Types of Word Meaning. (course paper)

Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University

Humanities Faculty

The Theory and Practice of the English Language and Intercultural Communication Department

Khisametdinova Guldzhakhan

HLE 2-08

Types of Word Meaning.

(course paper)

                       Scientific tutor: Anarbek Begimai

Bishkek 2010  

Contents

Introduction

Chapter  I. What is Word and What is Word Meaning……………………5

1. What is Word…………………………………………………………….5
2. What is  Word Meaning………………………………………………….9

Chapter II. The Classification of Word Meaning (Types of Word meaning)………………………………………………………………………13

2.1 Denotative Meaning………………………………………………………13

2.2 Lexical Meaning…………………………………………………………..16

2.3 Connotational Meaning…………………………………………………...19

2.4 Grammatical Meaning…………………………………………………….22

Chapter III. The Analysis of Types of Word Meaning………………………………………………………………………..26

Conclusion

Reference

Introduction

We are going to start our investigation of types of word meaning. And first we are going to start with definition of word and word meaning, because it is important to put a firm foundation of our theme investigation. It is a start point of our investigation to identify the role of types of word meaning in Lexicology and in Linguistics in general.

The topicality of our investigation. During the development of human culture and civilization people have always been interested in the secrets of language and speech as a sign of logical perception of current events and appearing phenomena. And identification and giving a meaning to the words, in order to express the main needs, ideas, wishes, opinions, a will and desires was the first and the main task of researches of all previous and modern scholars in the sphere of not Lexicology only, but also in Grammar, Etymology, Semantics and linguistics, but in the sphere of Logics, Philosophy, and even in the sphere of Psychology.

The task of our investigation is to research the word meaning and its classification (types of word meanings) in the sphere of lexicology and linguistics. To give logical explanation of things and phenomena, which make our surroundings- it is a process of mind activity. The result of this process is a word.

The new approach of our investigation is to find out the condition of usage of types of meaning in emphasizing the links between the connotative (denotative), lexical, grammatical meaning and its connection.

The structure of the work – in introduction we set a topicality, a task and mention about the approach we are going to use in our work; in Chapter I we investigate the notion of a word and it’s meaning; in Chapter II we describe the types of word meaning; in Chapter III we make the analysis of connection of types of word meaning; in conclusion we summarize the results of our work; in bibliography we give the list of used literature.

Chapter I. What Is Word and What Is Word Meaning.

1.1 What Is Word.

These famous lines reflect one of the fundamental problems of linguistic research: what is a word? Is there any direct connection between a word and the object it represents? Could a rose have been called by "any other name" as Juliet says? How had all these names appeared in languages?

Current research in semantics is largely based on the assumption that one of the more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is by studying the word's linear relationships with other words in typical contexts, i. e. its combinability. Scholars have established that the semantics of words characterised by common occurrences (i. e. words which regularly appear in common contexts) are correlated and, therefore, one of the words within such a pair can be studied through the other.

Thus, if one intends to investigate the semantic structure of an adjective, one would best consider the adjective in its most typical syntactical patterns A + N -adjective + noun) and N + l + A (noun + link verb +kick. n. -- 1 thrill, pleasurable excitement (inform.); 2. a blow with the foot adjective) and make a thorough study of the meanings of nouns with which the adjective is frequently used.

For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first pattern will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.). b) bright metal (gold, jewels, armour, etc.), c) bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.) and some others. These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, c) capable, d) gay, etc. For a transitive verb, on the other hand, the recommended pattern would be V + N (verb + direct object expressed by a noun). If, for instance, our object of investigation are the verbs to produce, to create, to compose, the correct procedure would be to consider the semantics of the nouns that are used in the pattern with each of these verbs: what is it that is produced or composed?

There is an interesting hypothesis that the semantics of words regularly used in common contexts (e. g. bright colours, to build a house, to create a work of art, etc.) are so intimately correlated that each of them casts, as it were, a kind of permanent reflection on the meaning of its neighbour. If the verb to compose is frequently used with the object music, isn't it natural to expect that certain musical associations linger in the meaning of the verb to compose?

We should see how closely the negative evaluative connotation of the adjective notorious is linked with the negative connotation of the nouns with which it is regularly associated: a notorious criminal, thief, gangster, gambler, gossip, liar, miser, etc. All this leads us to the conclusion that context is a good and reliable key to the meaning of the word. It is a sphere of word semantic structure realization. Yet, even the jokes given above show how misleading this key can prove in some cases. And here we are faced with two dangers. The first is that of sheer misunderstanding, when the speaker means one thing and the listener takes the word in its other meaning.

