chapter 5.ppt

Word Meaning and Semantic Features Conventionality and Motivation Relationship between sound-symbol and its sense: Arbitrariness Conventionality Motivation: Definition: the connection between word-symbol and its sense. Three major types of motivation: Phonetic motivation: Words motivated phonetically are called echoic words or onomatopoeic words, whose pronunciation suggests the meaning. pingpong, bang, buzz, hiss, bleat, jingle Morphological motivation: A word is morphologically motivated when a direct connection can be observed between the morphemic structure of the word and its meaning. handbag, international Semantic motivation: Semantic motivation refers to the mental associations suggested by the conceptual meaning of a word. It explains the connection between the literal sense and figurative sense of the word. the foot of the mountain the leg of a table Main Types of Word Meaning Grammatical meaning: Grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such as part of speech of words, singular and plural meaning of nouns, tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms. Lexical meaning: Lexical meaning is related to the notion that the word conveys. Lexical meaning vs. grammatical meaning: The lexical meaning of a word is the same in all the forms of one and the same word while the grammatical meaning varies from one word-form to another. forget, forgets, forgot, forgotten, forgetting Every word has a different lexical meaning, whereas the grammatical meaning is the same in identical sets of individual forms of different words. tables, men, potatoes Types of lexical meaning: Denotative meaning (conceptual meaning): The denotative meaning of a word is its definition given in a dictionary. mother white Connotative meaning: Connotative meaning refers to the emotional association which a word or a phrase suggests in one’s mind; it is the supplementary value which is added to the purely