Lexical semantics

Lexical semantics

1. main ways of semantic change

   • narrowing/ specialization of meaning:a word becomes more specific in its meaning
   • weakening: the word loses strength of its original meaning
   • perjoration: the word takes on a more negative meaning
   • amelioration: the word takes on a more positive meaning
   • broadening: the word keeps it original meaning but takes on others

2. semiotics-study of signs

   • icon
   • index
   • symbol

3. meaning

   • grammatical(points to gram.categories)
   • lexical(the content of a word which differs it from other words)
     • denotative(the whole class of names/a single referent)
       • intension
       • extension
     • connotative

4. sememe

   • the unit of meaning carried by a morpheme

5. main areas of research

   • semantic structure of words
   • types of lexical meaning
   • polysemy and homonymy
   • systemic semantic relations in the lexicon
   • semantic change

6. lexeme

   • a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection