大学英语专业词汇学第五章

Chapter 5 Word Meaning and Componential Analysis Having discussed the structure and formation of words, we now move to the meaning of words. In Chapter 1, we touched upon word meaning in brief, in this chapter we will discuss it in more depth in terms of meanings of 'meaning', motivation of meaning, types of meaning and the components of word meaning.5.1 Word MeaningIt is agreed that a word is the combination of word-form and its meaning. 'Form' refers to both its pronunciation and spelling. 'Meaning' is what the form stands for. For example, the linguistic form cat /kaet/ is used to denote 'a small four-legged animal with soft fur and sharp claws'. It can be said that 'a small four-legged animal with soft fur and sharp claws' is the meaning of the word cat. But the term is not as simple as it seems to be. There are some related concepts which need further clarification.1. ReferenceWords are but symbols, many of which have meaning only when they have acquired reference. Reference is the relationship between language and the world. 'By means of reference, aspeaker indicates which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about.' (Hurford and Heasley 1983:25) In other words, only when a connection has been established between the linguistic sign and a referent, i. e. , an object, a phenomenon, a person, etc. does the sign become meaningful. The form cat is meaningful because the language user employs it conventionally to refer to the 'animal' concerned. So part of the word meaning is the reference under discussion.The reference of a word to a thing outside the language is arbitrary(任意的) and conventional （约定俗成的）(See Chapter 1). This connection is the result of generalization(概括) and abstraction(抽象). The word cat refers to a whole set of animals of the same species without the distinction of size, color, region, owner and other factors. It is the extension of all cats in the universe.Although reference is a kind of abstraction, yet with the help of context, it can refer to something definite(确定的). Cat without context denotes a set of cats; but it refers to a particular cat in 'Jean forgot to feed her cat yesterday evening'. Therefore, meaning can be pinned down(确定；使明确说明) by the user, time, place, etc. . The same thing can have different referring expressions without causing any confusion. The cat can bereferred to as, say, the animal, my dear, Jassy, this , she and so on.2. ConceptIn many cases meaning is used in the sense of concept. Meaning and concept are closely connected but not identical(完全相同的). They are both related directly to referents(所指) and are notions of the words but belong to different categories(范畴). Concept, which is beyond language, is the result of human cognition(认知), reflecting the objective world in the human mind. It is universal to all men alike regardless of culture, race, language and so on whereas meaning belongs to language, so is restricted to language use. Therefore, a concept can have as many referring expressions as there are languages in the world. Even in the same language, the same concept can be expressed in different words. For example, much and many both have the same concept, but collocate with different words, much time, much money, much water, but many people, many books, many buildings, not vice versa. Synonymous(同义的)pairs such as die—pass away, maiden—-woman, quarrel—argue are all good examples. Each pair has the same concept but different socio-cultural and stylistic values(文体色彩).3. SenseGenerally speaking, the meaning of 'meaning' is perhaps what is termed sense. Unlike reference, sense denotes(指称) the relationships inside the language. ' The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language'. (ibid) Since the sense of an expression is not a thing, it is often difficult to say what sort of identity it is. It is also an abstraction that can be entertained(心存，持有（信心、意见）；容纳，接受；（准备）考虑) in the mind of a language user. Every word that has meaning has sense but not every word has reference. For example, probable, nearly, and, if, but, yes, none of which refer to anything in the world, all have some sense. Just as one can talk of the same concept in different languages, so one can talk of expressions in different dialects of one language as laving the same sense: pavement in British English and sidewalk in American English have the same sense, so do pal(<口>伙伴，好友)and chum(<口>好友，同房间的人).5.2 MotivationMotivation(理据)refers to the connection between