The process of nomination

There are two main participants in the process of nomination: the one who gives a name to an object (the nominator) and the object which is given a name (the referent)/ The process of giving a name to an object consists of several stages.

1. The process of nomination starts with forming a concept of the object. The concept is a generalized idea of a class of objects, summing up the most essential features of the given class thus distinguishing it from other classes. There are several factors which influence the formation of concepts: 1) the objective reality itself. It accounts for differences in concepts in different language communities. 2) the level of knowledge about the nature and structure of the given object. 3) the general system of notions typical of the given language community.

2. The next stage is the designation of class of objects under nomination with the help of linguistic means. To form meaning certain features are singled out to underlie word semantics. The features chosen as the basic characteristics of the object from the denotatum. It is really what the world denotes, while the concept and the referent are what the word correlated with.

3. Defining a set of denotational features constituting the most important part of meaning in the process of nominational is not the final stage. The next stage is the formation of functional significance of a linguistic unit. The attitude of the speaker towards the object, the place it is ascribed among other things also finds its reflection in shaping lexical meaning. Information suggested in additional to the denotatum may refer to the positive or negative attitude of the nominator, or it may indicate a certain situation of communication and point out at the participants and their role. This additional information shapes the communicative value of lexical meaning.

4. It should be noted that to become a word, the semantic side formed in the process of nomination is to be correlated with certain material structure, i.e. the sound form and graphic form.

The process of motivation

The process of motivation depends upon the inner form of a word. The inner form is the pivotal point in the lexical meaning which helps to get an insight into the features chosen as the basis for nomination. In linguistics motivation is used to denote the relationship between the phonetic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other. There are three types of motivation:

1. The phonetical motivation. It implies a direct connection between the phonetic structure of the word and its meaning. It is also suggested that sounds themselves can be emotionally expressive which accounts for the phonetical motivation in certain words.

2. The morphological motivation. It implies a direct connection between the lexical meaning of the component morphemes, the pattern of their arrangement and the meaning of the word. So the main criterion in morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes.

3. The semantic motivation. It implies a direct connection between the central and marginal meanings of the word. Semantic motivation is based on the coexistence of direct figurative meanings within the semantic structure of the word.