Seminar 2: the lexical meaning and its interpretation in modern linguistics

Tukhtakhodjaeva Z.T. // Seminars in Semantics and Word Formation

SEMINAR 2: THE LEXICAL MEANING AND ITS INTERPRETATION IN MODERN LINGUISTICS

1. The lexical meaning and the semantic structure of the word.

2. Types of word meaning. Meaning and sense. Meaning and reference.

3. Basic components of the lexical meaning: denotational and connotational meanings,

their correlations with other terms and notions.

4. Semantic structure of polysemantic words versus monosemantic.

5. Lexico-semantic variant, sememe, seme as semantic categories.
Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

1. What do you understand as “lexical meaning”?

Lexical meaning refers to the sense (or meaning) of a word (or lexeme) as it appears in a dictionary. Also known as semantic meaning, denotative meaning, and central meaning.

2. What meanings, besides the lexical one, can be distinguished in a lexeme?

As nouns the difference between lexeme and word is that lexeme is (linguistics) roughly, the set of inflected forms taken by a single word, such as the lexeme run including as members "run" (lemma), "running" (inflected form), or "ran", and excluding "runner" (derived term) while word is the fact or action of speaking

3.What is the difference between denotational and connotational meanings?

Connotation and Denotation are two principal methods of describing the meanings of words. Connotation refers to the wide array of positive and negative associations that most words naturally carry with them, whereas denotation is the precise, literal definition of a word that might be found in a dictionary.

4. What is the semantic structure?

Semantic structure is a fancy term for an organization that represents meaning. For example, an English sentence is a semantic structure.

5.What is the difference between seme and sememe?

A sememe is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is atomic or indivisible. ... A seme is the name for the smallest unit of meaning recognized in semantics, referring to a single characteristic of a sememe.

Exercise 2. Read and translate the following text