Лекции по лексикологии английского языка. Гусева Г.В. - 6 стр.

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8. Word-formation. It deals with the patterns which are used in coining new

words.

Lecture II

Meaning. Concept

I. Approaches to Lexical Meaning

There are two main approaches to lexical meaning: referential and

functional. The referential approach studies the connection between words and

thins or concepts they denote. Functional approach studies relations between

words.

The referential model of meaning is the so-called basic semantic triangle. it

consists of:

1. The sound-form (Sign) of the word: [bз:d].

2. The referent (Denotatum) – the object which the word names: the actual bird.

3. The concept (Designatum) – The essential properties of this object which are

reflected in human mind: “a feathered anial with wings“.

Meaning is closely connected with all parts of the semantic triangle but cannot

be equated with any of them. Generally speaking, meaning can be described as a

component of the word through which a concept is communicated, in this way

endowing the word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and

absract notions.

The functional approach assumes that the meaning of a linguistic unit can be

studied only through its relation to other linguistic units and not through its relation

to concept or referent, e.g. we know that the meaning of “bird n“ and “bird v“ is

different because they function in speech differently. Analysing various contexts in

which these words are used we can observe that they have different distribution.

As the distribution of the two words is different, their meanings are different too.