Types of word meaning

If we can observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning, we say that this word is motivated. Consequently words such as singer, rewrite, eatable,etc., are described as motivated. If the connection between the structure of the lexical unit and itsmeaning is completely arbitrary and conventional, we speak ofnon-motivated or idiomatic words, e.g. mat

ter, repeat.

It should be noted in passing that morphological motivation is “relative”, i.e. the degree of motivation may be different. Between the extremes of 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 cranberryisonly partially motivated because of the absence of the lexical meaning in the morpheme cran-.

One more point should be noted in connection with the problem in question. A synchronic approach to morphological motivation presupposes historical changeability of structural patterns and the ensuing degree of motivation. Some English place-names may serve as an illustration. Such place-names as Newtownsand Wildwoodsare lexically and structurally motivated and may be easily analysed into component morphemes. Other place-names, e.g. Essex, Norfolk, Sutton,are non-motivated. To the average English speaker these names are non-analysable lexical units like singor tell.However, upon examination the student of language history will perceive their components to be East+Saxon, North+Folk and South+Townwhich shows that in earlier days they .were just as completely motivated as Newtownsor Wildwoodsare in Modern English.

Motivation is usually thought of as proceeding from form or structure to meaning. Morphological motivation as discussed above implies a direct connection between the morphological structure of the word and its meaning. Some linguists, however, argue that words can be motivated in more than one way and suggest another type of motivation which may be described as a direct connection between the phonetical structure of the word and its meaning. It is argued that speech sounds may suggest spatial and visual dimensions, shape, size, etc. Experiments carried out by a group of linguists showed that back open vowels are suggestive of big size, heavy weight, dark colour, etc. The experiments were repeated many times and the results were always the same. Native speakers of English were asked to listen to pairs of antonyms from an unfamiliar (or non-existent) language unrelated to English, e.g. ching – chungand then to try to find the English equivalents, e.g. light – heavy, big – small,etc.), which foreign word translates which English word. About 90 per cent of English speakers felt that chingis the equivalent of the English light(small) and chungof its antonym heavy(large).

It is also pointed out that this type of phonetical motivation may be observed in the phonemic structure of some newly coined words. For example, the small transmitter that specialises in high frequencies is called ‘a tweeter’, the transmitter for low frequences ‘a woofer’.

Another type of phonetical motivation is represented by such words as swish, sizzle, boom, splash,etc. These words may be defined as phonetically motivated because the soundclusters [swi∫, sizl, bum, splæ∫] are a direct imitation of the sounds these words denote. It is also suggested that sounds themselves may be emotionally expressive which accounts for the phonetical motivation in certain words. Initial [f] and [p], e.g., are felt as expressing scorn, contempt, disapproval or disgust which can be illustrated by the words pooh! fie! fiddle-sticks, flim-flamand the like. The sound-cluster [iŋ] is imitative of sound or swift movement as can be seen in words ring, sing, swing, fling, etc. Thus, phonetically such words may be considered motivated.

This hypothesis seems to require verification. This of course is not to deny that there are some words which involve phonetical symbolism: these are the onomatopoeic, imitative or echoic words such as the English cuckoo, splashand whisper: And even these are not completely motivated but seem to be conventional to quite a large extent (cf. кукареку and cock-a-doodle-doo). In any case words like these constitute only a small and untypical minority in the language. As to symbolic value of certain sounds, this too is disproved by the fact that identical sounds and sound-clusters may be found in words of widely different meaning, e.g. initial [p] and [f], are found in words expressing contempt and disapproval (fie, pooh)and also in such words as ploughs fine,and others. The sound-cluster [in] which is supposed to be imitative of sound or swift movement (ring, swing)is also observed in semantically different words, e.g. thing, king,and others.

The term motivation is also used by a number of linguists to denote the relationship between the central and the coexisting meaning or meanings of a word which are understood as a metaphorical extension of the central meaning. Metaphorical extension may be viewed as generalisation of the denotational meaning of a word permitting it to include new referents which are in some way like the original class of referents. Similarity of various aspects and/or functions of different classes of referents may account for the semantic motivation of a number of minor meanings. For example, a woman who has given birth is called a mother;by extension, any act that gives birth is associated with being a mother, e.g.in Necessity is the mother of invention.The same principle can be observed in other meanings: a mother looks after a child, so that we can say She became a mother to her orphan nephew,or Romulus and Remus were supposedly mothered by a wolf.Such metaphoric extension may be observed in the so-called trite metaphors, such as burn with anger, break smb’s heart, jump at a chance,etc.

Ifmetaphorical extension is observed in the relationship of the central and a minor word meaning it is often observed in the relationship between its synonymic or antonymic meanings. Thus, a few years ago the phrases a meeting at the summit, a summit meeting appeared in the newspapers.

Cartoonists portrayed the participants of such summit meetings sitting on mountain tops. Now when lesser diplomats confer the talks are called foothill meetings.Inthis way both summitand its antonym foothillundergo the process of metaphorical extension.

Chapter 4. Word meaning and meaning in morphemes

In modern linguistics it is more or less universally recognised that the smallest two-facet language unit possessing both sound-form and meaning is the morpheme. Yet, whereas the phono-morphological structure of language has been subjected to a thorough linguistic analysis, the problem of types of meaning and semantic peculiarities of morphemes has not been properly investigated. A few points of interest, however, may be mentioned in connection with some recent observations in “this field.

 Скачать реферат