Lexical And Grammatical meaning is very important meanings in linguistic study. These meanings have different roles in linguistic semantics. There is very much difference between two.
A dog barked
The above is a meaningful sentence which is composed of smaller meaningful parts. One of the smaller parts is the phrase a dog which refers to a certain animal. We call this phrase a referring expression. A referring expression is a piece of language that is used AS IF it is linked to something outside language, some living or dead entity or concept or group of entities or concepts. Most of the next chapter is about referring expressions. The entity to which the referring expression is linked is its referent.
Another meaningful part is the verb bark, which is also linked to something outside of language, an activity associated, here, with the referring expression a dog. We call this meaningful part a predicate. The use of language generally involves naming or referring to some entity and saying, or predicating, something about that entity.
The sentence also has several kinds of grammatical meanings. Every language has a grammatical system and different languages have somewhat different grammatical systems. We can best explain what grammatical meanings are by showing how the sentence A dog barked differs from other sentences that have the same, or a similar, referring expression and the same predicate.
The grammatical system of English makes possible the expression of meanings like these:
Statement vs question:
A dog barked. Did a dog bark?
Affirmative vs negative:
A dog barked. A dog did not bark. No dog barked.
Past vs present:
A dog barked. A dog barks.
Singular vs plural:
A dog barked. Some dogs barked.
Indefinite vs definite:
A dog barked. The dog barked.
Grammatical meanings, then, are expressed in various ways: the arrangement of words (referring expression before the predicate, for instance), by grammatical affixes like the -s attached to the noun dog and the – ed attached to the verb bark, and by grammatical words, or function words, like the ones illustrated in these sentences: do (in the form did), not, a, some, and the Now let’s return to dog and bark. Their meanings are not grammatical but lexical, with associations outside language. They are lexemes. A lexeme is a minimal unit that can take part in referring or predicating. All the lexemes of a language constitute the lexicon of the language, and all the lexemes that you know make up your personal lexicon.
What Is The True Sense Of Lexical And Grammatical Meaning In Linguistics.
The term ‘lexeme’ was proposed by Lyons, to avoid complexities associated with the vague word ‘word.’ Consider these forms:
go, going, went, gone
put up with, kick the bucket, dog in the manger
How many words are there in group (a)? Four or one? There are four forms and the forms have four different meanings, but they have a shared meaning, which is lexical, and other meanings of a grammatical nature added to the lexical meaning. We say that these four forms constitute one lexeme—which, for convenience we designate as go
Group (b) presents a different sort of problem. The expression put up with combines the forms of put and up and with, but its meaning is not the combination of their separate meanings. Therefore put up with, in the sense of ‘endure,’ ‘tolerate,’ is a single lexeme. The same must be true of kick the bucket meaning ‘die’ and dog in the manger when it refers to a person who will not let others share what he has, even though he does not use it himself.
Conclusion
In the field of linguistics, lexical and grammatical meaning play essential roles in comprehending and producing language. Lexical meaning allows us to understand individual words and their inherent meanings, while grammatical meaning enables us to construct well-formed sentences. By understanding the interplay between these two aspects, we can enhance our linguistic competence and communicate effectively. So, the next time you encounter a new word or construct a sentence, take a moment to appreciate the intricate dance of lexical and grammatical meaning within it.
