The Dimensions of Meaning

THE DIMENSIONS OF MEANING

There are three unit of meanings in linguistic expression including morphemes (which may be less than a word), lexemes (roughly, words and idioms), and sentences. A lexeme has semantics relation and functions words, which contribute grammatical meanings to utterances. It consists of one or more meaningful units which called morphemes. There are two kinds of lexeme; homonyms (have the same form of pronunciation and spelling) and polysemous (a single lexeme with a wide range of  meanings).

3.1 Reference and denotation When we communicate with other people throu gh language, we must have the same ‘idea’ or ‘concept’ associated with each word. As Ogden and Richards (1923) points out about meaning: they called the  bond between word and concept an ‘association,’ the bond between b etween concept and object ‘reference,’ and the the bond between object and word ‘meaning.’ A mentalistic theory about meaning by Ogen and Richards (1923) concept

(association)

word

(reference)

(meaning)

object

Based on the picture above, reference is the relations in which to connect between concept and object. e.g. Andry usually goes to campus everyday.  He goes to campus by car. He refers to Andry He is referent of Andry According to reference and denotation, we need to describe a distinction between them. Reference is the relation between a language expression and whatever the expression relates to in a certain situation of language use, including what a speaker may imagine. It is the way speakers and hearers use an expression successfully. Denotation is the potential of a certain word to enter into such language expressions. It is knowledge they have that makes their use successful. Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word the dictionary definition. e.g. My father buys a black sheep - the real sheep that has black color The bigger problem in mentalistic theory of meaning is first, not all words can be associated with mental image and some words have range meaning. Second, we have no access to other people’s minds. Furthermore, words are not the only semantic units. Meanings that are expressed by units that may be smaller than words called morphemes and meanings that are expressed in units called sentences that are larger than words. A denotation identifies the central aspect of word meaning, which everybody generally agrees about.

3.2 Connotation Connotation is an aspect of language that provides the means for expressing wide range attitudes. It refers to the personal aspect of meaning, the emotional associations that the word arouses. It is affective or emotional associations which are not the same for all people who have already know and use the words. Connotations vary based on the experience of individuals because people do have common experiences. It is called language furnishes the means for expressing a wide range of attitudes e.g. My sister becomes a black sheep of the family black sheep scape goat / place to blame

3.3 Sense relations Meaning is more that denotation and connotation. However, there is relational aspect in the words which have contribution on meanings to utterances. It is because of the lexeme has relationships on the meaning. Sense is Part of this relationship is seen in the way words to do, or do not, go together meaningfully. Sense relation is the meaning of any expression varies with context, what other expression it occurs with and what expressions it contrasts with. It includes syntagmatic relations and paradigmatic relations. e.g.: 

John walked 



An hour elapsed 

Word walked and elapsed has relationship in sense but not in context. 3.4 Lexical and Grammatical Meanings A dog barked The sentence above is a meaningful which is composed of smaller meaningful parts. One of smaller part is the phrase a dog which refers to a certain animal. It is called referring expression. Another meaningful part is the verb bark. It is called a predicate. Lexical meaning is the meaning of base (as the word bark) in paradigm (as barks, barked, barking). Grammatical meanings have several kinds. Every language has grammatical system and different languages have somewhat different grammatical systems. Grammatical meaning is attached to the signals of grammar. It is the part of meaning that varies from one inflectional form to another ( as barks to barked to barking). Lexeme is a minimal unit that can take part in referring or predicating. Several kinds of grammatical meanings • Statement vs question: A dog barked. Did a dog bark? • Affirmative vs negative: A dog barked. A dog did not bark. No dog barked. • Past vs present: A dog barked. A dog barks. • Singular vs plural: A dog barked. Some dogs barked. • Indefinite vs definite: A dog barked. The dog barked.

3.5 Morphemes A lexeme may consist of just one meaningful part. Morpheme is the technical term for a minimal meaningful part. Free Morpheme is a grammatical unit that can occur by itself. e.g.: Arm, chair, happy, guitar, lemon, shoe and horn A bound morpheme is a grammatical unit that never occurs by itself, but is always attached to some other morpheme.The elements of: un-

  unhappy

-ist   guitarist

- ade   lemonade

3.6 Homonymy and Polysemy Homonymy is a word pronounced the same as another but different in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not. It is divided to homophone and homograph. Homophone is two words that have same pronunciation and same spelling. Homograph is two words that have different pronunciation but the same spelling. e.g.: Bank  a financial institution Bank  the edge of a stream Polysem y comes from Neo-Latin  polysemia, which comes from Greek  polusemous [poly- (many) + sema (sign)] giving us a linguistic term, "having many meanings" or multiple meanings. The word “ head “, it has many meanings. It has several (apperantly) related meanings.

• the head of a person, • the head of accompany, • head of a table or bed, • a head of lettuce or cabbage 3.7 Lexical Ambiguity Lexical ambiguity is homonym that can occur in the same position in utterances. e.g.: “I was on my way to the bank.”

It means that is likely to carry information about depositing or withdrawing money or can be fishing or boating. 3.8 Sentence and Meaning • The meaning of a sentence derives from the meanings of its constituent lexemes. • If you know the meaning of the sentence, you know what conditions are necessary in the world for that sentence to be true. •

Truth-conditional semantics is the study of meaning through a consideration of the conditions that must exist for a sentence to be true, and how the truth of one sentence relates to the truth or falsity of  other sentences.