Understanding Linguistic Signs and Semantics

Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

Verbal language is a system that uses linguistic signs, exclusive to human communication, which utilizes words. Non-verbal language involves other signs used in communication systems, such as images and gestures.

The Linguistic Sign

The sign is a physical object that represents and refers to another sign, object, thought, or concept. The science that studies signs is semiotics, founded by Ferdinand de Saussure. Types of signs include:

• Icons: A relationship of resemblance to the object represented.
• Indices: Physical proximity or a causal relationship with the object represented.
• Symbols: A relationship that is arbitrary, based on social agreement.

Structure of the Linguistic Sign

The linguistic sign is the association of a signifier (the union of letters and phonemes) and a signified (the concept or idea). Its characteristics include:

• Arbitrariness: The sign is chosen by convention; different languages have different words for the same reference.
• Linearity: Signs have an order in space and time, like letters in a word.
• Immutability/Mutability: An individual speaker cannot change words, but they may evolve throughout history.
• Double Articulation: The sign can be divided into smaller units: the first division into monemes and the second into phonemes.

Meaning of Words

Words carry two types of meaning:

• Denotation: The objective, common meaning found in dictionaries.
• Connotation: The subjective, associated meaning that is not universal.

Functions of Language

• Emotive/Expressive: Focuses on the transmitter.
• Conative/Appellate: Focuses on the receptor.
• Representative: Focuses on the communicative situation.
• Poetic: Focuses on the message.
• Phatic: Focuses on the channel.
• Metalinguistic: Focuses on the code.

Semantic Relationships

• Monosemy/Polysemy: Monosemy occurs when one signifier has one meaning (common in science). Polysemy occurs when one signifier has multiple meanings.
• Homonymy: When two or more words coincide due to phonetic evolution, despite belonging to different grammatical categories. Divided into homophones and homographs.
• Synonymy: A relationship where words have similar or equal meanings and can be exchanged in all contexts.
• Antonymy: The relationship between two opposite meanings.

Semantic Fields and Lexicon

A semantic field is a set of words in the same grammatical category that share certain features of meaning while maintaining differentiating traits.

Origins of the Spanish Lexicon

• Heritage words: Words derived from Latin that have undergone phonetic modification.
• Cultisms: Words that entered the language from Latin without significant changes.
• Loans: Words borrowed from other languages (e.g., Germanisms, Arabisms, Gallicisms, Italianisms, Anglicisms).
• Neologisms: Words of recent creation.

Definition of Units

Word: A set of meaningful units equivalent to a grammatical category.