Semantic Analysis of Words Expressing Anxiety

Introduction The linguistic science at present is not able to put forward a definition of meaning which is conclusive. However, there are certain facts of which we can be reasonably sure, and one of them is that the very function of the word as a unit of communication is made possible by its possessing a meaning. Therefore, among the word’s various characteristics, meaning is certainly the most important. It is natural to think of the meaning of a word as something conventional. This, however, is only true with great limitations. A new word can be added to an existing language by a mere convention, as is done, for instance, with new scientific terms. But the basis of a language is not conventional, either from the point of view of the individual or from that of the community. A child learning to speak is learning habits and associations which are much determined by the environment. The community that speaks a language has learnt it, and modified it by processes almost all of which are not deliberate, but the results of causes operating according to more or less ascertainable laws. If we trace any Indo- European language back far enough, we arrive hypothetically (at any rate according to some authorities) at the stage when language consisted only of the roots out of which subsequent words have grown. How these roots acquired their meanings is not known, but a conventional origin is clearly mythical. The association of words with their meanings must have grown up by some natural process, though at present the nature of the process is unknown. The essence of language lies, not in the use of this or that special means of communication, but in the employment of fixed associations (however these may have originated) in order that something now sensible – a spoken word, a picture, a gesture, or what not – may call up the “idea” of something else. Whenever this is done, what is now sensible may be called a “sign” or “symbol”, and that of which it is intended to call up the “idea” may be called its “meaning”. This is, of course, a rough outline of what constitutes “meaning”. Just as it is useful to realize the nature of a word as part of the physical world, so it is useful to realize the sort of 3