The brunch of linguistic concerned with the meaning of words and word equivalence is called — semaseologysemantics. The meaning is the realization of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system.
There are 2 traditional approaches: referential approach and functional approach. Referential approach establishes the interdependence between words or the thingsconcepts they denote. Functional approach studies the functions of a word in speech and is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works.
The meaning of meanings.
Word: a sound form, a symbol, a sign.
Concept: the thought, reference, meaning, designator.
Referent: the thing meant, denotator.
The criticism of the referential theory:
1 the meaning comprises the interrelation of linguistic sciences with categories and phenomenon, which are outside the scope of linguistic.
2 it operates with subjective mental process. The result of semantic investigations depend to a certain extent on linguistic intuition cannot be verified by other researcher dealing with the same linguistic dater.
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Types of meaning. The word meaning is not homogeneous. It is made up of various components. The combination and interrelation of which determines the inner structure of the word. These components are usually described as types of meaning: grammatical; lexical.
The grammatical meaning is defined as an expression in speech of relationships between words based on contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and generalized than the lexical meaning. It unites words into big groups: part of speech, lexico-grammatical classes. The lexico-grammatical meaning is the common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging to a lexico-grammatical class of words.
The lexical meaning is the meaning the word has on its own. Both meanings comprise the word meaning and neither can exist without the each other.
