Types of lexical meaning

Logical and emotive types of lexical meaning

• Stylistics is a domain where meaning assumes paramount importan-ce. This is so because the term 'meaning' is applied not only to words,word-combinations, sentences but also to the manner of expression intowhich the matter is cast. The linguistic term meaning has been defined in so many waysthat there appears an urgent need to clarify it; particularly in view ofthe fact that in so many lexical, grammatical and phonetic SDs thiscategory is treated differently. It has already been mentioned that astylistic device_is mainly realized when a twofold application of mea-ning is apparent. At some period in the development of a certain trend in linguistictheory in America, viz. descriptive linguistics, meaning was excludedfrom observations in language science; it was considered an extra-lin-guistic category.

. Nominal types of lexical meaning

• In linguistics, the term nominal refers to a category used to group together nouns and adjectives based on shared properties. The motivation for nominal grouping is that in many languages nouns and adjectives share a number of morphological and syntactic properties. The systems used in such languages to show agreement can be classified broadly as gender systems, noun class systems or case marking, classifier systems, and mixed systems. Typically an affix related to the noun appears attached to the other parts of speech within a sentence to create agreement. Such morphological agreement usually occurs in parts within the noun phrase, such as determiners and adjectives. Languages with overt nominal agreement vary in how and to what extent agreement is required.

Types of lexical relationships

• There are a few ways to characterize the meaning of a word; we can do it through morphology, phonology, or even through its categorization: whether it is animate, human, female, or adult. However, there is another way to characterize the meaning of a word: namely, to characterize the word through its lexical relations. Lexical relationships are the connections established between one word and another; for example, we all know that the opposite of “closed” is “open” and that “literature” is similar to “book”. These words have a significant relationship to one another, whereas words like “chair” and “coffee” might have no meaningful relationship; thus, certain lexical relationships can inform us about the meaning of a word.