thelinguistic symbol and its meaning. As we know, the relationship between the word-form and meaning is conventional and arbitrary, most words can be said to be non-motivated(没有理据的). That is, the connection of the sign and meaning does not account for the meaning. Nevertheless, English does have words the meanings of which are transparent(透明的，清楚的；意义与形式有联系的) and reasonably explicable(可解释的).1. Onomatopoeic Motivation（拟声理据）In modern English one may find some words whose phonetic forms suggest their meanings as the words were created by imitating(模拟) the natural sounds or noises. For example, bow-wow, bang, ping-pong, miaow, cuckoo, tick-tuck, ha ha and the like are onomatopoetically motivated words. Knowing the sounds which they represent means understanding the meaning. All the words based on the sounds made by birds, animals, insects and so on belong to this category: crow by cocks, quack by ducks, trumpet by elephants, buzz by bees or flies, croak by frogs, squeak by mice, neigh by horses, bleat by goats, hiss by snakes, roar by lions, etc. . But such echoic(拟声的；回声的) words are conventional to quite a large extent, for the sounds we say in English may not be the same in other languages; splashand whisper do not mean 'splash' and 'whisper' for example in German or French (Quirk 1978).2. Morphological Motivation(形态理据)Compounds and derived words are multi-morphemic(多词素的) words and the meanings of many of them are the sum total of the morphemes combined. Often, when one knows the meanings of the morphemes or bases, one can deduce the meanings of the words. For instance, airmail means ' to mail by air' ; reading-lamp is ' the lamp for reading'; miniskirt is 'a small skirt'; and hopeful means 'full of hope'.It should be pointed out that there are a lot of words whose structures are opaque(不透明的，不发亮的；难以理解), i.e. their meanings are not the combinations of the constituent parts. Black market, for example, is by no means the market black in color but expressing 'illegal selling and buying'. Likewise, egghead is not the head in the shape of an egg, but ' a learned person' in the derogatory(毁损的，贬低的) sense.3. Semantic MotivationSemantic motivation is the mental associations based on the conceptual meaning of a word. In other words, it is thefigurative(比喻性的) sense of the word. When we say the mouth of a river, we associate ' the opening part of the river' with ' the mouth of a human being or an animal'. When we use the foot of the mountain , we are comparing ' the lower part of the mountain' to ' the foot of a human being'. Bottle in ' He is fond of the bottle' reminds one of what is contained inside; and pen and sword in ' The pen is mightier(更强大的) than the sword' is suggestive(示意的；启发的；引起联想的) of 'writing' and 'war'.4. Etymological MotivationThe origins of words more often than not throw light on(说明，揭示) their meanings. For example, now people use pen for any writing tool though it originally refers to 'a heavy quill(羽毛管；羽根) or feather', because before modern pens were created, feathers were trimmed(整理；修剪) to a split point（有分叉的尖端）, used as writing tools. Though people in modern times no longer use feathers in writing, for the sake of conventionality, the name is retained. All the words commonized from proper names can be explained in terms of their origins. One example will suffice(足够) for illustration. The word laconic meaning 'brief' or 'short' is derived From Lacons, a tribe of people who were known for their brevity(简洁；简练) of speech and for their habitof never using more words than necessary. Hence a Laconic answer is 'a short answer' (See Commonization of Proper Names for details).5.3 Types of MeaningWord meaning per se(本身) is not monogeneous（单一的）but a composite(复合体)consisting of different components, which are known in familiar terms as different types of meaning. These meanings are not found in every word, and in fact some words possess some of them, devoid(没有的；缺乏的) of others. Some types of meanings may appear more prominent in certain words than in others. Some meanings are constant, and others may be transient(暂时的), existing only in actual contexts. All these form part of the study of semantics and prove of paramount(最高的，首要的)importance in the use of words. This section will discuss in brief each type of meaning.1. Grammatical Meaning and Lexical MeaningAs mentioned earlier, grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such as part of speech of words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), singular and