Geoffery Leech recognizes 7 type of meaning in Semantic the study of meaning (1974,1981)
1. Collocative Meaning
Collocative meaning refers to the associations a word acquires on account of the
meanings of words which tend to occur in its environment. For example, the two
words “pretty” and „‟handsome‟‟ overlap somewhat in the conceptual meaning but
they differin the words that collocate with them.
2. Reflected Meaning
Reflected meaning arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning, when one sense of
a word forms part of our response to anothersense. For example, Leech mention that
in the church the two expressions „‟the Comforter‟‟ and „‟the Holy Ghost‟‟ make him
feel differently, reflecting the everday meaning of the two words „‟comfort‟‟ and
„‟ghost‟‟. „‟Comfoter‟‟ makes people fell „‟warm‟‟ and „‟comfortable‟‟, although in
religious sense, „‟comforter‟‟ means providing strength and support while the Holy
Ghost make people full of veneration.
3. Conceptual Meaning
Conceptual meaning is sometimes also called „‟denotative‟‟ meaning or „‟cognitive‟‟
meaning. It refers to the logical, cognitive or denotative content of a linguistic unit. It
is concerned with the relationship between a word and things it denotes, or refers to
for example, „‟woman‟‟ refers to a female adult human being, then „‟female adult
human being‟‟ is the conceptual meaning of „‟woman‟‟.
4. Connotative Meaning
By „‟connotative meaning‟‟, Leech refers to the communicative value an expression
has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content. It is a
multitude of additional, non criterial properties, including not only physical
characteristics but also psychological and social properties, as well as typical feature.
For example, the word „‟woman‟‟ not only refers to a female adult human.
5. Thematic Meaning
Thematic meaning refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or
writer organizes the message, in terms of ordering focus and emphasis.
6. Affective Meaning
Affective meaning reflects the personal feeling of the speaker, including his attitude
to the listener, or his attitude to something he is talking about.
7. Stylistik Meaning
Stylistik meaning refer to what a piece of language conveys about the social
circumtances of its use.