Approaches of Semantics

Approaches to the Study of Semantics You have learnt that the study of meaning in language has been of interest to both the linguist and the philosopher. It has also interested the general communicator. The study of semantics has developed from the earliest times to the modern period, giving it a historical view. That way, we can focus on four major approaches – traditional, behavioural, structural and generative perspectives. Traditional Semantics Traditional semantics is associated with the works of such great philosophers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as well as many others who came after them. Their main focus was on the nature of human language itself. Based on their views of the nature of human language, these early philosophers were divided into two – the naturalists and the nurturists. To the naturalists, language was God-given such that there was hardly anything anybody could do to understand language. Man was not expected to make alterations, but should concern himself with merely observing and describing the rules of language. The Greek language was perceived to be the chosen language upon which all other languages should be based. Later, Latin became the focus of philosophical analysis. The nurturists, on the other hand, viewed language as a social property common to a speech community. Language was therefore perceived to be man‘s creation for the convenience of communication. Thus, in spite of difference in languages, the uniting point is that they are all for communication. Traditional semantics was also concerned with the relationship between form and meaning. The meaning of a word was considered as what it refers to. This view has also been shared by Ogden and Richards (1923). There have also been later scholars who believed that the image of a word takes shape in the speaker‘s or hearer‘s mind. Another major view of traditional semantics is that the meaning of a word can be decoded from its shape or sound. Words in this category are onomatopoeic. The major ideas in traditional semantics are reference, concepts, truth conditions etc. Behavioural Semantics The external environment is perceived to be the major stimulus to all human utterances. The stimulus-response scenario is synonymous with the cause and effect connection in most natural situations. Those who favour the behavioural approach to semantics have argued that by reducing meaning to observable entities, language, as an aspect of human favour can lend itself to examination. They also argue that meaning is influenced by reinforcement. The theory stresses nurture rather than nature. Thus, the physical environment is perceived to contribute to meaning rather than the internal thought processes. Though behaviourism tends to lend meaning to experimental explanation, it has been criticized for its rejection of introspection, concepts and ideas. It is not everything in language that can be observed physically. The over-reliance on reinforcement tends to present animal and human behaviour as identical. Structural Semantics The father of structuralism is Ferdinand de Saussure. Structuralism as a linguistic theory considers the structures and systems in language. Emphasis is on the process of segmenting and classifying the features of utterances. Under structuralism, emphasis is on the analysis of sense relations that connect words and meaning. Sense is an expression of the system of semantic relationships a given word keeps with other expressions in a given language. This relationship is usually paradigmatic in terms of similarity and dissimilarity. The relationship of similarity occurs as synonymy, while the relationship of dissimilarity is referred to as antonymy. Structural processes are useful in lexical relations in the study of words. Generative Semantics Noam Chomsky is the father of generative grammar. According to the theory of transformational generative grammar, knowledge of language is generated in the mind. A language user has a finite set of rules from which he can generate an infinite number of sentences. This power of generations is facilitated by the power of transformational rules which convert deep structure sentence types into other various forms via transformations. At the beginning of Chomsky‘s generative grammar, there was the assertion that syntax was autonomous and independent of semantics. It was only later in Aspects of the theory of Syntax (1965) that Chomsky pointed out that the semantic component specifies the rules necessary for the interpretation of deep structures. This observation enhanced the semantic representation of sentences. Deep structures specify the original meaning of sentences before the application of transformations. There was the immediate problem of explaining the meaning of multiple paraphrases from a single deep structure. Thus, generative semantics would be concerned with sentence meaning and interpretation. This will require the interpretation of functional roles in sentences. This interpretation has been explained by the Case theory as propounded by Charles Fillmore, and further elaborated in Chomsky‘s Case theory and Thematic theory. The semantic component has been presented as being partially dependent on syntax and at the same time distinct. This produces a composite relationship between grammar and meaning. The deep structure is deemed to determine how sentence parts combine to make meaning for the whole. The syntactic component is the generative source of grammar. Thus, the output of syntax forms the input to the semantic component. The semantic component is perceived to operate on the structural description of sentences to provide a representation of the meaning of sentences. Grammar as used here is the totality of the mechanism and rules of language organization including meaning. As a result of the complexity of this theory, we shall have a more elaborate discussion of its implication in another unit. Perhaps the philosophical