plural meaning of nouns,tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional paradigm(范例，样式；【语】（名词、动词等的）词形变化)(forget, forgets , forgot, forgotten , forgetting). Grammatical meaning becomes transparent only when words are used in connected speech. For example, 'The dog is chasing a ball. ' The words dog and ball are nouns and both are singular used as subject and object in the sentence respectively; is chasing is the predicate verb(谓语动词), showing present continuous tense(现在进行时), and the and a are determiners(限定词，限定成分；决定因素), specifying definiteness and number. Unlike lexical meaning, different lexemes(词素)or lexical items(词项), which have different lexical meanings, may have the same grammatical meaning, e. g. tables, men, oxen, potatoes (having the same plural meaning) and taught, -worked, forgave (having the same tense meaning). On the other hand, one and the same lexeme may have different grammatical meaning as shown in forget, forgets, forgot, forgotten, forgetting. Functional words, though having little lexical meaning, possess strong grammatical meaning whereas content words have both meanings, and their lexical meanings are prominent.Lexical meaning and grammatical meaning form the word meaning. As stated already, grammatical meaning surfaces(显现)only in use, but lexical meaning is constant in all the content words within or without context as it is related to the concept the word conveys. Therefore it remains the focus of semantic studies and naturally is our chief concern. Lexical meaning itself embraces(包括)two components: conceptual meaning and associative meaning.2. Conceptual Meaning and Associative MeaningConceptual meaning ( also known as cognitive（认知的）, denotative（外延的）, or designative（指称的）meaning) is meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word meaning. Being constant and relatively stable, conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication as the same word generally has the same conceptual meaning to all the speakers in the same speech community. Take 'The sun rises in the east'. The symbol sun here means 'a heavenly body which gives off light, heat, and energy', a concept which is unmistakable to anyone who speaks English.Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented(补充) to the conceptual meaning. It differs from the conceptual meaning in that it is open-ended and indeterminate, liable to the influence of such factors as culture,experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education, etc.. Nida in his Language, Culture, and Translating (1993) lists six sources of associative meanings, namely,(1)the persons who use such lexemes;(2) the settings in which such lexemes are generally employed;(3) the occurrence of such lexemes in prior texts (intertextuality(互文性));(4) contamination(（词语的）感染错合；（文章的）混杂) from linguistic collocations;(5) contamination from homophones(同音词);(6) cultural values associated with the referents of the lexemes.These could be fused into four categories: connotative(内涵的), stylistic, affective(情感的), and collocative(搭配的) (Leech 1981).1) Connotative MeaningOpposite to the denotative meaning(外延意义), connotative meaning(内涵意义) refers to the overtones(附带意义)or associations suggested by the conceptual meaning, traditionally known as connotations. It is not an essential part ofthe word meaning, but social and cultural values that might occur in the mind of particular users of the language. For example, mother, denoting a 'female parent', is often associated with 'love', 'care', 'tenderness', 'forgiving', etc. . These connotations are not given in the dictionary, but associated with the word n actual context to particular readers or speakers. Another example is home, whose conceptual meaning is 'a dwelling place'. When readers come across the term in actual reading, they may make out more than that. It may remind them of their 'family, friends, warmth, safety, love, convenience', etc. . These connotations are implied in he well-known sayings ' East or west, home is best' and ' There is no place like home'.Connotative meaning is peripheral(边缘的；不重要的) compared with conceptual meaning and annotations are relatively unstable, varying considerably according to culture, historical period, and the experience of the individual. Suppose a child is prejudiced against, often jeered(嘲笑)at, beaten or scolded at home, then home to him is nothing but a hell, naturally he unfavorable connotations, 'indifference', 'hatred', 'disgust' and so on. Even a phrase like son of a bitch which normally has an associative meaning of crude vulgarity(粗俗；粗野) may convey the connotation of 'friendly conviviality'(欢宴；宴饮交际) used between two close friends when they meet after some prolonged period of time as in 'And how are you doing, you old son of a bitch ?'