Word Meaning Dr. Khaleel B. Al Bataineh Department of English Language and Translation Amman Arab University

1. Word Meaning

2. It is very important to know the meaning of a word and the
relation between it and the real world. And understand
What this word meaning carries with it , also the connection
of the meaning with other words in vocabulary in addition
its relation with sentence and text structure.
• Many words may have many different meaning this what
we called Polysemy.
• Polysemy: Multiple meaning of a word or phrase.

3. Light

4. Or:
• Head : human part
• Head : beginning or Leader

5. • We will discuss the four semantic terms related to the
meaning of words which they are:
Connotation
Reference
Sense
Collocation

6. • Reference: The primer feature of meaning is the
relation of reference between a lexeme and the entity,
person, object, action, feeling. etc. in the real world
that the lexeme denotes.
For example: if some one say “Look the bird on the
tree”!

7. • In this situation the speaker used to refer to this in
front of us, so he said that and refer to this bird which
is the object called referent.
• If we listen to the speaker before seeing what he is
talking about how we will understand the
phrase “Bird” before looking to it? this actual bird, so
people talk about many things, objects, share opinions
and can understand each other because they share each
other language they share the same vocabulary and
grammar. They agree about which word refers to which
aspect of reality. We used words to talk about and make
reference to the world we live in, our experience of that
word.

8. • The reference of some words are obvious and
easy to describe specially for tangible objects
(Ball, Car) , physical actions (Run, Jump) .
• The reference less recognizable in abstract
nouns, verbs expressing mental and
emotional states as (Think, Happy, sad,)
Adjectives in general and gradable adj (long,
warm) or evaluative (Silly, marvelous,
ridiculous) and finally discernible for some
words belonging to the smaller grammatical
classes (about, this).

9. • Some words have similar reference but differ from
each other and this have little to do with reference and
more to do with context. depend on the context for
example”
Formal Informal
Manage Deal with
Receive Get
Or Old fashioned words :
Heaven Welkin
Occur Transpire

10. • Sense relation: It is the factor contributing to the meaning of the
lexicon. It includes similarity (synonym), or contradiction (antonymy). Last
but not least, it is also the type and the part of the relationship (meronymy).
Let’s survey each of them briefly:
• Synonymy: the word that has the same or similar meaning to another word.
For ex: (almost/ nearly)
• (Buy / purchase).
• Antonymy: [Based on contrast] Antonyms are words that have opposite
meanings. For ex: (alive/dead) (big / small ) (rich /poor) (male/female) .
-This dead man is alive- non-graded / contradictory statement.
-A small elephant is a big animal / graded statement.
• Hyponymy: [Based on inclusion] The state or phenomenon that shows the
relationship between more general terms [lexical relation] and the more
specific instance of it.

11. When we say color, there are many types to consider, such as
red, blue, black, green, yellow etc. ...
So, we can say red is a hyponym of “color”.
Another ex: Flower is the superordinate word with general
meaning which includes the sense of “rose, pansy, and
daffodil.”
Synonymy is a widespread relation in English, in large part
due to words with similar meaning from more than one of the
strata that make up the English vocabulary. For example,
begin has an Anglo-Saxon origin which is a mix of Germanic
people. Another example is the word clop in old Anglo, now
meaning a short hill. Its English synonyms were entered from
the French in the Middle Ages, such as living, residence, tell
and inform.

12. Equally, there are also mixed words between French during
the Middle Ages as well as, Latin during the Renaissance
period such as: complete and plenary, join and connect, sign
and portent, vote and plebiscite. There are, even synonym
triplets from each of the three strata of vocabulary, e.g. end,
finish, terminate; hatred, enmity, animosity; kingly, royal,
regal; sin, trespass, transgression.
So this text also mentions the more formal use of these words
from the lower Anglo-Saxon strata.
Another source for synonymous pairs is the difference in
dialects and it comes between dialects and not the grammar of
the language. This occurs between American, British, and
English accents
• For ex: lift and elevator / chips and French fries / motorway
and highway.

13. • Contrast is the least frequent relationship between
synonyms and the most common between adjectives,
where opposite sides of the scale are represented, such as
large and small.
Other examples include wide and narrow also beautiful
and ugly, slow and fast.
• This also appears in verbs such as begin and end, nouns
such as bottom and top, and prepositions such as inside
and outside, and adverbs such as up and down.
• Some opposites antonymy show an either / or
relationship.
For example, either winning or losing, and there is also an
inverse relationship, for example, when the seller X sells
some goods to the buyer y, then y takes them from x.

