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Linguistic meaning is the specific kind of ‘content’ produced (or engendered) by the reverberation in the human consciousness of objective reality which constitutes the inner (semantic) structure of linguistic units and with respect to which their expression, the sounds in which they are materialized, is the outer (or phonetic) structure. From the above definition it is evident that the category of linguistic meaning cannot be understood or explained unless insight is gained into the nature of linguistic expression, the form of linguistic units. As will be shown below, the study of linguistic form is absolutely indispensable to the interpretation of meaning in language.
There are two kinds of linguistic meaning – the lexical (material) and the grammatical (categorial) meaning. The former is characteristic of separate words which are referable to certain referents, whereas the latter is of a more abstract character and becomes obvious only against the background of meaningful oppositions. It should be added in this connection that ‘meaning’ should be properly used only of words and phrases. Sentences carry ‘purports’.
If we turn to lexical meaning we should emphasize that it is a reverberation in the human consciousness of ‘objects’ of reality (phenomena, relationships, qualities and processes) which (the reverberations) becomes a fact of language because (only when) a constant and indissoluble connection is established between the reverberation and a certain sound (or sound complex). Thus, the particular reverberation becomes the content of the word, with respect to which its sound-form expression functions as a ‘sound-envelope’ – indispensable not only because it is the physical expression of the content and the vehicle for communicating it to other people, but also because without it the given lexical meaning could not come into being, exist and develop. Lexical meaning is the meaning of the main material part of the word which reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic properties of the thing (phenomenon, quality, state) it denotes.
Here immediately the question is bound to arise: how much of the concrete concept, what part of the general notional category is comprised in each particular word? In order to answer this question one should go more deeply into the relationship between form and meaning, expression and content in word-stock.
First, there is in every language a certain lexical subsystem, which is more or less indifferent to the linguistic form in which it exists. Thus, for example, in cases like two, seventy-five, or one hundred and two, etc. we deal with those subdivisions of the word-stock of the language, for which in a civilized society there is a well-established secondary semiotic system (2, 75, 102). Whenever we have something, which exists in other civilized societies in the form of a secondary semiotic system we have to admit that although there is a certain difference between these lexical subsystems (French: deux, soixante quinze, sent-deux; Russian: два, семьдесят пять, сто два) it is, by and large, immaterial.
The second type can be conveniently exemplified by the ‘arm – hand’ situation. We look at the upper limb of the human body which has been ‘reverberated’ by the human mind since time immemorial, and find that in English it is divided into two parts: hand and arm. In Russian the whole limb is indiscriminately called рука. The difference between рука, on the one hand, and arm and hand, on the other, clearly indicates that the meaning of words is the particular reverberation which consists in slicing up, cutting up reality in this or that way. In our case, the Russian language does not cut it up and has only one word – рука, while the English language cuts it up into two parts – hand and arm. This is, comparatively speaking, a simple case of relationship between form and content because in this case we can actually see what happens. We look at the object and say: this is the arm and this is the hand, or this is the leg, and this is the foot, while in Russian the whole limb is merely рука or нога. What in English is called ‘little finger’ is monolexemically expressed in Russian as мизинец. Conversely, in English we do not speak of a big finger but a thumb.
The situation becomes far more complicated when we reach the third category – words like fancy, disdain, horrible, terror, etc. because their referent, that is the object of thought correlated with a certain linguistic expression, is not directly cognoscible. The content of these words is such a complex combination of different ‘reverberations’ that to understand the difference between to fancy and to like, or horrible and terrible a serious lexicological investigation has to be carried out.
This is the reason why some people say that words of this kind in general cannot be referred to anything in objective reality, that in this case it is not a question of reverberation, but of primacy of language, of ‘mind’ before ‘matter’. Nothing, however, can be further from the truth. The difference between 1, 2 and 3 is just in the different kinds of reverberation, degrees of complexity of reverberation.
From what has been said above we are justified in concluding that the expression plane of the word ‘cuts out’, as it were, a certain piece of conceptual material and thus signals an independent lexical unit. Thus, for example, when a sequence of sounds like (bOI) is ‘pronounced’ by a tape-recorder it lacks meaning. It becomes meaningful only when a link is established between the sound complex and a piece of ‘conceptual material’. When boy is associated with the content ‘male child’ it becomes a fact of the English language.
