A Synergetic Description of Word Meaning and The Foundations of Its Development

Abstract

The article interprets word meaning as an open, dynamic, and self-organizing complex semantic system. It scientifically substantiates that the development of meaning occurs on the basis of discursive activity and synergetic regularities. The alternation of order and disorder within the semantic system is explained as an internal mechanism of semantic evolution. The formation of the structural units of word meaning—sememe, seme, and ema—their interaction, and their relationship with the lexeme are analyzed. It is shown that semantic structure becomes richer within paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations and expands through hypernym–hyponym, holo–meronym, synonymic, antonymic, associative, and graduonymic connections.