How to understand meaning of a word

The
definition of the word meaning
presents no less difficulty than the definition of the word itself.
The word meaning
renders the emotion or the concept in the mind of the speaker which
he wants to convey to the listener in the process of
communication. By
concept we understand any discrete unit of human cognition. The
word being a unit of language enters a number of combinations with
other units stands in functional relations to other linguistic signs.
Thus the meaning of the word not only fixes concepts by way of
generalizing and reflecting reality, but it is realized on contexts
and combinations. The meaning of the word is not homogeneous. It is
closely connected with the object it names and the concept it fixes.
It is also connected with the sound form besides it is realized in
different relations with other concepts. There are two main
approaches to word meaning: 1. relative approach, according to which
each linguistic sign (word) gets its meaning only in some semantic
field or paradigmatic relations. 2. the referential or denotational
approach, according to which the meaning of the word is autonomous,
it’s an integral part of the word, though is realized in contexts
and this approach is shown as a triangle (symbol – the word,
concept – thought; referent – object, denoted by the word).

28 Word meaning and motivation.

The
relationship between morphemic structure and meaning is termed
morphological motivation. The main criteria in morphological
motivation is the relationship between morphemes. All one-morpheme
words (look, eat) are non-motivated. Such words as writer, worker are
described as motivated. Phonetic motivation is represented by such
words as swish, boom, splash. Beside grammatical and lexical meanings
some linguists also distinguish the co-called structural meaning,
i.e. words in a sentence are joined together according to some
specific rules (a diggled-boggle, a boggled diggle). Motivation is
the relationship existing between the morpheme or phonemic
composition and the structural pattern of the word, on the one hand,
and its meaning on the other. The words are motivated: 1.
Structurally (a shoe-maker), but sometimes due to the character of
the lexical meaning of a morphological motivation becomes rather
relevant or weak (flower-girl); 2. Phonetically (swish, boom); 3.
Semantically (the dawn of life). Sometimes motivation of the words
may be lost: a) one of the elements of compound words dropped out of
usage (mermaid – русалка,
mere – море);
b) the loss of the primary meaning of the word (spoon – щепка).

34
Homonyms.
Definition, formal classification. Homonyms
are words
which are identical in sound and spelling, or, at least, in one of
these aspects, but different in their meaning.E. g. bank, n. —a
shore,bank, n. —an
institution for receiving, lending, exchanging, and safeguarding
money. ball, n. —a
sphere; any spherical body,ball, n. —a
large dancing party. Homonyms which are the same in sound and
spelling are traditionally termed homonyms
proper. Bean, n.
and been, Past
Part, of to
be are
homophone- they
are the same in sound but different in spelling. Homographs- words
which are the same in spelling but different in sound(lead v – show
smb the way, lead n – a heavy, rather soft metal). When analysing
different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymous in
all their forms, i.e. we observe full h. of the paradigms of two or
more different words, e.g., in seal₁ —‘a
sea animal’ and seal₂ —‘a
design printed on paper by means of a stamp’. When only some of the
word-forms(seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas others(sealed,
sealing) are not, we can speak of partial
h. — find,
found, found, and found, founded, founded.

.lexico-grammatical
classification of homonyms. Homonyms
may be also classified by the type of meaning into lexical,
lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonyms.
In seal₁ n and seal₂ n, e.g.,
the part-of-speech meaning of the word and the grammatical meanings
of all its forms are identical (seal [si:l] Common Case Singular,
seal’s [si:lz] Possessive Case Singular for both seal₁ and
seal₂). The
difference is confined to the lexical meaning only: seal₁ denotes
‘a sea animal’,‘the fur of this animal’,etc., seal₂—‘a
design printed on paper,the stamp by which the design is made’etc.
So we can say that seal₂ and
seal₁ are
lexical homonyms because they differ in lexical
meaning.If
we compare seal₁—‘a
sea animal’, and (to) seal₃—‘to
close tightly, we shall observe not only a difference in the lexical
meaning of their homonymous word-forms but a difference in their
grammatical meanings as well. Identical sound-forms, i.e.
seals[si:lz] (Common Case Plural of the noun) and (he) seals[si:lz]
(third person Singular of the verb) possess each of them different
grammatical meanings. As both grammatical and lexical meanings differ
we describe these homonymous word-forms as lexico-grammatical. Modern
English abounds in homonymic word-forms differing in grammatical
meaning only. e.g. brother’s —brothers —the
Possessive Case Singular and the Common Case Plural. It
may be easily observed
that grammatical
homonymy is
the homonymy of different
word-forms of one and the same word.

