CARD 4. MEANING AND CONTEXT

Polysemy is a phenomenon of language not of speech. In many contexts in which the word is observed lexicographers can record cases of identical meaning and cases that differ in meaning. They are registered by lexicographers and found in dictionaries.

The lexical meaning of a word in speech is called a contextual meaning, and the semantic structure of a word in language is a different category.

Thus the semantic structure of the verb act comprises several variants: ?do something?, ?behave?, ?take a part in a play?, ?pretend?. If we examine this word in the following aphorism: Some men have acted courage who had it not; but no man can act wit (Halifax), we sees it in a definite context and it makes possible only one meaning ?pretend?. This contextual meaning has a connotation of irony.

As a rule the contextual meaning represents only one of the possible variants of the word but this one variant may render a complicated notion or emotion analyzable into several semes. In this case we deal not with the semantic structure of the word but with the semantic structure of one of its meanings.

Polysemy is not connected with communicative function of the language because the situation and context cancel all the unwanted meanings.

Context is a powerful preventative against any misunderstanding of meanings. For instance, the adjective dull, if used out of context, would mean different things to different people or nothing at all. It is only in combination with other words that it reveals its actual meaning: a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull weather, etc. Sometimes, however, such a minimum context fails to reveal the meaning of the word, and it may be correctly interpreted only through what Professor N. Amosova termed a second-degree context [1], as in the following example: The man was large, but his wife was even fatter. The word fatter here serves as a kind of indicator pointing that large describes a stout man and not a big one.

Current research in semantics is largely based on the assumption that one of the more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is by studying the word's linear relationships with other words in typical contexts, i. e. its combinability or collocability.

Scholars says that the semantics of words characterized by common occurrences (i. e. words which regularly appear in common contexts) are correlated and, therefore, one of the words within such a pair can be studied through the other. If we intend to investigate the semantic structure of an adjective, one would best consider the adjective in its most typical syntactical patterns A + N ?(adjective + noun) and N + l + A (noun + link verb +adjective) and make a study of the meanings of nouns with which the adjective is frequently used. For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first pattern will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.). b) bright metal (gold, jewels, armour, etc.) c) bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.) and some others. These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of combinations: a) intensive in colour, b) shining, c) capable, d) gay, etc.

For a transitive verb, the recommended pattern is V+N (verb + direct object expressed by a noun.

There is an interesting hypothesis that the semantics of words regularly used in common contexts (e. g. bright colours, to build a house, to create a work of art, etc.) are so intimately correlated that each of them reflects on the meaning of its neighbour.

If the verb to compose is frequently used with the object music, it is natural that certain musical associations will be present in the meaning of the verb to compose?

F.E. negative evaluative connotation of the adjective notorious is linked with the negative connotation of the nouns with which it is regularly associated: a notorious criminal, thief, gangster, gambler, gossip, liar etc. All this leads to the conclusion that context is a good and reliable key to the meaning of the word.

Here is a puzzling question to illustrate what we mean. Cf.: an angry man, an angry letter. Is the adjective angry used in the same meaning in both these contexts or in two different meanings? Some people will say "two" and argue that, on the one hand, the combinability is different (man ? name of person; letter ? name of object) and, on the other hand, a letter cannot experience anger, but it can very well convey the anger of the person who wrote it. As to the combinability, the main point is that a word can realise the same meaning in different sets of combinability.

For instance, in the pairs merry children, merry laughter, merry faces, merry songs the adjective merry conveys the same concept of high spirits whether they are directly experienced by the children (in the first phrase) or indirectly expressed through the merry faces, the laughter and the songs of the other word groups .

The task of distinguishing between the different meanings of a word and the different variations of combinability is actually a question of singling out the different denotations within the semantic structure of the word.

Cf.: 1) a sad woman,

2) a sad voice,

3) a sad story,

4) a sad scoundrel (= an incorrigible scoundrel)

5) a sad night (= a dark, black night, arch, poet.)

Here we can see that first three contexts have the common denotation of sorrow, but in the fourth and fifth contexts the denotations are different. So in this three contexts we can see three meanings of sad.

We can make the following conclusions: the contextual analysis remains one of the main investigative methods for determining the semantic structure o a word.

Date: 2016-06-13; view: 5