It follows from what has just been said that the indissoluble connection between content and expression is of paramount importance because it is crucial for the linguistic interpretation of the concept of ‘meaning’. Different expressions emphasize the fact that the meanings under consideration do exist, do function and develop in different linguistic systems.
This point can be easily illustrated by the following sets of examples:
(1)
to sit on a chair
сидеть на стуле
to sit on the floor
сидеть на полу
to sit in an arm-chair
сидеть в кресле
to sit at a table
сидеть за столом
to sit at a deskс
сидеть за письменным столом
to sit on a horseс
сидеть на лошади
(2)
My luggage is still sitting in London.
Мой багаж все еще лежит в Лондоне.
The vase sits in the centre of the table.
Ваза стоит в центре стола.
They served a French gateau sitting in a thin puddle of asparagus sauce.
Они подали французский паштет, плавающий в спаржевом соусе.
Udaipur, deeper in Rajastan, a lake-side town, sits in a circle of hills.
Удайпур – город, расположенный на берегу озера в глубине Раджастана, находится в окружении холмов.
There is no sign that he has withdrawn his resignation – it still sits there.
Нет никаких признаков того, что он забрал свое заявление об отставке – оно все еще там.
At first sight it may seem that to sit and сидеть have the same meaning (see the examples under 1), but the detailed analysis of their semantics in concrete contexts shows that the English verb is entirely different from its Russian counterpart (see the examples under 2).
The following examples borrowed from fiction give more evidence of the difference between the two verbs:
1… but most wonderful that she should so dote on Sir Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviour seemed ever to abhore…
– Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?…
– А всего удивительней то, что она с ума сходит по Бенедикту, которого, судя по ее поведению, она всегда ненавидела…
– Возможно ли? Так вот откуда ветер дует!
2… Farewell, Old Gaunt.
Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O! sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast!
… Прощай! Увидишь скоро
Ты в Ковентри, как там на поединке
Сойдутся Херефорд и гнусный Маубрей.
О! Пусть несчастья мужа моего
С копьем кузена Херефорда вместе
Убийце Маубрею вонзятся в грудь.
3. But, Lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
Но, лорды, мы внимаем свисту бури,
Укрыться же не ищем от нее.
Глядим, как вихрь рвет наши паруса,
И смерти ждем, сложивши руки праздно.
4. And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble…
И зеркало души крылатой,
Был холодней, чем мрамор статуй,
Твой лик нездешний до тех пор,
Пока вперенный в небо взор
Сама и нежно, и сурово
К земле не обратишь ты снова.
But even when it is quite clear that we deal with words which are in one-to-one correspondence one should not be misled into thinking that the lexical meanings of juxtaposed words are identical. The thing is that one of the aspects of lexical meaning is formed by the images the word evokes in the speaker’s mind. Such associations are accumulated in the sociolinguistic connotation of a word. This can be easily illustrated by the following pair of words: champagne and шампанское. According to the «Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English» champagne is «an expensive French white wine, containing a lot of bubbles, usually served on special occasions». The meaning of the Russian word is defined by Ozhegov as follows: «игристое белое виноградное вино, насыщенное углекислым газом в результате вторичного брожения». Thus, in contrast with the English champagne the Russian шампанское is neither French, nor very expensive. As for ‘special occasions’ one should be reminded that right after the antialcoholic decree in the eighties шампанское was the only wine on sale and people drank it on all occasions. It follows from what has just been said that cultural associations evoked by the two words are quite different and these, too, keep them clearly apart.
One more example. From the definition of hot-water bottle given in the «Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English» we learn that it is «a rubber container that is filled with hot water and put in a bed to make it warm». Its Russian equivalent грелка is associated not with cosiness and comfort but with ache and disease.
The situation becomes still more complicated if either denotational and connotational components of the lexical meaning is ideologically marked, that is reflects the moral code of the speech community in question, its system of values, determined by socio-historical factors.
As not all speakers of the language share the same interpretive frames there exists the possibility of misunderstanding between speakers belonging to different cultures but using the same language as a means of communication. A case in point is religious or political terminology because these lexical subsystems are ideologically marked.