. (Nida 1993:41)2) Stylistic MeaningApart from their conceptual meanings, many words have stylistic features, which make them appropriate for different styles. These distinctive features form the stylistic meaning of words. In some dictionaries, these stylistic features are clearly marked as formal', 'informal', 'literary', 'archaic' (古体的，不通用的；过时的), 'slang' and so on. For instance, pregnant, expecting, knocking up, in the club, greggers, up the stick, up the spout(被典当掉；被毁灭；丧失掉；怀孕), glowing, etc. , all can have the same reference, but differ in their contextual appropriateness. Words such as facticity(确凿性), neoclassicism(新古典主义), plausibility(似真性),legitimacy(合法性)carry meanings of pedantry(卖弄学问；迂腐) and are appropriate for technical writing.The stylistic differentiation(差异) is especially true of synonyms. It is observed that there are few words which have both the same conceptual meaning and the stylistic meaning. Martin Joos (1962) in his The Five Clocks suggests five degreesof formality: 'frozen'(冷冻体), 'formal'(正式体), 'consultative'(商洽体), 'casual'(随意体) and 'intimate '(亲密体). Accordingly, the synonyms charger(战马), steed(骏马), horse, nag(老马), plug(老而无用的马)can be labeled as 'frozen', 'formal', consultative', 'casual' and 'intimate' respectively. People generally do not go into such elaboration(详述). The normal terms used to classify styles are 'formal', 'neutral' orinformal'. In such terms charger and steed can be marked 'formal', nag and plug 'informal' and horse ' general' or ' neutral'. Compare the following two groups of synonyms:domicile (very formal, official)(住宅；【律】原籍)residence (formal)abode (poetic)(住所)home (general)diminutive (very formal) (小的，小型的)tiny (colloquial)w ee (colloquial, dialectal)(极小的；（苏格兰）一点点)(Leech 1981: 14-15)Leech also illustrates the stylistic distinction in the following two sentences (ibid):(1) They chucked(扔)a stone at the cops(条子), and then did a bunk with(窜)the loot(战利品).(2) After casting a stone at the police, they absconded() with the money.Apart from the structural difference, the stylistic features of words are quite conspicuous(). Sentence (1) could be said by two criminals, talking casually about the crime afterwards, so all the words used in italics are slang, whereas sentence (2) might be said by the chief inspector in making his official report, thus the words used are literary (cast, abscond) or neutral (police, money).3) Affective MeaningAffective meaning expresses the speaker's attitude towards the person or thing in question. This meaning can be overtly and explicitly conveyed simply by the choice of the right words as many have emotive content in themselves, e. g. vicious(恶毒的), villainous(罪恶的), tyrant(暴君), love, hate, anger, grief(悲痛), pleasure. Interjections(感叹词)are generally expressions of emotions such as oh , dear me, alas, hurrah.Words that have emotive values may fall into two categories: appreciative(褒义的)or pejorative. Words ofpositive overtones are used to show appreciation or the attitude of approval such as famous, determined, slim /slender, black; those of negative connotations imply disapproval, contempt(鄙视)or criticism, e.g. notorious(臭名昭著的), pigheaded(倔强的), skinny(皮包骨的), nigger.(黑鬼)Just like connotative meaning, affective meaning varies from individual to individual, from culture to culture, from generation to generation, from society to society. Words like revolution, freedom, democracy, imperialism may have quite different interpretations in different societies and sometimes these' emotive' overtones are more important in the words' use than the denotations (概念意义) (Jackson 1988). Another example is the word dog which may have quite different affective meanings in different societies. In most Western countries, dog is associated with 'loyalty', 'faithfulness', a close companion' and all positive qualities; whereas to Chinese, dog at its best is a useful animal. As a matter of fact, it generally takes on negative associations. If a person is compared to a dog, the speaker's attitude towards the person is no more than contemptuous'(鄙视的). In many cases, the appreciative or pejorative meaning of the words are brought out only by the speakers in context:(1) He is bright and ambitious.