wind that copper wire)
 Meaning relations
► Structural semantics: Words in Interaction
► The basic principle is that words very
seldom exist in isolation, their meaning
is defined through sense relations (sense
meaning) they have with other words. The
relations are these:
 1. Synonymy
► bilateral, parallel, symmetrical relation in which more
than one lexical item have the same or similar conceptual
or referential meaning
► Strict and loose synonymy
► In the strict sense, two words that are synonyms would
have to be interchangeable in all their possible
contexts of use. A free choice would exist for a speaker
or writer of either one or the other word in any given
context. The choice would have no effect on the meaning,
style or connotation of what was being said or written.
► Linguists argue that such strict synonymy does not exist,
or that, if it does, it exists only as semantic change is
taking place. How about/what about, kind of/sort of – na
urovni gramatickych struktur ano.
 2. Antonymy
► semantic opposition, contrast,
unrelatedness. A counterpart lexeme.
► While antonymy is typically found among
adjectives, it is not restricted to this word
class: bring-take (verbs), death-life (nouns),
noisily-quietly (adverbs), above-below
(prepositions), after-before (conjunctions or
prepositions).
 2. Antonymy
► Co-occurrence of antonyms
► It is often the case that antonyms occur together,
either within the same sentence or in adjacent
sentences (Fellbaum 1995). One reason is that
certain expressions are structured in this way, e.g.
'a matter of life and death', 'from start to finish',
'the long and the short of it', 'neither friend nor
foe', 'wanted dead or alive'. A second reason is
that antonyms may be used redundantly to
emphasize a point, e.g. 'It was a remark made in
private, not in public'.
 2. Antonymy
► 1. Complementary / contradictory antonyms
- presence of one component excludes the other
(on/off, true/false, win/lose, remember/forget,
alive/dead, single/married, male/female) He is
alive means he is not dead. If one of the pair
applies, the other does not apply.
Complementary antonyms are non-gradable (are
you more pregnant).
► Binary logic
► Either X or Y
 2. Antonymy
► 2. Converseness - logical reciprocity,
interdependence of meaning, they depend on
each other. One expresses the converse
(obrátený, obmenený) meaning of the other.
There cannot be a wife without a husband. We
cannot buy something unless something is sold
(husband/wife, buy/sell, give/receive, speak/listen,
parent/child). The same transaction is expressed
form different perspectives.
► There is no X without Y
 2. Antonymy
► 3.Incompatibility - relational contrasts
among items in a certain semantic field
(days of the week, colors), using one item
excludes all the others. If something is red,
obviously it is not green.
 2. Antonymy
► 4. Gradable ‘Pure’ antonymy -
(good/bad, big/small). Do not refer to
absolute qualities, are gradable and capable
of comparison.
► more/less relation
 3. Hyponymy
► asymmetrical synonymy, the meaning of a specific item is
included in a more general class term, hierarchical
organization.
► (vehicle - car - convertible).

► Hypernyms on top
► Hyponyms at the bottom

► Hyponymy is usually KIND OF relationship tree – oak

► Meronymy is PART OF relationship toe – foot, plant –
root, stalk