For example, in many cases in Russian society the word демократия is understood primarily in terms of its association with Western material consumption and its opposition to communism. Hence the use of such derrogatory word-combinations with the word in question and its derivatives as обанкротившаяся демократия, демократические игры, так называемые демократы. In the West, however, democracy is associated primarily with freedom and justice and has no negative connotations.
The word democracy has been part of the English language for a very long time. The word glasnost could be called a neologism. It was borrowed from the Russian language in the 1980s and is associated with the policies of Michael Gorbachev. The Russian word гласность can be traced back to the word голос and it presupposes that news is widely announced and everybody is well informed. The English glasnost is defined in a monolingual dictionary of English in the following way «(in the former Soviet Union) the policy of more open government and a wider spread of information in public affairs». The dictionary emphasizes that the concept in question is associated with the policies of the former Soviet Union and that it implies the readiness of a government to discuss its decisions with people. However it does not mean that the government becomes accountable to people. In effect, this is addressing the problem the wrong way.
Modern cognitive semantics distinguishes three types of knowledge: linguistic underlying the prototypical meaning of the word, conceptual determining linguistically conditioned lexical meanings and encyclopedic which forms the background conceptual structure of the word. All the three are culture specific and this makes the word a unique linguistic unit (Ferenc Kiefer, Linguistic, Conceptual and Encyclopedic Knowledge: Some Implications for Lexicography. Budapest, 1988).
Adherents of logical semantics, who ignore the dialectical unity of content and expression in the word, approach the problem of the lexical meaning of the word in a very simplistic way. One of their methods is based on the assumption that the question may be solved only by means of a one-sided division of a word into a number of semantic components (‘componential analysis’). This approach which appeared to be tenable when applied to kinship and colour terms is still restricted to those very limited thematic groups the members of which do not rely on linguistic expression and could just as well be distinguished from one another by formulae or other kinds of extralinguistic notation. Thus, for example, the ‘things’ themselves in the case of words like mother, father, sister, brother, etc. can be easily conceived as mere sums of elementary components: male – female, direct lineability – colineal lineability – ablineal lineability and five generation components g1, g2, g3, g4, g5. Uncle then can be presented as: male + colineal lineability + g2.
Now it has become clear that componential analysis only appears, at first sight, to be an attractive way of handling semantic relations. But it raises far too many difficulties at all workable. Special investigations in the field show that the method in question has been a complete failure even in the case of kinship and colour terms (Palmer, F.R. Semantics.
A New Outline. London, 1976, p. 91). It follows that the logical approach of componential analysis cannot be used in linguistic investigation of natural human languages. Linguistic investigation requires much finer ‘tools’ than those used by componential analysis: in this case simplification should in principle be ruled out.
2. Polysemy
There are two kinds of linguistic meaning – the lexical (material) and the grammatical (categorial) meaning. The former is characteristic of separate words which are referable to certain referents, whereas the latter is of a more abstract character and becomes obvious only against the background of meaningful oppositions. It should be added in this connection that ‘meaning’ should be properly used only of words and phrases. Sentences carry ‘purports’.
If we turn to lexical meaning we should emphasize that it is a reverberation in the human consciousness of ‘objects’ of reality (phenomena, relationships, qualities and processes) which (the reverberations) becomes a fact of language because (only when) a constant and indissoluble connection is established between the reverberation and a certain sound (or sound complex). Thus, the particular reverberation becomes the content of the word, with respect to which its sound-form expression functions as a ‘sound-envelope’ – indispensable not only because it is the physical expression of the content and the vehicle for communicating it to other people, but also because without it the given lexical meaning could not come into being, exist and develop. Lexical meaning is the meaning of the main material part of the word which reflects the concept the given word expresses and the basic properties of the thing (phenomenon, quality, state) it denotes.
Here immediately the question is bound to arise: how much of the concrete concept, what part of the general notional category is comprised in each particular word? In order to answer this question one should go more deeply into the relationship between form and meaning, expression and content in word-stock.
First, there is in every language a certain lexical subsystem, which is more or less indifferent to the linguistic form in which it exists. Thus, for example, in cases like two, seventy-five, or one hundred and two, etc. we deal with those subdivisions of the word-stock of the language, for which in a civilized society there is a well-established secondary semiotic system (2, 75, 102). Whenever we have something, which exists in other civilized societies in the form of a secondary semiotic system we have to admit that although there is a certain difference between these lexical subsystems (French: deux, soixante quinze, sent-deux; Russian: два, семьдесят пять, сто два) it is, by and large, immaterial.
