What is Word Meaning in Semantics?
What is Word Meaning in Semantics?
Word Meaning envisages the interpretation of words based on their semantic features and components. Semantics is a field of linguistics that studies meaning in words and sentences without recourse to context. What this opines is that semantics concerns itself with the study of the meaning of words and sentences excluding the contexts in which they may appear. It is otherwise known as a context-free analysis of meaning compared to pragmatics, which is a field of linguistics that studies meaning in relation to context and a number of factors affecting it.
Word meaning in semantics refers to the analysis of the meaning of words only by interpreting the semantic features, that is—the meaningful—features of words. It looks at the possible interpretations available to a word. Take for example;
The word "man", has a number of interpretations such as:
1. A male human being
2. A masculine gender, etc
The examples listed above are some of the interpretations available to the word, Man. So word meaning is simply an evaluation of meaning in words based on their features and the possible interpretations available to them. There exists three aspects of analysis or types of word meaning in semantics, namely:
1. Denotative meaning
2. Connotative meaning
3. Collocative meaning
Denotative Meaning
Denotative meaning is a type of word meaning that is associated with the primary or surface meaning of a word. It can also be explained as the meaning of a word as found in the dictionary of any language. This type of word meaning is the surface level interpretation of the meaning of a word without relating or associating it with any other concept that may share similarities with it. Now take for instance;
The word, boy, has a denotative meaning of the following;
1. A young male human being
2. A masculine gender, etc
Now these are the interpretations of the word, boy, from the angle of its componential features. That is, the graphical or morphological elements that make up the word, boy, attribute the interpretations above to it. So when a word is being analyzed, considering only its components or features, elements that make up a word, it is said to be denotative.
Connotative Meaning
Connotative Meaning refers to the meaning of a word based on its relation to certain attributes or qualities. It can also be described as layered or secondary meaning of words. Unlike denotative meaning which is concerned with the meaning of a word based on its componential features, connotative meaning looks at the meaning of a word based on certain qualities that can be attributed to it. Take for example;
The word, boy, here, will no longer be interpreted from the base level of its componential make up, but based on conceivable qualities that can be associated with it, such as;
1. Young
2. Strong
3. Hardworking
4. Innocent
5. Handsome, and the list goes on.
Whatever quality or attribute that can be associated with the word, boy, is permissible in the list above. Hence, connotative meaning can also be termed, associative meaning because it provides the interpretations of a word based on qualities or features that can be associated with the word in question. Here is another example;
The word, man, can be interpreted as the following, connotatively;
1. Muscular
2. Thick voiced
3. Head/ leader
4. Tough, etc
Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning is a type of word meaning that strays quite far from the preceding ones in this article. It is concerned with the meaning of a word as determined by the syntactic environment it finds itself in. Collocative meaning looks at the meaning a word attains as a result of the other words it coexists with in a syntactic environment. Now take for instance;
1. He kicked the bucket.
All the words grammatically stringed together to form the sentence above can only express the meaning of the sentence by virtue of their co-occurrence. What this means is that, the interpretation of "kicking the bucket", which means, "to die", cannot be achieved with the words in isolation.
To test the proposition above, let us separate the words that form the sentence.
1. He
2. Kicked
3. The
4. Bucket
There is nothing about these words, used in isolation, that hints at the passing away of a person. E.g., bucket, kicked, he, etc, none of them express the meaning of passing away in isolation, only when they are stringed together or co-occur with each other can the meaning of passing away be achieved by them. So collocative meaning has to do with the interpretation of the meaning of words based solely on the environment they find themselves or the words they occur with to express a single meaning. A meaning that cannot be achieved when they are used in isolation.
Word meaning is an aspect of semantics that is concerned with the interpretation of the meaning of words without recourse to context, having three types namely; Denotative, Connotative, and Collocative meaning. Denotative is word meaning at surface level, connotative is word meaning based on associated qualities and attributes, while collocative is word meaning based on co-occurrence of words with other words to express a single meaning.
Related posts:
Comments
Post a Comment