postulations of Aristotle provided impetus to critical thinking in semantics. Based on the major areas of concern, there have been traditional semantics, behavioural semantics, structural semantics and generative semantics. Branches of semantics Cruse (2000:15) lists the following as the main broadly distinguishable areas of interest in the study of meaning: lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, logical semantics, and linguistic pragmatics. They are not watertight compartments and they may overlap with one another. Lexical semantics Lexical semantics studies the meanings of words; the focus is on 'content' words like lion, jasmine, selfish and persuade, rather than form/grammatical words like the, of, than, and so on. A non-specialist mostly links the notion of meaning with words rather than any other linguistic units which are lesser than words (such as affixes) or wider than words (such as phrases, sentences). We consider dictionary as the one which deals about words. The branch of semantics which systematically study the meaning words is lexical semantics. Grammatical semantics Grammatical semantics studies aspects of meaning which have direct relevance to syntax. This has many manifestations. which can only be briefly dealt here. Syntactic categories are one the problems in the interface of syntax and semantics. For instance, consider the problem of assigning category to the word yellow. It can be given the category such as adjective, noun and verb as illustrated below5 She wears a yellow skirt. (adjective) He painted the room with a glowing yellow. (noun) The leaves yellows rapidly in the winter. Another aspect of grammatical semantics is the meaning of grammatical morphemes like the -ed of called, the -er of stronger, the re- of reshuffle and al of central. You can clearly visualize that this overlaps with lexical semantics due to the fact that some grammatical elements (such as the and of) are words and also due another fact that some amount of grammatical behavior is determined by the lexical items themselves. The following examples will illustrate this5 I am studying the book - grammatical I am knowing the book – ungrammatical Logical semantics Logical semantics studies the relation between natural language and formal logical systems such as the propositional and predicate calculi. Such studies usually aim at modeling natural language as closely as possible using a tightly controlled, maximally strict logical formalism (Cruse, 2000: 15). Sometimes such studies shed more light on the formalism used than on the language being modeled. But valuable insights have cropped up from this approach. Most of such studies till date are concerned with the propositional or sentence level meaning and they rarely stoop down the level of words. There is always a sense of logic in any language system. This places logic as a component of the meaning processes of natural language. It is this connection that makes logic a point of interest in semantics. It should be noted, however that the emphasis of logic in semantics is on the relations involved in complex sentences, rather than with the abstract mathematical formulations. We shall explore in this unit the structure of the sentence and how this structure contributes to meaning. Linguistics pragmatics Semantics is the study of meaning, or more precisely, the study of the relation between linguistic expressions and their meanings. Whenever we have a verbal disagreement, we disagree about the semantics of some expression we employed in stating our views. Pragmatics is the study of context, or more precisely, a study of the way context can influence our understanding of linguistic utterances. Whenever we have a contextual disagreement, we take ourselves to be in different contexts and the difference effects what we take ourselves to have done through our respective acts of stating our views. Settling on a shared meaning for the expressions we used may be hard, but settling on a shared take on the context is often harder. For the present purpose, pragmatics can be taken to be concerned with aspects of information (in the widest sense) conveyed through language which are not encoded by generally accepted convention in the linguistic forms used, but which none the less arise naturally out of and depend on the meanings conventionally encoded in the linguistic forms used, taken in conjunction with the context in which the forms are used. It is by linguistic pragmatics we identify the individual referred by John in the sentence I saw Raja yesterday. The coreferential information between room and it inferred from the example, Raja entered the room, It was empty is a matter of linguistic pragmatics. Pragmatics is usually contrasted with semantics, which deals with conventionalized meaning. The three divisions discussed above belongs to semantics. SUMMARY Semantics has been found to be related to a wide range of disciplines because of the general interest in meaning. In specific terms, semantics has been formed to be relevant to naming, reference and sense. It is also concerned with the interpretation of sentences. You have observed the progression in the development of semantic thought. You have noted the positive relationship between semantics and other components of the language system. You can safely conclude that while syntax, for instance provides the basis for the structure of the sentence, it is semantics that holds the key to meaning. This means that semantics is critical to communication. You have learnt the approaches of the traditionalists, the behaviourists, the structuralists and the generativists to the study of semantics. You have read that the traditionalists were related to the early philosophers, while the behaviourists were more concerned with psychology, with the object of study being what is observed. Structrualists emphasised the sense relations between words while the generativists depended on the deep structures of sentences for