The second type can be conveniently exemplified by the ‘arm – hand’ situation. We look at the upper limb of the human body which has been ‘reverberated’ by the human mind since time immemorial, and find that in English it is divided into two parts: hand and arm. In Russian the whole limb is indiscriminately called рука. The difference between рука, on the one hand, and arm and hand, on the other, clearly indicates that the meaning of words is the particular reverberation which consists in slicing up, cutting up reality in this or that way. In our case, the Russian language does not cut it up and has only one word – рука, while the English language cuts it up into two parts – hand and arm. This is, comparatively speaking, a simple case of relationship between form and content because in this case we can actually see what happens. We look at the object and say: this is the arm and this is the hand, or this is the leg, and this is the foot, while in Russian the whole limb is merely рука or нога. What in English is called ‘little finger’ is monolexemically expressed in Russian as мизинец. Conversely, in English we do not speak of a big finger but a thumb.
The situation becomes far more complicated when we reach the third category – words like fancy, disdain, horrible, terror, etc. because their referent, that is the object of thought correlated with a certain linguistic expression, is not directly cognoscible. The content of these words is such a complex combination of different ‘reverberations’ that to understand the difference between to fancy and to like, or horrible and terrible a serious lexicological investigation has to be carried out.
This is the reason why some people say that words of this kind in general cannot be referred to anything in objective reality, that in this case it is not a question of reverberation, but of primacy of language, of ‘mind’ before ‘matter’. Nothing, however, can be further from the truth. The difference between 1, 2 and 3 is just in the different kinds of reverberation, degrees of complexity of reverberation.
From what has been said above we are justified in concluding that the expression plane of the word ‘cuts out’, as it were, a certain piece of conceptual material and thus signals an independent lexical unit. Thus, for example, when a sequence of sounds like (bOI) is ‘pronounced’ by a tape-recorder it lacks meaning. It becomes meaningful only when a link is established between the sound complex and a piece of ‘conceptual material’. When boy is associated with the content ‘male child’ it becomes a fact of the English language.
It follows from what has just been said that the indissoluble connection between content and expression is of paramount importance because it is crucial for the linguistic interpretation of the concept of ‘meaning’. Different expressions emphasize the fact that the meanings under consideration do exist, do function and develop in different linguistic systems.
This point can be easily illustrated by the following sets of examples:
(1)
to sit on a chair
сидеть на стуле
to sit on the floor
сидеть на полу
to sit in an arm-chair
сидеть в кресле
to sit at a table
сидеть за столом
to sit at a deskс
сидеть за письменным столом
to sit on a horseс
сидеть на лошади
(2)
My luggage is still sitting in London.
Мой багаж все еще лежит в Лондоне.
The vase sits in the centre of the table.
Ваза стоит в центре стола.
They served a French gateau sitting in a thin puddle of asparagus sauce.
Они подали французский паштет, плавающий в спаржевом соусе.
Udaipur, deeper in Rajastan, a lake-side town, sits in a circle of hills.
Удайпур – город, расположенный на берегу озера в глубине Раджастана, находится в окружении холмов.
There is no sign that he has withdrawn his resignation – it still sits there.
Нет никаких признаков того, что он забрал свое заявление об отставке – оно все еще там.
At first sight it may seem that to sit and сидеть have the same meaning (see the examples under 1), but the detailed analysis of their semantics in concrete contexts shows that the English verb is entirely different from its Russian counterpart (see the examples under 2).
The following examples borrowed from fiction give more evidence of the difference between the two verbs:
1… but most wonderful that she should so dote on Sir Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviour seemed ever to abhore…
– Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?…
– А всего удивительней то, что она с ума сходит по Бенедикту, которого, судя по ее поведению, она всегда ненавидела…
– Возможно ли? Так вот откуда ветер дует!
2… Farewell, Old Gaunt.
Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
O! sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear,
That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast!
… Прощай! Увидишь скоро
Ты в Ковентри, как там на поединке
Сойдутся Херефорд и гнусный Маубрей.
