We as a society consisting of a assortment of linguistic communications all come up with our ain definitions of words, although we have assistance from lexicons etc. These assist people in showing ideas by trusting on these recognized definitions. Dictionaries can non to the full be relied upon – everyone has their ain perceptual experience so there is no 100 % warrant that a significance will be communicated efficaciously when put to utilize. In specific footings “ semantics is the survey of intending abstracted off from those facets that are derived from the purpose of talkers, their psychological provinces and the socio-cultural facets of the context in which their vocalization is made ” ( Cann,1993:88 ) . Although there may be a possibility that single words have significance, as one certainly can non work without the other and if there is no significance for the given word would it considered a word from the start. “ The inquiry of significance is to a big extent concerned with the significance of single words or more accurately lexical points ” ( Aitchinson, 1999 ) . Both Aitchinson and Ronnie Cann refer to the significance of words as “ lexical significance, instead than word significance ” ( Cann, 1993 ) , this is due to the ambiguity that a word may keep and how it may besides hold recognizable representatives that could be used for the same word dependent on its environment, he uses the illustration word forms ‘sing ‘ , ‘sings ‘ , ‘singing ‘ , ‘sang ‘ and ‘sung ‘ . They are classed as inflectional belongingss from the verb ‘sing ‘ . After this illustration Cann suggests that “ It is to lexemes and non word signifiers that significances should be assigned ” , this is because depending on the syntactic environment any of the inflectional belongings illustrations of sing varies e.g. ‘I sang a vocal last hebdomad ‘ , to ‘I hope he sings that vocal tonight ‘ . The action of the verb still remains the same even though the context has changed. Therefore proposing the thought that a word can non merely hold its ain single significance when there are other possible inflectional belongingss that could take its topographic point whilst still transporting the same significance.

Palmer ( 1981 ) used the thought that a word entirely can non transport a significance as it would necessitate a replacing in some fortunes ( although does besides province that non all words will hold the same sort of significance in comparing to others if any at all ) , he used the illustration “ Boys like to play ” and stated that “ it is easy plenty to see what boys, likes and play might be but what is the significance of to? ” ( Palmer, 1981 ) . It so continues to indicate out that an on-going statement is that for a word to hold an single significance, it needs the deduction of pick about what that significance may be. This may use to some words ( largely nouns and verbs ) such as Aitchinson ‘s illustration ‘fly ‘ ; a representative of two words those being an insect with wings and besides the verb to wing ; “ to travel through the air in a controlled mode ” ( Aitchinson, 1999 ) nevertheless back to Palmers reading of word significance and the thought of pick, the word boys, like and play have the option of being replaced with misss, hatred and battle whilst to has no replacing option as it does non portion a significance with any other word in the known lexicon. “ Even if we identify elements within the word without really sectioning the word itself, there are still jobs about saying the significance of the elements ” Palmer along with this citation points out that there are elements of grammar that are considered to be devoided of any easy recognizable significance, utilizing the illustration of Latin which today is chiefly focused on bespeaking its dealingss with simpler words within a given sentence such as the object or the capable – daisy ; Bellis perennis. When we think of the word ‘daisy ‘ there is no single significance for the word as it be carried as a name every bit good as a flower, it by and large comes down to a individual ‘s cognitive attack to the given word to reason their single significance. “ The word ‘word ‘ can be misdirecting ” ( Aitchinson, 1999 ) the illustration was the word for a sort of serpent ; boa constrictor, though it is classed as two words it is understood as a individual lexical point as it has the same significance as the simpler term ‘snake ‘ . This can besides support the suggestion that single words do non transport a significance when it besides portions a similar representation with another word, nevertheless, although both illustrations mean the same thing a individual may still hold an image in their head that may non be shared with another ; one may believe of a cobra, another may believe of the common grass serpent.

For words to do sense, more frequently than non they require aid from other words in order to show significance. Even if we have ne’er come across the sentence ‘I saw a pink giant in the parking batch ‘ we still have really small problem understanding the significance as we are cognizant what the individual words in it mean ( pink and giant ) “ we have an algorithm of some sort for uniting them ” ( Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, 2000 ) . Bloomfield in 1926, along with the ulterior sentiment from Palmer, focuses his concern about position ‘ of grammatical elements, he took the illustration ‘cran ‘ in ‘cranberry ‘ which on its ain carries no significance nor does it demo an happening with any other word. The same can be said for the undermentioned illustrations, ‘straw ‘ in ‘strawberry ‘ and ‘goose ‘ in ‘gooseberry ‘ where neither of the grammatical position words have anything to make with straw or geese. Bloomfield subsequently stated that “ we must non generalize excessively far. Not every word with these phonological features will hold the significance suggested, and, furthermore, we can non divide this portion and province the significance of the balance e.g. the significance of -ide in slide or -ate in skate ” . ( Bloomfield, 1926 ) “ Linguist ‘s claimed that semantics was basically merely a really abstract degree of sentence structure where a universally available stock of basic words or constructs were combined ” ( Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, 2000 ) . An infusion from Lewis Carroll ‘s ‘Alice in Wonderland ‘ is a primary illustration of how pregnant enables us to show what we think therefore conveying messages with information from one individual to the following, ‘we can speak about places and ships and waterproofing was and whether hogs have wings ‘ , irrespective of the ambiguity of what we say, information can be passed from one individual to the following. “ Meaning manifests itself within the systematic nexus between lingual signifiers and things ; what we speak or speak about ” ( Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, 2000 ) , in a sense it means that if we were non provided with linguistic communications in order to convey messages, the overall inquiry of intending would seldom be asked.

This statement “ Since the figure of sentences that make up a linguistic communication is infinite, this would intend that no human being would be able to find the significance of all the sentences of any linguistic communication owning to the finite resources of the encephalon ” ( Cann, 1993 ) can summarize the inquiry ‘can it truly be said that single words have significances? ‘ as linguistic communication is ever spread outing in all countries of the universe it would be considered impossible to delegate and retrieve each word, sentence, phrase or vocalization that is come across. So this brings us back to the inquiry “ can it be said that single words have significance? “ , given the sufficient sum of grounds from those mentioned above it is clear to see that words can non needfully transport an single significance of their ain.