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 When used in actual speech the word undergoes certain modification & functions in one of its forms . The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called a paradigm . The lexical meaning of a word is the same throughout the paradigm . The grammatical meaning varies from one form to another . Therefore when we speak on any word as used in actual speech we use the term “word” conventionally because what is manifested in the utterances is not a word as a whole but one of its forms which is identified as belonging to the definite paradigm . Words as a whole are to be found in the dictionary (showing the paradigm  n – noun , v – verb , etc).

Like words-forms variants of words are identified in the process of communication as making up one & the same word . Thus , within the language system the word exists as a system & unity of all its forms & variants .

Statistical analysis .

 

Statistical linguistics is nowadays generally recognized as the one of the major branches of linguistics . Statistical inquiries have considerable importance because of their relevance to certain problems of communication engineering & information theory . Statistical approach proved essential in the selection of vocabulary items of a foreign language for teaching purposes . Very few people know more than 10% of the words in their mother tongue . It follows that if we do not wish to waste time on committing to memorize vocabulary items which are never likely to be useful to the learner we have to select only lexical units that are commonly used by a native speaker .

Out of approximately 500 000 words listed in Oxford English dictionary the active vocabulary of an educated Englishman comprises no more than 30 000 words & of these 4 000 - 5 000 are presumed to be amplisufficient for the daily needs of an average member of the English speech community. Thus , it is evident that the problem of selection of teaching vocabulary is of vital importance . Statistical techniques have been successfully applied in the analysis of various linguistic phenomena . Different structural types of words , affixes , the vocabularies of great writers & poets & even in the study of some problems of Historical Lexicology .

Statistical regularities can be observed only if the phenomena under analysis are sufficiently numerous . Thus , the first requirement of any statistic investigation is the size of the sample . It is known that comparatively small group of words makes up the bulk of any text . It was found that approximately 1300 – 1500 most frequent words make up 85% of all words occurring in the text . If however we analyze a sample of 60 words it is hard to predict the number of occurrences of most frequent words .

e. g. If we take the word “room” we can find some meanings of the word : 1) “room”- denoting “space” as in “take less room , not enough room to do smth.”; 2) part of a house as in “sitting-room” ; 3) used in plural = lodgings as in “to get rooms”. Statistical analysis shows that most frequently the word is used in its second meaning – 83% of all occurrences of the word in different texts , 12% of all takes its first meaning – “space”, & only 2% takes the third meaning of the word .


Immediate constituents analysis .



The theory of Immediate Constituents was originally elaborated as an attempt to determine the ways in which lexical units are relevantly related to one another . It was discovered that combinations of units are usually structured into hierarchial sets of binary constructions .

e. g. In the word-group “ a black dress in severe style “ we do not relate the indefinite article “a” to adjective “black” , “black” to “dress” , “dress” to “in” , “in” to “severe” , “severe” to “style” .We set up a structure which may be represented as “a black dress” & “in severe style”.

Thus , the fundamental aim of immediate constituents analysis is to segment a set of lexical units into two maximally independent sequences & these maximally independent sequences are called immediate constituents . The further segmentation of immediate constituents results in ultimate  constituents , which means that further segmentation is impossible for no meaning can be found .

e. g. The ultimate constituents of the phrase given are “a” ,”black” ,    “dress” , “ in” , “severe” , “style” .

This method of analysis is extremely fruitful in discovering the derivational structure of words .

 

Distributional analysis .

Distributional analysis in its various forms is commonly used nowadays. By the term “distribution” we understand the occurrence of a lexical unit relative to another lexical units of the same levels : words to words , morpheme to morphemes . In other words , by this term we understand the position which lexical unit occupies or may occupy in the text or in the flow of speech . It is observed that a certain component of the word-meaning is described when the word is identified distributionally .

e. g. In the sentence

The boy__________ home .

  the missing word is easily identified as a verb . It may be “came , ran , went , goes” , but not as an adverb or a noun , or an adjective .

Thus , we see that the component of meaning that is distributionally identified is actually the part-of-speech meaning . It is also observed that in a number of cases words have different lexical meanings in different distributional patterns .

e. g. The verb “to treat” has different lexical meanings in “to treat smbd kindly” & “to treat smbd to ice-cream” .

The interdependence of distribution & meaning can be also observed at the level of word-groups .

e. g. It is only the distribution of completely identical lexical units but arranged on the reverse that differentiates the meaning – water tap & tap water .























Transformational analysis .