meaning. It would be possible to identify the essential ingredients of these approaches to the study of semantics. You have leant about the four important branches of semantics: lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, logical semantics, and linguistic pragmatics, OVERVIEW You have observed that semantics is the linguistic study of meaning. You have also noted that meaning is central to the process of communication. Interestingly, there is usually the controversy about the nature of meaning. We shall explore in this unit the nature of meaning. Meaning is at the centre of the study of semantics – for both the philosopher and the linguist. However, there are differences in opinion based on approaches and methods. We shall explore meaning from the perspectives of the different schools of thought. It will be recalled that language as a system is organised along the structures of sound, words, sentences and meaning. Each of these levels can be studied in some details, following specified formulations or theories. For the purpose of a detailed study of semantics, the theories we shall explore are expected to explain the nature of word and sentence meaning, among several other things. We shall examine the different perspectives to the study of meaning. We shall also discuss the types of meaning. We shall discuss, in the subsequent sections, the nature of semantic theories and explore specific theories. Schools of Thought in Meaning Both linguists and philosophers agree that meaning is central to semantics. However, there is considerable disparity among different scholars on the exact conception of meaning. Based on their understanding of the meaning of meaning and procedures, there are different schools of thought in relation to meaning. These are the naturalists, the conventionalists and the contextualists. According to the naturalists with Plato as the chief proponent, the meaning of a word is the entity or thing it represents. There is an intrinsic relationship between sound and meaning. The major criticism of this view is that there exist very many words in natural languages without physical entities. To the conventionalists, words and their meaning do not necessarily have any direct link. Whatever connection existing between a word and meaning is through a concept formed in the minds of the users of the language. Conventionalism is derived from the works of Aristotle. According to J. Firth and other contextualists, the meaning of a word derives from its usage. Each of these approaches has had a profound impact on the practice of linguistics. Their contributions shall become apparent as the text progresses. Apart from focusing on the three principal approaches to the study of meaning, there are thematic, conceptual and associative types of meaning. Types of Meaning You all know now that semantics is concerned with meaning and that morphemes, words, phrases and sentences have meaning. So semantics can be defined as the study of the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences. While listening to a spoken text or reading a written text you may feel that there the utterance convey many types of information or meaning. So you need to make certain distinctions in the meaning understood by you. That means you may feel that there are different types of meaning. Now, you may ask what are the types of meaning. Geoffrey Leech (1981) has an answer for you question. Leech in his book, ‗Semantic- A Study of meaning‘ (1981) breaks down meaning into seven types. They are: conceptual or denotative meaning, connotative meaning, social meaning, affective or emotive meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning and thematic meaning. He gives primacy to conceptual meaning, Let us examine them one by one. There are three basic types of meaning and these are thematic, conceptual and associative. Associative meaning can further be divided into connotative, collocative, affective, reflected and stylistic meanings. We shall for this section concentrate on thematic and conceptual meaning. Thematic Meaning You may organize or order words or phrases in an utterances to give them focus or emphasis. You may say raajan teervil tooRRu viTTaan or teervil raajan tooRRuviTTaan both meaning 'Rajan failed in the examination'; in the first case you give importance to raajan 'Rajan' and in the second case you give importance to teervu 'examination'. In such cases you have thematic meaning. Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus or emphasis (Leech 1981). Thematic meaning helps us to understand the message and its implications properly. The different parts of the sentence also can be used as subject, object or complement to show prominence. It is done through focus, theme (topic) or emotive emphasis. Thus a sentence in active voice is different from the sentence in passive voice though its conceptual meaning is the same. For example, the following statements in active and passive voice have same conceptual meaning but different communicative values. Mrs. Smith donated the first prize The first prize was donated by Mrs. Smith. In the first sentence ―who gave away the prize ―is more important, but in the second sentence ―what did Mrs. Smith gave is importantǁ. Thus the change of focus changes the meaning also. The first suggests that we already know Mrs. Smith (perhaps through earlier mention) its known/given information while it‘s new information. Alternative grammatical construction also gives thematic meaning. For example, I like apples most. Apples I like most It is the apples I like most. Like the grammatical structures, stress and intonation also make the message prominent. For example, the contrastive stress on the word cotton in the following sentence give prominence to the information. Kannan likes mango fruit. The kind of fruit that Kanna likes is mango. Thus sentences or pairs of sentences with similar conceptual meaning differ their communicative value. This is due to different