In most cases the denotative meaning is essentially cognitive: it conceptualises and classifies our experience and names for the listener some objects spoken about. Fulfilling the significative and the communicative functions of the word it is present in every word and may be regarded as the central factor in the functioning of language. Unlike the denotative meaning, connotations are optional.
The description of the denotative meaning or meanings is the duty of lexicographers in unilingual explanatory dictionaries. Connotative component in its turn is comprised of emotional, expressive, evaluative and stylistic components of meaning. Denotative component is obligatory, connotative is only optional.
All 4 components of the connotative meaning can be found altogether or in different combinations or can be absent at all also altogether. Emotional component of the meaning can be permanent or occasional. Word or its variant has the emotional component of the meaning if it conveys any emotion or feeling. Emotion is an experience of short duration, such as: joy, amusement, anger, anxiety or surprise.
Feeling is a more stable phenomenon, such as: love, hatred or respect.
Interjections are the most obvious signs of emotions. Many emotional words, especially interjections, express emotions without naming it. One and the same interjection Oh can express joy, sadness and many other emotions. e.g. Oh, I am so glad, Oh, I am so sorry, Oh, how unexpected!. It should be pointed out that the words that name emotions or feelings fear, delight, gloom, cheerfulness mustnt be mixed up with the emotional lexis.
From the linguistic point of view these are different groups of words. A word has an evaluative component if it expresses positive or negative opinion towards the thing or idea or phenomenon it names. Evaluative component is connected with denotative meaning of a word and can be included into definition of it. e.g. meaning — meaningful — meaningless. A word has an expressive component of the meaning if with its imagery or in some other way it emphasizes or intensifies the idea or phenomenon in this word or in the words syntactically connected to it. But for example English lexicographers Hornby or Fouler do not differentiate between emotional and expressive components of the meaning. They say that expressive component is always achieved through the emotional one.
A word has a stylistic component of the meaning or stylistic connotation if it is typical for defying some functional styles and spheres of speech with which it is associated even when it is used inside not typical contexts. Stylistic component is connected with denotative one due to the fact that a word can belong to this or that sphere of reality.
