Lexical meaning and semantic structure of English words

1. Lexical meaning and semantic structure of English words

LEXICAL MEANING AND
SEMANTIC STRUCTURE
OF ENGLISH WORDS

2. motivation of words

MOTIVATION OF WORDS
The term motivation is used to denote the relationship existing
between the phonemic or morphemic composition and
structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning
on the other.

3. three main types of motivation

THREE MAIN TYPES OF MOTIVATION
• phonetical motivation,
• morphological motivation,
• semantic motivation.

4. Phonetical motivation

PHONETICAL MOTIVATION
• a certain similarity between the sounds that make up the word and those
referred to by the sense.
Examples: bang, buzz, cuckoo, giggle, gurgle, hiss, purr, whistle.
The sounds of a word are imitative of sounds in nature because what is
referred to is a sound or at least, produces a characteristic sound (cuckoo).

5. morphological motivation

MORPHOLOGICAL MOTIVATION
• quite regular.
E.g. the prefix ex- means ‘former’ when added to human nouns: ex- filmstar, ex-president, exwife.
But: Alongside with these cases there is a more general use of ex-: in borrowed words it is
unstressed and motivation is faded (expect, export, etc.).
Re- is one of the most common prefixes of the English language, it means ‘again’ and ‘back’
and is added to verbal stems or abstract deverbal noun stems, as in rebuild, re-claim, resell,
resettlement.

6. semantic motivation

SEMANTIC MOTIVATION
• based on the co-existence of direct and figurative meanings of the same word within the same
synchronous system.
E.g. Mouth continues to denote a part of the human face, and at the same time it can
metaphorically apply to any opening or outlet: the mouth of a river, of a cave, of a furnace.
Jacket is a short coat and also a protective cover for a book.
Ermine is not only the name of a small animal, but also of its fur, and the office and rank of an
English judge because in England ermine was worn by judges in court.
# In their direct meaning neither mouth nor ermine is motivated.

7. compounds

COMPOUNDS
MORPHOLOGICAL IF THE MEANING OF THE
WHOLE IS BASED ON THE DIRECT MEANING
OF THE COMPONENTS
eyewash ‘a lotion for the eyes’;
headache ‘pain in the head’;
watchdog ‘a dog kept for watching
property’.
SEMANTIC IF THE COMBINATION OF
COMPONENTS IS USED FIGURATIVELY
eyewash ‘something said or done to deceive a
person so that he thinks that what he sees is
good, though in fact it is not’;
headache ‘anything or anyone very annoying’;
watchdog ‘a watchful human guardian’.

8. complex morpho-semantic motivation

COMPLEX MORPHO-SEMANTIC MOTIVATION
Several stages in its history of the word teenager ‘a person in his or her teens’:
1.
The inflected form of the numeral ten produced the suffix -teen.
2.
The suffix later produces a stem with a metonymical meaning (semantic motivation).
3.
It receives the plural suffix -s, and then produces a new noun teens ‘the years of a person’s life of which the
numbers end in -teen, namely from 13 to 19’.
4.
In combination with age or aged the adjectives teen-age and teen-aged are coined, as in teen-age boy, teenage fashions.
5.
A morphologically motivated noun teenager is formed with the help of the suffix -er which is often added
to compounds or noun phrases producing personal names according to the pattern *one connected
with...’.

9. non-motivated words

NON-MOTIVATED WORDS
• when the connection between the meaning of the word and its form is conventional
(there is no perceptible reason for the word having this particular phonemic and
morphemic composition).
Every vocabulary is in a state of constant development. Words that seem non-motivated at
present may have lost their motivation.

10. semasiology

SEMASIOLOGY
• the branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalents.
# from the Greek sēmasiā ‘signification’ (from sēma ‘sign’ sēmantikos ‘significant’ and logos
‘learning’).

11. semasiology

SEMASIOLOGY
DIACHRONICALLY
• studies the change in
meaning which words
undergo.
DESCRIPTIVE SYNCHRONIC APPROACH
• a study not of individual
words but of semantic
structures typical of the
language studied, and of its
general semantic system.

12. The main objects of semasiological study:

THE MAIN OBJECTS OF SEMASIOLOGICAL STUDY:
• 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. )

13. lexical meaning

LEXICAL MEANING
• the realisation of concept or emotion by means of a
definite language system.

14. The four most important types of semantic complexity:

THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT TYPES OF SEMANTIC
COMPLEXITY:
1.
Every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings. E.g.: Father is a personal noun.
2.
Many words not only refer to some object but have an aura of associations expressing the attitude
of the speaker. They have not only denotative but connotative meaning as well. E.g.: Daddy is a
colloquial term of endearment.
3.
The denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes. E.g.: Father is a male
parent.
4.
A word may be polysemantic, that is it may have several meanings, all interconnected and forming its
semantic structure. E.g.: Father may mean: ‘male parent’, ‘an ancestor’, ‘a founder or leader’, ‘a priest’.

15. grammatical meaning

GRAMMATICAL MEANING
• 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 generalised than the lexical
meaning, it unites words into big groups such as parts of speech or lexicogrammatical 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.

16. lexico-grammatical meaning

LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL MEANING
• 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.

17. generic terms

GENERIC TERMS
• words in which abstraction and generalisation are so great that they can be lexical
representatives of lexico-grammatical meanings and substitute any word of their class.
E.g.:
the word matter is a generic term for material nouns,
the word group — for collective nouns,
the word person — for personal nouns.

18. denotative meaning

DENOTATIVE MEANING
• expresses the conceptual content of a word.
The denotative meaning may be:
signifiсative, if the referent is a concept,
demоnstrative, if it is an individual object.

19. connotative meaning

CONNOTATIVE MEANING
• the information communicated by virtue of what the
word refers to, often subject to complex associations
originating in habitual contexts (verbal or situational) of
which the speaker and the listener are aware.