1. Semasiology
Semasiology is a synonym for semantics. Semantics is a branch of lexicology dealing with meaning of the language units.
There are two trends in semasiology:
A branch of lexicology dealing with meaning
Theory of meaning
There are different theories of linguistic meaning and different schools of semantics.
meaning can be understood as conditions of truth. The proponents of logical semantics work out formulae for conditions in which sentences describing unreal situations like The present king of France is bald may be considered true or false.
meaning may be understood as intention – what the hearer rationally determines the speaker intends her/his meaning to convey. This theory is more relevant to pragmatics and psychology.
the ostensional theory states that meaning is ostension, because people all over the world teach and learn meaning ostensively – by pointing to something and uttering the name.
Linguistic meaning may be defined differently in various branches of semantics that study different types of linguistic units: syntactical semantics, semantics of text and lexical semantics.
Several approaches to meaning relevant to lexical semantics.
Referential theory
Early referential theory developed by Plato equated meaning with physical objects. This theory is rejected nowadays. Referential word meaning theory is more sophisticated now, and it defines as relationships between things, their concepts and names
This theory started with a famous “triangle of reference” presented by the German mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925).
The meaning is viewed as connection between the word and the referent.
Ogden and Richards
Proposed traditional triangle “the meaning of meaning”
1.Thought (concept)
3.Referent
(word object)
2.Symbol (sound-form)
Referent is used for any physical object, quality, state, or action in the material word.
Referent is not meaning, and semantics should not be concentrated on the description of referents.
Meaning – a verbalized and lexicalized reflection of real things in our mind (referents, objects phenomena or relations).
Functional theory (Jacobson, Firth, Mathaesius)
They believe that the phonological, grammatical and semantic structures of a language are determined by the functions they have to perform in the societies in which they operate. Functionalists don’t try to answer the question what these structures, including meaning are, but they study how they are used in specific contexts in order to determine their properties.
The meaning of words can be studied only through its relation with other linguistic units and not through the relation either with referent or the concept.
Example: the verb “move” has different meanings with different classes of nouns:
To move+smth=to change position
To move+smb=to excite smb
But the both approaches should complement each other.
There are 2 types of meaning to be found in words and word forms:
1) the grammatical meaning;
2) the lexical meaning.