The second danger has nothing to do with the process of communication but with research work in the field of semantics. A common error with the inexperienced research worker is to see a different meaning in every new set of combinations. Here is a puzzling question to illustrate what we mean - an angry man, an angry letter. Is the adjective angry used in the same meaning in both these contexts or in two different meanings? Some people will say "two" and argue that, on the one hand, the combinability is different (man — name of person; letter — name of object) and, on the other hand, a letter cannot experience anger. True, it cannot; but it can very well convey the anger of the person who wrote it. As to the combinability, the main point is that a word can realise the same meaning in different sets of combinability. For instance, in the pairs merry children, merry laughter, merry faces, merry songs the adjective merry conveys the same concept of high spirits whether they are directly experienced by the children (in the first phrase) or indirectly expressed through the merry faces, the laughter and the songs of the other word groups.

The task of distinguishing between the different meanings of a word and the different variations of combinability (or, in a traditional terminology, different usages of the word) is actually a question of singling out the different denotations within the semantic structure of the word.

For example: 1) a sad woman,

2. a sad voice,
3. a sad story,
4. a sad scoundrel (= an incorrigible scoundrel)
5. a sad night (= a dark, black night, arch, poet.) [2.48]

Semantically, English words are interesting, but complicated, to study. This article discusses word-meaning in English including grammatical and lexical meaning of the word (lexeme). Categorial meaning of a lexeme is part of its grammatical meaning while its lexical meaning is made up of denotation and sense as descriptive meaning, connotation as non-descriptive meaning. The author also deals with polysemy of English words.

As the world’s global language, English has played a very important role in bringing people from different countries closer and closer, thus yielding great mutual understanding. The author argues that the mastering of the grammatical features of English words together with that of their semantic structures helps to make the communication in English successful. The study on English words in terms of grammar and semantics is, therefore, hoped to be of great value to teachers and learners of English as well as translators into and out of English, because it is important to know all possible meanings of a word, especially when it is a polysemantic word with some quite resonating notions.

Every word has two aspects: the outer aspect (its sound form) and the inner aspect (its meaning) . Sound and meaning do not always constitute a constant unit even in the same language. E.g. the word temple may denote a part of a human head and a large church. In such cases we have homonyms. One and the same word in different syntactical relations can develop different meanings, e.g. the verb treat in sentences:

a) He treated my words as a joke.

b) The book treats of poetry.

c) They treated me to sweets.

d) He treats his son cruelly.

In all these sentences the verb «treat» has different meanings and we can speak about polysemy. On the other hand, one and the same meaning can be expressed by different sound forms, e.g. «pilot» , and «airman», «horror» and «terror». In such cases we have synonyms. Both the meaning and the sound can develop in the course of time independently. E.g. the Old English /luvian/ is pronounced /luv / in Modern English. On the other hand, «board» primariliy means « a piece of wood sawn thin» It has developed the meanings: a table, a board of a ship, a stage, a council etc. [4, 97]

1.2 What Is Word Meaning.

There have been many discussions about the meanings of meaning, the theories of meaning and its kinds found in the literature. It is a concept and a notion of a word. Word-meaning is treated as the meaning of a lexeme – any unit of the vocabulary of a language, listed, defined in a dictionary and realized by their word-forms. Grammatical and lexical meaning also lie in English lexemes. Denotative and connotative meanings lie in semantic structure of a word. [5, 20] The lexemes belonging to the open-classes of the major parts of speech such as nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs have full word-forms with both grammatical and lexical meaning. As those belonging to the closed-classes of articles, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions and certain pronouns and adverbs have empty word-forms. [18]

Meaning – the reverberation in the human consciousness of an object, a quality of extralinguistic reality (a phenomenon, a relationship, a quality, a process), which becomes a fact of language because of its constant indissoluble association with a definite linguistic and logical expression. Meaning conveyed by a speaker is the speaker's communicative intent in using an expression, even if that use departs from the expression's meaning. Accordingly, any discussion of meaning should distinguish speaker's meaning from linguistic meaning. [21]

An exact definition of any basic term is no easy task altogether. In the case of lexical meaning it becomes especially difficult due to the complexity of the process by which language and human conscience serve to reflect outward reality and to adapt it to human needs. The definition has been attempted more than once in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. The disciples of Saussure consider meaning to be the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself. Descriptive linguistics of the Bloomfieldian trend defines the meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered. There are broadly speaking two schools to Meaning of thought in present-day linguistics representing the main lines of contemporary thinking on the problem: the referential approach, which seeks to formulate the essence of meaning by establishing the interdependence between words and the things or concepts they denote, and the functional approach, which studies the functions of a word in speech and is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works.