grammatical constructions or lexical items or stress and intonations. Therefore they are used in different contents. In the line ―Ten thousand saw I at a glanceǁ, Wordsworth inverts the structure to focus on ‗ten thousand,” Sometimes thematic contrast i.e. contrasts between given and new information can be conveyed by lexical means. Kannan owns the biggest shop in Chennai. The biggest shop in Chennai belongs to Kannan. The ways we order our message also convey what is important and what not. This is basically thematic meaning. Thematic meaning derives from the organisation of the message presented in a language. It is the arrangement of the components of communication that determine the point of emphasis. This arrangement may take the form of passivisation, topicalisation or focus. In the sentences that follow, different items have been made more prominent by merely re-ordering them. a. Jane bought the house – normal SVO order b. It was Jane that bought the house – topicalised c. The house was bought by Jane – passivised. d. The house, Jane painted – focused In sentence (a) the sentence is in the normal subject-verb-object order without any special meaning. Sentences (b) and (d) tend to lay emphasis on Jane, the doer of the action being referred to. In sentence (c), the emphasis is on the house which was bought. Indeed, focused and topicalised elements in a structure are given prominence within an information structure. A component of the bit of information can also be made more prominent by stressing it. Consider further the following5 She BOUGHT my newspaper (She did not STEAL it) She bought my NEWSPAPER (not my textbook) SHE bought my newspaper (not any other person) Conceptual Meaning Conceptual meaning (Leech 1981:9) is synonymous with primary, central, logical, cognitive or denotative meaning of a word. It is the first ordinary meaning listed in dictionaries which is not affected by the context or emotional overtones associated with the act of communication. There is an assumed shared conceptual meaning of every word of a language. There is a universal implication of the conceptual meaning. It is widely assumed to be the central factor in linguistic communication. Conceptual meanings are the essential or core meaning while other six types are the peripheral. They are peripheral in as sense that they are non-essential. Conceptual meaning is also called as primary meaning . It is the meaning suggested by the word when it used alone. It is the first meaning or usage which a word will suggest to most people when the word is said in isolation. It is the meaning learned early in life and likely to have reference to a physical situation. The conceptual meaning of word is its agreed-upon sense - what it refers to, stands for, or designates. The aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic representation to a sentence or statement. A sentence is made of abstract symbols. Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other sentences. Thus, conceptual meaning is an essential part of language. A language essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. The conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning. You know that conceptual meaning is given primacy over other meanings. Conceptual meaning deals with the core meaning of expression. It is the denotative or literal meaning. It is essential for the functioning of language. For example, a part of the conceptual meaning of the word needle may be ―thinǁ, ―sharpǁ or ―instrumentǁ. The organization of conceptual meaning is based on two principles: principle of contrastiveness and the principle of structure. The conceptual meanings can be studied typically in terms of contrastive features. That is, it is possible to express the conceptual meaning of a word using contrastive semantic features. Such features indicate the attributes present and those that are absent. If a feature is present, it is specified as [ + ]; if absent, it is [ - ]. These contrastive features specifying the attributes of the words provide the necessary criteria for the correct use of words. You know already that /b/ is described in phonetics as +bilabial, + voice, + bilabial + stop/plosive and /p/ is described in phonetics as +bilabial, -voice, + bilabial + stop/plosive. It is the contrasting feature +/- VOICE which differentiates /b/ from /p/. Similarly the word woman can be represented as + HUMAN, -MALE, + ADULT". On the contrary, the word boy can be realized as + HUMAN, + MALE, - ADULT. The contrastive features which distinguishes woman from boy are +/-MALE and +/- ADULT. This way of representing meaning based on contrastive feature is known as principle of contrastiveness. You know that not only the units of language are contrastive but also they are arranged sequentially. You can build larger units by combing smaller units and again combining the outcome of the first combination into still larger units and so on. Look at the example given below. You combine that and man into that man and a and teacher into a teacher; you interpret the first phrase that man as subject and a teacher as complement. You again combine is and a teacher into a larger unit is a teacher; you interpret this as predicate. By combining subject and predicate you construct a sentence. Now you understand that by the principle of structure, larger units of language are built up out of smaller units or you are able to analyze a sentence syntactically into its constituent parts hierarchically till you arrive at the ultimate constituents or smallest syntactic elements. You can represent this information by means of a tree-diagram as given below5 Now you understand that the aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic representation to a sentence or statement. A sentence is made of abstract symbols. Conceptual meaning helps you to distinguish one meaning from the meaning of other sentences. Thus, conceptual meaning is an essential part of language. A language essentially