3. Word-Meaning and Motivation

Semantics is the study of word meanings – dealing with the relationship between symbols (words, signs, etc.) and what they refer to (called “referents”) – and of behaviour in reaction to non-verbal symbols and verbal symbols (words).

The relationships between referent (object, etc. denoted by the word) (референт – объект действительности), concept (значение слова – отражение в мозгу человека объекта, когда устанавливается связь между лингвистической формой и содержанием), and word are traditionally represented by Ogden-Richards Triangle. By the “symbol or sound-form” here is meant the word; thought or reference is “concept”. The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate relation between word and referent; it is established only through the concept.

Значение слова – это отражение в мозгу человека объекта, когда устанавливается связь между лингвистической формой и содержанием. Every word has two aspects: the outer aspect (its sound form) and the inner aspect (its meaning). The lexical meaning of a word is the realization of a notion by means of a definite language system. A word is a language unit, while a notion is a unit of thinking. A notion denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in their essential features and relations. Word meaning may be represented as a model (a triangle). The three components of the model are: referent, concept and linguistic form (sign). Linguistic form is a word, referent – a thing, concept – meaning. The linguistic form is connected with the concept. Through this concept with an object of reality which is the referent. The dotted line means that there is no direct connection between the linguistic form (word) and referent: it is established only through the concept. On the other hand, when we hear a spoken word or read a printed word the corresponding concept springs into mind. A concept (i.e. mental phenomenon) is converted into a word (i.e. linguistic phenomenon) and the reverse process by which a heard or a printed word is converted into a mental picture.

So, word meaning is the reverberation in the human mind object of reality which becomes a fact of language when a constant connection is established between this reverberation and a certain linguistic form.

How to define lexical meaning? For example, a) he goes, sleeps, cries; b) go, goes, went, going. In the first example grammatical meaning is the same. In the second example lexical meaning is the same, i.e. the meaning which we find in all the forms of the word (the meaning of motion).

There are cases when we can observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning. There are three types of motivation: a) phonetic, b) morphological, c) semantic.

Phonetic motivation when there is a certain similarity between the sounds of a word and the sounds referred to by the meaning of a word, (звукоподражательные слова: bang, whistle, ding-dong, buzz, cuckoo, splash).

Morphological motivation when it is possible to guess the meaning of a word from its parts (e.g. the word endless). It is the relationship between morphemic structure and meaning. The main criterion in morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes. All one-morpheme words, (e.g. sing, tell, eat) are by definition non-motivated. In words composed of more than one morpheme the carrier of the word-meaning is the combined meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning of the structural pattern of the word. The words singer, rewrite, eatable are motivated and both the lexical meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning of the pattern are transparent. It should be noted that the degree of motivation may be different. Between the complete motivation and lack of motivation, there exist various grades of partial motivation. The word endless, e.g., is completely motivated as both the lexical meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning of the pattern is perfectly transparent. The word cranberry is partially motivated because of the absence of the lexical meaning in the morpheme cran-.

Semantic motivation is based on the coexistence of direct and figurative meaning of the same word, e.g. foot- a lower part of smth; part of a body; (the foot of the mountain).