All major works on semantic theory have so far been based on referential concepts of meaning. The essential feature of this approach is that it distinguishes between the three components closely connected with meaning: the sound-form of the linguistic sign, the concept underlying this sound-form, and the actual referent, i.e. that part or that aspect of reality to which the linguistic sign refers.

It should be pointed out that among the adherents of the referential approach there are some who hold the meaning of a linguistic sign is the concept underlying it, and consequently they substitute meaning for concept in the basic triangle. Others identify meaning with the referent. They argue that unless we have a scientifically accurate knowledge of the referent we cannot give a scientifically accurate definition of the meaning of a word. According to them the English word salt, e.g., means sodium chloride (NaCl). But how are we to define precisely the meanings of such words as love or hate? That is why it is also the question of noun ranks – the question of connotative meaning and so – called semantic cases. We must admit that the actual extent of human knowledge makes it impossible to define word-meanings accurately, due to the concept of surround reality. It logically follows that any study of meanings in linguistics along these lines must be given up as impossible.

Here we have sought to show that meaning is closely connected but not identical with sound-form, concept or referent. Yet even those who accept this view disagree as to the nature of meaning. Some linguists regard meaning as the interrelation of the three points of the triangle within the framework of the given language, i.e. as the interrelation of the sound-form, concept and referent, but not as an objectively existing part of the linguistic sign. Others and among them some outstanding Soviet linguists, proceed from the basic assumption of the objectivity of language and meaning and understand the linguistic sign as a two-facet unit. They view meaning as a certain reflection in our mind of objects, phenomena or relations that makes part of the linguistic sign — its so-called inner facet, whereas the sound-form functions as its outer facet. The outer facet of the linguistic sign is indispensable to meaning and intercommunication. Meaning is to be found in all linguistic units and together with their sound-form constitutes the linguistic signs studied by linguistic science.

The criticism of the referential theories of meaning may be briefly summarised as follows: meaning, as understood in the referential approach, comprises the interrelation of linguistic signs with categories and phenomena outside the scope of language. As neither referents (i.e. actual things, phenomena). In recent years a new and entirely different approach to meaning known as the functional approach has begun to take shape in linguistics and especially in structural linguistics.

The functional approach maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit may be studied only through its relation to other linguistic-units and not through its relation to either concept or referent. In a very simplified form this view may be illustrated by the following: we know, for instance, that the meaning of the two words move and movement is different because they function in speech differently. Comparing the contexts in which we find these words we cannot fail to observe that they occupy different positions in relation to other words. (To) move, e.g., can be followed by a noun (move the chair), preceded by a pronoun (we move), etc. The position occupied by the word movement is different: it may be followed by a preposition (movement of something), preceded by an adjective (slow movement), and so on. As the distribution of the two words is different, we are entitled to the conclusion that not only do they belong to different classes of words, but that their meanings are different too.

The same is true of the different meanings of one and the same word. Analysing the function of a word in linguistic contexts and comparing these contexts, we conclude that; meanings are different (or the same) and this fact can be proved by an objective investigation of linguistic data. For example we can observe the difference of the meanings of the word take if we examine its functions in different linguistic contexts, take the tram (the taxi, the cab, etc.) as opposed to to take to somebody. It follows that in the functional approach (1) semantic investigation is confined to the analysis of the difference or sameness of meaning; (2) meaning is understood essentially as the function of the use of linguistic units. As a matter of fact, this line of semantic investigation is the primary concern, implied or expressed, of all structural linguists.

When comparing the two approaches described above in terms of methods of linguistic analysis we see that the functional approach should not be considered an alternative, but rather a valuable complement to the referential theory. It is only natural that linguistic investigation must start by collecting an adequate number of samples of contexts. On examination the meaning or meanings of linguistic units will emerge from the contexts themselves. Once this phase had been completed it seems but logical to pass on to the referential phase and try to formulate the meaning thus identified. There is absolutely no need to set the two approaches against each other; each handles its own side of the problem and neither is complete without the other. [11, 58]

We had examined a word and its meaning and we can conclude that it is quite perplexing task to identify the meaning of a meaning (in this way we have a great deal of homonyms and polysemantic words, the semantic structure of which can include even more than 20 meanings) and a reason and cause of name appearing in a language. Due to the word’s syntagmatical function and it’s semantic structure, that with the help of semantic elements create the semantic community, we have a way to distinguish an outer aspect and an inner aspect – the sound form (a name) and it’s meaning.