depends on conceptual meaning for communication. The conceptual meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning. The conceptual meaning of a word constitutes a major part of the shared system of a language for all speakers. It is a criteria element of human communication since it is a major factor in language. The use of this process, has been described as componential analysis. It is a major process in structural semantics. Associative Meaning The meaning of a word is affected by the context, background, time and the cultural realities of the users of language. This type of meaning is not static. It is variable and open ended. Certain words, structures and styles are usually employed to arouse some emotional reactions in the hearer. Certain attitudes and forms of behaviour are elicited by the associative meaning of the words used in communication. These different reactions are derived from the associations which the words cerate in the minds of language users. As a result of the great variation in associative meaning, it is not always easy to express that form of meaning in terms of contrastive semantic features. Indeed, associative meaning reflects individual differences. There are individualised intentions and interpretations. There is therefore, the need for all participants in communication to share common reference points, symbols and background for there to be any meaningful interaction. Most of the problems of communication arise when associative meaning is assumed to be shared by all concerned. There must be a way of ensuring actual sharing of background. For second language learners, this problem is profound. This explains the enormous difficulty second language learners encounter with decoding the meaning of idioms and figurative expressions. They also find it difficult to apply appropriate idioms to diverse situations. Associative meaning can be any of the following5 aning Connotative Meaning When you explore conceptual or denotative meaning, it will land you into connotative meaning. You may feel that the given expression gives you more information than what is encoded in it. That is you may feel that there is connotation apart from denotation. So you have connotative meaning apart from denotative meaning or conceptual meaning. Connotative meaning (Leech 1981:12-13) is the communicative value of an expression over and above its purely conceptual content. It is something that goes beyond mere referent of a word and hints at its attributes in the real world. It is something more than the dictionary meaning. Thus purely conceptual content of woman is +HUMAN + FEMALE+ ADULT. But the physical characteristics of woman such as 'biped', 'having a womb', etc , psychological and social attributes of woman such as be ‗gregarious‘, ‗having maternal instinct‘ or typical (rather than invariable) attributes of womanhood such as ‗capable of speaking continuously'‘, 'experts in cooking‘, ‗wearing skirt or sari', etc are connotations or connotative meaning. Still further connotative meaning can embrace putative properties of a referent due to viewpoint adopted by individual, group, and society as a whole. So in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail, prone to tears, emotional, irrigational, inconstant , cowardly etc. as well as more positive qualities such gentle, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking etc. Connotations vary age to age and society to society. The boundary between conceptual and connotative seems to be analogous. Connotative meaning is regarded as incidental, comparatively unstable, in determinant, open ended, variable according to age, culture and individual, whereas conceptual meaning is not like that . It can be codified in terms of limited symbols. Connotative meaning contains elements of the conceptual meaning of a word and the individual‘s personal interpretation of what is communicated. That interpretation is based on the personal experience of the hearer. This means that connotative meaning varies with the experience of people in communication. It may also vary from society to society. There are additional semantic features that are associated with connotative meaning. Thus, a great deal of the meaning of idioms and figurative expressions derive from connotation. There are symbols in literature which have different connotations in different cultures. For instance, among the Tamils, the fox or jackal is associated with the cunningness, cawing of crow is associated with the arrival of guest and cat crossing your way is associated with bad omen. Collocative Meaning You might have come across words which occur together mostly in utterances. Such cooccurrence is referred as collation and the outcome of the collocation gives rise to collacative meaning. Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of certain other words. Words collocate or co-occur with certain words only. For example, big business is acceptable and not large business or great business. Collocative meaning refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-occurrence with certain types of words. pretty and handsome indicate ‗good looking‘. However, they slightly differ from each other because of collocation or co-occurrence. The word pretty collocates with girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers, etc. On the other hand, the word handsome collocates with boys, men, etc. So we have pretty woman and handsome man. Though handsome woman and pretty man are acceptable, they suggest different kinds of attractiveness because of the collocative associations of the two adjectives. Hence handsome woman may mean attractive woman but in a mannish way. The verbs wander and stroll are quasi-synonymous; they may have almost the same meaning; but while cows may wander, but may not stroll as stroll collocates with human subject only. Similarly one 'trembles with fear‘ but ‗quivers with excitement‘. Collocative meanings need to be invoked only when other