Semasiology

By definition Lexicology deals with words, word-forming morphemes (derivational affixes) and word-groups or phrases. All these linguistic units may be said to have meaning of some kind: they are all significant and therefore must be investigated both as to form and meaning. The branch of lexicology that is devoted to the study of meaning is known as Semasiology. Semasiology from Greek word sēmasia (“signification”) + logos (“account”).The branch of lexicology which is so called semanticssemiotics, semology, the philosophical and scientific study of meaning. It is difficult to formulate a distinct definition for each of these terms because their use largely overlaps in the literature despite individual preferences. Semantics is a relatively new field of study, and its originators, often working independently of one another, felt the need to coin a new name for the new discipline; hence the variety of terms denoting the same subject. The word semantics has ultimately prevailed as a name for the doctrine of meaning, in particular, of linguistic meaning. Semiotics is still used, however, to denote a broader field: the study of sign- using behaviour in general. There are three main categories of definitions of meaning, which may be referred to as referential meaning, functional(contextual) meaning and operational meaning.

Referential meaning presupposes the perception of certain physical entities (objects, marks, sounds, and so on) that leads an intelligent being to the thought (concept –the result of abstraction and generalization, the category of human cognition) of another thing with some regularity and it’s designation(обозначение) naming. For example, the sight of smoke evokes the idea of fire, footprints on the sand makes one think of the man who must have passed by. The smoke and the footprints are thus signs of something else. They are natural signs, in as much as the connection between the sign and the thing signified is a causal (причинная) link, established by nature and learned from experience.

Thus we distinguish between the referent - smoke, footprints, the concept, and the sound form- or (sound clusters).

The referential distinctions of meaning are usually criticized as one and the same object can be denoted by more than one word (linguistic sign) For example the referent dog can be denoted by animal, pet, puppy, bowwow(child lexicon) etc. All these words have the same referent but different meaning. As to the concept it is also the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same period of it’s historical development. The meanings of words however are different in different languages/Ex. The concepts expressed by one and the same word in Russian

дом - жилое здание, место, где живут люди (Building for human habitation HOUSE)

дом- свое жилье, семья, люди живущие вместе(fixed residence of family HOME)

One and the same meaning(concept) is expressed by different sound forms (sound clusters) in different languages cat (kæt) кошка (ko S ka)

The functional approach to meaning maintains that the meaning of a word can be studied only through it’s relation to other words. According to the given approach the meaning of the words to manage and management are different because these words function in speech differently

To manage can be followed by a noun(управлять a farm, a factory), management may be followed by preposition + noun (management of state affair- управление гос.делами) or preceded by an adjective (effective management эфф. руководство) The position of a word to other words is known as distribution of a word. (the distribution of to manage and management is different as they belong to different classes of words and their meanings are different)

The same is true of different meanings of one and the same word. We can clearly observe it when analyzing the function of a word in linguistic context s – the term is defined as a minimum stretch of speech.

For ex. the verb to go in different contexts has different meanings to go (идти) have a go at(попытаться ч-то сделать), to go down (снизить) a bad go of flu (тяжелый приступ гриппа).

This approach is also known as contextual as it’s based on analysis of different contexts.

Operational (information-oriented) meaning is connected with it’s role in the process of communication. It regards words in action and how meaning works. This approach began to take it’s shape with the growing interest of linguists in the communicative aspect of language. (capacity of human beings to use the language appropriately). The problem with this approach is that it is more applicable to sentences that to words/ where we can observe 2 layers in the information conveyed the direct meaning and additional information (implication).

Helen came at 9 o’clock besides the direct meaning may imply that (Helen was 2 hours late, she came though didn’t want to, was punctual as usual. Thus we distinguish between the direct information conveyed by the units constituting the sentence(may be referred as meaning) and additional information(which is called sense).

It should be pointed out that just as lexicology is beginning to absorb a major part of the efforts of linguistic scientists semasiology is coming to the fore as the central problem of linguistic investigation of all levels of language structure. It is suggested that semasiology has for its subject - matter not only the study of lexicon, but also of morphology, syntax and sentential semantics. Words, however, play such a crucial part in the structure of language that when we speak of semasiology without any qualification, we usually refer to the study of word-meaning proper, although it is in fact very common to explore the semantics of other elements, such as suffixes, prefixes, etc.

Meaning is one of the most controversial terms in the theory of language. At first sight the understanding of this term seems to present no difficulty at all — it is freely used in teaching, interpreting and translation. The scientific definition of meaning however just as the definition of some other basic linguistic terms, such as word. sentence, etc., has been the issue of interminable discussions. Since there is no universally accepted definition of meaning ⁴ we shall confine ourselves to a brief survey of the problem as it is viewed in modern linguistics both in our country and elsewhere.

WORD-MEANING

It is more or less universally recognised that word-meaning is not homogeneous but is made up of various components the combination and the interrelation of which determine to a great extent the inner facet of the word. These components are usually described as types of meaning. The two main types of meaning that are readily observed are the grammatical and the lexical meanings to be found in words and word-forms.

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