Phylological Sciences /3 Theoretical and methodological problems in the language research

Pratch V., Ph.D.

L’viv Institue of Banking, Ukraine.

The Linguistic Essence of Meaning

We will start from the following analogy: you can hardly find two people having exactly the same handwriting, yet people of the same speech community will easily identify all the letters however different they are in each particular handwriting. This has become possible due to certain distinctive features by which each letter of the alphabet decidedly differs from the remaining letters in the set and cannot be mistaken, as, for example, b, o and a, c, etc. And whatever their size, shape or colour may be, they are discounted as irrelevant features in the process of identification by opposing, say, d to q.

Similarly, speech sounds are pronounced by every native speaker in his own peculiar voice and in a way or manner that differs invariably from those of other people, yet he is just as readily understood because the speech sounds, too, are identified only by their relevant distinctive features, i.e. pronounced with or without an obstruction in the mouth cavity, hence vowels or consonants. In this opposition the actual voice of a particular person with its peculiarities is of no importance whatever and, as a matter of course, cannot serve as a distinctive feature of vowels as opposed to consonants. Consonants are further differentiated as “voiced” and “voiceless”. In this opposition it is a presence or absence of voice that counts and not the peculiarity of the voice itself which may vary with every speaker without creating any obstacle to this distinction.

In general, any object of reality may have several distinctive features , yet in most cases not all of them at a time are used to distinguish between two objects having some other features in common, as the letters b and d. The common features of the two objects compared constitute what is known as the basis for comparison or opposition without which the objects cannot be compared for they are just incomparable. Thus, we cannot compare a book with a table for they have no common features.

We will now discuss the problem of meaning in terms of opposition by distinctive features and see if distinctive features can do for meaning in semantics what they do for sounds in phonology.

The meaning of a word is assumed here to be a minimum invariant semantic content. This either does, or does not coincide with the whole concept, i.e. with all its essential features, to which the word sound form is referred. In the former case it is always invariant and identical both in language and speech, as in hypotenuse, while in the latter it is invariant only in the language semantic system, being variable in speech; e.g., foot is now “the foot of the mountain”, now “the foot of the page”, or “a measure of length” equal to 12 inches, etc. The minimum variable semantic content of a word in speech is termed here “sense”. Thus, while the “meaning” is an objective paradigmatic invariant component of the system, the “sense” is, to a certain extent, a subjective, purely syntagmatic variable creation.

Sense variability in speech may be explained as follows. The original concept referred to, say, foot – lowest part of the leg below the ankle (OALD) was gradually generalized with only some of its distinctive features having been singled out and abstracted from it as the most striking features to be used for the communication purposes. Once singled out, generalized and abstracted from its original, “maternal” concept, this new semantic content can no longer be identified unambiguously with any one concept in its totality, not even with its own original concept because it is now equally likely to refer to each of the concepts within the set covering its semantic range. Thus, while we always know what hypotenuse is referred to, we cannot say for certain what exactly the word foot denotes, for it is now “the lowest part of the human body, now “of a mountain”, then “of a page”, now again “a unit of length” equal to 12 inches”,etc.

It is easy to see that the original semantic content of foot – “the lowest part of the human body” with all its essential features has become more general, that is to say, that only a few of its essential features have been singled out, abstracted and retained in the new-born semantic content while the rest of them were discounted and dropped out. In fact, their number has been reduced to two, namely, its relative position – “the lowest part” and “its length” – 12 inches. These features have, no doubt, been chosen for their immediate communicative relevance and importance. It is these features that have become invariant and constitute what we have termed “the minimum invariant semantic content” – the meaning proper of the word foot in the language semantic system. Since these and the like distinctive features constitute the language semantic system, they are said to be “semantic distinctive features”. The semantic distinctive features (SDF) is the smallest indivisible invariant semantic unit. The meaning, then, is the smallest independent invariant semantic unit. When more than one SDF constitute the meaning they are tied up and held together within the same word by its sound form as their only material support outside the speaker’s mind.

For hundreds of years the invariant SDFs have been misused in semantic investigations as the basis of comparison of entirely different concepts opposed, which have been described accordingly as different meanings, hence various kinds of or transference of meaning, as foot – “the lowest part” of the human body as opposed to “the lowest part” of the mountain, and since the part of a human body decidedly differs from that of a mountain, the “meanings”, that is, the semantic contents referred to in both cases are, of course, different. In fact, however,it is the reverse of the opposition principles in semantics. The semantic distinctive feature by definition presupposes the opposition of two otherwise identical concepts, one being distinguished from the other by one feature only. Consequently, the semantic distinctive feature must always have its opposition basis (=the two identical concepts opposed) to describe or reveal the exact and complete semantic content – the sense of the word involved. Thus, of two parts of the human body foot marks “the lowest”; of two parts of the mountain foot marks “the lowest”; of two parts of the perpendicular foot marks “the lowest” one; of two units of length foot marks (with its second SDF) the one “equal to 12 inches”.

The exact sense of a word with a variable semantic content in speech is thus determined by the invariant semantic distinctive feature (s), on the one hand, and by one of the two identical variable concepts opposed, on the other. Unlike the traditional description of changes of meaning, the process of generating different senses of the same word in speech is seen to be the consecutive merger of the invariant word meaning determined by the semantic system of the language with different concepts determined by the “sense unit” – the smallest possible unit of word application both in space and time.

The traditional term “transference of meaning” actually implies that the original concept, say foot with all its essential features of the lowest part of the human body, making up the meaning ( = concept) of this word is transferred to, and thus merges with, the concept of the “lowest part of the mountain” (with all its essential features) to produce a kind of something fantastic – a concept combining all the essential features of the lowest part of the human body with those of the lowest part of the mountain. It would be absurd, of course, to think so. In all kinds of metaphors, therefore, the meaning is not merely “transferred”, it is generalized to be used only to differentiate various other concepts showing the distinctive feature (s) corresponding to the SDFs constituting the invariant meaning of the word used to name such concepts.

Instead opposing two identical concepts having all the essential features in common except those distinguishing one from the other scientists have traditionally been opposing two concepts having no common features except the distinctive one(s), which produced numerous “different meanings” because the invariant semantic content was incorporated into the respective different concepts opposed. If, on the other hand, identical concepts are opposed, their difference – the distinctive feature – is at once revealed. What is, for instance, the distinctive feature of the part of a mountain marked by foot as opposed to some other part of the same mountain not marked by it. The most probable answer will be “it is the lowest part of the mountain, just as the foot is the lowest part of a human body.

It is not always, however, that all the component SDFs are used at the same time. Sometimes one or two of them cease to function where they are expected to, that is, they become neutralized, the remaining SDF directing the word to a greater number of concepts possessing only the remaining SDF(s) alone.

Every word by definition is assumed to have its own individual meaning which is stable and invariant both in language and speech, and if added to consecutive different concepts named in speech, it produces different senses. The individual meaning of a given word may be singled out by opposing the word to the “next of its kin”, i.e. a noun to other nouns, a preposition to other prepositions,etc.