II. Replacement – the substitution of a component of the distributional structure by a member of a certain strictly defined set of lexical units .e. g. Replacement of a notional verb by an auxiliary or link verb (he will make a bad mistake & he will make a good teacher ). The sentences have identical distributional structure but only in the second one the verb “to make “ can be substituted by “ become “ or “ be “ . The fact of impossibility of identical transformations of distributionally identical structures is a formal proof of the difference in their meaning .

III. Addition ( or expansion ) may be illustrated by the application of the procedure of addition to the classification of adjectives into two groups- adjectives denoting inherent & non-inherent qualities .

e. g. John is happy .

John is tall .

We add a word-group “ in Moscow “. We shall see that “ John is happy in Moscow .” has meaning while the second one is senseless . That is accounted by the difference in the meaning of adjectives denoting inherent (tall) & non-inherent(happy) qualities .

IV. Deletion – a procedure which shows whether one of the words semantically subordinated to the other . e. g. The word-group “red flowers” may be deleted & transformed into “flowers” without making the sentence senseless : I like red flowers or I like flowers . The other word-group “red tape “ can’t be deleted & transformed either into “ I hate tape “ or “I hate red “ because in both transformed sentences the meaning of the phrase “red tape” means “bureaucracy” & it can’t be divided into two parts .

Componental analysis .

In this analysis linguists proceed from the assumption that the smallest units of meaning are sememes or semes . e. g. In the lexical item “woman” several sememes may be singled out , such as human , not an animal , female , adult . The analysis of the word “girl” will show the following sememes : human , female , young . The last component of the two words differentiates them & makes impossible to mix up the words in the process of communication . It is classical form of revealing the work of componental analysis to apply them to the so called closed systems of vocabulary , for example , colour terms . The analysis as a rule was formalized only as far as the symbolic representation of meaning components it is concerned with .Each sememe in the terms of colours acquires or is given a certain letter ( A , B , C , D … ) & the meaning of the terms may be given in a formalized form . e. g. Red & scarlet will differ only in one component & that is intensity of colour & by the letter it may be illustrated as

A B C

A B C Under the letter C the intensity is meant .

The formalized representation of meaning helps to find out different semantic components which influence collocability of words (during the day but not during the stairs, down the stairs but not down the day ).

Componental analysis is practically always combined with transformational procedures or statistical analysis .The combination makes it possible to find out which of the meanings should be represented first of all in the dictionaries of different types & how the words should be combined in order to make your speech sensible .

Method of semantic differential .

A word has not only one meaning & even one word usually implies some additional information which differentiates one word from another .

e. g. to like , to love , to adore , to warship . All the words denote positive feelings , characteristic of a human being . But each of them gives additional information on the so-called strength of feeling .

This is the connotational aspect which was singled out by the semantic differential – the method which was worked out by a group of American psycholinguists . Their technique requires the subjects to judge – a series of concepts with respect to a set of antonymic adjective scale .

e. g. A horse can be :

good – bad

fast – slow

strong – weak

hard – soft

happy – sad

The meaning of the divisions is that each of the quality may be gradated representing extremely good , very good , neither good nor bad ,slightly bad , extremely bad & these grades can be marked by a plus .And the horse may be very good , not bad , etc .

The revealed gradations showing some portion of quality helps to singled out such words which are usually referred to as neutral, expressive , archaic & new words proper – neologisms . All the methods of analysis are applied in one & the same sphere of investigation . If you are interested in meaning you shouldn’t pay much attention to the structure , if you are interested in collocation of words you shouldn’t pay much attention what parts of words represent the distributional structure . The combination of different methods of analysis helps to classify the vocabulary as a whole & each lexical unit taken separately . It should be said that practically no procedures function independently & separately from each other . It is only for study aims that we separate one procedure from another . In fact , being a two-faced unit a lexical item provides to be an indivisible unit of form & content . That is why you cannot investigate one side of the item paying no attention to the other one .

Semasiology . Lexical

meaning & its aspects .

Semasiology (or semantics ) is a branch of linguistics which studies meaning . Semasiology is singled out as an independent branch of lexicology alongside word-formation , etymology , phraseology & lexicography . And at the same time it is often referred to as the central branch of lexicology . The significance of semasiology may be accounted for by three main considerations :

1. Language is the basic human communication system aimed at ensuring the exchange of information between the communicants which implies that the semantic side forms the backbone of communication .

2. By definition lexicology deals with words , morpheme & word-groups . All those linguistic units are two-faced entities having both form & meaning .

3. Semasiology underlines all other branches of lexicology . Meaning is the object of semasiological study .

However , at present there is no universally accepted definition of meaning or rather a definition reflecting all the basic characteristic features of meaning & being at the same time operational . Thus , linguists state that meaning is “one of the most ambiguous & most controversial terms in the theory of language “(Steven Ullman).Leech states that the majority of definitions turn out to be a dead end not only on practical but on logical grounds . Numerous statements on the complexity of the phenomenon of meaning are found on the Russian tradition as well by such linguists as А.А.Потебня , И.А.Бодуэн де Куртене , Щерба , Виноградов , А.И. Смерницкий & others .