14. • Hyponymy also connects
words with each other, for
example when we say a color, we
call it hypernym, followed by the
colors red, yellow, green, white,
etc. They are called hyponyms,
and the relationship of all colors
with each other is called co-
hyponyms.

15. • Meronymy is like hyponymy in that it relates words
hierarchically, but the relation is a ‘part of’ relation. The
meronyms of a superordinate word represent the parts of
that word.
For example, ball, heel, and instep are meronyms of foot;
hub, rim and spoke are meronyms of wheel; flower, root
and stalk are meronyms of plant. Together, hyponymy and
meronymy serve to group words into semantic sets, known
as ‘lexical fields’, in which the lexemes all refer to the same
area of meaning.
• In addition, meronymy in semantics its a word that denote
a constituent part or a member of something. For ex:
when we say apple is a meronymy of apple tree and apple
tree is a hyponym of apple.

16. • Connotation
• Denotation is often mentioned with
connotation. Therefore, there is a
distinction between the denotation
of a word and it’s connotation.

17. • 1- Denotation : it is the semantic meaning or the definition
of a word that found in a dictionary , Which means it is the
scientific study of any word. For example: The denotation
of a word “lion” is a class of animals. Thus, the denotation
is the neutral relation between a word and it’s referent in the
external world.
• 2- Connotation : it is the shade of meaning acquired by a
word in addition to it’s denotation.
• For example: The connotation of a word “lion” is that it
conveys such properties as strength , bravery and
nobleness.

18. • Connotation is often culture specific and it has
associations with the community of speaker. That’s why,
there are some words spread negative or positive
connotation.
• For example :
1- “Owl” and “‫"بوم‬
have the same denotation : They point to the same class of
birds.
And have a different connotation : because
“Owl” occur in English literature as a symbol of wisdom
which is a positive connotation while in Arabic literature
and even in its daily use, it symbolize ill-omen which is a
negative connotation.

19. 2- Childish
- Denotation : behavior of a child or like a child.
Negative connotation : Connotes an adult with an
immature attitude or behavior.
3- Inspire
Denotation : creating the desire to do or feel something.
Positive connotation : connotes a person with a good
attitude who will put the work in and not grumble and
which occurring typically with nouns like confidence,
loyalty and enthusiasm.

20. • The meaning of a word is determined by two main
relations :
1- paradigmatic relation : a synonym, antonym, hyponym
or meronym, Paradigmatic relates to a systems and the
ability of an item to be substituted with another item
within the system.
2- syntagmatic relation : it is how we combine phonemes,
morphemes and words structurally which means it relates
to the sequential arrangement of items to form
meaningful and acceptable expressions.

21. • The defining characteristic of collocations is that
though they allow grammatical modification, their
lexical constituents are so fixed that we cannot use
close synonyms to replace their lexical constituents;
thus we can say “ fast food” but not “quick food” ,
even though “fast and quick” are very similar in
meaning.
Collocations : are phrasal combinations of words that
tend to occur together, such as make a mistake, a flock
of birds, commit a crime and a heavy accent.

22. • Types of collocations that based on any part of
speech :
1- verbs collocations:

23. 2- adjective - noun collocations :
⁃ A great achievement
⁃ A long journey
3- adverb - adjective collocations :
⁃ Terribly hot
⁃ Extremely significant
4- noun - noun collocations :
⁃ A slice of cake
⁃ A pile of laundry

24. 5- noun - verb collocations:
⁃ A Dog parking
⁃ A bird sings
6- verb - adverb collocations :
⁃ Affect deeply
⁃ whispered softly

26. References:
• https://www.thoughtco.com/polysemy-words-and-meanings-1691642
• cesaraguilar.weebly.com/uploads/2/7/7/5/2775690/chapter04.pdf
• Lexemes Marios Andreou LAST MODIFIED: 27 MARCH 2019 DOI:
10.1093/OBO/9780199772810-0232
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYu0LZfIS1M Paradigmatic & syntagmatic
relations
• Collocations: The Georgetown guide to Arabic-English translation
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0akAm09nW08 Synonymous
• Connotation and Denotation: Theories of translation by Dr. May Al Shikali

27. By:
o Nancy Haddad
o Malak Wael
o Dina Wishah