Meaning and context

One of the most important “drawbacks” of polysemantic words is that there is a chance of misunderstanding when a word is used in a certain meaning but accepted by a listener or reader in another:

C u s t o m e r. I would like a book, please.

B o o k s e l l e r. Something light?

C. That doesn’t matter. I have my car with me.

In this conversation the customer is honestly misled by the polysemy of the adjective light taking it in the literal sense whereas the bookseller uses the word in its figurative meaning “not serious; entertaining”.

It is common knowledge that context is a powerful prevention against any misunderstanding of meanings. For instance, the adjective dull, if used out of context, would mean different things to different people. It is only in combination with other words that it reveals its actual meaning: a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade.

7. Current research in semantics is largely based on the assumption that one of the more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is by studying the word’s linear relationships with other words in typical contexts, i.e. its combinability or collocations.

Scholars have established that the semantics of words characterized by common occurrences (i.e. words which regularly appear in common contexts) are correlated and, therefore, one of the words within such a pair can be studied through the other.

For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.), b) bright metal (gold, jewels, etc.), c) bright student (pupil, boy, etc.) and some others. These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, c) capable.

This leads us to the conclusion that context is a good and reliable key to the meaning of the word. Yet, even the jokes given above show how misleading this key can prove in some cases. Here we are faced with two dangers. The first is that of sheer misunderstanding, when the speaker means one thing and the listener takes the word in its other meaning. The second danger is to see a different meaning in every new set of combinations.

The task of distinguishing between the different meanings of a word and the different variations of combinability (or, in a traditional terminology, different usages of the word) is a question of singling out the different denotations within the semantic structure of the word.

Cf.: 1) a sad woman

2) a sad voice

3) a sad story

4) a sad scoundrel (= an incorrigible scoundrel – неисправимый мерзавец)

5) a sad night (= a dark, black night, arch. poet.)

How many meanings of sad can you identify in these contexts? The first three contexts have the common denotation of sorrow whereas in the fourth and fifth contexts the denotations are different. So, in these five contexts we can identify three meanings of sad.

All this leads us to the conclusion that context is not the ultimate criterion for meaning and it should be used in combination with other criteria. Nowadays, different methods of componential analysis are widely used in semantic research: transformational analysis, distributional analysis. Yet, contextual analysis remains one of the main investigative methods for determining the semantic structure of a word.

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