Chapter II. The Classification of Word Meaning (Types of Word meaning)

2.1 Denotative Meaning.

By the denotation of a word is meant the relationship that holds between that word and persons, things, places, properties, processes and activities external to the language-system. A lexeme, in general, denoted a class of entities in the world. For example, the lexeme shirt denotes a class of pieces of clothing worn on the upper part of the body; the lexeme student denotes all the students in the world; and the lexeme happy denotes the property of being happy. Denotation, thus, is invariant and context-independent.

But there is a distinction between denotation and reference. Reference it is a relationship that holds between a language expression such as this shirt or that student and what that expression refers to particular occasions of its utterance. The expression this shirt may refer to one shirt or another depending on who utters the expression. Reference is, consequently, utterance-dependent. Lexemes do not have reference, but may be used as components of referring expressions in particular contexts of utterance. Some authors, however, do not distinguish denotation and reference. They consider the denotation and reference of a language expression are the same. Allan (quoted in Bright 1995: 410) argues that “the denotation of a language expression is what a speaker or writer uses it to mean on the world evoked by a text in which the word appears”. For example, the denotation or reference of my car and yesterday in the sentence:  

  I totaled my car yesterday

The denotation or reference of my car and yesterday depends on who makes the utterance (which distinguishes his or her car) and when (which dates yesterday). Unlike denotation, sense is defined to hold between the words and expressions of a single language. The sense of a lexeme is a set or a network of the relations between that lexeme and other lexemes or expressions of the same language. Such relations are called sense-relations, which is wholly internal to the language-system. Denotation and sense are related to each other: we would not know the one without having some knowledge of the other.  [17]

Denotation and sense can be applied to a lexeme or a larger expression. The denotation and sense of a composite expression is a compositional function of the denotation and sense of its component parts. For example, the lexeme shirt, apart from its denotation, is also related, in various ways, to other lexemes: clothing, clothes, blouse, etc.; and the composite expression  a yellow shirt has its denotation and sense, which combines the denotation and sense of yellow and shirt. Denotation, reference and sense are closely related to one another. The denotation and sense of a lexeme are of important value in making up of its descriptive meaning. [18]

The term denotatum or referent means either a notion or an actually existing individual thing to which reference is made. The emotional content of the word is its capacity to evoke or directly express emotion. It is rendered by the emotional or expressive counterpart of meaning, also called emotive charge. In this connection it should be borne in mind that for a notion to arise there must be a word to convey it: notions cannot exist without wards. The reverse is not necessarily true: there are words that do not convey any notion, and nevertheless they all have meaning. Interjections oh! ah! alas! hear, hear!, for instance, express emotions, not notions, while some other words render both (e. g. the words ass, brute or pig applied to human beings). The expressive counterpart of meaning is optional, and even when it is present, its proportion with respect to the logical counterpart may vary within limits. [9, 167]

2.2 Lexical Meaning

It is just the lexical meaning which is the most outstanding individual of the word that makes it different from any other word. The lexical meaning of a word may be thought of as the specific value it has in a particular language system, and the personality it acquires through usage within that system. It is not homogenous since it involves the three kinds of meaning signaled by language: descriptive, social and expressive. The lexical meaning of a lexeme, therefore, may be analyzed into descriptive and non-descriptive meaning.

The descriptive meaning of a lexeme (sometimes called conceptual, cognitive or propositional meaning) is widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic communication. The non-descriptive meaning of a lexeme (sometimes called connotation, affective, associative or expressive meaning), by contrast, provides additional effects to its central meaning. The following sections are dealing with denotation and sense as descriptive meaning, and connotation as non-descriptive meaning. [18]

The lexical meaning of a word is the realization of a notion by means of a definite language system. A word is a language unit, while a notion is a unit of thinking. A notion cannot exist without a word expressing it in the language, but there are words which do not express any notion but have a lexical meaning. Interjections express emotions but not notions, but they have lexical meanings, e.g. Alas! - disappointment, Oh, my buttons! – surprise, etc. There are also words which express notions and emotions, e.g. girlie, a pig, when used metaphorically. The number of meanings does not correspond to the number of words, neither does the number of notions. Their distribution in relation to words is peculiar in every language. The Russian has two words for the English man:  мужчина and человек. In English, however, man cannot be applied to a female person. We say in Russian: Она хороший человек. In English we use the word person – She is a good person. Development of lexical meanings in any language is influenced by the whole network of ties and relations between words and other aspects of the language. [2, 138]

