The Structure of Word Meaning

The entire conceptual content represented by a single word in any one of its polysemous senses—which is generally copious—is also highly structured. Such a “plenary” meaning can first be divided into a “core meaning” and an “associated meaning”. For a second division—the focus here—the associated meaning can be subdivided into eight “sectors”: the infrastructure, holism, augment, disposition, recruitment, attitude, register, and atmosphere sectors. For example, the infrastructure sector consists of the largely unexamined presuppositions underpinning the core meaning; the holism sector is the implicit whole of which the core meaning is only a part; and the augment sector consists of the concepts conventionally associated with but incidental to the core meaning. Structure here also includes the distribution of attention over the plenary meaning. A word’s core meaning is generally more salient that any sector within its associated meaning, but “sector foregrounding” can reverse this ratio.