4. Give a general overview on word meaning

Word is made up of many components and they are usually described as types of meaning. Among the word’s various characteristics, ‘meaning’ is certainly the most important.

Lexical meaning is the realization of concept (понятия) or emotion by means of a definite language system.

Grammatical meaning is an expression in speech of relationships btwn words based on contrasting features of arrangement in which they occur.

The conceptual (понятийное) content (содержимое) of a word is expressed in its denotative (означающим) meaning. The denotative meaning may be significative (значимым), if the referent is a concept, or demonstrative (указательным), if it is an individual object.

Connotative meaning is the emotive (эмоциональная) charge and the stylistic value of the word.

5. Reasons for changes in word meaning

Extra-linguistic and linguistic reasons. By extra-linguistic reasons we understand various changes in the life of some speech community, changes in economic and social structure and other spheres of human activities as reflected in words.

The word “earth” changed its meaning with people enlarging (расширившими) their knowledge about the world. The old word meant just the ground soil (почва) that people see at their feet. Modern “earth” means the planet we live on.

Some changes of meaning can be explained by purely (чисто) linguistic factors.

There are several types of semantic changes:

1) Specialization (Narrowing) of meaning - word represented a notion (понятие) of broad scope (охвата) has come to render (представить) a notion of a narrower scope, so restriction (ограничение) of meaning takes place.

2) Generalization (Broadening) of meaning - word represented a notion of narrow scope has come to render a notion of a broader scope (”to arrive” = “to come to shore, to land” and now = “to come”; “pipe” = “a musical wind instrument” and now “any hollow (пустое) oblong (продолговатое) cylindrical body”).

The process of change of meaning is called transference.

3) Metaphor (gr. “meta” = “change”, “pherein” = “bear”) is a semantic process based on resemblance (сходство) (we can call a cunning (ловкого) person “fox”).

4) Metonymy (“meta” = “change”, “onoma” = “name”) is a semantic process of associating two references one of which makes the part of the other or is closely connected with it (a woman may be called a coat, a skirt).

6. Types of word meanings

Lexical meaning is the realization of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system.

Grammatical meaning is an expression in speech of relationships btwn words based on contrasting features of arrangement in which they occur.

The conceptual content of a word is expressed in its denotative meaning. The denotative meaning may be significative, if the referent is a concept, or demonstrative, if it is an individual object.

Connotative meaning is the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word.

7. Word formation

Word Formation is the system of derivative (производных) types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic patterns (образцов) and formulas.

There are several types of word formation – derivation (affixation, conversion) and compounding.

Affixation consists in making up new words by adding endings to some root morpheme.

Conversion is the process of coining a new word in a different part of speech without adding any derivative element.

Compounding is forming new words by combining or putting together old words.