(有抱负的)(2) Knowledge of inequality has stimulated envy, ambition and greed.(野心)(3) The reactionary's chief ambition is to become the emperor.(野心)(4) One who is filled with ambition usually works hard.(抱负)In sentences (1) and (4), the italicized words are obviously used in good sense showing approval on the part of the speaker. In sentences (2) and (3), however, ambition undoubtedly conveys a pejorative overtone. Therefore, to a large extent the affective meaning of the word depends on the circumstances under which it is used.4) Collocative MeaningAs Leech defines, 'collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires on account of the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment. ' In other words, it is that part of the word meaning suggested by the words with which it co-occurs. He illustrates the point by the synonyms of pretty and handsome. These two words share the conceptual meaning of 'good-looking ' , but are distinguished by the rangeof nouns they collocate with:girl boyboy manwoman carflower womanpretty gardenovercoathandsomecolor airlinevillage typewriteretc. etc.It may be noted that there is some overlap between the collocations of the two words, e. g. pretty woman and handsome woman. Though both are perfectly correct, yet they suggest a different kind of attractiveness. A pretty woman stresses the attractiveness of facial features while a handsome woman may not be facially beautiful yet is attractive in other respects: a slender figure, graceful posture and behaviour, etc. . The same is true of tremble and quiver, both meaning 'shake involuntarily', but people tremble with fear and quiver withexcitement, showing different implications.It is again noticeable that collocative meaning overlaps with connotative and affective meaning because in a sense both connotative and affective meanings are revealed by virtue of collocations or contextuality(互文性). As Nida notes, one can often tell what work a person has been doing by the kinds of stains on clothing, so a word in particular contexts is likely to acquire associative meanings reflecting such usage. Green is a kind color but its meaning is obviously affected when it occurs in such phrases as green on he job, green fruit, green with envy, green-eyed monster.5.4 Componential AnalysisComponential analysis, according to Leech, is the process of breaking down the sense of a word into its minimal components. Every content word, even some of the simplest, harbours(包含；怀有) an amazingly explicit(明确) set of wayward(难以捉摸的，无法预言的；不规则的) traits(特征，特性) . Digging them out, classifying them, and showing their relationships is termed componential analysis(成分分析) ( Bolinger and Sears 1981:114). As an example, let us examine a group of semantically related words man , woman , boy, girl.A B1 man wo ma n2 boygirlThis diagram represents three-dimensions of meaning of these words. Vertically, Column A and Column B show the dimension of sex 'male' and 'female'; horizontally, Line 1 and Line 2 reveal the dimension of age 'adult' and 'young'. Considered as a whole, these four words form the semantic field(语义场) 'human race', the third dimension. These traits of words are abstracted from the words and are called by semantic analysts semantic features(语义特征) , which are the components of the sense of words. Conventionally, these minimal components can "be symbolized in terms of binarity(两极性) : + ADULT (adult) , —ADULT (young), + MALE (male), —MALE (female), + HUMAN (human), -HUMAN (non-human). Therefore, the meanings of the individual items can be expressed by combinations of these features:man ( + HUMAN + ADULT + MALE)woman ( + HUMAN + ADULT -MALE)boy( + HUMAN -ADULT + MALE)girl( + HUMAN - ADULT - MALE) however, the sexual dimension of the meaning of many lexical items is characteristic of neutralization(中性) of opposition such as cat, child. Under such circumstances, we might describe the definition as follows (See Leech 1981:90) :child ( + HUMAN - ADULT OMALE)cat ( - HUMAN + ADULT OMALE)In making componential analysis, it is important to focus on the defining features, i.e. features which can distinguish one word from another. For example, between horse, cattle and machine, chair, the defining feature is ( ± ANIMATE); between road, house and thought, philosophy, the distinguishing feature(区别性特征) is ( ± CONCRETE); between water, gas and stone , tree, the discriminating feature(区别性特征) is [ ±COUNTABLE] , etc. . Verbs like nouns also have defining features(区别性特征) , for