An exact definition of any basic term is no easy task altogether. In the case of lexical meaning it becomes especially difficult due to the complexity of the process by which language and human conscience serve to reflect outward reality and to adapt it to human needs. The definition has been attempted more than once in accordance with the main principles of different linguistic schools. We got acquainted with the disciples of Saussure that consider meaning to be the relation between the object or notion named, and the name itself. Descriptive linguistics of the Bloomfieldian trend defines the meaning as the situation in which the word is uttered. Both ways of approach afford no possibility of a further investigation of semantic problems in strictly linguistic terms, and therefore, if taken as a basis for a general linguistic theory, give no insight into the mechanism of meaning.[9, 165]

Comparing word-forms of one and the same word we observe that besides grammatical meaning, there is another component of meaning to be found in them. Unlike the grammatical meaning this component is identical in all the forms of the word. Thus, e.g. the word-forms go, goes, went, going, gone possess different grammatical meanings of tense, person and so on, but in each of these forms we find one and the same semantic component denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical meaning of the word which may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word.

The difference between the lexical and the grammatical components of meaning is not to be sought in the difference of the concepts underlying the two types of meaning, but rather in the way they are conveyed. The concept of plurality, e.g., may be expressed by the lexical meaning of the world plurality; it may also be expressed in the forms of various words irrespective of their lexical meaning, e.g. boys, girls, joys, etc. The concept of relation may be expressed by the lexical meaning of the word relation and also by any of the prepositions, e.g. in, on, behind, etc. (the book is in/on, behind the table).

It follows that by lexical meaning we designate the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its forms and distributions, while by grammatical meaning we designate the meaning proper to sets of word-forms common to all words of a certain class. Both the lexical and the grammatical meaning make up the word-meaning as neither can exist without the other. That can be also observed in the semantic analysis of correlated words in different languages. E.g. the Russian word сведения is not semantically identical with the English equivalent information because unlike the Russian сведения the English word does not possess the grammatical meaning of plurality which is part of the semantic structure of the Russian word. [11, 124].

2.3 Connotational  Meaning.

The term connotation is particularly rich in technical senses. In this study, it is used in opposition with denotation and sense – the components of descriptive meaning of a lexeme. Connotation is, in fact, largely dependent on the context of usage of the word. We have non-propositional meaning (or connotation) into expressive, presupposed and evoked meaning.  Connotation refers to all types of non-denotational meaning as a whole including emotive, stylistic, discursive and evocative meaning. Connotation is also used to refer to the expressive and evoked meaning. It is obvious that there is no clear-cut classification of non-descriptive meaning of a lexeme. Part of the connotation of a lexeme is its expressive meaning, (sometimes called emotive, attitudinal, or affective meaning), which communicates the speakers’ evaluation or their attitudes. For example, complain and whine have the same descriptive meaning, but the latter communicates the speaker’s annoyance when complaining while the former does not.

The connotation of a lexeme is its evoked meaning (stylistic colouring in other linguists’ term), which is a consequence of the existence of different dialects and registers within a language. Dialectal variation can be classified as geographical (e.g. Scottish dialect: loch, American English: fall as opposed to British English: autumn), temporal (e.g. words used by members of different age groups within a community or words used at different periods in the history of language), and social (words used by members of different social classes).

While dialects are varieties of language associated with different characteristics of users (e.g. age, class and regional affiliation), registers are varieties of language that a single speaker considers appropriate to a specific situation which may be formal or informal. Bicycle and bike, for instance, have the same descriptive meaning, but the former is a neutral word while the latter is an informal one, thus being used in less formal circumstances than the former. Other examples are chat, talk, and converse, which are used depending on different situations: informal, neutral, and formal, respectively. [18]

2.4 Grammatical Meaning.

A lexeme may have different word-forms and these word-forms will generally differ in meaning: their grammatical meaning – the meaning in terms of grammar. For example, the forms of student and students differ in respect of their grammatical meaning, in that one is the singular form (of a noun of a particular class) and the other is plural form (of a noun of a particular class); and the difference between singular forms and plural forms is semantically relevant: it affects sentence-meaning (syntagmatica function). The meaning of a sentence is determined partly by the meaning of the words (i.e. lexemes) of which it consists and partly by its grammatical meaning. [19]