Transformational analysis in lexicological investigations may be defined as repatterning ( representing , reorganization ) of various distributional structures in order to discover difference or sameness of meaning of practically identical distributional patterns . As distributional patterns are in a number of cases polysemantic transformational procedures are of help not only in the analysis of semantic sameness / difference of the lexical units but also in the analysis of the factors that account for their polysemy . Word-groups of identical distributional structure when repatterned show that the semantic relations between words & consequently the meaning may be different .e. g. A  pattern “possessive pronoun ”+”noun”(his car , his failure , his arrest, his kindness ). According to transformational analysis the meaning of each word-group may be represented as : he has a car , he failed , he was arrested , he is kind. In each of the cases different meaning is revealed : possession , action , passive action , quality .The rules of transformation are rather strict & shouldn’t be identified with paraphrasing in the usual sense of the term .There are many restrictions both on syntactic & lexical levels . These are :

I.         
Permutation – the repatterning on condition that the basic subordinative relationships between words & word-stems of the lexical units are not changed .e. g. “His work is excellent “ may be transformed into “ his excellent work , the excellence of his work , he works    excellently “.In the example given the relationships between lexical units & the stems of the notional words are essentially the same .

II.      
Replacement – the substitution of a component of the distributional structure by a member of a certain strictly defined set of lexical units .e. g. Replacement of a notional verb by an auxiliary or link verb (he will make a bad mistake & he will make a good teacher ). The sentences have identical distributional structure but only in the second one the verb “to make “ can be substituted by “ become “ or “ be “ . The fact of impossibility of identical transformations of distributionally identical structures is a formal proof of the difference in their meaning .

III.   
Addition ( or expansion ) may be illustrated by the application of the procedure of addition to the classification of adjectives into two groups- adjectives denoting inherent & non-inherent qualities .


e. g.                        John is happy .

                               John is tall .

We add a word-group “ in Moscow “. We shall see that “ John is happy in Moscow .” has meaning while the second one is senseless . That is accounted by the difference in the meaning of adjectives denoting inherent (tall) & non-inherent(happy) qualities .  

IV.    
Deletion – a procedure which shows whether one of the words semantically subordinated to the other . e. g. The word-group “red  flowers” may be deleted & transformed into “flowers” without making the sentence senseless : I like red flowers  or  I like flowers . The other word-group “red tape “ can’t be deleted & transformed either into “ I hate tape “ or “I hate red “ because in both transformed sentences the meaning of the phrase “red tape” means “bureaucracy” & it can’t be divided into two parts .

        

Componental analysis .





In this analysis linguists proceed from the assumption that the smallest units of meaning are sememes or semes . e. g. In the lexical item “woman” several sememes may be singled out , such as human , not an animal , female , adult . The analysis of the word “girl” will show the following sememes : human , female , young . The last component of the two words differentiates them & makes impossible to mix up the words in the process of communication . It is classical form of revealing the work of componental analysis to apply them to the so called closed systems of vocabulary  , for example , colour terms . The analysis as a rule was formalized only as far as the symbolic representation of meaning components it is concerned  with .Each sememe in the terms of colours acquires or is given a certain letter ( A , B , C , D … ) & the meaning of the terms may be given in a formalized form . e. g. Red & scarlet will differ only in one component & that is intensity of colour & by the letter it may be illustrated as

A B C

A B C     
Under the letter C the intensity is meant .

The formalized representation of meaning helps to find out different semantic components which influence collocability of words (during the day but not during the stairs, down the stairs but not down the day ).

Componental analysis is practically always combined with transformational procedures or statistical analysis .The combination makes it possible to find out which of the meanings should be represented first of all in the dictionaries of different types & how the words should be combined in order to make your speech sensible .
Method of semantic differential .



A word has not only one meaning & even one word usually implies some additional information which differentiates one word from another .

e. g. to like , to love , to adore , to warship . All the words denote positive feelings , characteristic of a human being . But each of them gives additional information on the so-called strength of feeling .

This is the connotational aspect which was singled out by the semantic differential – the method which was worked out by a group of American psycholinguists . Their technique requires the subjects to judge – a series of concepts with respect to a set of antonymic adjective scale .

e. g. A horse can be :

good – bad

fast – slow

strong – weak

hard – soft

happy – sad

The meaning of the divisions is that each of the quality may be gradated representing extremely good , very good , neither good nor bad ,slightly bad , extremely bad & these grades can be marked by a plus .And the horse may be very good , not bad , etc .

The revealed gradations showing some portion of quality helps to singled out such words which are usually referred to as neutral, expressive , archaic & new words proper – neologisms . All the methods of analysis are applied in one & the same sphere of investigation . If you are interested in meaning you shouldn’t pay much attention to the structure , if you are interested in collocation of words you shouldn’t pay much attention what parts of words represent the distributional structure . The combination of different methods of analysis helps to classify the vocabulary as a whole & each lexical unit taken separately . It should be said that practically no procedures function independently & separately from each other . It is only for study aims that we separate one procedure from another . In fact , being a two-faced unit a lexical item provides to be an indivisible unit of form & content . That is why you cannot investigate one side of the item paying no attention to the other one .

 
Semasiology . Lexical

meaning & its aspects .



Semasiology (or semantics ) is a branch of linguistics which studies meaning . Semasiology is singled out as an independent branch of lexicology alongside word-formation , etymology , phraseology & lexicography . And at the same time it is often referred to as the central branch of lexicology . The significance of semasiology may be accounted for by three main considerations :

1.       Language is the basic human communication system aimed at ensuring the exchange of information between the communicants which implies that the semantic side forms the backbone of communication .

