同学们，本栏目是对你们学过的知识和生活中常见问题的归纳。其中，有一些共性问题，也许你会需要哦！

让我来帮你解决常见问题！

Question1: What is classification of lexical meanings? Explain it in your own language.

Answer:

1. Referential meaning (denotative meaning): central meaning of words, stable, universal.

2. Associative meaning – meaning that hinges on referential meaning, less stable, more culture-specific.

1) Connotative meaning – the communicative value an expression has by virtue of what it refers to, embraces the properties of the referent, peripheral

2) Social meaning (stylistic meaning) – what is conveyed about the social circumstances of the use of a linguistic expression 

3) Affective meaning – what is communicated of the feeling or attitude of the speaker/writer towards what is referred to 

4) Reflected meaning – what is communicated through association with another sense of the same expression. Taboos 

5) Collocative meaning – the associated meaning a word acquires in line with the meaning of words which tend to co-occur with it

Question2: what is homonymy? Explain it by using some examples.

Answer:

Homonyms are words which have the same form, but different meanings.

1) Homographs – words which are identical in spelling, but different in meaning and pronunciation: tear [ tεə] (v.)/tear [tiə] (n.)

2) Homophones – words which are identical in pronunciation, but different in spelling and meaning: see/sea

3) Full homonyms – words which are identical in spelling and pronunciation, but different in meaning: bear (v. to give birth to a baby/to stand)/bear (n. a kind of animal)

Question3: Can you explain the definition of antonym by using some examples?

Answer:

Antonyms are words which are opposite in meaning. There are three different types of antonym as follows: 

 Gradable antonyms – pairs of words opposite to each other, but the positive of one word does not necessarily imply the negative of the other, or vice versa. For example, the words hot and cold are a pair of antonyms, but not hot does not necessarily mean cold, maybe warm, mild or cool. Therefore, this pair of antonyms is a pair of gradable antonyms.

 Complementary antonyms – words opposite to each other and the positive of one imply the negative of the other: alive/dead

 Reversal (relational) antonyms – words that denote the same relation or process from one or the other direction: push/pull, up/down, teacher/student.