The grammatical meaning can be explicit and implicit. The explicit grammatical meaning is not expressed formally (the word table does not contain any hint in its form as to being inanimate). The explicit grammatical meaning is always marked morphologically – it has its marker. In the word cats the grammatical meaning of plurality is shown in the form of the noun; cat’s – here the grammatical meaning of possessiveness. The implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and dependent. The general grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole word – class, of a part of speech (nouns – the general grammatical meaning of thingness). The grammatical dependent meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same part of speech. For example, any verb possess the grammatical dependenr meaning of transitivity/intransitivity, terminativeness/non – terminativeness, stativeness/non – stativeness; the nouns have the grammatical dependent grammatical meaning of contableness/uncountableness and animativeness/inanimativeness. The most important thing about the dependent grammatical meaning is that it influences the realization of grammatical category of number as the number categoryis realized only within the subclass of countable nouns, the grammatical meaning of animativeness/inanimativeness influences the realization of grammatical category of case, terminativeness/non – terminativeness – the grammatical category of tense, transitivity/intransitivity – the grammatical category of voice. [21]

The categorial meaning, which is part of grammatical meaning: it is that part of the meaning of lexemes which derives from their being members of one category of major parts of speech rather than another (nouns rather than verbs, verbs rather than adjectives, and so on). Thus, all lexemes with full word-forms have a grammatical, more particularly, a categorical, meaning.

For example, the lexemes easy and difficult have the same categorial meaning: they are both adjectives. Each lexemes, however, has certain semantically relevant grammatical properties. The two word-forms easy and easier of the lexeme easy, though sharing some part of their categorical meaning, differ grammatically in that: one is the absolute form and the other the comparative form. This difference does not occur to the lexeme difficult for this lexeme has only one form difficult, which does not accept any inflection. Though easy and difficult belong to the same category of adjectives, having the same categorial meaning, they do not share all the grammatical features each has in terms of morphology and syntax. Likewise, all the lexemes sharing categorial meaning do not have all the grammatical meanings in common. [18]

But it will be useful to remind that the grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationship between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. Every lexico-grammatical group of words or class is characterized by its own lexico-grammatical meaning forming, as it were, the common denominator of all the meanings of the words which belong to this group. The lexico-grammatical meaning may be also regarded as the feature according to which these words are grouped together. Many recent investigations are devoted to establishing word classes on the basis of similarity of distribution.

In the lexical meaning of every separate word the lexico-grammatical meaning common to all the words of the class to which this word belongs is enriched by additional features and becomes particularized. The meaning of a specific property in such words as bright, clear, good, quick, steady, thin is a particular realization of the lexico-grammatical meaning of qualitative adjectives. These adjectives always denote the properties of things capable of being compared and so have degrees of comparison. The scope of the notion rendered by the lexico-grammatical meaning of the class is much larger than the scope of the notion rendered by the lexical meaning of each individual word. The reverse also holds good: the content of the notion expressed by the lexico-grammatical meaning of the class is smaller, poorer in features than the content of the notion expressed by the lexical meaning of a word.

The lexico-grammatical meaning of each lexico-grammatical group is approximated in the   lexical   meaning of   generic terms, i. e. words that are called semantically wide. These are words expressing notions in which abstraction and generalization are so great that they can substitute any word of their class. The word state denotes the class of all states, generic terms are non-specific and are applicable to a great number of individual members of big classes. For example, such words as thing, job, affair, business, object and others render the notion of thingness common to all nouns. The word matter is a generic term for material nouns.

These generic words denote in a most general way objects, actions, states, qualities or relationships between them, that the human mind discerns in the surrounding reality and reflects in notions. The degree and quality of abstraction and generalization here are intermediate between those characteristic of grammatical categories and those observed on the lexical level, therefore one can classify them as expressing lexico-grammatical meaning.

The structure of every separate meaning depends on the linguistic syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships because meaning is an inherent component of language. The complexity of each word meaning is due to the fact that it combines lexical meaning with structural meaning and sometimes with emotional colouring, stylistic peculiarities and connotations born from previous usage. [9, 171]

We notice that word-forms, such as girls, winters, joys, tables, etc. though denoting widely different objects of reality have something in common. This common element is the grammatical meaning of plurality which can be found in all of them.

