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LECTURE 3
WORD AS A COMMUNICATION UNIT

1. Word in the communicative sspect
2. Types of meaning
3. Semes
4. Sematic changes

Key words: meaning, referent, concept, word, grammatical
and lexical meaning, denotational and connotational components,
seme, semantic sign, archseme, actual sense of the word

1. Word in the communicative aspect
Generally speaking, meaning can be more or less described
as a component of the word through which a concept is
communicated, in this way endowing the word with the ability of
denoting real objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions. The
complex and somewhat mysterious relationships between referent
(object, etc. denoted by the word), concept and word are
traditionally represented by the following triangle:
By the "symbol" here is meant the word; thought or
reference is concept. The dotted line suggests that there is no
immediate relation between word and referent: it is established
only through the concept. On the other hand, there is a hypothesis
that concepts can only find their realization through words. It
seems that thought is dormant till the word wakens it up. It is only
when we hear a spoken word or read a printed word that the
corresponding concept springs into mind. When we examine a
word we see that its meaning though closely connected with the
underlying concept or concepts is not identical with them. To
begin with, concept is a category of human cognition. Concept is
the thought of the object that singles out its essential features. Our
concepts abstract and reflect the most common and typical features
of the different objects and phenomena of the world. Being the

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