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Types of Meaning




Functional or Contextual Definitions of Meaning

The functional approach to meaning maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit can be studied only through its relation to other linguistic units. According to the given approach the meanings of the words to move and movement are different because these words function in speech differently, i.e. occupy different positions in relation to other words. To move can be followed by a noun (to move a chair) and preceded by a pronoun (we move). Movement may be followed by a preposition (movement of a car) and preceded by an adjective (slow movement). The position of a word in relation to other words is called distributionof the word. As the distribution of the words to move and movement is different 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. Analyzing the function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we conclude that meanings are different. For example, we can observe the difference of meanings of the verb to take if we examine its functions in different linguistic contexts, to take a seat (“to sit down”) as opposed to take to smb. (“to begin to like someone”). The term “context” is defined as the minimum stretch of speech necessary and sufficient to determine which of the possible meanings of a polysemantic word is used.

 

The operational or information-oriented definitions of meaning are centered on defining meaning through its role in the process of communication. Thus, this approach studies words in action and is more interested in how meaning works than in what it is. The information-oriented approach began to take shape with the growing interest of linguistics in the communicative aspect of the language when the object of study was shifted to relations between the language we use and the situations whithin which it is used, thus exploring the capacity of human beings to use the language appropriately.

Word-meaning is not homogeneous. It is made up of various components. These components are described as types of meaning. The two main types of meaning are the grammatical and the lexical meaning.

The grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationship between words. Grammatical meaning is the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, as, for example, the tense meaning in the word-forms of the verbs: asked, thought, walked; the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns: girl’s, boy’s, night’s; the meaning of plurality which is found in the word-forms of nouns: joys, tables, places.

The lexical meaning of the word is the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions. The word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person, number, but in each form they have one and the same semantic component denoting “the process of movement”.

Both the lexical and grammatical meanings make up the word-meaning as neither can exist without the other. That can be observed in the semantic analysis of correlated words in different languages. The Russian word сведения is not semantically identical with the English equivalent information because unlike the Russian сведения the English word does not possess the grammatical meaning of plurality which is part of the semantic structure of the Russian word.

In some parts of speech the prevailing component is the grammatical type of meaning. For example, in the verb to be the grammatical meaning of a linking element prevails: He is a teacher.




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