Sources
of homonyms. The
two main sources of h. are:1.diverging
meaning development
of a polysemantic word. This process can be observed when different
meanings of the same word move so far away from each other that they
come to be regarded as two separate units.
Ex.: flower and flour originally
were one wordmeaning ‘the flower’ and ‘the finest part of
wheat’.2.convergent
sound development of
two or more different words. Ex, OE. ic
and OE. еаzе have
become identical in pronunciation(ME. I
and eye). A number of lexico-grammatical homonyms appeared as a
result of convergent sound development of the verb and the noun
(MnE.love — (to)
love and OE. lufu
— lufian). Words
borrowed from other languages may through phonetic convergence become
homonymous. ONorse. ras
and Fr. race
are homonymous in Modern English (race₁ [reis]
— ‘running’ and race₂ [reis] —
‘a distinct
ethnical stock’).

35
Types of
Synonyms. The role of synonyms it the development of the
vocabulary.The
only existing classification system for synonyms was established by
Academician Vinogradov, the famous Russian scholar. In his
classification system there are three types of
synonyms: ideographic (which
he defined as words conveying the same concept but differing in
shades of meaning), stylistic (differing
in stylistic characteristics) and absolute (coinciding
in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic
characteristics) A more modern and a more effective approach to the
classification of synonyms may be based on the definition describing
synonyms as words differing in connotations.

36
The themantic
groups and semantic fields. Classification
of vocabulary items into thematic
groups is
based on the co-occurrence of words in certain repeatedly used
contexts. In linguistic contexts co-occurrence maу be
observed on different levels. On the level of word-groups the
word question, for
instance, is often found in collocation with the verbs raise,
put forward, discuss, etc.,
with the adjectives urgent,
vital, disputable and
so on. The verb
accept occurs
in numerous contexts together with the nouns proposal,
invitation, plan and
others.As a rule, thematic groups deal with contexts on the level of
the sentence. Words in thematic groups are joined together by common
contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and
reflect the interlinking of things or events. Common contextual
association of the words,
e.g. tree—grow—green;journey—train—taxi—bags—ticket
or sunshine—brightly—blue—sky, is
due to the regular co-occurrence of these words in a number of
sentences. Words making up a thematic group belong to different parts
of speech and do not possess any common denominator of meaning.
Contextual associations formed by the speaker of a language are
usually conditioned by the context of situation which necessitates
the use of certain words. When watching a play, for example, we
naturally speak of the actors who act the
main parts, of
good (or bad)
staging of
the play, of the wonderful scenery and
so on. When we go shopping it
is usual to speak of the prices, of the
goods we buy, of the
shops. Words
may be classified according to the concepts underlying their meaning.
This classification is closely connected with the theory of
conceptual or semantic
fields.
By the term “semantic fields” we understand closely knit sectors
of vocabulary each characterised by a common concept. For example,
the words blue,
red, yellow, black, etc.
may be described as making up the semantic field of colours, thewords
mother, father, brother, cousin, etc.
— as members of the semantic field.In
practical lang. learning thematic groups are often listed under
various headings, e. g. “At the Theatre”, “At School”,
“Shopping”, and are often found in textbooks and courses of
conversational English.The members of the semantic fields are not
synonyms but all of them are joined together by some common semantic
component — the
concept of colours or the concept of kinship, etc. It is argued that
we cannot possibly know the exact meaning of the word if we do not
know the structure of the SF to which the word belongs, the number of
the members and the concepts covered by them.It should also be
pointed out that different meanings of polysemantic words make it
possible to refer the same word to different lexico-semantic groups.
Thus, e.g. make in
the meaning of ‘construct’ is naturally a member of the same
lexico-semantic group as the verbs produce,
manufacture, etc , whereas
in the meaning of compel it
is regarded as a member of a different lexico-semantic group made up
by the verbs force,
induce.

