Lexical Meaning and Concept

Meaning and concept are very closely associated but not identical. Meaning is a linguistic category. Concept is a logical and psychological category, a unit of thinking.

Meaning and Concept

Ø Concept is emotionally and stylistically neutral. Meaning may include non-conceptual parts: kid, gorgeous, birdie.

Ø One and the same concept can be expressed differently: die – pass away, kick the bucket.

Ø The number of concepts does not correspond to the number of words and meanings. One concept may be expressed by several synonymous words: child, kid – infant.

One polysemantic word may express several concepts:

draw – “move by pulling“ (draw a boat out of the water),

“obtain from a source“ (draw water from a well),

“make with a pen, pencil or chalk“(draw a straight line).

Some words do not express concepts at all, e.g. well, must, perhaps.

Ø Concepts are mostly international. Meanings are nationally specific.

Words expressing identical concepts may have different meanings and different semantic structures in different languages: house – дом; blue - синий, голубой.