Sense relates to the complex s ystem of relationships that hold between t he linguistic elements themselves (mostly the words); it is concerned only with intra- linguistic relations. (Palmer 1976, 30) Furthermore, what L eech regarded as social meaning appears also to b e part of Palmers approach since he calls this type also social or inter - personal which also includes the affective meaning mentioned before, where he points out the importance of intonat ion as well. (1976, 35-37) Palmer also names cert ain e xample pairs of s ynonyms which are perceived d ifferently by t he soc iety, even though their conceptual meaning or sense is almost the same.To achieve its go al, the paper will be structured in two main parts with the description of Leechs types of meaning in t he first and the descr iption a nd comparison of Palmers and Lyons cat egorizations in the second part.
The two subparts will e ach be concluded with a brief summary of the chapter, and at the very end, a conclusion will follow. The main goal of the paper is to give a clear o verview of all the three approaches and distinguish between them when necessary. Having in mi nd the scope o f t his work and its limitations, one of the aims is to equip the reader w ith the basic knowledge of the meaning of meaning and possibly initiate a further discussion on this subject. The Study of Meaning published in t he year 1981, Geoffrey Leech establishes a t that t ime one o f t he most thorough classifications of the t erm Meaning from a semantic point of view. In o rder to do so, Leech first puts emphasis o n the problematics o f t he t erm itself and names different authors who dealt with this subject so as to accentuate the complexity of t he topic. With regards to this, he mentions t he book written by C. K. Ogden and I.A. Richards, published in 1923, who found twenty-two definitions for the word m eaning. Leech then stat es that ten y ears af ter Ogdens and Ri chards publishing, in 1933, Leonard Bloomfield in his work Language s hare d t he same viewpo int regarding the future of the Meaning as t he two aforementioned aut hors. He states that the main point regardi ng t his ques tion is t o provide a systematic account of t he nature of meaning. Additionally, he explains how this can be do ne, namely by semanticists focusing o n st udying the relations within the language. The whole concept in Leechs opinion rests o n the distinction between meaningf ul and meaningless utterances in relation to the knowledge o f language and the know ledge of the real world. To exemplify this stat ement, Leech provides t wo o pposed sentences, each of which is characterized by the discrepancies relating to either real world or language: 1) My uncle always sleeps on one toe. My uncle always sleeps awake. It would be interesting to e ngage in a detailed dia chronic analysis of th e definition of the term Meaning, which would include the time period of almost a hundred years (1923, i.e. Ogden and Richa rds - 2018), but the scope of this paper cannot incorporate a work of that amount. The Study of M eaning, the em phasis in this classification shou ld be put o n the logical or conceptual meaning (also ca lled denotative or cognitive) (1981, 9). The reason for this is his statement that conceptual meaning is widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic communication. Leech 1981, 9) He goes f urther to expl ain that conceptual meaning p lays an enor mous r ole in linguistic communication for it has a complex and sophist icated or ganization which may be compared wit h, and cross-r elated to, a similar o rganization on the syntactic a nd p ho no logical levels of language. Le ech 1981, 9) This i s connected, accordin g to Leech, with two principles of all linguistic patt erning (1981, 9), i.e. Leech a sserts that contrastiveness is based on the classification of sounds in phonology, namely the binary opposition of characteristics o f sounds positive (prese nt) and negative (absent) features. He depicts that using t he example of the sound b and, furthermore, with t he example of t he meaning o f t he wo rd woman. In wh at o rder these three levels are going to be used depends on the role in linguis tic communication. As a speaker, t he process starts from the level of semantics, undergoes structur al for mation o n t he level o f syntax and becomes phonologically formed. Unlike in speaker - situation, the who le process is ups ide-down in the ro le of t he listener when the order is A-B-C, i.e. The A-B- C order is then called decoding. However, t his idea has progressed over years and theref ore this Leechs structure can be regarded as somewhat obsolet e. Connotative Meaning For the sake of precisely d efining this type of meaning, Leechs book on semantics needs to be consulted once again: Connotative meaning is the comm unicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, over and ab ove its purely co nceptual content. Leech 1981, 12) As it can be seen from the definition, co nnotative meaning unavoidably o verlaps w ith certain aspects of the conceptual me aning. Therefore, the reference overlaps w ith the elements o f conceptual meaning, as in when the contrastive features of conceptual meaning become att ributes of t he real world referent. But additional at tributes ex pected f rom the referent depend o n various ot her factor s, such as age or society, and t hey ca n a lso depend on the individual, as claimed by Leech. In this context, the relationship between conceptual and connotative meaning can easily be compared to the one between the l anguage (conceptual) and the real world (connotative). For this reason, connotative meaning can be seen as an open-ended and unstable category in comparison to conceptual meaning. Leech 1981, 12) 2 The evolution of this conce pt may be a topic fo r some of the pape rs in the future. Second edition revised an d updated. Harmon dsworth: Penguin Boo ks. As it can be seen from the exa mples mentioned ab ove, the f actors s uch as to ne of voice, mimic and gestures can be significant when decoding the message of an utterance. Leech 1981, 16) 2.2.5 Reflected Meaning In a case o f reflected meaning, it can be explained as the one appearing in situations o f multiple conceptual meanings, when one sense o f a word influences our response to another sense, as stated by Leech. Furthermore, he exemplifies the statement above in the cases of The Comforter and The Holy Ghost where, although both terms refer to the third element in the Holy Trini ty, there are certain semant ic differences between those two expressions. Thereby is The Comforter described by Leech as something warm and comforting while T he Holy Ghost he perceives as awesome. Lastly, he po ints o ut t hat in s imilar cases words can also impose t he suggestive power with a little help of the power of associations. Collocative Meaning To clearly define what constitutes the co llocative t ype o f meaning a quotation from Leech needs to be mentioned: Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires on acco unt o f the meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment. Leech 1981, 17) To clarify his definition, he used the examples o f the adjectives pretty and handsome and the words which usually find themselves in their vicini ty. The following examples a re the ones I ca me up with. Mr. X donated the f irst prize. Active) vs. The first prize was donated by Mr. X. (Passive) (Leech 1981, 19) In its co re, however, Leech stat es t hat t hematic meaning is matter of choice between alternative grammatical construction, for instance in sentences A man is here to see you. ![]() The main po int in d istinguishing them, according to Palmer, lies in the fact. Sense relates to the complex s ystem of relationships that hold between t he linguistic elements themselves (mostly the words); it is concerned only with intra- linguistic relations. Palmer 1976, 30) Furthermore, what L eech regarded as social meaning appears also to b e part of Palmers approach since he calls this type also social or inter - personal which also includes the affective meaning mentioned before, where he points out the importance of intonat ion as well. Palmer also names cert ain e xample pairs of s ynonyms which are perceived d ifferently by t he soc iety, even though their conceptual meaning or sense is almost the same.
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