37
Semantic
contrasts and antonymy. General problems(contrast, contradiction)The
term antonyms indicate words of the same category of parts of speech
which have contrasting meanings. And nearly identical in distribution
associated and used together so that their implication aspects render
contrary or contradictory notion:love-hate, early-late. The
opposition here is obvious, each component means the opposite of the
other. Almost every word can have synonyms comparatativly, few have
antonyms. Antonyms apposition is characterized of a)qualitative
adj-s:new-old, big-little. b)word derived from word qualitative
adj-s:gladly-sadly, sadness-gladness. c)words concern with feeling or
state and their derivatives:triumph-disaster, hope-dispair. d)words
denoting directions and position in space: up-down, far-near.
Polysemantic words may have antonyms in some of their meanings and
none in the others. E.g.a shot/long story, a short/tall man. Not so
many years ago antonymy was not universally accepted as a linguistic
problem, and the opposition within antonymic pairs was regarded as
purely logical and finding no reflection in the semantic structures
of these words. The contrast between heat and cold or big and small,
said most scholars, is the contrast of things opposed by their very
nature. Nowadays most scholars agree that in the semantic structures
of all words, which regularly occur in antonymic pairs, a special
antonymic connotation can be singled out. We are so used to coming
across hot and cold together, in the same contexts, that even when we
find hot alone, we cannot help subconsciously registering it as not
cold, that is, contrast it to its missing antonym. Contradictions
represent the type of semnantic relantions that exist between pairs
like dead and alive) single and married.

Classification
of antonyms. Depending
on the type of polarity ant-s are usually classified into absolute
and derivational. Absolute ant-s are words regularly contrasted as
homogeneous members connected by copulative, disjunctive and
adversative conjunctions or parallel constructions: good or bad,
right or wrong. Derivational a. are formed with the help of affixes
dis, un, less, ful:selfish-unselfish, useless-useful. The
contradiction is expressed morphologically and symantically too.
Absolute ant-s can be arranged into a series according to increasing
difference in one of the qualities:young-middle aged-old;
love-resentment-hate. A-s mostly form pairs not groups.

38
Connotations
of synonyms.I.The
connotation of degree
or intensity can
be traced in such groups of synonyms as to surprise — to astonish —
to amaze — to astound; to shout — to yell — to bellow — to roar.
IIconnotation of duration:
to stare — to glare — to gaze — to glance — to peep — to peer. all
the synonyms except to glance denote a lasting act of looking at smb
or smth, whereas to glance describes a brief, passing look. IIIThe
synonyms to stare — to glare — to gaze are differentiated from the
other words of the group by emotive connotations,
and from each other by the nature of the emotion they
imply. In the group alone — single — lonely — solitary, the adjective
lonely also has an emotive connotation. IV.
The evaluative connotation
conveys the speaker’s attitude towards the referent, labelling it as
good or bad. So in the group well-known — famous — notorious —
celebrated, the adjective notorious bears a negative evaluative
connotation and celebrated a positive one. V.The causativeconnotation
can be illustrated by the examples to sparkle and to glitter given
above: one’s eyes sparkle with positive emotions and glitter with
negative emotions. VI.The connotation of manner can
be singled out in some groups of verbal synonyms. The verbs to stroll
— to stride — to trot — to pace — to swagger — to stagger — to
stumble all denote different ways and types of walking,. VII.The
verbs to peep and to peer is the connotation of attendant
circumstances.
VIII.The synonyms pretty, handsome, beautiful have been mentioned as
the ones which are more or less interchangeable. Yet, each of them
describes a special type of human beauty: beautiful is mostly
associated with classical features and a perfect figure, handsome
with a tall stature, a certain robustness and fine pro portions,
pretty with small delicate features and a fresh complexion. This
connotation may be defined as the connotation of attendant
features.
IX.Stylistic connotations.
Examples :Meal. Snack, bite (coll.), snap (dial.), repast,
refreshment, feast (formal).

