Lexical Meaning

Every word (lexical unit) has…. Something that is individual, that makes it different from any other word. And it is just the lexical meaning which is the most outstanding individual property of the word. (Zgusta, 1971:67)

The lexical meaning a word or lexical unit may be thought of as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system and the ‘personality’ it acquires through usage within that system.

According to Cruse, we can distinguish four main types of meaning in words and utterances (utterances being stretches of written or spoken text): propositional meaning, expressive meaning, presupposed meaning, and evoked meaning.

1.       Propositional Vs expressive meaning

The propositional meaning of a word or an utterances arises from the relation between it and what it refers to or imaginary world, as conceived by the speakers of the particular language to which the word or utterance belongs. For instance, the propositional meaning of shirt is ‘a piece of clothing worn on the upper part of the body’.

Expressive meaning cannot be judged as true or false. This is because expressive meaning relates to the speaker’s feelings or attitude rather than to what words and utterances refer to. The difference between famous in English and famous in French does not lie in their respective propositional meanings: both items basically mean “well-known”. It lies in their expressive meanings. Famous is neutral in English, it has no inherent evaluative meaning or connotation. Famous is potentially evaluative and can be readily used in some context in derogatory way.

2.          Presupposed meaning

Presupposed meaning arises from co-occurance restrictions, i.e. restricions on what other words or expressions we expect to see before or after a particular lexical unit. These restrictions are two types:

a.             Selectional restriction 

These are a function of the propositional of a word

b.             Collocational restrcion

These are semantically arbitrary restrictions which don’t follow logically from the propositional meaning of a word. Example: laws are broken in English, but in Arabic they are ‘contradicted’

                                                                                                   

3.      Evoked meaning

Evoked meaning arises from dialect and register variation. A dialect is a variety of language which has currency within a specific community or group of speakers. It may be classified on one of the following bases:

a.       Geographical (e.g. a Scottish dialect, or American as opposed British English: cf. The difference between lift and elevator)

b.      Temporal (e.g. words and structures used by members of different age groups within a community, or words used at different periods in history of a language :cf. verily and really)

c.       Social (words and structures used by members of different social classes: cf. scent and perfume, napkin and serviette)

Register is a variety of language that a language user considers appropriate to a specific situation. Register variation arises from variations in the following:

a.       Field of discourse: this is an abstract term for “what is going on” that is relevant to the speaker’s choice of linguistic items.

b.      Tenor of discourse: an abstract term for the relationship between the people taking part in the discourse.

c.       Mode of discourse: an abstract term for the role that the language is playing (speech, essay, lecture, instructions) and for its medium of transmission (spoken, written).