Lexical and Grammatical Meaning

The word is a lexical-grammatical unity. Its content plane includes two types of meaning:

ü lexical

ü grammatical

Lexical meaning is individual, unique. It does not belong to any other word in the same language: bicycle – a vehicle with two wheels, handle-bars to guide it with, a seat, and two pedals to make it go.

Grammatical meaning is general, standard. It belongs to a whole class of words and word-forms: bicycle – a noun in the common case, singular.

Lexical and grammatical meanings co-exist in the word and are interdependent:

Ø Lexical meaning affects grammatical meaning:

E.g. abstract or mass nouns have no plural form (joy, sugar), relative adjectives have no degrees of comparison (watery), statal verbs are not used in progressive tenses (see, understand).

Ø Grammatical meaning affects lexical meaning.

Different meanings of the polysemantic word go have their own grammatical peculiarities:

He has gone to China – moved (go + adverb of place);

They are going to get married soon – are planning (be going + to-infinitive);

The children went wild with excitement – became (go + adjective).

Ø Combinability of the word depends both on its lexical and grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning, e.g. the noun tea combines with adjective strong but not with adverb strongly.

Ø Grammatical form may be isolated from the paradigm and become lexicalized:

works – factory.

Ø Lexical meaning may be grammaticalized,e.g. some notiona l verbs may be used as link-verbs: turn red.