О! Пусть несчастья мужа моего
С копьем кузена Херефорда вместе
Убийце Маубрею вонзятся в грудь.
3. But, Lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
Но, лорды, мы внимаем свисту бури,
Укрыться же не ищем от нее.
Глядим, как вихрь рвет наши паруса,
И смерти ждем, сложивши руки праздно.
4. And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble…
И зеркало души крылатой,
Был холодней, чем мрамор статуй,
Твой лик нездешний до тех пор,
Пока вперенный в небо взор
Сама и нежно, и сурово
К земле не обратишь ты снова.
But even when it is quite clear that we deal with words which are in one-to-one correspondence one should not be misled into thinking that the lexical meanings of juxtaposed words are identical. The thing is that one of the aspects of lexical meaning is formed by the images the word evokes in the speaker’s mind. Such associations are accumulated in the sociolinguistic connotation of a word. This can be easily illustrated by the following pair of words: champagne and шампанское. According to the «Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English» champagne is «an expensive French white wine, containing a lot of bubbles, usually served on special occasions». The meaning of the Russian word is defined by Ozhegov as follows: «игристое белое виноградное вино, насыщенное углекислым газом в результате вторичного брожения». Thus, in contrast with the English champagne the Russian шампанское is neither French, nor very expensive. As for ‘special occasions’ one should be reminded that right after the antialcoholic decree in the eighties шампанское was the only wine on sale and people drank it on all occasions. It follows from what has just been said that cultural associations evoked by the two words are quite different and these, too, keep them clearly apart.
One more example. From the definition of hot-water bottle given in the «Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English» we learn that it is «a rubber container that is filled with hot water and put in a bed to make it warm». Its Russian equivalent грелка is associated not with cosiness and comfort but with ache and disease.
The situation becomes still more complicated if either denotational and connotational components of the lexical meaning is ideologically marked, that is reflects the moral code of the speech community in question, its system of values, determined by socio-historical factors.
As not all speakers of the language share the same interpretive frames there exists the possibility of misunderstanding between speakers belonging to different cultures but using the same language as a means of communication. A case in point is religious or political terminology because these lexical subsystems are ideologically marked.
For example, in many cases in Russian society the word демократия is understood primarily in terms of its association with Western material consumption and its opposition to communism. Hence the use of such derrogatory word-combinations with the word in question and its derivatives as обанкротившаяся демократия, демократические игры, так называемые демократы. In the West, however, democracy is associated primarily with freedom and justice and has no negative connotations.
The word democracy has been part of the English language for a very long time. The word glasnost could be called a neologism. It was borrowed from the Russian language in the 1980s and is associated with the policies of Michael Gorbachev. The Russian word гласность can be traced back to the word голос and it presupposes that news is widely announced and everybody is well informed. The English glasnost is defined in a monolingual dictionary of English in the following way «(in the former Soviet Union) the policy of more open government and a wider spread of information in public affairs». The dictionary emphasizes that the concept in question is associated with the policies of the former Soviet Union and that it implies the readiness of a government to discuss its decisions with people. However it does not mean that the government becomes accountable to people. In effect, this is addressing the problem the wrong way.
Modern cognitive semantics distinguishes three types of knowledge: linguistic underlying the prototypical meaning of the word, conceptual determining linguistically conditioned lexical meanings and encyclopedic which forms the background conceptual structure of the word. All the three are culture specific and this makes the word a unique linguistic unit (Ferenc Kiefer, Linguistic, Conceptual and Encyclopedic Knowledge: Some Implications for Lexicography. Budapest, 1988).
Adherents of logical semantics, who ignore the dialectical unity of content and expression in the word, approach the problem of the lexical meaning of the word in a very simplistic way. One of their methods is based on the assumption that the question may be solved only by means of a one-sided division of a word into a number of semantic components (‘componential analysis’). This approach which appeared to be tenable when applied to kinship and colour terms is still restricted to those very limited thematic groups the members of which do not rely on linguistic expression and could just as well be distinguished from one another by formulae or other kinds of extralinguistic notation. Thus, for example, the ‘things’ themselves in the case of words like mother, father, sister, brother, etc. can be easily conceived as mere sums of elementary components: male – female, direct lineability – colineal lineability – ablineal lineability and five generation components g1, g2, g3, g4, g5. Uncle then can be presented as: male + colineal lineability + g2.