example, ( ± MOMENTARY), ( ±DYNAMIC), ( ±TRANSITIVE).Componential analysis as a theory of word meaning is a useful and revealing technique(展示手段) for demonstrating relations of meaning between words. Knowing the semanticfeatures of a word helps one in grasping the conceptual meaning. For example, the word dog can be defined as ( + ANIMATE, -HUMAN, +CANINE(犬科动物) , + DOMESTIC) plus (OMALE) or (+ COUNTABLE) depending on the intention of the user. Similarly, the meaning of foal() is composed of [ + ANIMATE, -HUMAN, + EQUINE(马；马科动物) , -ADULT, OMALE], which tell us it is a 'young horse'.Secondly, componential analysis can help show the synonymy of two items by giving them both the same componential features. For instance, spinster and maiden are synonymous in that both are [ + HUMAN, - MALE, - MARRIED], but differ considerably in connotations: the former conveying a negative overtone(含蓄之意；暗示) , the latter a positive association.Thirdly, by componential analysis of words, we can tell whether a certain collocation or syntactic structure is acceptable or not. Let us look at two sentences:(1) * He has left this neighborhood for ten years.(2) He has lived in this neighborhood for ten years.The surface structures of the two sentences are very similar. It seems that one is not any better than the other. However, if we analyze just the semantic features of the verbs, we will come toquite a different conclusion. The verb leave used in sentence (1) is [ + MOMENTARY], and is not supposed to co-occur with 'for+ time' which is characteristic of [ - MOMENTARY]; while in sentence (2), live is a [ - MOMENTARY] verb, and is grammatically compatible with(与…一致的) 'for + time'. Therefore, sentence (1) is not acceptable whereas sentence (2) is. This can be further illustrated:(1) The robbers broke into the bank with a hammer.(2) * A hammer broke into the bank by the robbers. Break has the feature of [ + DYNAMIC], entailing a subject which is [+ANIMATE]. The word robber is [ + HUMAN], which is semantically included in the feature of [+ANIMATE], so logically sentence (1) is correct. But sentence (2) is problematic, as hammer is [-ANIMATE], incapable of the agent of the action of breaking. (Consequently, sentence (2) is unacceptable.Nevertheless, semanticists do not agree on the merits of componential analysis, which is in fact controversial. The major views are:1) Componential analysis is useful only in a limited scope,for it accounts for only some parts of a language'svocabulary. It is well applicable, to concrete wordswhich have definite referents, but not effective when we deal with words of abstract ideas or words whose referents are not clear. For example, what are the semantic features of beauty, delight, hostility?It is not easy to abstract components of their senses. Even a concrete word like game is hard to analyze. Failing to find the essential defining features that constitute game, Wittgenstein concluded that we know what the word game means only by virtue of recognizing certain 'family resemblance'(家族相似性) between the activities it refers to. Labov's experiment with the object 'cup' (1973) leads to the same conclusion that often a word can not be defined in terms of a clear-cut, unvarying set of features. Does the cup have a handle, have a saucer? Is it narrow and deep rather than wide and shallow? Is it used for drinking out of or for other purposes? Indeed, it is difficult to pin them down (See discussion by Leech 1981: 117-118).2) Some semanticists hold that it is not enough to breakdown the sense of a word into its components in terms of their referents' physical aspects. In the actual contexts, many words are used in figurative rather than literalsense. For example, tiger is defined as [+ ANIMATE,+FELINE(猫科动物；猫科的) , +CARNIVOROUS(食肉的)], but it does not explain the sentence 'There is amixture of the tiger and the ape in the character of theimperialists'. Obviously, tiger in this context does notrefer to the animal in its physical sense but theassociative qualities of the referent under discussion, i. e.'cruel and ferocious(凶恶的；残忍的) '.Because of the figurative use of words, many collocations which in appearance are impossible are acceptable, e. g. beautiful tyrant, cold fire , honorable villain . Look at a few lines chosen from Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Goal:With yawning mouth the yellow hole (黄穴张开血盆大口，)Gaped for a living thing;(窥视等着吞食那生物；)The very mud cried out for blood(干渴的环形沥青之下，)To the thirsty asphalt ring:(泥土叫嚷拿血来喝。