Thus grammatical meaning may be defined ,as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (girl’s, boy’s, night’s, etc.). In a broad sense it may be argued that linguists who make a distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning are, in fact, making a distinction between the functional (linguistic) meaning which operates at various levels as the interrelation of various linguistic units and referential (conceptual) meaning as the interrelation of linguistic units and referents (or concepts).

In modern linguistic science it is commonly held that some elements of grammatical meaning can be identified by the position of the linguistic unit in relation to other linguistic units, i.e. by its distribution. Word-forms speaks, reads, writes have one and the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in identical distribution, e.g. only after the pronouns he, she, it and before adverbs like well, badly, today, etc. [11, 130]

As the task of our course paper was to observe and to examine the types of word meaning, we divided the second chapter into four parts. Every part was devoted to each type of word meaning (denotative meaning, lexical meaning, connotational meaning and grammatical meaning) and came to the following conclusion – in the connection of types of word meaning lexical meaning is a basic component. Lexical descriptive meaning – is conceptual and cognitive meaning of a word – it may influence on grammatical meaning (in the creation of word – forms and morphemes; morphological and syntagmatical function of a word), on denotative meaning (reference is utterance – dependent, denotation – it is invariant and context – dependant and according to the classification of noun ranks), on connotational meaning (it is also a lexical non – descriptive meaning, it is affective, associative, expressive, discursive and stylistic meaning at the same time; we had separated connotational meaning from lexical meaning on purpose – for us to investigate the peculiarities of tight connection between them).

Chapter III The Analysis of Types of Word Meaning

We examine the types of word meaning in the following ranks of nouns – abstract nouns, concrete nouns, collective nouns, unitary nouns, animate nouns, inanimate nouns, anthroponomy, non –  anthroponomy. For a full investigation and research of types of word meaning we have taken the work of Charles Dickens Oliver Twist or The Parish’s Boy Progress:

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many

reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to

which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently

common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and

in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not

trouble myself to repeat, in as much as it can be of no possible

consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all

events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head

of this chapter. [15, 3]

Среди общественных зданий в некоем городе, который по многим причинам благоразумнее будет не называть и которому я не дам никакого вымышленного наименования, находится здание, издавна встречающееся почти  во  всех городах, больших и малых, именно - работный дом. И в том работном  доме родился, - я могу себя не утруждать указанием дня и числа, так как это не имеет никакого значения для читателя, во всяком случае на данной стадии повествования, - родился смертный, чье имя предшествует началу  этой главы.

The concrete nouns in the sentence are – buildings, town, mentioning, towns, workhouse, business. It means that these are words, denoting concrete things, activities and concrete process of our real life such as – building, town, workhouse (things) and mentioning, business (process) – in the concrete nouns of a given sentence the inner form of words coincides with sound form of words, the reason of names fully forms a semantic inner form of a lexical unit. A concrete noun can be understood as the real object, which is possible to imagine and to observe clearly and visually, and the expression of a real process – houses, towns, buildings – are built up by people, table, chair – are made by people,  mentioning, business – it is a process and also an action of people.

Lets observe the lexical meanings of a given nouns – a building – 1 a structure, such as a  house, church or school, that has roof and walls, 2 the process or business of making buildings ( again we see the object of a real life, that is made by people and the process, which is connected to it) [14, 79], a town – 1 a place with many streets and buildings, 2 all the people who leave in a town, 3 the main part of a town, where the shops, office centers etc are [14, 658] ( also we see the links of process, but in the second lexical meaning of a word we see people – citizens or dwellers – it gets a meaning of an animate noun – in this case we see the resonating of ranks of nouns), a house – 1 a building that is made for one family to leave in (bungalow, cottage, flat, home), 2 all the people who leave in one house: Don’t shout. You will wake all house up. 3 a building that is used for a particular purpose (a warehouse, a public house, a workhouse – they are all denote to the connotative changes of a word – the word Workhouse was used in 18 century in USA and in Britain as the factories, where poor people worked and lived, and now this word came out of English vocabulary), [6,163] 4 a group of people who meet to make a country’s laws: The House of Commons, The House of Parliament, 5 the people at the theatre or cinema, or the area where they sit (again the resonating in the ranks of nouns – meanings 2,4 and 5 are denoting to the animate nouns) [14, 311], business – 1 buying and selling as the way of earning money; commerce, 2 the work that you do as a job; 3 the amount of trade done, 4 a firm, a shop, a factory etc which produces or sells goods or provides the service; 5 something that concerns a particular person: The friends choose are my business, not yours, 6 a situation or an event: The divorce was an awful business (mostly a full coinciding of ranks of nouns, but the meanings 5 and 6 denote abstract nouns) [14, 82], mentioning – saying or writing something about somebody or something; talking about somebody or something [14, 393] (it is a continuous process and action).

