Lexical Resources, Grammar, Semantics, and Communication
Lexical Resources
Lexical resources are based on establishing semantic relations between words in a text.
- Lexical Repetition: Repeating a word or words, which usually coincide with the fundamental ideas of the text.
- Common Semantic Field: Using words or expressions that belong to the same semantic or lexical field.
- Replacement Synonym: Substituting a term with a synonym or a word with a similar meaning.
- Hypernyms and Hyponyms: A hypernym is a term with a generic meaning that includes other specific terms called hyponyms.
Grammatical Resources
Grammatical-syntactic relationships affect the establishment of connections between different parts of the text.
- Pronominalization: Replacing sentence elements with pronouns to avoid repetition.
- Connectors: Using terms that link words or expressions in the text. Connectors can be of various types (e.g., temporal, order).
Signs and Meaning
Signs convey a message or information and are composed of two levels: form and content.
- Linguistic Sign: The words we use to communicate, structured with a signifier (the set of sounds or letters) that conveys the content.
- Meaning: The idea or content associated with a concrete signifier.
Monemes
Monemes are the minimum units of language that have meaning.
- Lexemes: Provide the basic or lexical content of words.
- Morphemes: Add nuances that complete the meaning of the word.
- Free Morphemes: Autonomous and not attached to the lexeme (e.g., determinants, conjunctions, prepositions).
- Bound Morphemes: Joined to a lexeme to form a word.
- Inflectional Morphemes: Provide grammatical information (gender, number, person, aspect, tense).
- Derivational Morphemes: Add lexical information and are used to form derived words (prefixes, suffixes, interfixes).
Phonemes
Phonemes are the smallest units of language *without* meaning; they are indivisible. They are units of oral and written language and have a differentiating function. In Castilian Spanish, there are 24 phonemes, categorized as vowels and consonants.
Word Formation
- Simple Words: Contain a single lexeme (e.g., “old”).
- Compound Words: Formed from two or more simple words.
- Derived Words: Formed by adding derivational morphemes to a lexeme.
- Prefix: Derivational morpheme preceding the lexeme.
- Suffix: Derivational morpheme placed after the lexeme.
Prefix and Suffix Functions
- Prefix Functions: Significant changes (e.g., negation, opposition).
- Suffix Functions: Vary or specify meaning, change the grammatical category of the primitive word.
Parasynthetic, Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Parasynthetic Words: Compound and derived words, formed by two lexemes and one or more derivational morphemes.
- Acronyms: Terms formed by the initial letters of words making up the names of organizations, political parties, etc.
- Abbreviations: Shortened forms of words or phrases.
Semantic Relationships
- Synonyms: Words that have the same meaning.
- Antonyms: Words that have opposite meanings.
- Reciprocal: Designate realities that imply each other.
- Complementary: Have a contrary meaning; one’s affirmation is the other’s denial.
- Polysemic Words: Words that have more than one interrelated meaning.
- Homonymous Words: Words of different origin that have converged in form but have different meanings.
- Homographs: Pronounced and written the same.
- Homophones: Pronounced alike but written differently.
- Paronyms: Words pronounced similarly, but with different meanings and spellings.
Lexical and Semantic Fields
- Lexical Field: A set of words that share a common lexeme.
- Semantic Field: A set of words that share some common features of meaning.
Semantic Change
Semantic change refers to the changes in the meaning of words over time. Causes include:
- Words falling into disuse because the reality they designate disappears or is no longer used.
- The meaning of a word changes simply because the designated objects change.
Mechanisms of semantic change include:
- Metaphor: Attributing the meaning of one element to another due to perceived similarity.
- Euphemism: Replacing taboo terms with others that have greater social acceptance.
Media and Communication
Mass media are systems used to transmit information to a broad audience. They use language, sound, and images to achieve their objectives. They can be classified into:
- Audiovisual Communication: Combines audio and visual elements.
- Written Communication: Relies on written text.
- Informative Communication: Focuses on current events of general interest.
- Entertainment: Aims to amuse and entertain (e.g., humor, music).
- Didactic Communication: Investigates and explores issues in reality for educational purposes.