The semantic structure of the word

As it has been said, most English words possess more than one meaning, and the semantic structure of such words presents a rather complicated phenomenon.

Firstly, the semantic structure of the word must be analyzed on the definitional level, and here the semantic structure is treated as a system of meanings, where there is nearly always one, primary meaning holding a kind of dominance, conveying the concept in the most general way, whereas the others are associated with special circumstances, aspects and instances of the same phenomenon. This primary meaning, generally referred to as the main meaning, is the centre of the semantic structure of the word holding it together. It is usually through the main meaning that the secondary, or derived meanings are associated with one another.

For example, the word “ bar ” has the main meaning of “any kind of barrier to prevent people from passing”; the derived meanings of “the profession of barrister, lawyer” and “a room where drinks are served to customers” are associated with each other only through the main meaning.

Thus the question arises: what are the relations between different meanings of polysemantic words that hold them together within the same inner structure of the word? These relations are based on different conceptual ties, from which four types can be singled out:

1) implicational, or metonymic ties which represent cognitive or logical analogies of objective reality, e.g. in the word “tongue” the main meaning is of an organ of speech, and the secondary one “the ability to speak a language” was derived on the analogy, that “tongue is used as a tool to produce sounds of the language”, cf. “Have you lost your tongue?” or “mother tongue” which means one’s native language.

A special group here is conversive ties, that base on real associations, that means when there are double characteristics of something, then in actual speech or discourse one of them is crossed out.

For example, the notion of sadness includes both cause and consequence, but in real discourse only one of them is realized, cf. “We received sad news”(cause) and “Why is he so sad?” (consequence), or “sad news” vs. “a sad boy”, or in the sentence “How does the book sell?” “sell” implies both “sell and buy”;

2) classifying ties are based on the possibility of referring several concepts to one and the same class or within different classes. If connection is found within one and the same class, we can speak of hyper-hyponymic ties. A hyperonym stands for a more general meaning, a hyponym – for a more special meaning.

For example, on the level of genus and species the word “man” can denote: “a human being of male sex”, which is a hyperonym and “a sailor on board a ship”, or “a waiter at a restaurant”, which are hyponyms.

3) Another special group of conceptual ties is similative, or metaphoric ties, we can speak about them when a word conveying several concepts refers the meaning to two different classes on the basis of similarity between them. For example, “a person has two legs” and “a table is a board which stands on four legs”, so the legs of a person are compared to the legs of a piece of furniture; or “the mouth of a cave” and “a person’s mouth”, the comparison is based on the shape of the hole; or in the exclamatory sentence “You are a cat!”, the word “cat” realizes its derived meaning of “a sly person” which is connected with the main meaning “a domestic animal” by means of similative ties. Besides, similative ties comprise several groups: epithets, similes, hyperboles and personification.

4) equanymic ties are not only the conceptual ties of reality but both linguistic ties within the meaning and conceptual ties. We can speak about equanymic ties when two meanings are connected in one and the same word on the basis of equality which is supposed by some linguistic context.

For example, the plural of “the goats” in the sentence “Look! The goats are grazing in the meadow over there” includes both feminine and masculine gender, endowing the word by an equanymic status, and to differentiate between the genders we must specify them as “he-goat” or “she-goat”.

There are numerous examples of this kind in the English language: both he and she can be “chairman, policeman, sportsman” etc. Such words as “shoes, scissors” possess the meaning of singularity and plurality, which if necessary must be specified by “a pair of”’ or “the”.

Such verb as “to move” possesses the meanings of “to move from place to place” and “to touch a person’s feelings”, thus only the extra-linguistic context can help to distinguish between the two meanings, which are connected by both the linguistic ties within the meanings and the extra-linguistic ties between the two different concepts. An example here is the sentence “It was a moving picture”, that may mean either “It was a film” or “It was the film that touched my feelings” depending on the circumstances of discourse.

Secondly, each separate meaning of a polysemantic word may be represented as sets of semantic components (denotational, connotational and pragmatic), which are only hypothetical elements of meaning and are not part of the vocabulary of the language itself, but rather theoretical elements postulated in order to describe the semantic relations between the lexical elements of a given language. The scheme of the semantic structure of most words shows that the latter is not a mere system of meanings, for each separate meaning is subject to further subdivision to the level of denotative, connotative and pragmatic components.

For example, the word “hand” (noun) at the level of definitional analysis is composed of at least twenty-two meanings, ranging from “part of the human arm beyond the wrist” to “applause by clapping” and “a piece of pork” or “a source of information” as in “news heard at second hand” etc. which have been derived throughout the long history of the language development on the basis of different associations which gave rise to the appearance of secondary meanings. All these different meanings are held together within the semantic structure of the same word due to the conceptual ties between them, which reflect implicational, classifying or equanymic relations existing between the meanings. At the same time, each separate meaning of the word “hand” can be subjected to transformational analysis which allows to investigate the structure of the word at a deeper level, the level of semantic components, such as denotation, different types of connotation and pragmatic components. Thus, the secondary meaning of the word “hand”, that of “a bunch of bananas, of tobacco” possesses the denotation of “a bunch” (связка, пучок) which is related to the main meaning by classifying (metaphoric) ties based on the basis of similarity, for bananas in a bunch are held together like fingers of a hand; it possesses neither of the above-mentioned types of connotations, but as to the pragmatic aspect, it is conspicuous of the commercial register of speech. The derived meaning of the word “hand”, that of “to give help” (to lend, to give a hand) has the denotation of “aid, assistance”, it is related to the main meaning by means of implicational (metonymic) ties based on logical analogies of objective reality, for help or assistance in manual work can be given with hands; it possesses positive evaluative connotation and as for the pragmatic aspect, it is characteristic of an oral discourse under the non-formal circumstances. Some of the derived meanings of the word “hand” encode pragmatic information of the space and speech register, e.g. “to give a performer a good hand” – the space location is a theatre or a concert hall, as “hand” here means applause; the register is informal.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-05