39
Sources
of synonyms. Euphemisms. 1)borrowings:
to ask(eng)-to question(fr)-interrogate(lat); to
gather(eng)-assemble(fr)-collect(lat) 2)dialects or
variations(amer)radio-(british)wireless; (irish)lass-(eng)girl; 3)new
formations with a post positive: to postphone-to put off, to
return-to come back, to betray-to give a way; 4)word-building by
means of :a)synonymas, affixes:changeable-changefull; b) composition
and affixation:trader-tradesman; c)affixation and
conversion:saying-say; 5) by means of shortening:microfone-mike,
doctor-doc; 6) a special groups of synonymas is comprised by the
Euphemisms. There are words in every language which people
instinctively avoid because they are considered indecent, indelicate,
rude, too direct or impolite. As the «offensive» referents,
for which these words stand, must still be alluded to, they are often
described in a round-about way, by using substitutes called
euphemisms. The
word lavatory has
produced many euphemisms:powder
room,washroom,restroom,retiring room,(public) comfort station,
ladies’ (room),gentlemen’s (room),water-closet,w.c., public
conveniences and
even Windsor. Pregnancy: in
an interesting condition,in a delicate condition,in the family
way,with a baby coming,(big) with child,expecting. Drunk:
intoxicated (form.),under the influence (form.),tipsy,mellow, fresh,
high, merry, flustered, overcome, full (coll.), drunk as a lord
(coll.), drunk as an owl (coll.), boiled (sl.), fried (sl.), tanked
(sl.), tight (sl.), stiff (sl.), pickled (sl.), soaked (sl.), three
sheets to the wind (sl.), high as a kite (sl.), half-seas-over (sl.),
etc. All the euphemisms that have been described so far are used to
avoid the so-called social taboos. Their use is inspired by social
convention. Euphemisms
may be:a) based on some social or ethical standard of behavior not to
hurt other people’s feelinfs: poor-underprivilaged
disaipled-invalid; 2) the requinment of style:to die-to join the
majority, to pass away, to go west; 3)religious taboo:the name of
God-good heavens.

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A technology that strives to understand human communication must be able to understand meaning in language. In this post, we take a deeper look at a core component of our expert.ai technology, the semantic disambiguator, and how it determines word meaning and sentence meaning via disambiguation.

To start, let’s clarify our definitions of words and sentences from a linguistic point of view.

Word Meaning and Sentence Meaning in Semantics

Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, sentences and text. This can be broken down into subcategories such as formal semantics (logical aspects of meaning), conceptual semantics (cognitive structure of meaning) and today’s focus of lexical semantics (word and phrase meaning).

A “word” is a string of characters that can have different meanings (jaguar: car or animal?; driver: one who drives a vehicle or the part of a computer?; rows, the plural noun or the third singular person of the verb to row?). A “sentence” is a group of words that express a complete thought. To fully capture the meaning of a sentence, we need to understand how words relate to other words.

Going Back to School

To understand word meaning and sentence meaning, our semantic disambiguator engine must be able to automatically resolve ambiguities with any word in a text.

Let’s consider this sentence:

John Smith is accused of the murders of two police officers.

To understand the word meaning and sentence meaning in any phrase, the disambiguator performs four consecutive phases of analysis:

Lexical Analysis

During this phase, the stream of text is broken up into meaningful elements called tokens. The sequence of “atomic” elements resulting from this process will be further elaborated in the next phase of analysis.

• John > human proper noun
• Smith > human proper noun
• is > verb
• accused > noun
• of > preposition
• the > article

Grammatical Analysis

During this phase, each token in the text is assigned a part of speech. The semantic disambiguator can recognize any inflected forms and conjugations as well as identify nouns, proper nouns and so on.

Starting from a mere sequence of tokens, what results from this elaboration is a sequence of elements. Some of them have been grouped to form collocations (e.g., police officer) and every token or group of tokens is represented by a block that identifies its part of speech.

• John Smith > human proper noun
• is accused > predicate nominal

Syntactical Analysis

During this phase, the disambiguator operates several word grouping operations on different levels to reproduce the way that words are linked to one another to form sentences. Sentences are further analyzed to attribute a logical role to each phrase (subject, predicate, object, verb, complement, etc.) and identify relationships between them and other complements whenever possible. In our example, the sentence is made of a single independent clause, where John Smith is recognized as subject of the sentence.

• John Smith > subject
• is accused > nominal predicate

Semantic Analysis

During the last and most complex phase, the tokens recognized during grammatical analysis are associated with a specific meaning. Though each token can be associated to several concepts, the choice is made by considering the base form of each token with respect to its part of speech, the grammatical and syntactical characteristics of the token, the position of the token in the sentence and its relation to the syntactical elements surrounding it.

Like the human brain, the disambiguator eliminates all candidate terms for each token except one, which will be definitively assigned to the token. When it comes across an unknown element in a text (e.g., human proper names), it tries to infer word meaning and sentence meaning by considering the context in which each token appears to determine its meaning.

• Is accused > to accuse > to blame
• police officer > policeman, police woman, law enforcement officer

Want to learn more about the disambiguation process? Take a deep dive in our brief, “Disambiguation: The Key to Contextualization“.