The lexical meaning of a word in speech

Lexical meaning
is the realization of the notion by means of a definite language
system.

If we compare the word-forms
of one and the same word we can observe that besides grammatical
meaning they possess another component of word-meaning.

Let us compare, for example
the following word-forms: go, goes, went, going, gone. They
all have different grammatical meanings of tense, person and aspect,
but each of these forms contains one and the same semantic component
denoting the process of movement. This is the lexical meaning of the
given verb-forms.

So lexical meaning may be
described as the component of word-meaning proper to the word as a
linguistic unit and recurrent in all the forms of this word.

By lexical meaning we
designate the meaning proper to the given linguistic unit in all its
forms and distributions, while by grammatical meaning we designate
the meaning proper to sets of word-forms common to all words of a
certain class.

Both the lexical and
grammatical meanings make up the word-meaning as a whole because
neither of them can exist without the other. The lexical meaning of a
word is dependent upon its grammatical meaning.

1.3.3. Part-of-speech meaning

Lexical items or words are
generally classified into major word-classes such as nouns,
adjectives, verbs, adverbs and into minor word-classes such as
articles, prepositions, conjunctions and so on.

All members of the same
word-class share a distinguishing semantic component which can be
viewed as the lexical component of part-of-speech
meaning. The grammatical aspect of part-of-speech
meaning is conveyed as a rule by a set of forms. Here we may
speak about the meaning of lexico-grammatical groups or classes of
words and, consequently, about lexico-grammatical meaning.

A lexico-grammatical
class may be defined as a class of lexical elements
possessing the same lexico-grammatical meaning and a common system of
forms in which the grammatical categories inherent in these units are
expressed. So every lexico-grammatical group or class is
characterized by its own lexico-grammatical meaning forming the
common denomenator of all the meanings of the words which belong to
this group. The lexico-grammatical meaning may be also regarded as
the feature according to which these words are grouped together.

As it was mentioned above, the
lexical meaning of every word depends upon the part of speech to
which this word belongs. In the lexical meaning of every separate
word the lexico-grammatical meaning common to all the words of the
class to which this word belongs is enriched by additional features
and becomes particularized.

Let us take, for example, such
words as bright, clear, good. These adjectives denote the
properties of things capable of being compared and so have degrees of
comparison. In the lexical meanings of these words in the forms
brighter, clearer and better the lexico-grammatical
meaning of qualitative adjectives common to all the words of this
class is enriched the additional meaning of the comparative degree of
the quality these words denote.

If we describe the word as a
noun we mean to say that it is bound to possess a set of forms
expressing the grammatical meanings of number, case, sometimes gender
and so on. A verb is understood to possess sets of forms expressing
the grammatical meanings of tense, aspect, mood and so on.

The part-of-speech meaning of
words that possess only one form, for example, prepositions, is
observed only in their distribution; compare, for example, to come
in and in the table.

One of the levels at which
grammatical meaning operates is that of minor word class like
articles, prepositions and pronouns.

One criterion for
distinguishing these grammatical items from lexical items is in terms
of closed and open sets of units.

Grammatical items form closed
sets of units usually of small membership, such as articles,
prepositions, pronouns. New items are practically never added there.

Lexical items proper belong to
open sets of units which have indeterminately large membership; new
lexical items which are constantly coined to name new objects of
reality are added to these open sets of units.

The interrelation of the
lexical and grammatical meanings within the word-meaning and the role
played by each of them varies in different word-classes and even in
different groups of words within one and the same class. In some
parts of speech the prevailing component of the word-meaning is the
lexical meaning, in others – the grammatical meaning.

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Vocabulary is a very important part of language science. She learns words and their meanings. It’s no secret: the richer the language reserve of a person, the more beautiful and imaginative is his speech. Most new words can be gleaned from reading. Often it happens that a new word is found in a book or magazine, in this case a dictionary of lexical meanings will help, and it is also called an explanatory one. The most common — issued by VI Dalem and SI Ozhegov. It is they who are trusted by the modern science of language.

Vocabulary wealth of the Russian language

Language, including Russian, is a phenomenondeveloping. There are new cultures, inventions of science and technology, one civilization replaces another. Of course, all this is reflected in the language. Some words appear, some disappear. It is the vocabulary that reacts vividly to these changes. All this is the wealth of the language. K. Paustovsky gave a very colorful explanation of the totality of words, saying that each surrounding phenomenon or object has a corresponding «good» word, and even not one.

Scientists have proved that for one to understandit is enough for another person to have 4-5 thousand words in stock, but this is not enough for a beautiful, imaginative speech. The Russian language is one of the most beautiful, therefore it is necessary to use its wealth. And the knowledge of individual words with their interpretations is not enough (for this you can simply learn the dictionary of lexical meanings). It is much more important to know related words, their figurative meaning, to understand and use antonyms, to use homonymous units.

Lexical meaning of a word

The word is the most important unit of any language. It is from them that the combinations and subsequently the sentences that people communicate with each other are made up. How to distinguish one word from another? With the help of phonetic design. Also, lexical meaning will help in this. This separates the words. They can denote, for example, objects, people or living beings (table, teacher, wolf); natural phenomena (wind, frost), actions (run, watch), signs (beautiful, pink).

Over the course of centuries, words can change their lexical meaning. Take for example the word garden. Until the twentieth century, this word also denoted the garden. In modern times the same lexical meaning has changed: garden now it’s a fenced place where vegetables are grown.

