Meaning. Different approaches to the problem

Word as a language unit.

Language consists of units which are interrelated. These units are: phoneme, morpheme, word and sentence. Each of them has some functions. Phoneme has a function of distinction one sound from another, it’s a distinctive unit. Morpheme is the smallest significant unit of the language, cause it has the meaning. Word has nominative function, it’s the smallest nominative unit. Sentence is the smallest communicative unit of the language.

Words are the main unit of language system. They are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of syntax. Word is two-faced unit, it consists of morphemes which have sound forms and written forms of sound expression.

In the 17^th century there was a great discovery in linguistics. Thomas Hobbs found out that a word possesses indivisibility. He proposed to compare two words of different parts of speech: “ alive ” and “ a live ”. He said that the word “ a live ” consists of two words and some other words can be added, word “ alive ” is indivisible. In the 18^th century John Lines, who was agree with Hobbs, added one more feature of the word – its positional mobility. E.g. the boys walked slowly. He proposed to write it with dashes to indicate morphemes: the-boy-s-walk-ed-slow-ly. He proved that a word possesses indivisibility and positional mobility. But as a word, not as morphemes: we can’t put it like this: walk-ly-the-s-boy-slow-ed. Other linguist Neilet took into account all the theories and stated that the word possesses semantic integrity. In a word group each word has its own meaning. But one phraseological unit – one meaning: to pull one’s legs – to deceive. He next his discover – word can function alone.

So, we can define word as the smallest nominative unit of the language which can be characterized by morphological indevisibility, functioning alone, positional mobility and semantic integrity.

This notion is one of the most controvertial i the lingustics. More or less meaning can be desribed as a component of word through which concept is communicated.

Approaches. a) Linguistic triangle was first proposed by the mathematician Gotlib Gill. Then this idea was adopted, and now it’s called Richard and Ogden Triangle.

It’s a referential approach to the problem, cause the top is devoted to the concept/notion (left angle – sound form/symbol; right angle – referent) Referent is a thing of reality: table (drawn) – тэйбл – транскрипция. This theory has lots of rivals: they don’t understand the system, the referent may be the same as notion. Each national language may have equal sound forms, but the meaning of words is different: cot – звучит, как “кот”, но означает “колыбель”. b) Functional approach is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works. The word possesses meaning only in the sentence: book (книга) – I booked two tickets. It has one lexical meaning. But we must take into accoint both approaches, cause they are both right and correspond in dialectical meaning.

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