A szó(jelentés) ontogenezise

Based on the classic thesis that the relationship of sound shapes and meanings is arbitrary, linguistics has, as a rule, studied the semantics of words without reference to the phonotactic properties of sound patterns. Mainstream structuralist and formalist approaches have repeatedly claimed that they would draw a sharp line between “meaning”, conceived as an absolute notion and defined as the sum of particular sense properties, on the one hand, and incidental “interpretation” on the other. Regarding word meaning as an intrinsically relative concept, deriving it from the presence or absence of various semantic constituents, appears to be rather infrequent, and virtually restricted to cognitive linguistics. Assuming the principle that as soon as we understand the formation of a particular phenomenon, we can understand the phenomenon itself, the present paper investigates the ontogenesis of the semantic properties of words, pointing out that word meanings can only be linguistic entities formed in terms of patterns embedded in the social-cognitive context, and evolving in organic unity with the patterns of sound.