III. Structure of Lexical Meaning

Word meaning is not homogeneous but is made of various components. The content plane of words includes denotative and connotative meanings. The denotative meaning exists by virtue of what the word refers to. Connotation is the pragmatic communicative value the word receives by virtue of where, when, how, by whom, for what purpose, in what contexts it is or may be used.

Denotative or referential meaning, the basic type of lexical meaning, is the word‘s reference to the object. This reference may be specific (The dog is trained) or generic (It‘s not a dog). ( Also individual and general). On that basis denotative meaning is subdivided into 2 types - demonstrative and significative. The denotative meaning may be signifiсative, if the referent is a concept, or demоnstrative, if it is an individual object

The type of denotative meaning varies in different groups of words.

- The meaning of situational words is relative – it depends on the situation and context: here, son, my, this, now. (dem. meaning)

Connotative meaning includes various additional meanings. As a rule, connotation co-exists with denotation. However, sometimes it comes to the fore and weakens the word‘s denotative meaning. I.V. Arnold suggests differentiating between emotional, evaluative, intensifying and expressive components of it

Emotional meaning is association of the word with a certain emotion. For example, the semantic structure of the verb to glare includes the denotative component ‘ to look’ and the connotative component ‘ angrily’ (COD). Such meaning is also present in interjections (wow, ouch), words with diminutive suffixes (daddy).

Evaluative meaning expresses positive or negative attitude of the speaker to what is said without actually naming the attitude. If we compare three synonymic adjectives alone, lonely and solitary we will observe that their denotative meaning is quite similar. What makes the difference is that alone doesn’t possess any emotive connotation while lonely and solitary do. Sometimes both emotional and evaluative meaning are considered together, as one type of connotative meaning – emotive.

Expressive, or Intensifying meaning is a connotation denoting the measure of size or strength of certain qualities of the object. Such words as intensifiers and downtoners don’t have referential meaning at all, it is ousted by the intensifying component: terribly, a bit.

Stylistic meaning Words also may have a certain stylistic value. The element of meaning referring this or that word to the situation of communication or functional style in which it is typically used is called its stylistic value. This kind of connotation easily show itself in comparison of synonyms. For example, the three words child – kid – infant similar in their denotative meaning are different in their stylistic value. Kid is an informal word, while infant is formal.

Finally, we should mention that lexical meaning - BOTH denotative and connotative components of it – can be either usual (узуальное значение, закрепившееся в языке) or occasional (окказиональные значения), dependable on the context. Cf.:

I saw a big furry animal in the yard.

By the end of this talk I had a much less furry sense of self-identification (Salinger).

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