6.3.5 Differential Meaning

When the semantic component serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes, then that semantic component contains differential meaning. Differential meaning can be illustrated in the following examples: in the compound words barman, boatman, cabman, and caveman, the components bar, boat, cab, and cave serve to distinguish these words from one another; therefore, they have differential meaning.

6.3 6 Distributional Meaning

Distributional meaning is the meaning of the order and arrangement of morphemes composing the word. Lyons (1968) states the idea that the attachments between elements within a word are firmer than are the attachments between words themselves (as cited in Saeed, p. 57). Some examples may illustrate this approach. The order of the morphemes is fixed in the following lexemes: reader, disappointment, and actually. The order of the morphemes cannot be changed without disturbance of its meaning. The following formations, er+read, or ment+appoint+dis do not make any sense, therefore proving the arrangement of morphemes is fixed, and these morphemes cannot be rearranged arbitrarily. Distributional meaning may be observed not only in lexemes but in collocations as well; for example, in collocations kick the bucket, in a stew of something and someone, and get one’s wires crossed, the arrangement of words is fixed, and any attempt to make changes in the structure will disturb the meaning. Summing up, distributional meaning is the meaning of the pattern of the arrangement of the morphemes composing the word and the arrangement of lexemes creating a collocation. Distributional meaning is found in all words composed of more than one morpheme (builder, not erbuild) and in trite metaphors: a flight of fancy, a heart of gold, and a shadow of a smile.

6.4 Phonetic, Morphological, and Semantic Motivation of Words

The term motivation denotes “the relationship existing between the phonemic or morphemic composition and structural pattern of the word, on the one hand, and its meaning on the other” (Arnold, p. 33). Three main types of motivation are observed: phonetical, morphological, and semantic.

Phonetical motivation occurs when there is a certain similarity between the sound-form of a word and its meaning when speech sounds may suggest spatial and visual dimensions, shape, and size, e.g., tick- tock, cuckoo, ratatat and sizzle. These lexemes are phonetically motivated because the sound clusters are a direct imitation of the sounds these words denote. This process in linguistics is onomatopoeia, which is “the use of a word for which the connection between sound and meaning seems non-arbitrary because the word’s sound echoes its meaning” (Denham & Lobeck, 2011, p. 140). Although the examples of onomatopoeia show that a certain non-arbitrary element of lexemes exists, these formations are never organic elements of a language system (de Saussure, 1959, p. 69). Moreover, these sound imitations are not the same in all languages; for example, English bow-bow corresponds to French ouaoua, which proves that even sound imitations in different languages are somewhat arbitrary. Other examples illustrate this assumption: cuckoo (English),kukučka (Slovak), kukushka (Russian), koekoek (Dutch), Kuckuck (German), dzeguze (Latvian), gegutė (Lithuanian), kukavica (Slovenian), guguk kuşu (Turkish), and kuke (Tatar). Interjections are closely related to onomatopoeia; however, they do not contradict the arbitrariness of the sound-form (e.g., English ouch! refers to French aïe!, to Russian oi!, to Ukranian oi!, and to Turkish uf!). Interjections are “spontaneous expressions of reality dictated, so to speak, by natural forces (de Saussure, 1959, p. 69). As seen from the argument above, phonetical motivation, a direct connection between the phonetic structure of the word and its meaning, is not universally recognized in modern linguistic science.

Morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes. All one-morpheme words (e.g., bring, cut, reach, room, and build) are unmotivated. In words composed of more than one morpheme, “the carrier of the word-meaning is the combined meaning of the component morphemes and the meaning of the structural pattern of the word” (Ginzburg at al., p.25). The derived word re-submit is motivated because its morphological structure suggests the idea of submitting again. In this example, we can observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning. Morphological motivation is relative, and the degree of motivation varies: there exist various grades of motivation, ranging from the extremes of complete motivation (e.g., endless) to lack of motivation (e.g., matter, number, and repeat). An example of partial motivation is cranberry. There is no lexical meaning in the morpheme cran-, but the lexemes blackberry and blueberry are examples of complete morphological motivation (blue + berry and black + berry); they are named for the color of their berries. The lexeme raspberry is also motivated because it takes its name from English rasp (to scrape roughly), in reference to the thorny canes bearing the berries. Morphological motivation is understood as a direct connection between the lexical meaning of the component morphemes, the pattern of their arrangement, and the meaning of the word. The degree of morphological motivation may be partial and complete. There are cases where unmotivated words are observed.

Semantic motivation is the “co-existence of direct and figurative meanings of the same word within the same synchronous system” (Arnold, p.34). It functions as an association between the primary and secondary (derived) meanings of a word based on a metaphorical extension of the primary meaning. Metaphorical extension may be viewed as “generalisation of the denotative meaning of a word permitting it to include new referents which are in some way like the original class of referents” (Ginzburg at al., 1979, p. 27), e.g., foot and the foot of the mountain. Metaphor is a word or a phrase that does not carry the literal meaning of a lexeme or a phrase but is a figurative meaning. Similarity of various aspects and/or functions of different classes of referents may account for the semantic motivation of a number of minor meanings (Ginzburg et al., 1979, p. 27); for example, any extension associated with foot is semantically motivated (foot locker, football, footnote, flatfoot, footage, and the foot of the mountain. Metaphoric extension may be observed in the so-called trite metaphors, such as foot the bill, footloose and fancy-tree, get off on the wrong foot, have a foot in the door, not to put a foot wrong, put one’s best foot forward, put one’s foot down, and put one’s foot in it). Semantic motivation suggests a direct connection between the primary and figurative meanings of the word. This connection may be understood as a metaphoric extension of the primary meaning based on the similarity of different classes of referents denoted by the word.