Meaning of Signs and Words

Posted on Sep 29, 2024 in Social sciences

Signs and Meaning

The meaning of a sign is the concept understood by people who share it. Signs refer to elements of extralinguistic reality to convey messages. The meaning of a word is defined by a set of minimal features called semes. The set of semes is called a sememe.

Types of Semes

  • General semes: Shared by different lexical morphemes. A single sema may involve different words (e.g., mammal).
  • Specific semes: Belong to the meaning of a particular word. Several semes can exist for a single word (e.g., cat).

Denotation and Connotation

  • Denotation: The basic meaning and purpose of a term for a linguistic community.
  • Connotation: Supplementary or expressive meaning added in different contexts and by different speakers. Can be:
    • Cultural: Ideological or anthropological values given to a concept.
    • Subjective: What the word suggests to each speaker, varying according to their knowledge or beliefs.

Meaning in Communication

Meaning in a communicative act includes linguistic meaning, context, and the situation in which it is used.

Polysemy and Homonymy

Polysemy: The plurality of meanings a sign can have. Affects not only words but also morphemes, phrases, sentences, and texts.

Homonymy: The relationship between signs with different meanings. They can be:

  • Homophones: Sound the same.
  • Homonyms: Spelled the same.
  • Homographs: Have lexical identity (e.g., “a” as a letter and “a” as a preposition).

Types of Homonymy

  • Absolute homonymy: Occurs between homonyms of the same grammatical class.
  • Partial homonymy: Occurs between homonyms of different grammatical categories (e.g., “fence” as a noun and “fence” as a verb).

Synonymy

Synonymy: The relationship between two or more words of the same grammatical category with identical or similar meanings.

  • Absolute synonyms: Have the same meaning and are interchangeable in all contexts.
  • Partial synonyms: Have similar meanings that vary according to social, geographic, or other factors.

Other Semantic Relationships

Opposition

  • Antonymy: The negation of positive terms. Allows for gradation (e.g., high/low).
  • Complementarity: Relationship between opposites that do not support gradation (e.g., man/woman).
  • Reciprocal opposition: Each term presupposes the other (e.g., father/son).

Hyponymy and Hypernymy

  • Hypernymy: The generic term in a set of words (e.g., animal).
  • Hyponymy: The relationship between a hypernym and its subordinates (e.g., dog, cat are hyponyms of animal).

Semantic Fields

Semantic fields: Sets of lexical units sharing a common semantic domain (e.g., hours, days, months, years).

  • Closed fields: Their units are fixed (e.g., days of the week).
  • Open fields: Can accommodate new units (e.g., names of birds).

Morphological Fields

Morphological fields group words based on their form and the processes for creating new terms. They organize the meanings of a language.

Examples

  • Prefixes and suffixes: tele- (telephone, television), -ism (romanticism, anarchism).
  • Lexical morpheme: use (useful, useless, utility).

Associative Fields

Words are also related by contiguity in context or communicative situations. These relationships are shaped by world knowledge or perspectives on reality (e.g., war: arms, interests, victims, suffering).

The Lexicon

Lexicon: The set of words speakers use to communicate.

Latin Influence

Latin is the base of the Spanish vocabulary.

  • Traditional heritage words: Latin transmitted orally to Castilian, undergoing phonetic and morphological changes (e.g., FILIUM: son).
  • Learned words: Derived from Latin and Greek roots, transmitted through writing with fewer alterations (e.g., signum: sign).
  • Doublets: A single morpheme or root gives rise to two words, one classical and one popular, differing semantically or functioning as independent words (e.g., materia: matter and wood).

Loanwords

Loanwords: Terms borrowed from other languages due to cultural, social, and economic interactions.

  • Arabic: Oil, alcohol, sugar.
  • Anglicisms: Club, leader, jersey.
  • Gallicisms: Gala, lady, garden.
  • Italianisms: Score, baton, clown.
  • Lusisms: Diver, jam, mussel.
  • Germanisms: Cacao, chocolate, kayak.
  • Galicianisms: Botafumeiro, muiñeira, homesick.
  • Basqueisms: Hut, left, guiri.
  • Gypsyisms: Kid, chungo, chori.
  • Other languages: Kimono, judo, kiwi, Tsar.

Neologisms

Neologisms: Words that name new concepts or realities, or existing words that acquire new meanings.

Creation of New Terms

  • Derivation: Prefix (anti-, micro-) + noun, noun + suffix (-tion, -ism, -er).
  • Composition: Two words used separately or together.
  • Parasynthsis: Inseminate, moon landing.
  • Acronyms: EP, ESO.

Loanwords and New Meanings

  • Foreign words: Retain their original spelling and pronunciation (e.g., mozzarella, flash).
  • Hispanicized words: Foreign pronunciation adapted to Spanish spelling (e.g., yogurt, cottage).
  • Calques: Translations of foreign words or expressions (e.g., “right” in computer science).
  • Semantic loans: Existing words acquire new meanings (e.g., “coup”).

Semantic Change

Words can experience changes in meaning due to historical, psychological, social, or linguistic factors.

Historical Causes

  • Invention of new objects.
  • Changes in institutions, ideas, or scientific concepts.
  • Technological advances.

Psychological and Social Causes

  • Euphemisms: Words or expressions that substitute for others out of modesty, courtesy, or fear.
  • Restriction of meaning: General words acquire specialized meanings (e.g., mouse, menu).
  • Extension of meaning: Words expand their meaning in social, cultural, or professional contexts (e.g., ghetto).