There are words in which lexical meaning is a certain image that is easy to imagine and portray: tree, cupboard, flower. In others, it is very abstract: love, grammar, music. The lexical meaning of the Russian language is generalized in explanatory dictionaries. There are several ways of interpreting words with the same meaning. For example, the way is the road. Some dictionaries offer a detailed explanation: way — a certain place in the space through which they move.

Why you need to know the lexical meaning

It is very important to know the lexical meaning — this will save you from some spelling mistakes. For example:

• Trying on wedding dresses is a tedious but pleasant process.
• It was always good to reconcile the enemies.

In the first example, the word «try on» is used in the sense of «fitting», so at the root it is necessary to write e. The second sentence deals with peace, so the letter and fundamentally.

Lexical meaning differs not only words, but also morphemes. So, the prefix at— is used when it comes to incompleteness of action, close proximity, approaching or joining; pre— in cases where the highest degree of something (amusing — very funny, but: to push in (attach), sit down (incompleteness), seaside (close to the sea).

There are also roots with different lexical meanings. These are such as —poppy— / —wet-; —equal— / —flat-. If the word means immersion in a liquid, it should be written —poppy— (dunk cookies in milk), another matter is the meaning of «skipping, absorbing liquid», in this case it is necessary to write —wet— (the feet got wet). Root —equal— should be written when it comes to equality (the equation); —flat— is used in the sense of something smooth, smooth (to straighten a bang).

Unambiguous and polysemantic words

The wealth of the words of the Russian language is made up of those units that have several or only one lexical meaning. These are single-valued and polysemantic words. The former have only one interpretation: birch, scalpel, Moscow, pizza. As can be seen from the examples, to the group of single-valuedwords include their own names, newly emerged or foreign words, also narrowly focused. These are all kinds of terms, the names of professions, the names of animals.

Much more in the language of many-valued words, that isthose that have several meanings. As a rule, interpretations unfold around a certain sign or meaning. The fact that the word is multi-valued will be explained by an explanatory dictionary. The values ​​of such tokens are listed below the digits. For an example, let’s look at the word «earth». He has several interpretations:

1. One of the planets of the solar system.
2. Susha is an opposition to the concepts of «water» and «heaven.»
3. The soil is a fertile layer that allows cultivating all kinds of crops.
4. A territory belonging to someone.
5. For some countries — a federative unit.

The direct and portable meaning of a word

All multi-valued words can containdirect or portable interpretation. If the task «Explain the lexical meaning of words» occurs, you need to look at the explanatory dictionary. There next to the value will be indicated whether it is direct or portable. The first is basic; the second was formed on the basis of the basic principle of similarity.

For example, consider the word «hat». The first, its main value is a headdress with fields of small size. On the basis of similarity, a figurative interpretation was formed: the upper part of an object, enlarged and flat, a mushroom or nail head.

It is portable values ​​that give speech a special imagery, on their basis created such trails as a metaphor (hidden comparison: sheaf of hair), metonymy (contiguity of signs: silver plate) and the synecdoche (a part is used instead of the whole: the peasant was actually a slave).

Sometimes there are cases when the language appearsonly a portable value, and to perform a task, such as «Define the lexical meaning of words,» you will need not only an explanatory, but also an etymological dictionary. For example, it was with the adjective «red». Its direct meaning is «beautiful» preserved only in the ancient toponyms («Red Square») or folklore (proverbs).

Homonyms

The meanings of words can be compared,to be contrasted. Studying such relations the program for 5-6 class. The lexical meaning of homonyms, synonyms and antonyms is very interesting. Consider all these kinds of words.

Homonyms are those words that are identical in pronunciation or spelling, but their meaning is completely different. So, words carnations (flowers) and carnations (pointed rods for bonding materials) are equally written and pronounced differently. Another example: spit — type of hairdo, and spit — agricultural implements. They can be homonymous and grammatical. So, in the phrases «flood the stove» and «bake pies». Word bake is a noun in the first case andverb in the second. Do not confuse the concept of homonymy and polysemy. The former does not imply any similarity between concepts, whereas the second is based on the principle of the similarity of a feature.

Synonyms

Synonyms — words with identical lexicalvalue. For example, the words «friend, friend, comrade, shirt-guy» have the value of a close, trusted person. However, synonyms still differ in shades of meaning. Friend, for example, denotes a particularly close person.

Synonyms have different stylistic colors. So, shirt-guy is used in colloquial speech. As a rule, synonyms are words of one part of speech, however they can be stable combinations. Knowledge of the phenomenon of synonymy helps to avoid spelling errors. So, to find out the correct spelling of a particle not with nouns or adjectives, it is necessary to follow the algorithm: «Define the lexical meaning and try to find a synonym without not: the enemy is the enemy«.

Antonyms

Antonyms are words that differ in terms of lexical meaning: friend is an enemy; to go-to run; deep — shallow; up down. As we see, the phenomenon of antonymy is characteristic forany parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. The use of such words gives speech a special expressiveness, helps to convey to the listener or reader especially important thoughts, so very often the opposite in meaning words are found in folk sayings — proverbs. For example, «Softly steklet, but hard to sleep.» In this case, «soft — hard» — antonyms.

As you can see, the Russian language is very diverse,therefore the topic of the interpretation of words has been studied for several years. In addition, she was taken to the main school exams, where, for example, the task «Explain the lexical meaning of words» or «Choose a synonym / antonym / homonym for a word» occurs, etc.