2.       By definition lexicology deals with words , morpheme & word-groups . All those linguistic units are two-faced entities having both form & meaning .

3.       Semasiology underlines all other branches of lexicology . Meaning is the object of semasiological study .

However , at present there is no universally accepted definition of meaning or rather a definition reflecting all the basic characteristic features of meaning & being at the same time operational . Thus , linguists state that meaning is “one of the most ambiguous & most controversial terms in the theory of language “(Steven Ullman).Leech states that the majority of definitions turn out to be a dead end not only on practical but on logical grounds . Numerous statements on the complexity of the phenomenon of meaning are found on the Russian tradition as well by such linguists as А.А.Потебня , И.А.Бодуэн де Куртене , Щерба , Виноградов , А.И. Смерницкий & others .

However vague & inadequate , different definitions of meaning help to sum up the general characteristics of the notion comparing various approaches to the description of the content side of the language . There are three main categories of definitions which may be referred to as :

ü      analytical or referential definition of meaning

ü      functional or contextual definition of meaning

ü      operational or information-oriented definition of meaning
Analytical or referential

definition of meaning.

They seek to find the essence of meaning establishing the interdependence between words of the objects or phenomena they denote . The best known analytical model of meaning is the so-called “basic triangle”.

                    

                   Concept (or our thought)
Sound-form                                   Word-object (referent)

They are connected directly that means that if we hear a sound-form a certain idea arises in our mind & the idea brings out a certain referent that exists in the reality . But the sound-form & the referent are connected indirectly because there are no objects or phenomena in the reality that predict a certain sound-form , that need to be named by a certain sequence of sounds . The strongest point in the approach is an attempt to link the notion of meaning with the process of naming the objects , processes or phenomena of concrete reality . The analytical definitions of meaning are usually criticized on the grounds that they cannot be applied to sentences .


e. g. The sentence “ I like to read long novels “ does not express single notion , it represents composites of notions specifying the relations between them .

The referential definition of meaning can hardly be applied to semantic additions that come to the surface in the process of communication .

e. g. “That’s very clever “ may mean different sorts of things including that it is not clever at all .

It has also been stated that the referential approach fails to account for that fact that one word may denote different objects & phenomena . That is the case of  polysemy . On the other hand one & the same object may be denoted by different words & that is the case of synonymy .
Functional or contextual

Definitions of meaning.



Proceeding from the assumptions that the true meaning of a word is to be found by observing what a man does with it not what he says about it , the proponents of functional approach to meaning define it as the use of the word in the language . It has been suggested that the meaning of a word is revealed by substituting different contexts .

e. g. The meaning of the word cat may be singled out of contexts:

____________ catch mice.

I bought fish for my _____.

and similar sentences.

To get a better insight in to the semantics of a word it is necessary to analyze as many contexts in which it is realized as possible. The question arises – when to stop collecting different contexts & what amount of material is sufficient to make a reliable conclusion about the meaning of a word ? In practice a scholar is guided by intuition which amount to the previous knowledge of the notions the given word denotes. Besides , there are contexts which are so infrequent that they can hardly be registered & quite obviously they have never been met by the speakers of the given language. Nevertheless being presented with a context a native speaker proceeds not from a list of possible contexts but from something  else. The functional approach to meaning is important because it emphasizes the fact that words are seldom if ever used in isolation & thus the meaning of a word is revealed only when it is realized in a context. But on the whole the functional approach may be described as a complimentary , additional to the referential one.
Operational definition

Of meaning.



They are centered on defining meaning through its role in the process of communication. Just like functional approach information-oriented definitions are part of studying words in action. They are more interested in how the words work , how the meaning works than what the meaning is. The operational approach began to take shape with the growing interest of linguists in the communicative aspect of the language when the object of study was shifted to the relations between the language we use & the situations within which it is used. In this frame-work meaning is defined as information conveyed from the speaker to the listener in the process of communication. The definition is applicable both to words & sentences & thus overcomes one of the drawbacks of the referential approach. The problem is that it is more applicable to sentences than to words & even as such fails to draw a  clear distinguishing line between the direct sense (that is meaning) & implication (that is additional information).

e. g. Thus the sentence “John came at 6 o’clock” besides the direct meaning may imply that John was 2 hours late , that he was punctual as usual , that it was a surprise for John to come , that he came earlier , that he was not expected at all & many others.

In each case the implication would depend on the concrete situation of communication. And discussing meaning as the information conveyed would amount to the discussion of an almost endless set of possible communication situations which in the end will bring us back to a modified contextual or functional approach to meaning. The distinction between the two layers in the information conveyed is so important that two different terms may be used to denote them: the direct information conveyed by the units which build up a sentence may be referred to as meaning while the information added to the given extralinguistic situation may be called sense.