Now it has become clear that componential analysis only appears, at first sight, to be an attractive way of handling semantic relations. But it raises far too many difficulties at all workable. Special investigations in the field show that the method in question has been a complete failure even in the case of kinship and colour terms (Palmer, F.R. Semantics.
A New Outline. London, 1976, p. 91). It follows that the logical approach of componential analysis cannot be used in linguistic investigation of natural human languages. Linguistic investigation requires much finer ‘tools’ than those used by componential analysis: in this case simplification should in principle be ruled out.
2. Polysemy
The reason why any word may potentially have more than one meaning (be polysemantic) is obvious: the reality of the world is infinite, while the resources of even the richest language are limited. Thus, language keeps stretching out its lexical units to cover new phenomena of objective reality. The speaker observes certain similarities between objects and acquires the habit of using words metaphorically. When the metaphor becomes habitual it is included as a lexical-semantic variant in the word’s semantic structure.
This, however, is not merely a theoretical question, but one that is of the greatest practical significance to the compiler of dictionaries. How do we know that this or that word is polysemantic and what are the criteria used to arrive at the final decision? And how does a lexicographer know that he (or she) is dealing with different meanings of the same word and not different words (homonyms)?
To demonstrate the complexity of the problem let us turn to the dictionary entries of the adjective fine in different dictionaries. Even a cursory glance reveals that the meaning of the adjective in question is differently interpreted in three learner’s dictionaries of the same size: The «Cambridge International Dictionary of English» (CUP, 1995) regis-ters four meanings of fine:
1. satisfactory,
2. good,
3. thin,
4. sunny.
The «Harrap’s Essential English Dictionary» (Chambers Harrap Pub-lishers, 1995) singles out eight meanings of the adjective in question:
1. You describe something as fine if you think it is splendid or excellent.
2. Fine articles are of high quality.
3. The weather is fine when it is not raining.
4. You say you are fine when you are well.
5. You say something is fine if it is OK, satisfactory, or acceptable.
6. Threads that are fine are thin and narrow.
7. Fine particles are very small.
8. Fine means very precise, exact, slight or subtle.
The «Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English» describes twelve meanings of the same adjective:
1. very good, of high quality,
2. very well, in good health,
3. acceptable, satisfactory,
4. attractive,
5. delicate,
6. (of weather) bright, not raining,
7. very thin,
8. difficult to see or describe,
9. with small grains,
10. (of person) that you have a lot of respect for,
11. (of words, speeches) sounding important and impressive but unlikely to have any effect,
12. (of metals) containing only a particular metal and no other substances that reduce the quality.
Now, why the discrepancy? First, because the word is a global lexical unit, and all the attempts at splitting it up, one way or another, are not borne out by readily observable ‘overt’ facts, and, second, because we are still not very clear about the methodology of semantic analysis. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the method of semantic analysis remains very problematic. Lexical semasiology remains one of the most controversial areas in spite of the number of papers and books on the subject being very considerable.
In the preceding chapter the attempt to base all analysis of lexical meaning on the idea of semantic components has already been mentioned. The conclusion we reached was that so far the results have left much to be desired as far as actual lexicographic work is concerned. The methods based on logical approach to lexis have been so unproductive because very little attention was given to the methods actually used by Russian lexicographers and lexicologists.
The fundamental approach to the study and description of lexical meaning was elaborated by V. V. Vinogradov. He analysed the overall meaning of a word in terms of: nominative, nominative-derivative, colligationally and collocationally conditioned and phraseologically bound meanings.
The nominative meaning denotes the objects of extralinguistic reality in direct and straightforward way, reflecting their actual relations. Thus, for example: to carry whose nominative meaning is ‘to support the weight of and move from place to place’ normally combines with nouns like a box, a chair, a heavy stone, a baby, etc., sweet — ‘tasting like sugar or honey’ – with candy, milk, jam, cake, tea, coffee, etc.
The nominative meaning is the basic of all the other meanings of the word. It is said to be ‘free’ because no linguistic constraints are imposed on its realizations. The word may have several ‘free’ meanings but they all depend on the nominative one: that is why they are called ‘nominative-derivative’, for example: sweet in the nominative-derivative meaning of ‘pleasant, attractive’ goes with face, voice, singer, little boy, temper, etc.
