Different Sources of Meaning

Different Sources of Meaning

The major part of the meaning of what we say or write is located in the words we use. This type of meaning is called lexical meaning. The choice and organization of grammatical items also contribute to the meaning of a sentence. This type of meaning is called grammatical/syntactic meaning. When we utter a sentence, we use a specific intonation pattern to go with it. The meaning encoded by intonation is called intonational meaning. In writing, punctuation reflects intonational meaning to a large extent.

When we use language we draw upon the Socio cultural meaning which we share with other masters of the speech community.

Sociocultural meaning has its source in the order (language user).


The minimal unit of code based meaning is called sememe. The  minimal unit of coder based meaning is pragmeme.

Eg:

MAN                         WOMAN                GIRL                    BOY
(+ HUMAN)             (+ HUMAN)           (+ HUMAN)        (+ HUMAN)
(- FEMALE)             (+ FEMALE)          (+FEMALE)        (+ FEMALE)         
(+ ADULT)               (+ ADULT)             (- ADULT)           (- ADULT)

(CHAUUNISTIC)    (POSSESSIVE)      (TALENTED)      (MISCHIEVOUS)  

The meaning shown in vertical boxes are sememes. These meaning features are part of the lexical meaning of the word in English. The feature showed in horizontal boxes are pragmemes. These features are attributed to the referent by the language users. These are part of the user's perception whereas sememes are part of the user's conception. Perceptions are formed by the speakers as part of their "nature" and "nurture".

The sememes given above constitute the lexical meaning of the word mentioned.

The grammatical meaning is of two types: 

  1. The functional relations of constituents of a constitute (sentence).
  2. The function of a constitute (word/sentence) in the structure of a larger unit, language system.
Examples:

  1. She called him a  fool.
  2. He called her a taxi.
In sent. (1) The grammatical function of "him" is a direct object and "a fool" is its complement. If "fool" refers to a character in a play (eg: the fool in King Lear), "a fool" in the sentence will be a direct object, assuming there are several fools in the court. (2)  sentence can be interpreted in two ways:

He called her (direct object) a taxi.
He called her (indirect object) a taxi.

Grammatical choices often perform more than one semantic function. In English, word order reflects functional differences leading to a meaning difference. 



Dr. Susan Mathew
CMS College Kottayam

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