1. CHAPTER V WORD MEANING
Word meaning
Conventionality and Motivation
Main types of word meaning

2. Word meaning What is the meaning of ‘sesquipedalian’?
Life without faith has no meaning.
What do you mean by the word ‘concept’?
Dark clouds mean rain.

3. Word meaning The relationship between language and the world concept
world language

4. Word meaning Thought or reference (concept) Referent Symbol
(object in the world) (word, sentence )
Ogden & Richards’ the semiotic triangle

5. Word meaning
The concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.
Part of the word meaning is the reference.

6. Conventionality and Motivation
House
maison 家屋
房子（fang zi)
homophones: write right rite
[rait]

7. Conventionality and Motivation
what’s in a name?
That which we call a rose
By the other name
Would smell as sweet
----- shakespeare

8. Conventionality and Motivation
名称本无意
此物谓玫瑰
若以他名易
香气亦相宜

9. Conventionality and Motivation
Most English words are conventional, arbitrary symbols; consequently, there is no intrinsic relation between the sound-symbol and its sense.
Motivation
Motivation refers to the connection between word-symbol and its sense.

10. Phonetic motivation （哞哞） （喵喵） echoic words or onomatopoeic words
the bow-wow or woof-woof of a dog
the moo of a cow
the miaow of a cat
（汪汪）
（哞哞）
（喵喵）

11. the crack of a pistol shot 溪水潺潺 babble, purl 雷声隆隆 rumble, roll
Phonetic motivation
the bang of a door
the crack of a pistol shot
溪水潺潺
babble, purl
雷声隆隆
rumble, roll

12. Morphological motivation
The connection of meaning of the word to its form from morphological point of view
readable
(-able and read )
anticancer, kilogram and modernize
(against, one thousand and to, cause to be)

13. Morphological motivation
Compound words
good-looking, headache, daydream
Not all compounds are motivated
eggplant, Indian summer, dog days
（茄子，小阳春，伏天）

14. Semantic motivation
The relationships between the literal sense and the figurative sense through associations
a stony heart
the hour hand
the minute hand
the leg of a table

15. Semantic motivation Her favorite dish is steak.
(the container) (the thing contained)
He manages to earn bread.
( the part) (the whole)

16. Etymological motivation
The meanings of words can be explained with reference to etymological information
china porcelain or ceramic ware (originally imported from China)
japan a hard varnish (brought from Japan)
braille from the creator Louis Braille
Walkman from a trade mark

17. Main types of word meaning
Word meaning is made up of various components which are interrelated and interdependent.

18. Main types of word meaning
1. Grammatical meaning
2. Lexical meaning

19. Main types of word meaning
Grammatical meaning
may be defined as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words

20. Main types of word meaning
1.1 Word-class (the part of speech)
1.2 Inflectional paradigm (Nouns are declined, gradable adjectives have degrees of comparison, Verbs are conjugated)

21. Main types of word meaning
2. Lexical meaning
Lexical meaning is identical in all the forms of the word while the grammatical meaning varies from one word-form to another;
every word has a different lexical meaning, whereas the grammatical meaning is the same in identical sets of individual forms of different words.

22. Main types of word meaning
2.1Denotative meaning
The denotative (extensional) or conceptual meaning of a word is its definition in a dictionary.
chair: “it is a piece of furniture for one person to sit on, having a back and usually, four legs”.

23. Main types of word meaning
2.2 Connotative meaning
Connotative (intentional) meaning refers to the emotional association which a word or a phrase suggests in one’s mind;
female parent
mother
love, care, and tenderness

24. Main types of word meaning
2.3 Social or stylistic meaning
Social meaning is that which a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use.
dad father parent
Colloquial stylistically neutral bookish

25. Main types of word meaning
2.4 Affective meaning
Affective meaning is concerned with the expression of feelings and attitudes of the speaker or writer.
Scholar, masterpiece and generous
Gang, boast and politician
A B
slender skinny
statesman politician
confidence complacency

26. CONCLUSION
What is word meaning and how to understand the relation between a word symbol and its meaning
The relation between a word symbol and its meaning in any language is mostly conventional, arbitrary. What do we mean by motivation?
the difference between grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, the four main types of lexical meaning

27. Thank you
THE BEST WISHES TO YOU