Side by side with the ‘free’ meanings of the word there are linguistically conditioned (or ‘bound’) meanings which can be of two kinds: colligationally conditioned and collocationally conditioned. The former can be illustrated by the uses of the verb to keep. When used with nouns like hens, bees, pigs, etc. the verb means ‘own or manage especially for profit’. The verb to keep has an altogether different meaning, namely ‘continue doing something’ when it is used with a gerund, for example: Keep smiling! Why does she keep giggling? etc.
The colligationally conditioned meaning is determined by the morpho-syntactic combinability of the word, while the collocationally conditioned meaning depends on its lexical-phraseological ties. One of the collocationally conditioned meanings of the adjective heavy is ‘more than usual size’; it is realized in speech when heavy is brought together with words like crops, pain, blow, etc.
Very often a colligationally or collocationally conditioned meaning is realized only in one or two set-phrases. It is then said to be ‘phraseologically bound’. A case in point is the verb to love in the expression ‘d love to, for example, I’d love to meet them; I’d love to come with you; I’d love to help them.
This approach to the semantics of the word is perfectly reliable because it is based on linguistic criteria which signal all the modifications of the semantic core of the word. Our discussion of different kinds of lexical meaning would not be complete if we did not mention one more meaning which so far has not received all the attention it deserves. It has become increasingly obvious that in the majority of cases the meaning of a word cannot be specified and explained with reference only to objective reality and its reflection in human consciousness. In every language there exists a considerable number of words which lend themselves to semantic analysis only against the backdrop of other words. Thus, for example, the meaning of words like cop,egghead, to peeve, etc. can be properly understood and analysed only against the background of words like policeman, theorist, to vex, etc. This is what academician V.V.Vinogradov called ‘expressive-synonymic meaning’.
We must now turn to another aspect of the problem. In the previous chapters very much attention has been paid to the analysis of prosodic peculiarities of the word as a linguistic unit. Let us see whether the method of lexicological phonetics, the method based on the unity of content and form, can yield any fruitful results when applied in the sphere of semantic investigation.
The starting point for the present part of the present book is the fact that language ‘stretches out’ its units to cover new facts and phenomena of objective reality. The speaker observes certain similarities between objects of extralinguistic reality and attempts to use a word metaphorically to cope with the particular requirements of the moment. Even a cursory glance reveals that expressive-emotional-evaluative overtones affect the prosodic arrangement of words. Thus, for example:
I. delicate 1 – ‘fine exquisite’; delicate 2 – ‘requiring careful treatment or skilful handling’:
This, however, is not merely a theoretical question, but one that is of the greatest practical significance to the compiler of dictionaries. How do we know that this or that word is polysemantic and what are the criteria used to arrive at the final decision? And how does a lexicographer know that he (or she) is dealing with different meanings of the same word and not different words (homonyms)?
To demonstrate the complexity of the problem let us turn to the dictionary entries of the adjective fine in different dictionaries. Even a cursory glance reveals that the meaning of the adjective in question is differently interpreted in three learner’s dictionaries of the same size: The «Cambridge International Dictionary of English» (CUP, 1995) regis-ters four meanings of fine:
1. satisfactory,
2. good,
3. thin,
4. sunny.
The «Harrap’s Essential English Dictionary» (Chambers Harrap Pub-lishers, 1995) singles out eight meanings of the adjective in question:
1. You describe something as fine if you think it is splendid or excellent.
2. Fine articles are of high quality.
3. The weather is fine when it is not raining.
4. You say you are fine when you are well.
5. You say something is fine if it is OK, satisfactory, or acceptable.
6. Threads that are fine are thin and narrow.
7. Fine particles are very small.
8. Fine means very precise, exact, slight or subtle.
The «Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English» describes twelve meanings of the same adjective:
1. very good, of high quality,
2. very well, in good health,
3. acceptable, satisfactory,
4. attractive,
5. delicate,
6. (of weather) bright, not raining,
7. very thin,
8. difficult to see or describe,
9. with small grains,
10. (of person) that you have a lot of respect for,
11. (of words, speeches) sounding important and impressive but unlikely to have any effect,
12. (of metals) containing only a particular metal and no other substances that reduce the quality.
