THE LEXICAL MEANING OF ENGLISH WORDS IN SPEECH

Abstract

The actuality of this article is determined that it is very important to distinguish between the lexical meaning of a word in speech and its semantic structure in language. The semantic changes are not arbitrary. They proceed in accordance with the logical thought, otherwise changed words would never be understood and could not serve the purpose of communication. The various attempts at classification undertaken by traditional linguistics, although inconsistent and often subjective, are useful, since they permit the linguist to find his way about an immense accumulation of semantic facts.
The constant development of industry, agriculture, trade and transport bring into being new objects and new notions. Words to name them are either borrowed or created from material already existing in the language and it often happens that new meanings are thus acquired by old words.