Let’s observe the grammatical meaning of words:  – a building – has implicit grammatical meaning with the following grammatical categories: grammatical categories of contableness  and inanimativeness, it has a grammatical category of number and doesn’t have a grammatical category of a gender; a town -  also has an implicit grammatical meaning with  grammatical categories: grammatical categories of contableness  and it may have a grammatical category of animativeness and inanimativeness at the same time due to the plurality of lexical meanings,  grammatical category of number and it doesn’t have a grammatical category of a gender; a house - has an implicit grammatical meaning with  grammatical categories: grammatical categories of contableness  and it may also have a grammatical category of animativeness and inanimativeness at the same time again due to the plurality of lexical meanings; business – this noun has an implicit grammatical meaning with  grammatical categories: grammatical categories of contableness  and it may a grammatical category of inanimativeness and without grammatical meaning of gender; mentioning – has following dependent grammatical categories of transitivity (Active Voice), terminativeness (Present Continuous Time)  and non – stativeness – that is in the case the word mentioning used as a verb. In the case it to be a noun the word should be described as the follows: it simply can’t be a noun, it is a gerund, which has the functions of the verb and of the noun, especially in translations from English into Russian and vice verso.

It was recognized by us that in some definite cases due to the plurality of lexical meaning the ranks of the nouns can be resonating and such phenomena can define the set of grammatical categories of an exact word (grammatical meaning).

Let’s observe abstract nouns in a given sentence: reasons, day, date, consequence, events and mortality. Abstract nouns mean words, denoting distracted actions, qualities, features and properties or notions and conceptions. These are phenomena denoting the things and the actions of moral and immoral features of a human, different situations and circumstances, emotional states, mood, features of person’s temper and character, phenomena of nature and life philosophy features, for example: - day, date – features and qualities of human’s life - time; reasons, consequence – are the first and the final logical parts and motivators of person’s deeds and acts, events – are the current occasions or acts in a situation or in a process, mortality -  is a feature of our life quality, but in a given context and in the translation into the Russian we have «смертный», that means: a human can’t leave forever. Again, the ranks of nouns are resonating – at the same time we have animate and abstract nouns, not due to the plurality of lexical meanings, but according to the context and way of translation.

Let’s observe the lexical meanings of the given abstract nouns: day – 1 a period of 24 hours; of which seven make up a week, 2 the time between sunrise and sunset, 3 the hours of the day when you are work, 4 particular period of time (as we see  - time – is the most important factor of life quality and life time, it runs in the space and has it’s own peculiar features – a speed, for example); [14, 162] date – 1 a particular day of the month or of the year, 2 a particular time, 3 an appointment to meet somebody, especially a boyfriend or girlfriend, 4 a boyfriend or girlfriend (this noun denotes the following ranks: abstract noun (time), concrete noun (a meeting) and also an animate noun ( a boyfriend, a girlfriend) [14, 162] – the ranks of a noun are resonating; reason – 1 the case of something, something that explains why something happens or exists, 2 something that shows that it is right or logical to do something, 3 the ability to think and to make sensible decisions, 4 to form a judgment or opinion after thinking about something in a logical way [14, 513] (it is a logical basis and explanation of our deeds, we create our explanation in a mental process, it is a feature of our quality of education and  the level of person’s development as Homo Sapiens); consequence – 1 something that shows a result or effect of something else, 2 importance (formal) [14, 133] - a word denotes a definite stage of the situation and the character of it’s development – the final result or the attitude of the speaker or the recipient  to it; event – 1 something that happens, especially something important or unusual, 2 one of the races competitions, etc in a sports programme -  for example:  - The next event is the 800 metres [14, 216] – this word denotes some current accident or some definite sport action (race of competitions) – again the resonating of ranks of nouns – the word event is an abstract noun (the distractive process) and the concrete noun (one of the races competitions, etc in a sports programme); mortality – 1 the fact that nobody can leave forever, 2 the number of deaths in a certain period of time or in a certain place: Infant mortality is high in this region (this word denotes to the rank of abstract noun and to the rank of collective nouns – because we have the fact, that had already been proved (as an abstract noun – concerning the death) and we have the exact number or quantity). [14, 406] [12, 87]