English LexicologyWord Meaning and Semantic Features

Week 8

Instructor: Liu Hongyong

Conventionality and Motivation

How do words get meaning? Conventionality

Most English words are conventional, arbitrary symbols. There is no connection between the word form and its meaning.

Motivation

Some English words are motivated symbols. There is some connection between the word form and its meaning.

Conventionality

dom (Russion)

fang zi (Chinese)

maison (French)

house (English)

casa (Spanish)

Arbitrary (任意的 ): you can use a word to mean any thing, and the thing becomes the meaning of the word by

conventionality.

Motivation

The majority of English words are non-motivated, since they are arbitrary symbols.

However, there is a small group of motivated

words, which means there is a direct connection between the symbol and its meaning.

Motivation

Words motivated phonetically are called echoic or onomatopoeic words, whose pronunciation suggests the meaning.

They show a close relation of sound and meaning. Many onomatopoeic words imitate natural sounds. Some onomatopoeic words are not completely

motivated.

Onomatopoeic words

miaow

woof

Quack

hiss

Main types of word meaning

Word meaning is made up of various components. These components are commonly described as types of meaning.

Two main types of meaning are grammatical meaning and lexical meaning.

Grammatical meaning

The grammatical meaning of a word includes the grammatical category of the lexeme, and the inflectional properties associated with the word form.

Inflectional features

The set (集合 ) of all the word forms of a lexeme is called its paradigm (词形变化表 ).

Nouns are declined, and verbs are conjugated. Adjectives have degrees of comparison.

The lexical meaning of a word is the same throughout the paradigm, but the grammatical meaning associated with different inflectional affixes is different.

(Italian) Verb Conjugation

Parlare ‘to speak’

Number Person Present

Indicative

Present

Subjunctive

Past indicative

Singular 1 Parlo Parli Parlai

2 Parli Parli Parlasti

3 Parla Parli Parlo

Plural 1 Parliamo Parliamo Parlammo

2 Parlate Parliate Parlaste

3 Parlano Parlino Parlarono

(Russian) Noun Declension

Kod ‘code’

CASE Singular Plural

Nominative Kod Kodi

Accusative Kod Kodi

Genitive Koda Kodov

Dative Kodu Kodam

Instrumental Kodom Kodami

Prepositional Kode Kodax

Lexical Meaning

Lexical meaning can be divided into: Denotative meaning Connotative meaning Social meaning Affective meaning

Denotation

The denotative meaning is also called the conceptual meaning. It is the denotative in that it is concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes, or refers to.

The linguistic symbol: HOUSE,房子， case…

The referent:

The thing is the denotation of the word

Connotation

The connotative meaning refers to the emotional association a word carries. For example, mother, denoting a ‘female parent’, is often associated with love, care, tenderness, warmth, support, etc. These connotation are not given in the dictionary, but associated with the word in the mind of readers or speakers.

The denotation of a word is the thing in the real world the word is linked to. The connotation of a word refers to the emotional associations that a word may carry.

Denotation and Connotation

The denotation of home is a place where one lives.

The connotation of home: Where we love is home, a place where our feet may leave, but never our heart.

words that carry emotion honesty, courage, traitor, deceit love, hate, fear, joy, sorrow, damn, shit sincere, hypocritical, wonderful, skinny

words that do not carry emotion in, on, at, within so, but, since, because, though a, an, the he, she, my, mine book, lamp, desk, window, door add, subtract, swim, run, read

Words with/without Emotion

Connotative meaningNegative

There are 2,000 vagrants in the city.Neutral

There are 2,000 people with no fixed addresses in the city.

PositiveThere are 2,000 homeless in the city.

All three of these expressions refer to the same people, but they will invoke different emotive associations in the readers’ mind: a ‘vagrant’ is a public nuisance, while a homeless person is a worthy object of pity and charity.

Social or Stylistic Meaning Social meaning is that which a piece of language c

onveys about the social circumstance of its use. Under different social circumstances, we have diff

erent styles. Martin Joos (1967) recognized five different styles

using the criterion of formality Frozen Formal Consultative Casual Intimate

Stylistic Meaning

The frozen and formal styles occur in written report.

Consultative, casual, and intimate styles occur in everyday use. Consultative style is a polite and fairly neutral style,

used when we are talking to a person whom we do not know well.

Casual and intimate styles are used in conversation between friends.

We can simplify the styles into three levels: formal, neutral, and informal

Affective Meaning

Affective meaning is concerned with the attitudes of the speaker or writer.

In English, some words can express the speakers’ approval or disapproval of the persons or things he is talking about.

Words that show speakers’ approval are purr words.

Words that show speakers’ disapproval are snarl words.

Affective Meaning

Snarl words are marked derog. (=derogatory). Purr words are marked apprec.(=appreciatory).

snarl words purr words snarl words purr words

stupid innocent notorious famous

cunning clever politician statesman

skinny slender complacency confident

miserly thrifty nosy curious

die pass away fat plump

Componential Analysis

The analysis of word meaning is often seen as a process of breaking down the sense of a word into its minimal components, which are known as semantic features or sense components.

man woman child

[+human] [+human] [+human]

[+adult] [+adult] [-adult]

[+male] [-male] [+/-male]

Componential Analysis

Man: [+human, +adult, +male]

Woman: [+human, +adult, -male]

Boy: [???]

Girl: [???]

man woman boy girl

[+human] [+human]

[+adult] [+adult]

[+male] [-male]

We can use three semantic features to define four words

Semantic Features

In making componential analysis, it is important to focus on the defining features,i.e. features which can distinguish one word from another.

horse, cat, machine, chair [+/-animate]

road, house, thought, philosophy [+/-concrete]

water, gas, stone, tree [+/-count]

sit, cry, read, give [+/-transitive]

Advantages of CA

CA can help us see clearly different sense relations. For example, if two words share the same semantic features, they are synonyms.

CA can help us choose the right word in collocation.

A month/an hour elapsed. [+Time]

*A bike/a person elapsed. [-Time]

Disadvantages of CA

We cannot find a set of features that capture what is common in meaning for all words.

The analysis of word meaning into its sense components is not enough. It does not include other types of meanings. For example, “Be a man!”. Here we cannot use CA to explain the word “man”.

Sometimes words can be used figuratively. For example, threaten requires an animate object, for one can only threaten something animate.

threaten one’s enemythreaten someone’s security