Now, why the discrepancy? First, because the word is a global lexical unit, and all the attempts at splitting it up, one way or another, are not borne out by readily observable ‘overt’ facts, and, second, because we are still not very clear about the methodology of semantic analysis. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the method of semantic analysis remains very problematic. Lexical semasiology remains one of the most controversial areas in spite of the number of papers and books on the subject being very considerable.
In the preceding chapter the attempt to base all analysis of lexical meaning on the idea of semantic components has already been mentioned. The conclusion we reached was that so far the results have left much to be desired as far as actual lexicographic work is concerned. The methods based on logical approach to lexis have been so unproductive because very little attention was given to the methods actually used by Russian lexicographers and lexicologists.
The fundamental approach to the study and description of lexical meaning was elaborated by V. V. Vinogradov. He analysed the overall meaning of a word in terms of: nominative, nominative-derivative, colligationally and collocationally conditioned and phraseologically bound meanings.
The nominative meaning denotes the objects of extralinguistic reality in direct and straightforward way, reflecting their actual relations. Thus, for example: to carry whose nominative meaning is ‘to support the weight of and move from place to place’ normally combines with nouns like a box, a chair, a heavy stone, a baby, etc., sweet — ‘tasting like sugar or honey’ – with candy, milk, jam, cake, tea, coffee, etc.
The nominative meaning is the basic of all the other meanings of the word. It is said to be ‘free’ because no linguistic constraints are imposed on its realizations. The word may have several ‘free’ meanings but they all depend on the nominative one: that is why they are called ‘nominative-derivative’, for example: sweet in the nominative-derivative meaning of ‘pleasant, attractive’ goes with face, voice, singer, little boy, temper, etc.
Side by side with the ‘free’ meanings of the word there are linguistically conditioned (or ‘bound’) meanings which can be of two kinds: colligationally conditioned and collocationally conditioned. The former can be illustrated by the uses of the verb to keep. When used with nouns like hens, bees, pigs, etc. the verb means ‘own or manage especially for profit’. The verb to keep has an altogether different meaning, namely ‘continue doing something’ when it is used with a gerund, for example: Keep smiling! Why does she keep giggling? etc.
The colligationally conditioned meaning is determined by the morpho-syntactic combinability of the word, while the collocationally conditioned meaning depends on its lexical-phraseological ties. One of the collocationally conditioned meanings of the adjective heavy is ‘more than usual size’; it is realized in speech when heavy is brought together with words like crops, pain, blow, etc.
Very often a colligationally or collocationally conditioned meaning is realized only in one or two set-phrases. It is then said to be ‘phraseologically bound’. A case in point is the verb to love in the expression ‘d love to, for example, I’d love to meet them; I’d love to come with you; I’d love to help them.
This approach to the semantics of the word is perfectly reliable because it is based on linguistic criteria which signal all the modifications of the semantic core of the word. Our discussion of different kinds of lexical meaning would not be complete if we did not mention one more meaning which so far has not received all the attention it deserves. It has become increasingly obvious that in the majority of cases the meaning of a word cannot be specified and explained with reference only to objective reality and its reflection in human consciousness. In every language there exists a considerable number of words which lend themselves to semantic analysis only against the backdrop of other words. Thus, for example, the meaning of words like cop,egghead, to peeve, etc. can be properly understood and analysed only against the background of words like policeman, theorist, to vex, etc. This is what academician V.V.Vinogradov called ‘expressive-synonymic meaning’.
We must now turn to another aspect of the problem. In the previous chapters very much attention has been paid to the analysis of prosodic peculiarities of the word as a linguistic unit. Let us see whether the method of lexicological phonetics, the method based on the unity of content and form, can yield any fruitful results when applied in the sphere of semantic investigation.
The starting point for the present part of the present book is the fact that language ‘stretches out’ its units to cover new facts and phenomena of objective reality. The speaker observes certain similarities between objects of extralinguistic reality and attempts to use a word metaphorically to cope with the particular requirements of the moment. Even a cursory glance reveals that expressive-emotional-evaluative overtones affect the prosodic arrangement of words. Thus, for example:
I. delicate 1 – ‘fine exquisite’; delicate 2 – ‘requiring careful treatment or skilful handling’:
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