categories of meaning don‘t apply. Generalizations can be made in case of other meanings while collocative meaning is simply an idiosyncratic property of individual words. Collocative meaning has its importance and it is a marginal kind of category. Affective Meaning You use language to expresses your personal feelings, including your attitude to the listener, or your attitude to something you are talking about. Meaning of this type is called as affective or emotive meaning (Leech 1981:14). It is often conveyed through the conceptual or connotative content of the words used. For example. home for a sailor/soldier or expatriate and mother for a motherless child and a married woman (especially in Indian context) will have special effective, emotive quality. In affective meaning, language is used to express personal feelings or attitude to the listener or to the subject matter of his discourse. For Leech affective meaning refers to what is convey about the feeling and attitude of the speak through use of language (attitude to listener as well as attitude to what he is saying). Affective meaning is often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words used. For example, ―you are a vicious tyrant and a villainous reprobation and I hate youǁ Or ―I hate you, you idiotǁ. We are left with a little doubt about the speaker‘s feelings towards the listener. Here speaker seems to have a very negative attitude towards his listener. This is called affective meaning. But very often we are more discreet (cautious) and convey our attitude indirectly. For example, ―I am terribly sorry but if you would be so kind as to lower your voice a littleǁ conveys our irritation in a scaled down manner for the sake of politeness. Intonation and voice quality are also important here. Thus the sentence above can be uttered in biting sarcasm and the impression of politeness maybe reversed while for example, ―Will you belt up?ǁ can be turned into a playful remark between intimates if said with the intonation of a request. Words like darling, sweetheart or hooligan, vandal have inherent emotive quality and they can be used neutrally. I.A. Richards argued that emotive meaning distinguishes literature or poetic language from factual meaning of science. Finally it must be noted that affective meaning is largely a parasitic category. It overlaps heavily with style, connotation and conceptual content. Affective meaning is related to the feelings and attitudes of the speaker towards the subject or the audience. This meaning is achieved by the choice of words. Certain words suggest positive feelings – love, attraction, happiness, exciting etc. Some others stir up negative reactions – disgusting, nauseating, disappointing, etc. Interjections like ah!, oh!, uh!, mmn! often suggest the emotional state of the mind. Other words like darling, daddy, mummy etc. give an impression of endearment. Reflected meaning You know that a word can have more than one conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual meaning. If you interpret one meaning for the other, it is known by the term reflected meaning. In such cases while responding to one sense of the word you partly respond to another sense of the word too. For example in church service The Comforter and The Holy Ghost refer to the Third Person of Trinity (Leech 1981:16). Comforter and Ghost are religious words. They have both religious and general meaning. But unconsciously even in religious context you may interpret these terms by their non-religious meaning. You may feel The Comforter sounds warm and comforting while The Holy Ghost sounds ‗awesome‘ or even ‗dreadful‘. One sense of the word seems to rub off on another especially through relative frequency and familiarity (e.g. a ghost is more frequent and familiar in no religious sense.). In poetry too you have reflected meaning as in the following lines from ‗Futility5’ Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved still - warm - too hard to stir? The poet Wilfred Owen uses the word dear in the sense 'expensive'. But you may feel in the context of the poem the sense 'beloved' is also alluded. In such cases of multiple meaning, one meaning of the word pushes the other meaning to the background. Then the dominant suggestive power of that word prevails. This may happen because of the relative frequency or familiarity of the dominant meaning. This dominant meaning which pushes the other meaning at the background is called the reflected meaning. Reflected meaning can be illustrated by words which have taboo meaning. For examples, the terms like intercourse, ejaculation, and erection cannot be used without invoking their sexual association. The word intercourse immediately reminds us of its association with sex (sexual intercourse). The sexual association of the word drives away its innocent sense, i.e. ‗communication‘. The taboo sense of the word is so dominant that its non-taboo sense almost dies out. In some cases, the speaker avoids the taboo words and uses their alternative word in order to avoid the unwanted reflected meaning. For example, as Bloomfield has pointed out, the speakers avoid using the word cock and replace it by the word rooster. These words have non-sexual meanings too. (e.g. erection of a building, ejaculate-throw out somebody) but because of their frequency in the lit of the physiology of sex it is becoming difficult to use them in their innocent/nonsexual sense. Thus we can see that reflected meaning has great importance in the study of semantics. Reflected meaning relates to expressions with multiple meanings. Words with several meanings (i.e. polysemous words), have reflected meaning. There is, however, a dominant meaning among these several meanings. As a particular sense of a word begins to assume prominence, all other senses begin to be de-emphasised and with time, these other senses disappear. Meat used to refer to all forms of food and flesh for nourishment. The later meaning seems to have caught on.